warrior's investiture garb included a helmet of dubious value in real battle due to its impractical design. To their mutual relief the helmets needed only to be carried beneath one arm during the ceremony. This gave Zunhilix free rein with her hair.
Eyeing her sidelong now as the stewards laced up her cuirass at the sides, Fost had to admit the chamberlain and his elfin crew had performed admirably. Moriana's hair had been washed in aromatic herbs, then brushed by giggling stewards until it shone like spun gold. Then it was swirled atop her head and held in place with golden pins, then hung about with fine gold chains bedecked with glittering emeralds that set off her seagreen eyes.
In her gleaming breastplate, with long, slim legs carelessly sprawled beside the stool on which she sat, her finely-coiffed head held high with great hoops of gold wire dangling from either ear, the princess made a fantastic spectacle, splendid and exotic and enticing. Fost felt himself hardening futilely against the steel cup of his codpiece. He squirmed on his own seat, eliciting further laughter from his own attendants who immediately noticed his predicament.
A cool breeze gusted through their suite, tinted with subtle fragrances of the Imperial garden and tainted with tar and rotting fish from the harbor. The Imperial Palace, unlike the Temple of All Gods, was no product of barbarians obsessed with mass and size. Justly famous Imperial architects at the height of their craft had wrought their superb best in the design. Everywhere were cool white marble and clean lines. And meticulous care had been paid to the circulation of air so that even the northern wing of the Palace where guests resided remained comfortable throughout the sultry summer days. Fost rose and examined himself in a full-length mirror.
'Not bad,' he said, more to himself than to the others. He was a tall, powerfully built man, raven-haired, with startling pale gray eyes looking forth from a tanned and considerably battered face. The Medurimin ceremonial armor was silly, but the frivolity of the outfit somehow made the man within seem more rugged. Secretly, Fost was delighted. He had been uncomfortable being dressed by others. However, he had to concede that the half hour perched on the stool trying not to fidget or growl when a steward squeezed him under the pretext of sizing him had proven worthwhile.
'Magnificent,' applauded Erimenes. 'I have never before truly appreciated how well-matched a couple you are. Tall, lithe. Moriana as radiant as the sun, Fost dark and brooding. In that gear even your habitual expression of surliness is not unbecoming, friend Fost.' Fost winced.
'Oh, Erimenes,' said Ziore. 'I think they both look marvelous.'
'Yes, yes.' Zunhilix bobbed his head, basking in the reflected glory of his creations.
Cradling his sharp chin in one palm, Erimenes studied first Fost and then Moriana, and nodded judiciously. 'The design of those kilts is quite propitious,' he said, 'in that merely by elevating a few of those strips fore and aft the two of you can easily clear for action. The good ship Fost can ram Moriana in the stern, or perhaps seat himself on a chair and ready his pike to accept boarders!' He smirked with delight at his own risque metaphors.
'Erimenes,' Fost said sharply. Moriana turned away, color burning high on her cheeks. Ziore reached with an insubstantial pink hand and tweaked one of the philosopher's ears. 'Ouch!' he exclaimed. 'How could you do that, woman?' She leered.
'The same way I can do this,' she replied, and reached for the front of his loincloth. 'You don't have to go,' Moriana said quietly.
'Huh?' was Fost's confused reply. His mind churned, as he tried to figure out what she meant. Her shoulders rose and fell in a sigh.
'You don't have to come with me. I'm the one who loosed the Fallen Ones on the world. I must deal with them or fail in the attempt. That's my destiny. This is no fight of yours.'
Fost turned a foreboding thunderhead of a look upon Zunhilix. A query died in the chamberlain's throat and he hurriedly gathered up the skirts of his robe and his covey and underlings and fled. When the doors had shut behind them, Fost turned to Moriana. 'It's my fight, too,' he said, low-voiced.
She shook her head, and her eyes were jewel-bright with unshed tears.
'I've lost too much already by letting those I care for follow me into peril.'
His heart thrummed like a bowstring, and though he knew he should not, he blurted, 'Is that why you've been so cold to me? Because you're afraid of drawing me into danger?' She nodded and turned away.
