Her jaw locked.
Her body froze.
She could get out nothing but an inarticulate sort of squeak.
That went on and on and on.
A grumble began, delegates asking what had happened.
Gales needed half a minute to get it. His eyes were not prepared to see the impossible.
Ozora Mundwil er donned a hard, cold, smug smile. She held two pair, kings and knaves. Two Bragis, plus Michael Trebilcock and Aral Dantice. Not to mention a selection of queens.
Babeltausque could not tear his gaze away from the Heltkler girl.
How had those people gotten in unnoticed? Though there were few guards, none of them instructed to look out for dead kings, somebody should have noticed something.
The noise kept growing because Inger kept staring, ashen, a mouse frozen by the stare of a viper. Fulk began to get scared. Gales oozed a step nearer Babeltausque. “We’re in the deep shit now but don’t do anything unless we’re attacked.”
Babeltausque recognized only that one face. He felt the tension of the moment, though. Things were not going according to plan. Perilously not. “Got you. But we need to do something.”
A tal man left the Sedlmayrese. He shed a massive travel duster and the limp and slouch that had helped conceal his identity. Eyes on Inger, he came forward. Others began to recognize him. By the time he joined his wife pandemonium shook the Thing hal .
Chapter Twenty-Five:
Megelin’s favored henchmen were the twin functionaries Mizr and Misr the Fatherless, which they preferred to abd-Megelin, or servant-of-Megelin. Lesser Royalist lights had begun to
distance themselves, softly and cautiously. Rumor said the twins were older than Al Rhemish itself. They had changed names and faith as often as the city had. They were archetypical y venal, with a knack for charming anyone close by. For no rational reason Megelin trusted them above al the other blackhearts around him.
Megelin’s current favor was, largely, extorted. Mizr had bumbled in while the king was conferring with a being commonly considered mythical. The twins were not harsh in their demands, though, because Megelin’s friend was without pity or remorse. There was no escaping his farseeing eye or far-reaching wrath.
It took only a few words from that entity to convince the twins that they ought to become extensions of the wil of King Megelin. Natural y, both kept their fingers crossed while their oaths were being extorted.
Misr and Mizr were there again when the entity came demanding details of events the night the monster Radeachar visited.
What little Megelin had to report he had gathered only because he feared that he might be asked. He did not himself care what happened on the old men side of town.
Even the stupid understood that the monster had wanted to be noticed. Even the dim knew which puppeteer dangled the Unborn. What even the bril iant could not fathom was, why Al Rhemish?
Megelin suggested, “It was al about confusion. Meant to cause exactly the disorders we’re beginning to see now.”
“Layers,” the ancient mused. “There wil be layers, more and deeper, some planned minutely, some improvised, some coming to life despite never having been foreseen.
What else happened that night?”
Megelin’s seekers had found nothing more solid than a thin rumor that his father had been seen over where the antique soldiers stil hung on, consuming resources and informing the world of al the better ways they would do things if they were stil in charge.
This rumor meant no more than scores just like it heard almost every day. Hammad al Nakir was nostalgic.
Hammad al Nakir had forgotten the bad times. Hammad al Nakir wanted its old king back. Hammad al Nakir was trying to conjure him back from the realm of the dead.
“Fantasy or not, pursue that,” the Star Rider ordered. “We need to know what that sorcerer was doing while his familiar was entertaining idiots.”
The world shifted into an instant of total disorientation.
Megelin and the twins were unsure why. The Star Rider’s admonition became a driving, throbbing obsession. They began to torment already touchy subjects more vigorously, trying to ferret out facts they might not recognize if they found them. They made plenty of new enemies.
The Empire Destroyer’s diversion not only fulfil ed its design, it sparked ferocious resentments that had fermented quietly for years beneath the despair blanketing Al Rhemish.
...
Yasmid let Habibul ah lead her to the meeting place. He had col ected not only Elwas al-Souki and her favorites but Ibn Adim al-Dimishqi and his cronies. Al-Dimishqi was less obnoxious now that he was consumed by his audit but he remained a storm on the horizon. Inclusion in her conspiracy had not changed his ground state attitude.
The men seemed grim today. The news must be awful. She was not wel . Every morning was miserable anymore.
She rejected the obvious explanation fiercely but each day made that a grander chal enge at self- delusion.
Al-Souki’s stony visage col apsed into frightened concern.
“Shining One! You’re so pale! You should have refused us.”
“Habibul ah tel s me I have no choice. I’m breathing. I have my obligations. Let’s get to it. What is the bad news?” Elwas scowled at Habibul ah. His anger failed to intimidate the old man, who said, “If our Lady’s health concerns you so much I suggest that you waste no time.”
Yasmid considered Habibul ah’s rigid back. He was distressed. He had begun to suspect, she feared. He was too close. He must have asked the right questions in the right places. A stone tossed into a pond might vanish but surface ripples would stil report its existence and passage.
Habibul ah might not work out exactly who, when, or where, but ripples aplenty remained to tel him how.
Elwas said, “Habibul ah gathered us because exciting things are happening in Al Rhemish. The sorcerer Varthlokkur sent his familiar to prance across the night sky there. Everyone believes the prodigy was a diversion. From what remains obscure. Nobody died. Nobody vanished.
Nothing disappeared. If spel s were cast or charms were laid on, that was done too subtly to be detected.”
“Al interesting but important to me now, how? And why?” Habibul ah stated the obvious first. “Because Varthlokkur was behind it. Boldly. Yanking Megelin’s beard in public. It has to mean something serious. Varthlokkur never involves himself with Hammad al Nakir.”
“True enough.”
Imam al-Dimishqi said, “It signifies only because a grand minion of evil hopes we wil waste time and energy worrying about what he is up to. While we sift shadows he wil be up to something else. He has done whatever he set out to do that night.”
Elwas said, “Odd though it might sound coming from me, I agree with Ibn Adim.”
Yasmid demanded, “Because?” Elwas never agreed with al-Dimishqi. She suppressed the misery in her gut.
“We have friends in Al Rhemish. They report a brief-lived, soft rumor that Haroun bin Yousif visited Beloul ed-Adirl that night. The rumor didn’t last. Nothing else happened. But our friends promise that a mystery man did
