teeth, as he smiled, gleamed with that same whiteness.
“Because it is you who ask me, Sharadza, I will go south with you. Though it will make no difference in the end. You cannot cure this sickness in the souls of men.”
“Perhaps not,” she said, taking his hand. His skin thrummed faintly, as if lightning surged in his veins. “But if there is no Empress to lead them, the Khyreins may not fight at all. If Elhathym should lose his stolen throne, none will have to die in his name. Bring down these sorcerers and we avoid war altogether.”
Iardu shook his somber head. A circlet of gold held back his hair, which fell to his shoulders. His chromatic eyes gleamed. “And if we die at the hands of these tyrants?”
“Then we’ll have done no harm but to ourselves. Besides, you told me the Living World and the World of the Dead are merely twin illusions.”
“Yes,” said Iardu. “But there are much worse fates than death.”
She leaned across the table, surprising even herself, and kissed his cheek.
He stared at her with his glimmering eyes. “I believe…” he said, “that it is you who are re-shaping me.”
They left the tavern, which had emptied while they spoke behind the curtain. The owner had fallen asleep on one of his own stools. Sharadza left a single emerald from the sunken chest lying at his elbow. She fastened the door as they stepped into the street.
They walked toward the palace, and she sensed that everyone around her saw the old man Fellow. She saw ageless Iardu in all his splendor. Unless… unless Iardu’s true form was only another lie. Could she trust him? But this was a question she must ask of any man, sorcerer or not.
He has agreed to face death with me.
“Is there no other sorcerer in all the world that we might win to our cause?” she asked.
The blue flame flickered on his chest. He walked in silence until the palace walls rose into the street ahead.
“There is one… who might be… persuaded,” he said. “But he dwells far from here.”
“Where?” she asked.
“Mumbaza.”
Her green eyes twinkled. “Then we will fly.”
“Yes.” He smiled. “We will fly.”
22
Dairon’s Spear sat upon the water like a colossal swan feathered with gold and emerald. Its triple-masted bulk dwarfed all other ships moored along the docks of Murala. The yellow sun emblem of Uurz sat upon the green field of its mainsail, and its p wh sat row bore the sculpture of a gilded hawk tall as a man. The hawk’s wings were spread to catch the same winds that would fill the great sails. Uurz itself was not a sea power, but Murala was its official territory, so the Emperor’s ship kept a permanent berth here. Its lean yet hulking presence reminded visiting merchant vessels that the port was an outpost of the Stormlands. Piracy was rare on the Cryptic Sea, but when it did plague the shipping lanes, Dairon’s Spear delivered the justice of Uurz.
Lyrilan had ridden on the ship when he was a boy, along with Tyro and their parents. Dairon had brought his family to Murala to celebrate the finish of the galleon’s construction. What Lyrilan remembered most from that trip was his mother’s nervous smile and the pressure of her hand on his own. Neither of them had sailed before, and they looked to one another for courage. Tyro had stood bravely near Dairon, either fearless or pretending to be. She had died a year later. Some southern-born fever had infested the city and struck indiscriminately at commoner and noble alike. Lyrilan and Tyro were eleven when she passed; Lyrilan and Dairon cried at the opulent funeral, while Tyro did not. Later, in the shadow of the palace gardens, Lyrilan caught Tyro weeping alone. He never told Tyro what he had seen that day.
Dairon had defied the custom of the previous Emperors of Uurz by taking Jarinha as his one and only wife. His chancellors pestered him to take two or three more wives and produce more heirs, but always he refused them. “Jarinha has given me two strong sons,” the Emperor told the court. “That is enough.” When she died, they expected Dairon to change his mind, but even then he would claim no one to replace her. Lyrilan hoped one day to know a love like that shared by his mother and father. It was the stuff of legends… and tragedies. But these two things went hand in hand. Anyone who studied the lessons of history knew that.
