The Assassin King

19

Dangerous as it would be to admit it, Talquist hated seers.

As he paced the heavy carpet that adorned the marble floors of the imperial palace, he muttered extravagant curses under his breath, vile but amusing obscenities he had learned from the sailors during his days in the Mercantile, where his first fortune had been made. For all that the power of the crown was heady, in secret Talquist missed those days, wandering the wide world with little more than sand in his pockets and a scheme in his head. He missed the sight of ships coming into port flying colors from around the world, the smell of burlap sacks bulging with spices and seeds, the sounds of laughter in dark taverns and the groans of longshoremen off-loading goods into the night in misty rain. In particular he missed the sea, for the sea had always been good to him, had given him everything of value he owned. Most especially, it had given him the power he now sought to expand to the water’s edge on the other side of the Known World. The regent emperor paused as he passed the enormous looking glass in his bedchamber. An ordinary man stared back at him, heavyset and muscular of body, swarthy of skin, dark of complexion, hair, and eye. A man no different in appearance than any other man in this realm of endless sun, sand, and mountains except that he was bejeweled in gold and clad in robes of finest linen, the product for which Sorbold was best known in the trading world. An ordinary man on the outside, perhaps. But within that ordinary man, Talquist mused, was a vision that was anything but ordinary. For all that he was a visionary, however, Talquist was not a seer. The regent emperor began to pace again, his breath coming out in grunts of building frustration. He had been planning for a long time, biding his time, acting his part, putting all the pieces in place as meticulously as the artisans of Keltar who carved intricate representations of the world in gemstones smaller than a thumbnail. But while he could envision his dreams, and knew how to position his resources to achieve them, his sight failed at that point. He could not monitor whether or not it was coming to fruition. At least not yet. All of that is about to change, he reminded himself. His calm restored somewhat, Talquist turned and walked back up the winding stone staircase at the southwestern corner of his bedchamber to the tower room at its top. Every comer of his chambers had such a parapet, the three others each housing crossbowmen of superior skill, as did the wide central balcony on the main level. The balcony and two of the towers stared west, into the red sunset, over the mountains that ringed the capital city of Jierna’sid, to the grassy steppes and the wide Krevensfield Plain beyond, all the way to the sea, a thousand miles away. The other two towers faced the southeast and northeast, where the lookouts scanned the mountains at their back in the glare of the rising sun. But only this one bore the signs of fresh mortar and brick, recent repairs to what had been a gargantuan hole. As Talquist reached the top step, he asked himself if by not having archers he was wasting space in this tower that would leave him vulnerable, but discarded the thought a moment later in the recollection of the forty thousand troops quartered in this city alone, all of whom had naught but his continued safety and security foremost in mind. The room at the top of the stairs was small and spare, with no decoration except a map of the continent adhered to the wall. The southern and western walls were open to the wind to facilitate bow shots and other defensive projectiles; the corners of the map flapped in the stiff breeze. The opening looked out on the courtyard on the western side and a chasm on the southern one. In a small cane rocking chair facing out the western tower window a woman was sitting with her back to him, her head tilted toward the sun, her eyes closed in the glow of its radiance on her face. Talquist inhaled slowly, attempting to measure his breathing, so that he would remain calm. He stepped onto the stone floor and slowly came up behind her. The woman did not move or seem to notice. “Good day, Rhonwyn,” he said as pleasantly as he could. The woman did not open her eyes, but her smooth forehead wrinkled into furrows at the sound of his voice. Talquist inhaled more deeply this time. This was the fourth attempt this day he had made to communicate with the Seer of the Present, and each time he had been angered more than the last. Her mythic status as one of the three Seers of Time and, more importantly, his acute need of her unique abilities demanded a patience of him that he normally did not possess. “Good day, Rhonwyn,” he repeated. This time the woman opened her eyes and turned slowly in her chair to face him. Despite her age her face was smooth in the bloom of youth, her hair red-gold at the crown of her head, but as it tapered down in a long braid bound in leather thongs it passed into dimmer stages, darkening and turning gray until it reached the snow-white tip. Her eyes, blank scleras without irises, reflected distorted images of himself back to him. “No,” Rhonwyn said. “I think not.” Acid filled the back of Talquist’s mouth; while the woman’s tone was fragile and dreamlike, nevertheless, the words stung of insult. He swallowed his sour rage and came to her side, looking out the window at the distant courtyard below. Jierna Tal was one of the modern architectural marvels of the world, a smooth stone palace perched on jagged crags above an almost bottomless chasm, rising in clean angles skyward to unseen heights, its corners finished in spiraling minarets and bell towers that occasionally were shrouded in low-hanging clouds. The tremendous distance from the cobblestones of the streets to the top of the towers served frequently as a metaphor to remind Talquist how far he had risen from the gutter to his now-exalted position. Just past the courtyard the chasm, part of the palace’s defenses, descended another thousand feet as if to accentuate the point. A long shadow lay across the courtyard, twisting occasionally and glinting in the amber light of the sun. Talquist glanced to the city square on a hill above the palace. Towering there in the afternoon haze was another reminder of how far he had come, and to what he owed his elevation. The great Scales loomed high above Jierna Tal, an immense and ancient artifact brought from the old world by the Cymrian refugees whose descendants now held power in the Middle Continent. Gigantic beams balanced two plates of burnished gold wide enough for a cart and oxen to rest within; Talquist smiled. He himself had stood in one of those weighing plates and had been lifted aloft, to the stunned response of the crowd below, who, after recovering, had declared him Emperor Presumptive. He had modestly insisted, in the wake of the untimely deaths of the previous monarch and her heir, that a suitable waiting period of a year pass before his coronation, and instead chose to become regent of Sorbold, stewarding the power that in the spring would officially be his. He did not wait to make use of that power in unofficial capacities. Now the dusty streets of Jierna’sid, once little more than a pathetic market of beggars and sheeted tents, workmen, animal traffic, and greasy pit fires for roasting goat meat, had been transformed into a tidy place of military patrols and marching cadences, expanded linen factories and tradesmen whose sole clientele was the army and the crown. Jierna Tal, long out of place in its dingy surroundings, had been transformed as he had been transformed, into the royal center of a growing city blooming in the desert heat, growing strong in the blessed rays of the endless sun for which Sorbold was known. It was only the beginning. Talquist looked back at the ancient Seer. Rhonwyn’s slender hands held a battered metal compass, an instrument said to have been used by her Seren father fourteen centuries before to find his way to the Wyrmlands from the Lost Island of Serendair. Her ability to know the truth of the Present was a birthright gained from the elemental power of Merithyn the Explorer and her dragon mother, Elynsynos. Talquist, a descendant of the indigenous humans that had lived at the outskirts of the Wyrmlands for time uncounted before the Cymrians came with their odd powers and their ridiculous longevity, was not impressed.

