The Sea of Time (25 page)

“Oh, he died millennia ago. The Karnids say that I am he, returned. It amuses me to play that role.” The other’s purr sank into a half-snarl. “Anyway, why should I submit to death at all? Let other fools die for me, as they were born to do.”

Raised voices sounded within the chamber.

“You would not dare,” Princess Amantine said, and this time her tone shook with more than anger.

“Would I not?” Kruin was panting now. He sounded ghastly. “If your child is a son . . . what are heirs for . . . if not to prolong . . . the life of their king? If I must take him as he is . . . I shall. So the Karnid Prophet has taught me. Now, come here.”

Someone screamed.

Tori slipped back into the chamber to witness panicked ladies surge for the door. Caught up in the rush, Genjar stumbled and disappeared beneath billowing black skirts. Meanwhile, the cause of it all, Kruin, had risen and was lurching toward his sister, a hunting knife in his hand.

“I will gut you where you stand . . . you fat, little pig,” he wheezed. “Give me your unborn child!”

Without thinking, Tori stepped between them. Kruin loomed over him, the king’s stinking breath in his face. He tried to brush the Kencyr aside, but Tori caught him in a wristlock that brought him crashing to his knees. The knife skittered away across the chalcedony floor. Kruin tried to rise, but his legs folded under him. A look of astonishment crossed his wasted face.

“Why, I’m dying. But I can’t be. You promised!”

His eyes rolled toward the stranger who stood by the dais, half in shadows. He wore a Karnid’s black robe and
cheche
, the tail end of the latter wrapped around his face. A veil beneath concealed all but the silver-gray glint of his eyes.

“Too bad,” he said in that deep but wryly dismissive tone. “It was an interesting experiment.”

“Betrayed!” Kruin’s voice cracked into a howl. “I gave you access to my city! I gave you control of my court! At your suggestion, I have slaughtered most of my heirs! And now all you can say . . . is ‘Too bad’?”

The Prophet shrugged. “Some few merit immortality. Most do not. Yours, I fear, is the common lot.”

“I am not common!”

“So every man tells himself.”

Kruin’s eyes desperately swept the room. “I will be avenged. You!” He had spotted Genjar near the door, unsteadily regaining his feet, his gorgeous coat torn, dripping pearls, one of his eyes blackened. “Seize this charlatan!”

Crows edged, jeering, around the stone petals and stormed the chamber in a fury of black wings. Sharp beaks stabbed everywhere. Jet eyes glittered. Genjar flailed as the birds dived at him. The princess shielded her brother while Tori stood over them both, trying to protect her.

“We will meet again, I think,” said the Prophet in Tori’s ear. Then he and the birds were gone, except for an eddy of black feathers spinning to the pale green floor.

Genjar lowered his arms cautiously. Finding himself more or less intact, he limped over to Tori and slapped him across the face.

“You let that monster escape!”

“No, Commandant. You did.” The princess released her brother’s slack body and rose, arms wrapped around her swollen belly. “The king is dead, but his last order still binds you. Here are witnesses to that effect, this boy and myself. Honor demands that you seek that false prophet throughout Kothifir, even to the gates of Urakarn if necessary. Go alone or take the entire Host with you if that gives you comfort.”

A spasm of pain crossed her face.

“Now, if you will excuse me, my time has come.”

II

IT TOOK NEARLY THIRTY DAYS to erect King Kruin’s funeral pyre in the central plaza next to the Rose Tower.

First came the spice-wood scaffold reaching almost up to the now returned, low-hanging screen of clouds. Then the framework was stuffed with dry oil-bush from the Wastes. Finally, every guild in the city contributed to its facings. Empty suits of armor stood guard at the base. Above them fluttered choice silks, then gilded mirrors reflecting the sky, then illuminated pages, then shining boots, all toes pointing crisply out, and so on and on, guild by guild, up to vast murals depicting the late king’s greatest hunts. Above that, just under the platform to which his body would be lowered, were the spoils of his famous trophy wall. The heads of yackcarn, cave bear, wild cat, and rathorn leered from the heights. Kruin had successfully hunted every creature on Rathillien worth the effort except the wolvers, rhi-sar and—to the relief of his Kencyr troops—the Arrin-ken.

Meanwhile, Kruin’s body lay in a chilly Undercliff cave especially noted for its preservative qualities. As the days passed, some joked, quietly, that he would have to be broken out of a stalagmite when his obsequies finally came due.

At last, the day had arrived.

Tori looked around the plaza as he waited for the rites to begin. Despite the returned cloud cover, or perhaps because of it, the city sparkled. Recent rain had washed away the dust and fresh (if limited) produce was again offered in the food stalls lining the main boulevard. The waiting citizens struck a solemn note in their mourning garb, but under that one glimpsed more festive attire. As soon as the old king was reduced to ashes, the new one would be crowned.

Some Kencyr claimed that everything had improved as soon as their temple had come back to life, just after Kruin’s death. Tori wasn’t sure what he thought about that.

