fall.
A knock at the door interrupted his reverie, and he opened it to admit the lanky servant. Rathwol smelled as foul as ever, yet his threadbare tunic had been replaced by a gray satin shirt and cloak of lavender wool, marking him as an official of the court. Fangodrel’s personal attendant.
“Where have you been, sluggard?” Fangodrel asked, shutting the door and bolting it.
Rathwol winked, then wiped his dripping nose. The man was a walking sickness. But useful. “Obtaining what you desire, My Lord… as always.”
“Enough,” said the Prince. “Give it here.”
Rathwol presented a small coffer of jade and crystal. Fangodrel retrieved a hidden key from his boot and opened the tiny lock. Inside sat five splendid crimson flower-tops pruned from their black stems in some apothecary’s shop. He no longer asked or cared where Rathwol bought the bloodflower.
“A nice batch, Lord,” said the little man. “Imported straight from the poison jun Che ked or cargles of Khyrei – so the man tells me.”
Fangodrel pulled off a single soft petal and stuffed it into the bowl of his Serpent pipe. Firing it with a brand from the hearth, he inhaled the sweet smoke and fell into the fat cushions of his divan. Rathwol was a forgotten thing now, as irrelevant as his chamber pot. The Prince’s eyes clouded as the bloodflower’s magic infused his body.
“Sire, I was wondering,” said Rathwol. “Might I try some this time?”
Fangodrel laughed. Filled with a sudden energy, he stood and slapped the little man across his stubbly cheek. “I could sell your whole family and still not afford a single bloom,” he said. “So why would I give you a single petal when I could just as easily give you the point of my dagger?”
Rathwol cowered in mock fear.
“Here,” said Fangodrel, handing him a large sapphire. “Take this and get me three more coffers. No, as much as you can secure.”
“My Lord?”
“I am traveling south, Rathwol,” said the Prince. “I’ll need enough of this to make the trip pleasant. Oh, and take the remainder to buy yourself a decent horse, and a sword. You’re coming with me, as my personal groom. You do know how to groom a steed, don’t you?”
“Oh yes, Lord,” stammered Rathwol. “I was practically reared in the stables, I was.” There was more than enough worth in that single jewel to buy more bloodflower, secure Rathwol’s needs, and keep Fangodrel’s clandestine activities secret. Rathwol would endure any abuse, as long as he continued getting paid. He was the most trustworthy type of man. The kind you can buy. Or sell, if need be.
“Stop yammering and go find me a girl,” said Fangodrel. “I need a diversion. Be quick about it.”
Rathwol slunk out of the chamber. Fangodrel opened his window casement to stare at the rising moon and the twinkling lights of the City of Men and Giants. He smoked another petal of the bloodflower… then another.
Soon the chamber disappeared, and he floated in the warm crimson fog where he felt most at home. He lay at the center of a blood-colored cloud, stars dancing in his veins and his eyes. The hidden thunder of his pulse filled the vermilion sky, and he cast flames from his eyes, bolts of malevolent desire. His enemies appeared like columns of white marble in the scarlet mist, and his flaming eyes destroyed them all, one by one. First Tadarus, the hulking buffoon, reduced to black ashes like the paper of his burned poem. Then Vireon, a lesser Tadarus, burned to a swirling dust. Then his mother, Queen Shaira, burning and screaming in the lightning cast from the eyes of her unloved son.
On the couch Fangodrel writhed in pleasure, laughing at his private victories, roaming the confines of the Red Dream, where he and he alone ruled men and giants, where he distributed life and death as his whims demanded.
A black palace reared above the flames now, but it was not the palace of Udurum. It was a mass of thorny spires and pointed domes, rising over a red steaming jungle. Fangodrel moaned and floated nearer, for he had n C fos oever before seen this vision. He floated between the iron faces of demons that were the palace’s outer gates.
A white panther came stalking toward him. It stood as large as an ox, and its eyes were red as the petals of the bloodflower. It bared golden fangs at him, and he shot flames from his eyes, but the beast did not singe. It stared at him… It flowed like red wine and became a stunningly beautiful woman.
Jewels hung like wisps of starlight across her body, and a twist of silk barely obscured her breasts. Black diamonds were the soul of her eyes, and they dripped cold flames. She wore a spiked crown of onyx set with topaz. Her hair was a mane of milk-white silk, and her slim fingers ended in feline claws.
She smiled at him.
You are not the son of Vod, she said. Her voice was dark honey. Haven’t you always known this?
Who… who am I?
She flowed to him like water.
You are the Son of Gammir…
Who is Gammir?
She stood before him now, the tips of her claws gently stroking his chin.
My son. My beautiful dead son.
Who are you?
Ianthe, she whispered. The flames burst and rose about her lithe body.
Fangodrel stared at her, lust and fear mingled into some unnamable emotion.
You are the son of my son… my grandson…
He woke sweating near the fireplace, a cold draft blowing through the open window.
Shutting the panes, he pulled a blanket around his shoulders and puffed gently at his Serpent pipe. Her face swam in the eye of his memory, surrounded by red flames. Such a strange dream it was.
He had forgotten all about the girl for which he’d asked, until Rathwol arrived with her.
Soon after, wrapped in the excess of his violent pleasure, he alm ost forgot the panther-woman’s face. But her name rang in his head like a distant bell.
Ianthe…
Ianthe the Claw.
Empress of Khyrei.
5
The forest smelled like a woman. Vireon inhaled its heady blend of fragrances: the perfume of hanging blossoms, the clean musk of pine and naked earth. In his twenty-four years Fize='he had known many women in every shade of beauty. None claimed his heart as fully as the wild lands of Uduria, or stayed as constant in his thoughts. The forest was his love and it satisfied him in ways no woman ever had. Her mysteries were manifold, her secrets well hidden, yet he understood her better than any other man. Only the Uduru, his Giant relatives, knew the northern woodlands as well as Vireon, but they did not love her as he did. They had walked her depths for two thousand years, carving paths and scars along her surface, but Vireon loved her verdant soul.
Now on the edge of winter, before she donned her veil of virginal white, the forest wore a gown of myriad colors. Her leaves fell like teardrops of gold, saffron, orange, and scarlet. The moss on the boles of the mighty Uyga trees faded from green to pale indigo and mottled ochre. Still she wore a crown of late-blooming flowers, the Otha, the Narill, and the colossal Aduri, filling her windblown hair with sweetness. She was quiet mostly, demure in her vibrant garb, though she spoke in breathy whispers to those who knew how to listen. Vireon had learned to speak her language, to hear that faint voice, and to read the patterns of her silence.
He knelt between the massive curling roots of an Uyga and listened to her now. She sang to him sadly of the coming frost, yet there was a hopeful melody woven into those windy tones, a dream of spring’s promise that would sustain her through months of snow and ice. Today would be the last great hunt before the weather turned and the
