the first squadron of the Ergothian Navy, had chased most of its former piratical comrades out of the Gulf of Ergoth. Trade was flowing across the bay in startling strength, and bulging coffers of tax money arrived daily from Lord Tremond in Thorngoth. Excited by the flow of gold, Ackal IV’s advisors wanted to send the fleet west to suppress the pirates prowling the seas between Sancrist Isle and Hylo.
“If I may speak, my lords!” Tol all but shouted over the wrangling warlords. It was poor manners, and a bad sign that he should have to shout at all. Ackal IV could not control these sessions. He sat in his father’s chair saying little, face gray, eyes squinted against his constant pain. Although propped up by his stiff court robes, he still leaned slightly to one side.
Tol repeated his request. Rymont, Valdid, and the rest slowly fell silent. “My thanks,” Tol said ironically. “I feel it would be a grave mistake to send the fleet out of the gulf.”
“Why?” Lord Rymont demanded.
Tol gestured to a heap of scrolls on the table. “From Tremond’s reports, it seems the pirates in the gulf have been suppressed, not wiped out. Send Admiral Darpo away, and they’ll fall upon the merchant shipping like a pack of starving wolves.”
“This fleet costs the imperial treasury 3,000 gold pieces a month,” Valdid complained.
“And how much in taxes did Lord Tremond send this last time?”
They knew the figure as well as he did. Twenty thousand crowns of gold and silver had just arrived in Daltigoth under heavy guard/Eight days earlier another twelve thousand had come, and before that, eight thousand. Tol admonished them not to endanger the stream of money by sending the fleet away.
Some were in favor of doing just that. The arguments went on until the light of the setting sun slanted into the council chamber at a sharp angle. Rymont, stubbornly insisting the fleet would secure even more money by making sea trade safe in the north and west, was arguing with Valdid, who’d come around to Tol’s point of view. The chamberlain noticed Ackal IV was nodding and broke off in mid-sentence. Rapping on the polished tabletop, he announced the council session was over.
The noise woke the emperor. He sagged back wearily, breath rattling in his chest. Oropash quietly offered to summon healers from the temple of Mishas, but Ackal IV waved the suggestion aside.
“It is only a congestion of the lungs,” he said hoarsely. “It will pass.” No one believed that. The “congestion” had lasted half a year.
He dismissed his advisors without asking for a final decision on the dispensation of the fleet. As the warlords, wizards, and officials rose to go, Ackal IV asked Tol to stay. Lord Rymont and his faction departed slowly, unhappy to concede the emperor’s ear to their rival.
When only Tol and Valdid remained, the emperor dismissed his chamberlain, too. Surprised, Valdid obeyed.
“Sit by me,” said Ackal IV, patting the arm of an adjacent chair. With a bow, Tol seated himself at the emperor’s right hand.
“You are right about the fleet,” Ackal said, letting his head rest against the padded wing of his chair. “Tomorrow I will issue orders confirming Admiral Darpo’s stay in the gulf.”
“I believe that to be the wisest course, Your Majesty.”
Tol waited. The emperor hadn’t asked him to stay to tell him about the fleet.
“I think I must be dying, Tolandruth.”
The announcement was not wholly unexpected. “Your Majesty has his choice of the finest healers in the empire. Can they not find the root of your strange illness?”
Ackal shook his head. “There is a broken strain in the dynasty, a thread of madness and decay. I fear it has found me this time.”
“Surely not, Majesty! You always enjoyed good health as crown prince. Why-”
Tol stopped, but his expression plainly showed he had more to say. Ackal urged him to speak freely.
“Majesty, there are those who would like your reign to be a brief one. Some… some are very close to the throne.”
Ackal laughed, provoking a fit of coughing. “Nazramin? He’s been undermining me ever since we were children.”
There were many safeguards in place, the emperor explained, to protect him from poison, and the palace was heavily warded against malign magic, more so than any other place in Ergoth.
Still, it was possible that a subtle chink could exist in the emperor’s magical armor, some tiny hole in his defenses that might allow a small spell to penetrate. Ackal IV admitted this himself.
Tol related how he’d found Nazramin at Mandes’s mansion late one night. The prince and the sorcerer were in cahoots, he said.
“Mandes is gone,” the emperor replied, waving a thin hand. “His influence is over and his spells dispersed. Oropash has seen to that personally.”
Oropash was a wizard of wide experience, but overly trusting. Although he knew little enough about magic, Tol was certain that a cunning rogue like Mandes could evade his counter-spells.
Even as they talked, Tol was waging a silent battle with himself over one question: should he give the nullstone to Ackal IV? If the emperor was indeed the target of malign magic, the Irda artifact would soak it up like blotting paper drinking in spilled ink.
If he loaned it to the emperor, it might save him, but would Tol ever get it back? Years ago, Yoralyn had warned him nullstones were so rare and so powerful that ruthless villains would raze entire cities to possess one. He had kept his secret a long time.
If Ackal IV took possession of it, knowledge of its existence would spread quickly. The emperor of Ergoth lived his life like a carp in a fishpond, under the eyes of hundreds every day. The secret would be a secret no longer.
Ackal IV might be saved from his sickness, but then what?
The nullstone was no defense against a knife in the back. By adding the Irda artifact to the equation, Tol might encourage outright assassination of the emperor. For the chance to capture such a prize, the ambitious and the greedy from every level of Daltigoth society would line up like buyers in the meat market. Blood would flow. It could mean civil war, and the end of the empire.
Tol asked himself if his reasoning was fair. Were his fears justified, or did he simply seek excuses to keep the nullstone to himself?
Ackal was still talking, but only when he coughed, spattering the front of his robe with tiny drops of blood was Tol jerked from his tangled thoughts.
“I am Your Majesty’s Champion. What can I do to help you?” he said earnestly.
Ackal dabbed at his lips with a swatch of white silk. “Was I not just saying?” Though not an old man, the emperor smiled like one, lips tight together, wrinkles piling up around his fevered eyes.
“Stay by me, Tolandruth. Take rooms in the palace. I feel that with you close by, my powers will soon return.”
Tol’s heart beat faster. Here was an admirable compromise. His presence might ward off dangers, magical and temporal. And he would be near Valaran-
The emperor’s next words shocked Tol to his very core.
“My wife would be glad of your company.”
Tol couldn’t speak, could barely control his expression. At last he said, “Wife, Majesty?”
“Yes, Valdid’s daughter. You two are old friends, are you not? She will be happy to have you about. My other wives are not kind to her, despite my admonitions.”
Tol could think of nothing at all to say, but fortunately the emperor was going on.
“You two have been friends a long time, I know. She taught you reading, yes?” Tol nodded dumbly. “Yes. In spite of what most people think, there is nothing that goes on in the Inner City about which I do not know. From charming secrets to vicious gossip, I hear it all.”
At that moment Tol realized Ackal must know about him and Valaran; he knew and was not outraged. Tol’s heart was pounding so hard, he felt it must be audible to the emperor.
“Sometimes I believe the gossip,” Ackal said quietly, “and sometimes I don’t. When I assumed the mantle of Ergoth, I learned a most important fact.”
Prompted, Tol said, “What is that, Majesty?”