But even if the power of the Cymrians did not impress him, their longevity—a seeming resistance to all of the ravages of time—was something he craved above all else. Given the length and intensity of his list of cravings, that was impressive. He had heard once, long ago and in passing, that the spark which lit the fire of the Great War that ended the Illuminaria, Gwylliam the Visionary’s great era of empire building and enlightenment, was a family argument about succession. It was well known in the lore of the sea that Edwyn Griffyth, Gwylliam’s eldest son, had spurned his birthright and gone off to live evermore in Gaematria, the mystical realm of the Sea Mages, so Talquist surmised that Gwylliam had been denied the heir he wanted to his throne, a dynasty that would live on after him, even though he was thought to be immortal.

Talquist wanted no dynasty. He needed no heirs.

He wanted to live forever. He came over to the fragile woman and crouched down beside her. “Come now, Grandmother,” he said, his merchant’s voice as smooth as Canderian silk, “look beyond the fog and fragments of dreams that cloud your eyes, and tell me—has the raiding party been successful?” The mirrors in the Seer’s eyes reflected his face, her expression blank. Inwardly Talquist cursed. He had still not learned how to speak easily to her in the correct structure she needed to grasp his questions. Rhonwyn could only see the Present, and what he had asked required knowledge of the Past. He swallowed and tried again. “The raiding party of the Second Mountain Guard of Sorbold—is the Child of Time in their possession?” The ancient woman shook her head. Talquist exhaled. “Where is the raiding party now?” The Seer’s fleeting grip on the moment prior faded from her face before his eyes. “What raiding party?” He struggled to keep the seething anger out of his voice. “The raiding party of the Second Mountain Guard of Sorbold—where is it at this moment?” Rhonwyn ran her fingers, shaking with age, over the nautical instrument in her hands. “Forty-six, forty-eight North, two, twenty East,” she intoned. Talquist consulted the map on the wall. Those coordinates positioned his covert soldiers, disguised in the uniforms of common Roland cavalry, in the sparsely populated forest lands of eastern Navarne, less than a day’s journey from their intended target: a small keep in the western duchy of Navarne.

