Six Heirs (2 page)

Nol the Strange did not return, either.

Ramur was a happy man, for it had been a good day. Not yet the third Day of the Lorelien Fair and he had already sold more than two-thirds of his cargo of Lineh spices. And he hadn’t even needed to haggle.

A full purse at his side, he headed toward the city center with a smug swagger. He was hoping to celebrate his success in a fitting manner, and maybe make one or two more sales, if the occasion presented itself.

Maybe he would go down to the less respectable neighborhoods to see if a certain young woman he met every year was still generous with her charms.

Of course Ramur gave a thought to Dona, the Goddess of Pleasure and Opulence, his favorite divinity by far. He promised himself to make an offering to her cult later, as a thank you for his good luck. Perhaps during the next moon, upon his return to Lineh. Or better yet, in three moons, after the harvests. It was better to honor Dona all at once, he thought, after several good ventures, than to waste—no, what he really meant was—than to disturb her priests with consistent but insignificant offerings.

If he were honest with himself, he knew he wasn’t going to make an offering until he wound up at death’s door. That way, he could enjoy his possessions as long as possible. He also recognized that he was loath to give his terces to the representatives of a cult that wouldn’t hesitate to steal them.

Despite the arrival of the Season of Winds and the coming darkness, the sun shone brightly on Ramur and he gave it a smile. His smile was one of his gifts. Experience had taught him that people were less inclined to haggle with someone with a friendly face.

He wasn’t very far from the city center by now, and the mob, which had thinned out at the edge of the fair near the old port, began to grow thick. Out of habit, Ramur kept a hand on his purse, carefully watching everyone who crossed his path. Thanks to his vigilance, he had avoided pickpockets
until now, but it only took a few moments of negligence to find oneself relieved of a few hundred terces.

Several times he had seen pockets picked from behind his stall, but he wasn’t about to interfere. People should mind their own business. It wasn’t as if someone would return his purse to him, if it happened to disappear.

The crowd was becoming quite sizable, and many of the onlookers he passed seemed more frenzied than usual. He began to regret leaving his hired hand at the door. If one of these poor souls decided to make some money off a corpse, it could easily be his...

A man walking in the opposite direction bumped into him. Ramur quickly turned and followed the man with his eyes, taking a rapid inventory of his purse and jewelry as he did so.

The tactless man wore common priest’s robes. The hood covered his face so completely that Ramur couldn’t see the color of his hair, or if he had any at all.

Ramur’s terces were still in their place, but the alarm had been raised, and he regretfully gave up the simple pleasure of parading about with a fat purse at his side. He started untying it to slip it under his clothes when he was knocked again, only a few moments later, this time from behind. His hands clenched the decorated cloth bag, while a painful sting set his back aflame.

The man who ran into him this time looked exactly like the first one. He simply whispered in Ramur’s ear: “My name is Zokin. Tell it to Zuïa.”

As if paralyzed, Ramur watched Zokin leave, his eyes wide open but unseeing, his hands still clutching the purse to his chest. With horror, he realized the implications of what
he had just heard. Then his vision clouded, his legs gave way, and he collapsed.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

Upon the return of the Sages, once the initial moment of astonishment had passed, each delegation wanted to interrogate its own emissary. Rafa de Griteh declared with an aggressive tone that it was out of the question to separate them.

Not right away.

He walked over to the Ithare tents, where he locked himself away with his companions and two Eurydian priests trained in the art of healing. The priests dressed the wounds of the injured in respectful silence. It wasn’t until Rafa had walked a few steps outside their retreat that he was questioned about the missing Sages.

He responded simply that they had died, giving no other details.

During the days that followed, the survivors didn’t mingle much with the colorful crowd of kings, barons, and other such notables who had come for the event. They kept silent or simply claimed not to remember anything when questioned. Eventually, it was only this last response that was given.

The nations in mourning—Goran and Jezeba—quickly packed up their belongings and left the island on bad terms with the others. One could imagine that a new war between Goran and Lorelia was possible, but Emperor Mazrel seemed to have held Prince Vanamel in such low esteem that he could not justify the reopening of hostilities.

One by one, each of the Sages returned home. They were interrogated again separately, but responded only with silence. Several of their liege lords took them to have a prolonged influenza.

They relieved Maz Achem of all his responsibilities at the Grand Temple. Thereafter, he abandoned all religious activity and left Ith.

Rafa de Griteh was dismissed from military command, which was a major humiliation, for he had been the personal strategist to the king. He stayed in the army regardless and served so well that in his final years his title and honor were restored.

Arkane of Junine, himself a king, experienced only public disapproval from his peers in the other Baronies. Knowing that the power of the Lesser Kingdoms was in their union, he prevented any disagreement by abdicating the throne in favor of his son.