With Kruin’s demise and the Prophet’s disappearance, the king’s surviving heirs had come out of hiding. Despite his blood-claims, it had taken them this long to agree on young Krothen as the new king, but only after saddling him with a council of his elders. Tori had heard his former houseguest complain long and bitterly about his lack both of power and freedom, although he still managed to slip off to the Host’s camp for the occasional visit. Although his former experience there had been necessarily limited, he seemed to have developed an admiration for Kencyr life. Certainly, his gratitude to Tori for giving him shelter remained fresh. Although Tori had never spoken his full mind to his awkward guest, he wondered if Kroaky had anyone left besides himself to whom he felt he could speak freely.

Tori wished the attendants would hurry up. Something about the coming transfer of authority bothered him. As a Kencyr, he was sensitive to power—who had it, who didn’t—and Kroaky still felt entirely too like, well, Kroaky. Of course, that was all he still was until his crowning, but if anyone had asked him, Tori would have said without thinking that Kruin was still alive, still king. Which was ridiculous.

One of his command, Cully, edged through the crowd to his side. “They say that the princess’s husband, Prince Near, is ailing,” he said, keeping his voice low.

Tori swore, also softly. The dying hadn’t stopped with Kruin. One by one, his heirs were still falling ill and wasting away. Some blamed it on a parting curse attributed to the Prophet. More accused the Prophet himself, who had not been captured despite Genjar’s best efforts to seal the city after Kruin’s death. True, he had seized some of the street-preachers, but most of the Karnids, with their master, had simply slipped away. Genjar was not said to be pleased, nor was the Council with his efforts, and the commoners simply jeered at him whenever he appeared in public.

No one but Krothen believed in the existence of the mysterious assassin who cast the shadow of a wolf. Tori wasn’t sure he did either, except for the Prophet’s mysterious reference to someone (or something) called the Gnasher. Nonetheless, the new king-to-be had insisted that he, Torisen, investigate. To do so, he needed help. Harn had assigned him eleven Kendar. Most of them, like Rowan, his second-in-command, were former Knorth, but some came from other houses. Tori suspected that one, Rose Iron-thorn, a Caineron
yondri-gon
, was Genjar’s spy, but like the others she had served as a guard in Kothifir during times such as the recent unrest and so had special knowledge of the city. The irony was that if Harn had stopped one short, Tori would have been assigned as a mere ten-commander. Instead, Genjar had been forced to give him the commission of a one-hundred-commander even though it was understood to be provisional and probably temporary.

On the other hand, Harn hadn’t seemed displeased, almost as if he had assigned the extra Kendar to bring about exactly this result.

Tori couldn’t make out what his small, new command thought about this arrangement. He knew that they called him “Blackie,” mostly behind his back, but to his face they were always respectful, following his orders without question. It helped that they found the assignment interesting, even if it might end up leading nowhere.

Cully loomed over him—all the Kendar did. He and they were also at least ten years Tori’s senior. If the Knorth had still been in power, Cully might have been a randon sargent in their house. And Rowan had been a randon officer, for Trinity’s sake, now reduced to the standing of a common Kendar. Damn Father anyway, for setting such people adrift.

“I asked the usual questions,” Cully was saying. “Had they seen anyone strange lingering nearby, or any peculiar shadows? They hadn’t. It apparently isn’t poison: like most of the Council these days, the prince has a taster. I didn’t see him myself, but according to the servants he’s wasting away. The princess is beside herself.”

“I bet she is,” Tori muttered. Motherhood hadn’t softened Amantine’s militant nature. If her husband died, she was apt to declare war on Urakarn unilaterally.

The crowd stirred and pointed. A temporary catwalk had been built over the pyre and Kruin’s body was being lowered from it through the clouds. Belatedly, with a nervous rattle, the drums began to roll. Jarred awake, one of the attendants darted forward with a torch and thrust it into the kindling.

“Too soon!” said Cully.

Indeed, before the corpse had touched the bier balanced on the top, the bottom of the pyre was ablaze as the oil-bush roared to life. Flames leaped upward, outlining the guild offerings and erupting out of the top of the pyre like a volcano. Figures on the catwalk floundered about, burning. Kruin’s stiff body swayed, then tumbled down the face of the pyre, trailing flames. It hit the ground hard, and shattered. Everyone had drawn back except Tori. Throwing up an arm to protect his face, he darted to where Kruin’s head rolled about the pavement. For a moment he held it, looking down into painted blue eyes already peeling in the heat, then he dropped the head and kicked it back into the blaze before he retreated. His fingers were scorched by the heat, and his sleeves smoldered. Cully beat out the incipient flames.

“You don’t take proper care of yourself,” he fussed. “Truly, the old bastard isn’t worth your hands.”

“Nor anyone’s,” said Tori, shakily brushing off soot. “Did you see, Cully? I could almost believe that the caves petrified his bones, and I never had much respect for his brains even when he was alive, but that head was wood, through and through.”

III