The Godspeaker Trilogy (122 page)

Perched on the pathetic little donkey, he nodded. “As have you, Majesty. With much further to go.”

A cold shiver touched the nape of her neck. A darkness is coming. You are tasked to defeat it. The free world trembles. Its fate is in your hands . She didn’t know what that meant. She would have to find out. But that would have to wait, for now.

“Zandakar,” she said. “Put Dexterity in the van and drive to the castle. See him made comfortable in a chamber and sit with him until we return.”

Zandakar pressed his fist to his heart. “ Zho , Rhian hushla .”

Head spinning, she looked at Alasdair. “Is that it? Is that everything? Or have I forgotten something important?”

Heedless of who was watching, he stole her breath in a kiss. “No, Your Majesty. Not a thing.”

She smiled, her heart lifting. “Then I think it’s time we finished what I started … don’t you?”

She rode through the capital’s streets with Alasdair and the dukes and Prolate Helfred and the venerables and a solemn escort of Kingseat guards … and the dear sweet Kingseat Ethreans who’d refused to desert her. Her father’s people— her people—spilled out of their homes and shops and schools, choking the streets and laneways to see her … and their joyful cries rose into the blue sky.

“Queen Rhian! Queen Rhian! God bless our Queen Rhian!”

Late the next morning, in her castle, with her standard flying proud from the battlements, magnificent in sapphire silk brocade and her mother’s dragon-eye necklace and earrings, she met with her husband, her dukes, Dexterity and Ursa in a silk-panelled room more comfortable than the council chamber.

She was considering having that room locked for good.

So many matters of state to deal with. So many crises. So much wrong to put right. Not the least of which was recovering all the banished castle staff, especially Dinsy.

Her mistreated councillors were still too ill for her to visit. None of them would die, said Ursa, though it was doubtful Henrik Linfoi would ever walk again. Dexterity, it seemed, had tried to heal him… but he was without miracles. His powers had burned out.

What he felt about that could not be read in his face.

All the ambassadors were demanding to see her. She told Alasdair to draw up a schedule, commencing that afternoon. There was still the problem of Damwin and Kyrin but before she took action she’d give them time to come to her of their own accord. Not too much time, though. She wasn’t feeling that generous. The Church, for the moment, she could leave to Prolate Helfred. He and the Court Ecclesiastica, his note said, had reached an understanding.

Helfred, my prolate. Oh God, your sense of humour …

“Lastly,” she said, sweeping her gaze round the table, “there’s the matter of my coronation.” Her hand covered Alasdair’s. “ Our coronation. I—”

On a spine-chilling breeze the chamber’s double doors blew open. A man stood on its threshold. Rhian stared. He was tall. Well-muscled. Clad in silk of peacock blue. Amber skin. Deep brown eyes. Long black hair. His face a miracle of bone. She’d seen a painting of him once, and never forgotten it after.

“Greetings, Your Majesty,” said her uninvited guest. “Apologies for the intrusion … but our business cannot wait.”

She stood behind her council table, so pleased she wore her mother’s rubies. “King Alasdair … Your Graces … my friends … I make known to you His Imperial Majesty Emperor Han—of Tzhung-tzhungchai.”

The emperor bowed. “Majesty, I received your letter.”

She would not be intimidated by him … “As I recall it wasn’t an invitation.”

“Not … apparently,” said the emperor, amused. “I read between the lines.”

Emperor Han was not alone. Three men stood behind him, and they made her skin crawl. Emotionless faces, long black moustaches plaited with bone. Longer fingernails, carmine-red and curving. Sorcerers. Witch-men of Tzhung-tzhungchai, feared throughout the known world.

In Rollin’s name, what is this? Why have they come here? Is this the danger that Ethrea faces? God help me, I can’t stand against witch-men.

Alasdair and her dukes still did not move, but she could feel their terrible tension. How deeply did she love them, that they sat and waited for her signal. Ursa and Dexterity sat staring, too.

“Emperor Han,” she said politely, as though they were meeting at a tedious trading nations’ reception. “There are guards in this castle whose purpose is to prevent interruptions.”

“Your guards are unharmed, Majesty,” said Han, equally polite. “When they wake they will feel no ill effects.”