Today, standing in the forecastle of the great ship, Lyrilan could not help but remember his mother standing on the same deck. How her black hair danced in the sea wind, the dress of azure and carmel she wore that day, the white pearls of her smile. A mass of white clouds rolled across a sapphire sky. The blue bay glittered with refracted sunlight, scattered diamonds floating atop the brine. The masts and sails of a hundred or more ships lined the wharves, many flying the colors of distant lands. Not surprisingly, the only kingdoms not represented here were Khyrei and Yaskatha. Those ships, according to the Spear ’s Captain Lonneus, had stopped coming earlier this year. First the Khyrein trade ceased, then the Yaskathan. There were sleek caravels from Mumbaza, the Feathered Serpent writhing on their sails, and a few exotic galleys from the Jade Isles, along with traders from Shar Dni and the Southern Isles. Above them all, like a Giant among Men, rose the shining hull and olive sails of Dairon’s Spear.
Tyro had used the authority of his father’s word to commandeer the ship for the mission to Mumbaza. Lyrilan would not have had the presence to make such a demand upon Lonneus and his crew. But Tyro was well-known as Dairon’s Right Arm. Who better to grasp the Emperor’s Spear?
Tyro and Vireon hired two Muralan merchant galleons, the Cloud and the Sharkstooth, as troop transports. Tyro and a hundred Uurzian warriors would ride the Cloud, while Andoses and a hundred Sharrians sailed on the Sharkstooth. Lyrilan and D’zan accompanied Vireon and his sorcerer-woman Alua on the Spear with two hundred soldiers from solr. FirsUurz and Udurum. Each ship carried in its hold cavalry horses and enough food and grain for men and animals. The Spear carried extra provisions in the belly of its massive hull. It was a sign of respect that Tyro gave Vireon mastery of Dairon’s behemoth. Lyrilan knew his brother was a strategist, and this war would hinge on the rising legends of D’zan and Vireon. Their names would stir soldier’s hearts to battle and make them laugh at death. Tyro would command from Vireon’s shoulder, but he would not stand in Vireon’s shadow.
The second passing over the mountains had not been difficult after all. The weather was balmy those two weeks, with only light dustings of snow along the heights. However, on the southern half of the pass snowdrifts lingered. Lyrilan watched as Vireon took Alua aside and spoke with her encouragingly. She amazed the Princes by calling up a wall of flame to rush over and melt the deep drifts. So their small army rode through mud instead of snow, and came down into the Stormlands without injury. Along the way they picked up a few of the wounded men left at the Giants’ cave. Some had mended and were able to ride, so Tyro accepted them back into the ranks with great praise.
It took less than a full month for the five Princes and their cohort to reach Murala. Three days were spent appropriating the ships, buying feed and rations, filling out the crews, and consulting with the captains regarding routes and sailing conditions. Lyrilan did not sit in on these meetings; he worked instead on his manuscript. The journey of Prince D’zan had grown from uncertain desperation into a life-or-death struggle upon which the fate of nations balanced. Lyrilan’s responsibility as chronicler of these events had grown immensely. The tale expanded, the plot thickened, and unexpected characters arose to fill the pages. While he hoped to remain the invisible author, transcribing the noteworthy events of D’zan’s odyssey, his own brother had become an essential part of the tale. If Lyrilan was not careful, the tale would pull him into itself as well. Perhaps he was already slipping into D’zan’s story, even as he wrote it.
Every night along the road, despite the chill of winter or the wetness of storms, Tyro had trained D’zan in the art of the greatsword. He had become the Wise Warrior figure in D’zan’s story – he was the voice of martial expertise, the one who ushered the young Prince from boyhood to manhood, transformed a soft-hearted courtier into an iron-muscled warrior. As for D’zan, he took to his martial lessons with great fervor. The boy’s arms had grown solid and thick, his legs trunk-like and steady, and his belly lean and hard as a board. All the complacency of court life had drained away from D’zan. Crossing the mountains twice had burned away (or frozen away) his