Moboq the Wise returned to Arkary, simply announcing that it would be better if everyone ignored what had happened. As he was a Sage, everyone accepted his decision and quickly forgot the incident.

Reyan Kercyan was most wronged. They took away his title of Duke. They took his land. And he was publicly disgraced. He did not sink into a depression as one might have expected, but continued to live in Lorelia anyway, where he survived as a merchant.

For her own part, Tiramis left the Council of Mothers. She merely declared that the Matriarchy wasn’t in danger and that she never again wanted to be questioned on the subject. The Ancestress herself asked that everyone respect this request; it was useless to revive these seemingly terrible memories.

Tiramis took Yon in Union the next year. Yon is my ancestor, the grandfather of my grandmother.

They moved here 118 years ago, to this same small southern province where I live.

To everyone else, Nol and the emissaries are forgotten. There may be a few people who know some of the story, but they would have trouble distinguishing between the facts and the stories that are occasionally told.

I have not forgotten. The heirs have not forgotten.

Something wasn’t right.

Nort’ had always possessed a sort of sixth sense that had saved him many times before, and this latest feeling of alarm was clanging louder than the six hundred bells of Leem.

Ever since the apogee, he’d felt that he was being watched. Nort’ had always attracted looks, generally feminine ones, with his imposing muscular frame, but this was something else. Someone was watching him.

Nort’ guarded the western door to the imperial gardens of Goran, standing with the most military bearing possible, arms tense at his sides, hand firm on his halberd. He usually performed his duty with an exceptional patience, but today he was ill at ease.

He examined the passersby, then examined the closest windows in an attempt to expose his spy. He shot a glance at his two subordinates, frozen in the same posture, hoping that one or the other shared his fears. But they apparently had nothing on their mind except the changing of the guard.

An old, filthy man clothed only in rags approached them, presenting an equally soiled cup in his wrinkled hands.
A foreigner, no doubt
, he thought to himself,
maybe a Lorelien
. The man broke into a series of pleas in a mix of Ithare and Goranese when Nort’, with a wave of his hand, had his subordinates unceremoniously sweep him away.

This episode brought him back to the task at hand and made him temporarily forget his worries. It was hot at the end of the day, and Nort’ began to look forward to the change. His right arm was tired, and more than anything, he wanted to drop that cursed halberd, which was killing his shoulder.
He also couldn’t wait to walk a bit. He was a former trooper and never really got used to the guard’s long decidays of forced immobility. Finally, his patience was rewarded: he was relieved to hear the six bells ring briefly from somewhere behind him in the palace, marking the end of the sixth deciday. The door opened, exposing three military men dressed in thicker clothes for the night guard. There was the necessary orchestra of exchanging halberds, then the ritual salute, and the new guards took their place.

Nort’ decided not to mention his feelings to the night guard. Nort’ saw no real reason to inform them, and he would be roundly mocked if he confided his childish fears to the veteran warriors.

He decided not to return immediately to the guards’ barracks since he had some free time. But the feeling of being watched stopped his long-awaited stroll before it could really begin. He couldn’t be at ease until this cursed foreboding, which stuck with him like a bad hangover, passed.

If he had to, Nort’ was prepared to start a little skirmish with some strangers to soothe his unease.

Yet he felt himself walking quite fast, muttering with a hand glued to the hilt of his broadsword, and staring down each passerby he came across with an evil eye. He stopped, took a long breath, and began his walk again at a more moderate pace.

He rarely lost his composure so easily. “By Mishra, if something must happen, then let it happen now, gods damn it!” he grumbled.

He heard an eruption of voices behind him. Turning around, Nort’ saw a mob of Goranese men fleeing something that wasn’t yet recognizable. Then the human mass split in two, making way for two Züu killers.

The Züu killers!

They didn’t need to show any discretion here in Goran, where their influence and reputation were well known. Nort’ saw the scarlet tunics, the vermillion headbands encircling shaved heads, the damned daggers—long and thin as needles—gleaming in their hands. And, more than anything, their eyes. They were the eyes of fanatics, ready to do anything to achieve their end: to slaughter their prey.

They were coming his way, but that didn’t mean anything, as Nort’ was in the middle of the street. He drew his broadsword while slowly sliding to his left. Then it hit him: they were there for him.

The two killers had seen his every move. Nort’ remembered those looks now; they had been watching him all day, faceless until now.

They were no more than a few steps away from him and approaching rapidly, practically running. Nort’ saw the glistening of the daggers, the murderous eyes, and the curious crowd that wouldn’t interfere for all the world. A savage hatred rose up in his chest, and he let out a roar as he leaped toward the two men; his skin would come at a dear price.