Ridiculously, she wanted to laugh. And so I am chastised for the drugging of the clerica … “You say we have urgent business?”

“Sun-dao,” said the emperor. “The man is not in this room. Is he in the castle?”

“Yes,” said the witch-man on his right.

“Man?” She frowned. “What man is this?”

“A black man,” said Han. “With blue eyes and blue hair.”

Zandakar . “Unusual. What is this odd man to you?”

“Your eyes tell me you know him,” said Han. “What is he to you ?”

Her chin came up, defiant. “A friend.”

“Ah,” said Han, softly. “Then the new queen of Ethrea is deceived, or friends with hell.”

Now she did laugh. “Don’t be absurd.”

The witch-men hissed loudly, eyes rolled back in their heads. Then Sun-dao stepped forward. “That one,” he said, pointing at Dexterity, his eyes still slivered white. “That one is marked, Emperor. That one bears a sign.”

She turned. “What is he talking about?”

Dexterity leaned back, alarmed. “I don’t know, Your Majesty.”

“He is marked!” said the witch-man Sun-dao, and clenched his fist above his head.

A cold wind sprang up, lashing around Dexterity. It plucked him from his chair, tugged him gasping across the chamber.

“Emperor Han, enough!” Rhian shouted as her council erupted into protest. “How dare you assault one of my people!”

Emperor Han ignored her, and so did Sun-dao. Dexterity staggered into the witch-man’s embrace. The witch-man tore his shirt laces open and plucked from around his neck a wooden carving strung on twine.

“He is marked,” said the witch-man, and held the thing aloft.

Dexterity was ashen-faced and trembling. Rhian raised a hand slightly and her dukes subsided. Alasdair subsided, but it was a close-run thing. “What is that?”

“It is a scorpion, ” said Emperor Han. “The symbol of a false god that is poisoning the world. Any man who wears this sign is not a man who can be trusted.”

She looked at Dexterity. “Dexterity? Do you know anything about this?”

“No, Majesty,” he said, but would not meet her eyes.

God help me. He’s lying . “You do. Where did you get it?”

“He got it from Zandakar,” said Ursa. “Zandakar carved it, and—”

“ No, Ursa! Don’t! ”

“Don’t what, Jones? Tell the truth?” Ursa’s hands slapped hard on the table. “After all we’ve been through to put Rhian on the throne, now you want me to start telling her lies ?”

Rhian looked at the man she’d thought was her friend. But friends didn’t lie to each other. They didn’t keep these kinds of secrets. “Alasdair, I believe you’ll find Zandakar in the stables.”

Alasdair slipped from the room, his hand touching hers briefly as he passed. She could barely feel him. Her flesh had turned to ice.

“Emperor Han,” she said, in her mother’s dragon rubies. “What else can you tell me of Zandakar?”

The emperor clasped his hands. “He is of a mighty warrior race who cover the innocent earth like a plague, burning and killing and consuming everything in their path. The far east is lost to them. Now they look west. Their leader is a black man with red hair who serves their false god without mercy. A killer of thousands. A destroyer of cities, and nations, and hope.”

“And how do you know this?”

“Sun-dao is a seer,” said Emperor Han. “No man living hears the wind as he does. The wind blew visions to him. The wind whispered a name. Mijak . The wind told him we must come here and find the man with blue hair. That he is one of these warriors, with much blood on his hands.”

The chamber was full of sunshine. All she could do was shiver. “I see.” She turned to Dexterity. “Is this true?”

“Hettie said I wasn’t to tell you,” he muttered. “Hettie said it wasn’t time for you to know.”

“Hettie said?” She shoved her way around the table and took handfuls of his shirt in her cold hands. “Hettie said? Mr Jones, how could you?”

“I’m sorry … I’m sorry … I only did what she said.”

“ What do you know about him? What should I know?”

Mr Jones looked at her with grief-stricken eyes. “That he’s a good man. That he’s yatzhay . That you need him or we’ll be lost.”

She let go of his shirt and pushed him away. “Oh, God. Dexterity .” With a teeth-grinding effort she regained her self-control. “What else did Hettie tell you? What has Zandakar told you? Whatever that is, you’re going to tell me .”

“All right,” Dexterity whispered. “But only you. And only if you promise—”

“Rhian,” said Alasdair, coming through the door. “Here is Zandakar.”