'First I feared you would reject me because of my… my heritage. Then it came to me that I was a bane to all I've loved, or who have loved me. Darl died on my behalf, along with so many fine men and women. Brightlaugher the Nevrym boy, and poor old Sir Rinalvus, and before that Ayoka my faithful war bird, and Kralt'i and Catannia whom Rann tortured to death to torment me… and you, whom I loved most of all!'
'And me,' Fost said, nodding. 'Alone of all those, I died by your hand, and for my death alone you bear responsibility. And yet here I am.' He raised his brawny arms to shoulder height and made a deep, courtly bow. His eyes remained fixed on Moriana's slender frame. He saw a delicate shiver of dread pass through her and the silent word 'why?' form on her lips.
He straightened and laughed softly at his own tangled, often confused motives. A question Erimenes asked beside a campfire in the days before Chanobit and the treacherous battle there – a question he had since asked himself a hundred times in a hundred different ways with no better answer than the one he had given the sage.
'I could be romantic and say that I would rather die at your side than live without your love. And -' With a surprised twitch at the corner of his mouth, he finished, '- and that would be true, oddly enough.' He looked quickly away. Such words embarrassed him. 'But let's be practical. If you fail, neither I nor any other human of the Realm will long survive you, save for ones like Fairspeaker and others who play traitor for the Dark. And even they wouldn't last for long, not if they depended on the sufferance of the Dark Ones. Let me put it this way. I'd rather be with you than away from you, and I'd be in no more danger at your side than anywhere else.' He smiled, regaining some of his composure. 'And perhaps I can even be of service to you, milady.' She stretched out a hand to him.
'Never call me that. To you I am Moriana – or, if you will, love.' She smiled through tears running down her cheeks and spoiling Zunhilix's carefully applied makeup. 'And you have done much to help me already.'
He went to her, mouth pressing to hers, tongue questing. He felt her cool fingers moving urgently against his thigh. He drew his face back from hers. 'Much as I hate to gratify Erimenes by following his advice…' Her mouth muffled his words.
With a brave shout and a clash of spears on bronze round shields, the Twenty-third Light Imperial Infantry marched in review past the wooden bleachers that had been erected in Piety Plaza. Squinting against the glare of the afternoon sun, Fost was able to conceal his reflexive grimace of distaste. They made a brave show with their brightly feathered round helms and their shield devices of a fist gripping a barbed spear, and their hobnailed boots rang in perfect unison on the broad blocks of blue-veined marble. But at the Battle of Black March they had bolted like frightened lizards, tails high and elbows pumping. They were typical Imperials: parade ground beauties.
The four-story structure vibrated in sympathy to the measured tread of the regiment. Instinctively, Fost clutched at the bench beneath him.
'I hope this damn thing doesn't collapse,' he said sidelong to Moriana. She cocked a brow at him. 'It's happened before,' he said defensively.
She shrugged slightly and turned her attention back to the parade, but not before giving him a smile that caused a comfortable warmth to grow in his groin. When they had permitted Zunhilix and his attendants back into their apartments, the chamberlain's emaciated features had crawled with horror and his hands fluttered like agitated white birds when he saw the dishevelled condition his charges were in. He had only a half hour before the investiture ceremony to patch up the damage. Nonetheless, he had rapped out brisk orders to his underlings, and by the time the brightly-plumed officers of the Life Guards had arrived to escort them to the Plaza, they both looked as good as new. Zunhilix might have been effeminate and prone to twitter, Fost reflected, but he got things done. All things considered, he might do a better job commanding the Imperial armies than the officers now in charge.
Fost glanced to his left, where Teom and Temalla sat side by side, a particolored parasol shading the stinging sun from their pasty white skins. The Emperor and his sister-wife smiled and waved at the marching troops from the midst of a flock of courtiers and dignitaries, all as brightly hued as so many tropical birds, and chattering as loudly. Temalla noticed Fost and favored him with a lewd wink, at the same time dipping one pale shoulder slightly so that her milky gown exposed an ample, burgundy-tipped breast to his view. He swallowed and looked across the square, over the heads of the marching troops.
A detachment of the Watch tramped by beneath. These were special riot troops, as well-trained as the
