This impression was underscored when he saw Palimak and the woman general rush over to the stretcher. Palimak gripped one of the man's hands. While Leiria bent over to kiss him. Then the stretcher was placed in a net, which was swayed up to the airship.
Rhodes followed its progress, then nodded with satisfaction when he saw the dwarf who captained the airship and his first mate, the exotic dragon woman, personally assist the crew in getting the stretcher aboard. Whatever the identity of the man, he was obviously of enormous importance to the Kyranians.
Rhodes had never seen him before, but that in itself didn't mean anything. There were many Kyranians he had no knowledge of. What gnawed at him was that his spies had never brought him word of someone of such obvious importance. Did the Kyranians have a secret leader? Someone of far greater importance than Palimak, whom everyone had been led to believe was the supreme commander of the Kyranians?
Was this fellow, the object of such respect and affection, the secret power behind Palimak's throne? The reason why one so young could perform so many remarkable feats of warfare and magic? If so, what had happened to the mystery man? Why was he in the stretcher, obviously ailing or injured?
A spark of hope flared in Rhodesa€™ chest. If his suspicions were correct-and the man
He lowered the spyglass and quickly clambered back down the catapult. Excitement made the return trip much easier. Rhodes needed advice to take advantage of this vulnerability-assuming that's what it was.
And the best person who could provide it was his mother, Clayre, the beautiful witch queen of Hanadu.
Later, Rhodes would berate himself for not tarrying a bit longer on his catapult perch. If he had, he'd have seen his daughter, Jooli, unfettered and armed, making her way out of the idol's entrance and hurrying down the stairs. And he might have wondered why the Kyranians were allowing their hostage such freedom.
Aboard the airship, so many tears of joy flowed at Safar's miraculous return that they would have filled an ocean.
'He'th alive!' Arlain sobbed, smoky rings issuing from her dragon's mouth. 'Thafar hath come back to uth!'
Biner honked emotion into a kerchief, then knuckled moisture from his eyes. 'Methydia would be so happy,' he said, 'to see the dear lad with us again.'
Renor and Sinch, mere striplings when the exodus from Kyrania had begun but full-grown young men now, knelt by the stretcher, crying unashamedly.
'If only Dario could be here,' Renor said. 'He always insisted Lord Timura was still alive.' Dario, dead two years now, had been the grizzled warrior who had trained and drilled all the young men of Kyrania.
Soon all the other crewmembers and soldiers were kneeling around the stretcher, sobbing prayers of thanks to the Lady Felakia-goddess patron of Kyrania-for returning Safar to them.
In the background, Elgy and Rabix piped music, while Kairo did a little dance of happiness, tossing his head from one hand to the other.
Leiria and Palimak clutched each other, sobbing uncontrollably.
During all this, Safar was quite still. Eyes closed, breath coming in little gasps. Oblivious to everything around him.
Then a breeze came up, making the airship's lines buzz. Leiria shivered, feeling the sudden cold, and broke out of the cocoon of happiness.
'Let's get him into the cabin,' she said. 'Before we make him sick with all our affection.'
She and Palimak picked up either end of the stretcher and carried Safar into the luxurious main cabin that had once been the quarters of Methydia, the long-dead witch who had created the airship and circus.
And who had been Safar's lover.
Jooli, a total stranger to Kyranian affairs, watched from the outskirts of the little crowd, wondering about this man who was the cause of so much love and unashamed emotion.
The only thing she was sure of was that whoever he might be, the fellow was an immensely powerful wizard. Even unconscious, exhausted and ailing, the magical rays radiating from him were so intense that her own sorcerous abilities were nearly overcome.
He must be a good man, she thought, otherwise these people would not be so overjoyed. If he were a tyrant-like her father-they might have abased themselves, but only out of fear. Except, powerless as he now was, they would have been more likely to have cut his throat before he regained cruel consciousness.
An act Jooli had seriously contemplated herself upon occasion, when she'd come upon her father in a drunken stupor.
Then, just as the stretcher disappeared into the cabin she caught a strange eddy in the magical waves the man gave off. It was something not so good and not so kind and certainly not worthy of adulation. She tried to sniff it out, locate its source. It seemed to come from the mysterious wizard. But for some reason she couldn't fathom, it was also apart from him.
Something … not evil … not exactly that, at any rate. But redolent of fiery ambition and greedy hunger.
Then she lost the scent and by the time the cabin door closed Jooli wondered if it had been her imagination. Nothing more than a cynical reaction to all that outpouring of love.
She sniffed the air one more time and found nothing amiss. Jooli shrugged. Yes, that was it. Only her imagination.
A moment later Biner thundered orders and the crew rushed to the lines and the engines.
Then Biner cried, 'Put some muscle into it, lads! The folks at home will want to hear this glad news!
Safar Timura is with us again! By the gods, from here on out it'll be, a€?Damn everything but the circus!'
And the airship swept away on chilly winds, heading for the new kingdom of Kyrania.
The place Safar had spun into a dream for his people so long ago.
Rhodes tromped down many long flights of stairs to his mother's chambers.
She made her salon in the deepest reaches of the castle. Past the grain and wine stores, paltry now after the series of losing battles with Palimak Timura. Below the furthest dungeons where Rhodes imprisoned men and women who opposed his reign but who were too important in kill outright. Beneath the realm of the royal torturers, who gleefully plied rack and hot pincers in his majesty's service.
Below the treasury-which Rhodes loved even more than his harem. The treasury was guarded by his best and most loyal soldiers, who were paid three times the normal rate to ensure that loyalty.
Here he had experienced both his highest joys and deepest despair. Shuddering in pleasure during those times when he had heaped rich ransom and tribute chests into its crowded recesses. Weeping like a mourning woman as his wars with Palimak drained it to a puny thing, with only a few chests of jewels and gold left.
Only yesterday he'd deposited the two sacks of gold Palimak had given him to sweeten the treaty and to gain his favor for the Kyranian expedition into the Idol of Asper. When he'd added the fat coins to his store it had eased his humiliation a little bit. It had even given him slight hope that someday the tables might be turned: Palimak defeated, gold and gems once more flooding into the chamber.
As Rhodes walked past the treasury, guards snapping to and saluting, he had a moment of regret that he couldn't tarry there and run Palimak's gold through his fingers. Imagining that each coin was a piece of flesh wrested from Prince Timura's body.
Scores of torches lit the marble receiving area marking the entrance to his mother's apartments. The walls were decorated with enormous murals-pastorals extolling the many beauties of Syrapis.
On their surface the compositions radiated peace and harmony with nature. But if one looked closer there were little horrors in each mural that changed their whole meaning. A seascape, with Syrapisa€™
most picturesque shore in the foreground. A burning ship in the far background, a winged monster scooping up sailors from the sea and devouring them. A vineyard, where handsome lads and pretty maids played lusty games beneath ripe grape clusters, drunk with the joy of the harvest wine. In the distant corner, a demon king leading his fiends in an unspeakable orgy of torture of those same lads and maids.
Rhodes thought they were quite nice, although he was wise enough not to have similar murals in his own chambers. Beauty, apparently, was in the eye of the beholder. And what Rhodes beheld and loved would have given