Haguefort.

“And the Child of Time?” Talquist pressed. “It is well?”

The Seer blinked, then closed her eyes again, basking in the reflected light of the sky. The regent clutched his hands into fists so tight that his neatly trimmed fingernails threatened to puncture the skin of his palms. It was all he could do to keep from seizing the compass and driving one of its sharp legs through the ancient Seer’s heart. He willed himself to be patient, as he always had to during these interviews. “Is the Child of Time in Haguefort well? Answer me.” Rhonwyn opened her eyes and looked at him while her hands manipulated the battered instrument. “I see no Child of Time in Haguefort.”

“What are you babbling about? A fortnight ago, your answer to my question ‘where is the Child of Time?’ was ‘in the forest of Gwynwood.’ Every day since then you have been giving me positions leading it back, unmistakably, to Haguefort. Yesterday, your very answer to my question was ‘Haguefort.’ If it’s not there, where is it?” The woman’s mouth quivered, but she said nothing. Black rage exploded behind Talquist’s eyes. His hand, unstayed by any rational thought, shot out and gripped the ancient Seer by the throat. Intellectually he knew the sacrilege he was committing, but his intellect was entirely overwhelmed by his frustration. The brittle bones of her ancient neck crackled in his clenched hands. The Seer gasped, her lips quivering with shock. The regent emperor loosed his grip, panting, and stepped away from the fragile woman. “Now, again, Rhonwyn,” he said through gritted teeth, “where is the Child of Time? Where is it?” Purple bruises appeared on the skinfolds below Rhonwyn’s chin, then quickly disappeared. She idly ran her hands over her neck, her face contorted with fear, which faded a moment later into the Past, replaced by serenity once more. “I see no Child of Time on the face of the Earth,” she said blithely. Then she leaned back in her chair and began to rock slowly again, her eyes closed in the warmth of the sun.

Talquist swallowed, and tried one more time. “You said the Child was with the Lord and Lady Cymrian each time I have asked you its whereabouts since its birth,” he said softly. “Is it still with them?”