He walked behind Alasdair, so handsome, so easy. Such graceful power in him, such pained love in his eyes. He saw her and stopped, his fist punching his breast. One glance he flicked at the emperor and the witch-men, but all he cared to see was her.

“Rhian.”

She looked at him in silence and let him see her face, her real face, with her cold hurt heart laid bare.

“Mijak,” she whispered. “ Mijak, Zandakar.”

“Yatzhay,” said Dexterity. “I didn’t tell them. They knew.”

Zandakar said nothing but his ice-blue eyes filled with tears.

“And so you are answered,” said Emperor Han. “Queen Rhian of Ethrea, let us sit, as rulers do. You and I have much to discuss.”

Tim Holman and Darren Nash: my champions!

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My dear friends, who put up with my extended absences as I write.

The fans who’ve been so kind to email and say my books have entertained them.

The booksellers who point new readers my way.

Lastly, my parents, who still don’t get what it is that I do but continue to support me anyway.

If you enjoyed

THE RIVEN KINGDOM,
look out for

HAMMER OF GOD
Book 3 of the Godspeaker Trilogy

by Karen Miller

S
he was barely aware of the servants and courtiers who acknowledged her passing as she left the castle. They bowed, she nodded, some words were exchanged. Like her father before her she refused a cloying coterie of attendants and discouraged hangers-on at court. If she wanted company she called for it, otherwise everyone knew she was to be left alone.

The weight of their gazes as she walked by was as heavy as any crown devised.

Outside, in the privy gardens that ran along the edge of the hill overlooking Kingseat township and the harbour, the sunshine was mellow. Warm as a mother’s breath against her skin. She let her fingertips touch drooping, perfumed blossoms. Resisted what she knew she must consider and flirted, for a little while, with memories of simpler, happier times.

And then she stopped, because she was no longer alone. The eldritch sense that had served her all her life told her who it was. Without looking over her shoulder she said, “Emperor Han. I know for certain this time there was no invitation.”

The Emperor laughed. “I took it for granted you would be pleased to see me.”

“Did you indeed?” she said, and turned to confront him. “Well. That was very presumptuous of you.”

He bowed. “It was, Queen Rhian.”

Head to toe he was dressed in black silk: high-throated, long-sleeved tunic, narrow pants. His long black hair was tied back from his extraordinary, ageless face. His dark brown eyes were watchful, and amused. He wore no jewellery, no trappings of power … but even a blind man would not mistake him for a commoner.

Rhian considered him. “How did you gain access to my privy gardens?”

“Does it matter? I am here.”

“Are you an emperor or a witch-man?”

His eyebrows rose, two beautiful black arches. “Perhaps I am both.”

“And perhaps you could answer me like an honest man, instead of playing silly word games as though you were a child!”

That surprised him. “You are bold, Queen of Ethrea.”

“And also quite busy. Was there something you wanted, Han? Or are you simply bored, and seeking a diversion?”

He hadn’t given her leave to address him as an intimate. She’d committed a breach of protocol.

So we stand evenly matched. Witching himself here was just as rude. If that’s what he did. And I can’t think of another explanation. He’s hardly inconspicuous.

Instead of answering, Han looked her up and down. His dark eyes gleamed; it might have been appreciation or even condemnation. He was impossible to read.

“I have known many queens, many empresses, many …” He smiled. “Women. Do you dress like a man in the hope other men will accept your rule, or is it that being a woman isn’t enough for you?”

She looked down at her not-very-queenly clothing: leather huntsman’s leggings, a leather jerkin, silk shirt. On her feet leather low-heeled half-boots. Strapped to her left hip, a knife once cherished by her brother. Its hand-polished hilt was set with tiger eye, Ranald’s birthstone. Her fingers often found it, and touched it, remembering.

“Han,” she said, looking up again, “you must think me witless if you believe I believe you’re here to comment on my choice of attire. How can I help you? What do you want?”

He plucked a fragile pink ifrala blossom from a nearby flower bed and held it to his nose, delicate as any lady-in-waiting. Breathing deeply, he smiled. “Your mother had a sweet touch in her garden, Rhian. I remember she made ifrala perfume every spring.”