Tyro waved the servants away. He seemed uninterested in food or drink.
“Traders brought news of Trimesqua’s fall only days ago,” said Tyro, addressing D’zan now. “The Emperor mourns your loss.”
“I… thank you, Prince,” said D’zan.
“You have traveled far and your journey must have been taxing. You will find safety and comfort within these walls. These are the Emperor’s own words.”
D’zan thanked him again, somewhat awkwardly.
“Please… eat, drink,” said Tyro. “There will be plenty of time to talk when you have bathed and rested. My father will see you on the morrow. Tonight he is otherwise engaged.”
Olthacus attacked the delicious fare, and D’zan found his own appetite. Tyro ate little, and was polite enough not to stare as the two hungry riders sated their appetites. A second princely figure glided into the room. His broad face resembled Tyro’s, but he was skinny, his nose a tad longer, and a coronet supported a trio of emeralds above his eyes. He carried in his arms a great book bound in worn leather.
“Ah, my brother Lyrilan joins us,” said Tyro, “having found his way out of the musty depths of the library. A rare occurrence, Prince D’zan. You are met with interest.”
The thin Prince smiled at D’zan and stood at the end of the table.
“He is a scholar, you see,” explained Tyro with the faintest trace of scorn.
D’zan caught the hidden meaning of those few words: But he ought to be a soldier.
“Greetings to you, Prince Lyrilan,” said Olthacus, wiping his mouth with a silken napkin. “May I present Prince D’zan of Yaskatha…”
Lyrilan smiled at D’zan, offering the briefest of bows. “Forgive my curiosity,” he said. “Tyro usually handles matters of state. News of your arrival only just reached me, and I wanted to pay my respects. I’ve been reading, you see…”
Prince Tyro laughed. “When are you not reading?”
Prince Lyrilan ignored the question. He laid the great book on the end of the table, well away from the nearest dish. “Your father, King Trimesqua, was a great man,” he said. His fingers absently traced the engraved patterns on the book’s cover. “A great warrior. A hero in thought and deed. It is an honor to have you here. I have many questions about Trimesqua’s life.”
“Brother!” interrupted Tyro. “Our guests have only just arrived.”
“No, it’s all right,” said D’zan. The potent wine made him feel at ease, and there was something about this skinny Prince he liked immediately. Perhaps it was simply nice to hear someone speak so highly of his father. “What is that book
Lyrilan lifted the volume to display the embossed cover, its title written in the northern dialect. “ Odysseys of the Southern Kings,” he said. “It lists the entirety of your family history going back three hundred years. Did you know your father slew a sea monster that devoured a thousand ships? The Beast of Barragur, they called it. He freed the shipping lanes for a generation of trade.”
D’zan smiled. Of course he knew that story. “My father told me that one several times.”
Lyrilan’s eyes lit up like twin candles. “Fascinating! This is why I had to meet you. There is only so much you can learn from a book. I’ll bet you have hundreds of stories to tell.”
“If you want to know the best stories, ask the Stone.” D’zan indicated Olthacus, who was chewing on a leg of fowl. “He and my father travelled the world together… long before I was born.”
Olthacus nodded, his mouth full of meat.
“Plenty of time for that,” said Prince Tyro, rising from his chair. “Lyrilan, don’t tire our guests any further.”
The Uurzian Princes said goodnight, and robed attendants led the guests through a maze of sumptuous corridors to their sleeping quarters. Olthacus insisted on sharing the same room as D’zan, and the servants finally relented. They had prepared a separate room for the big warrior, but there was no changing his mind.
D’zan stripped off his soiled road-clothes and climbed into the chamber’s great soft bed while Olthacus lay down on the cushions of a broad couch. The moon gleamed through a leaf-shaped window, casting its beams among miniature trees growing around the chamber. Sleep took D’zan before he could even say good night.
It must have been the whisper of a naked foot on the marble floor that woke him. Something dark loomed over his bed, and a cold ray of moonlight gleamed above it. The knife came flashing downward, aimed at his throat, but never reached it. Instead, a shower of warm blood splashed his face and sheets. A severed hand fell on the pillow.
A scream rose in the bleeding man’s throat, but Olthacus’ next sword-blow took off his head. D’zan lay paralyzed and bloody, barely conscious of what was happening.
Then the Stone’s voice filled the chamber, shocking him into alertness. “Up, D’zan! Run for the hall! Call the guards!”
D’zan rolled out of bed, nearly vomiting. He landed atop the headless, leaking carcass. The clash of metal met his ears from the other side of the bed, and he glanced up to see Olthacus kill another man. Like the headless one, he wore tight-fitting garments of black silk, his face obscured by a smooth mask of ebony.
The dead man’s knife lay on the floor, and D’zan grabbed it. From hilt to point it was carved of a single jade piece. The blade was smeared with purple flakes, some kind of venom. He ran for the door as Olthacus screamed.
Two spearmen rushed in to protect the bloodstained Prince. Their corselets gleamed silver-gray in the moa lay in tonlight.
The Stone sank his great sword point first into the belly of a third assassin, and the man died without a sound. Three dead men lay across the chamber, and Olthacus stood near the open window, his hands now empty and dripping red.
More guards rushed through the door, but there were no more assailants. The Stone had killed them all. Someone pulled D’zan out of the room, but he pushed his way back inside. Olthacus sat on the couch where he had been sleeping. The green hilt of an assassin’s knife protruded from the big man’s chest just above his heart. His sword lay across the chamber, still embedded in the body of his last opponent. The Stone’s mouth was open, and he gasped for air like a landed fish.
D’zan shoved his way through the guards. The Stone’s eyes focused on the ceiling, ignoring the poisoned blade protruding from his chest.
“Olthacus!” D’zan cried, but the Stone remained silent. His eyes fixed on the patterns of the ceiling, swirling traceries in the shape of grape vines spreading from wall to wall. D’zan grabbed the jade hilt and pulled the dagger free. Someone announced that the royal physician was on his way.
D’zan shook the Stone by his shoulders. The veins in the warrior’s neck and face stood out starkly purple. His eyes were orbs of cloudy glass.
D’zan shouted his name again, but the Stone never moved. He sat as still as his namesake on the blood- spattered couch in the blood-drenched chamber.
Even when the physician arrived with bandage, elixir, and stitching, the Stone’s wide eyes remained fixed on the golden grape-leaf ceiling.
They stayed that way until the physician’s gentle fingertips pulled them shut.
4
Thousands of books lined the shelves of King Vod’s library, and hundreds of scrolls from every kingdom known to man. The pelts of wild beasts hung between the towering bookshelves, and the fanged skull of a great Serpent lay on a central pedestal beneath a dome of transparent quartz. A dozen torches flickered in sconces like the yawning mouths of gargoyles. The room was spacious enough for a Giant to comfortably peruse the shelves, but Giants did not read. Only their shamans knew the magic of capturing ideas into runes, and all their shamans were dead for two decades now. Sharadza sat in her father’s reading chair and pored over tome after tome, finding only