“Is what still with whom?” The Seer’s face was blank, her tone without comprehension. A bitter taste filled Talquist’s mouth; after the span of a few heartbeats he realized it was the grist from his own clenched teeth. The dust of his molars was a foul reminder of the night he had stood before Rhonwyn’s sister Manwyn, the Seer of the Future, and had done a version of this same irritating dance, seething in silent frustration while the madwoman cackled and swung on her platform over a dark pit in her decaying temple in Yarim, tossing insane predictions into the incense-heavy air. Finally he had lost his patience and raised his crossbow, pointing it at her heart. Tell me, hag—or I will put an end to your ramblings. Answer my question—what must I do to achieve immortality? Who has the knowledge of how to live forever? The woman stopped as if frozen. Her mirrored eyes fixed upon him, and her thin mouth crooked into a half smile. She looked through the battered sextant that her explorer father had bequeathed to her at the stars glowing in the dark dome of her temple, then returned her blind gaze to him once again. You will not kill me, Emperor, she had said. The future holds no picture of my blood on your hands, though they will be red with that of countless others. Manwyn had laid down on her belly then, inching toward him on her suspended platform. If immortality is what you seek, you must find the Child of Time, She cackled, as if to herself. It sleeps now within the belly of its mother, but soon it will come out into the light and air of the world. And Time itself will have no dominion over it. Talquist swallowed the bitter grit, remembering how the breath had gone out of him as he lowered the bow. How will I learn immortality from this Child of Time? he had asked, his voice wavering. The Seer had sat bolt upright, as if suddenly struck. Her hands went to her mouth, trembling. Then she stretched out a shaking hand, and pointed at him accusingly. Murderer, she whispered, the golden skin of her face paling visibly in the dim light of the candles. Murderer. Murderer. Her voice rose to an even more insane pitch. Murderer! she began to shriek, until the word became a scream. Murderer, murderer! He had left her rotting temple then, the madwoman’s howls ringing in his ears. His spies reported that the guards of the Seer’s temple had shut the great cedar door into her chambers to the pilgrims who came seeking prophecies; rumor held that Manwyn had continued to scream nothing but the word murderer from that day on, night into day into night again. Talquist inhaled deeply, then bent down beside Rhonwyn once more. “One last time for today,” he said softly, his voice deathly calm, though his stomach was boiling. “Tell me the exact whereabouts of the Child of Time.” The Seer turned to face him and slowly opened her eyes. Talquist reared back in shock; each of the mirrored scleras contained, for the first time in his notice, a clear blue iris, its dark pupil contracting in the light of the setting afternoon sun. The Seer looked at him thoughtfully. “Right before you, I suppose,” she said steadily. “My sisters and I were often called by that name-—children of Time.” She broke her gaze away and looked out the window at the mountains beyond. “I remember, Anwyn,” she said quietly. Fury roared through Talquist so quickly that he did not even notice she had spoken in the past tense. He seized the back of her chair to steady himself and leaned close enough for his lips to brush her auburn hair where it faded to gray. “I’m not certain you can fathom, in your blithering state, what risks I have taken on your supposedly infallible word, what sacrifices I have made, m’lady,” he said acidly. “I sent soldiers into Roland ere I was ready to begin the assault, tipped my hand before I was ready. The Patriarch no doubt has learned of your disappearance by now, perhaps even your great-nephew, the Lord Cymrian, knows as well. The element of surprise is an arrow already off the string and away—this is your doing, Rhonwyn, as if you had given the order yourself.”

“Manwyn, the Present will be veiled,” the Seer whispered, staring into the sun. “No more will you see me when you search the skies of the Future— farewell, sister.” Something black broke within the Emperor Presumptive. He seized the brittle woman by the back of her neck and arm and, without thinking twice, hurled the ancient prophetess out the window of the parapet, past the courtyard and into the chasm below. Her scream followed her down by a split second, frightening the roosting swallows that had perched in the hollows of the castle’s stone, sending them fluttering skyward in a great white and gray rush. Talquist rose to his feet shakily, his control returning, and stood at the window, staring down into the all-but-bottomless crevasse. He looked for any sign of the mythic woman, listened for any sound that portended the survival of one of the three daughters of Fate, but heard nothing save the whine of the wind racing through the canyon, bringing dust in great scattering swirls to the stones of the courtyard. He contemplated the loss to the lore of the world that he had just delivered. “I had always heard that Time flies,” he said. “Oh, well.” Boot steps thundered up the steps. Talquist turned idly to see his chamber guards, followed a moment later by his puffing chamberlain, appear at the top of the stairs. “Are—are you all right, m’lord?” the chamberlain inquired between breaths. “Never better,” Talquist said. He looked out the window into the depths of the chasm once more. “The commander of the imperial army is awaiting your pleasure in your antechamber, m’lord. He says you summoned him, but that I was not to disturb you if you were not ready for him.”

“Send him in.” The chamberlain hesitated. “Are you certain, m’lord? He is happy to wait if his presence is an imposition. Commander Fhremus doesn’t wish to interrupt your work.” Talquist smiled. “Not at all,” he said as he headed for the stairs. “He’s interrupting nothing; I was just killing Time.”

Far across the continent, on the other side of the Krevensfield Plain, deep within her smoldering temple of splashing fountains and decaying tapestries, the Seer of the Future ceased wailing. For more than five months she had been keening without ceasing, howling away in her insanity. The pilgrims who occasionally had sought her advice had long stopped coming to her great carved door; no gold coins had been dropped in the offering box. Even the guards had left, being unable to bear the nightmarish sound any longer. Now, with the murder she had foreseen accomplished, her sister’s very existence forgotten, the clouds within her mind dissipated. Manwyn sat slowly up on the swinging platform above the deep well in her temple; her gaze returned to the heavens painted on the dome above her. And softly began to sing to herself a song of madness once again.