Seven Princes

21

The streets of Udurum were lined with snowdrifts. The main thoroughfares were trampled flat by the steady traffic of boots, hooves, carts, and wagons. The roofs of houses and stables lay under blankets of white, and an unsettling quiet filled the city. The rumbling laughter of Giants was gone. The clomping of their feet on the cobbles, the deep honey of their voices, their ribald drinking songs… all these were missing. The towering homes of the Uduru, longhouses built of Uyga logs and basalt blocks, all stood empty, windows filled with darkness. Even in the glare of pale sunlight, Udurum wore a mantle of gloom.

Sharadza walked past a mounted guardsman on his rounds, a seller of dried fruits hauling his wares in a cart, and a group of children playing at war among mounds of snow. She skirted the Market Plaza. Business was sluggish there without the great appetites of the Uduru, who usually bought up most of the produce and livestock. A herdsman led a dozen goats from the plaza, heading back into the countryside. His face, like the rest of the men and women she passed, was solemn. The heart of their city had ceased its thumping. Without the twelve hundred or so Giants that augmented its populace, there was little to separate Udurum from any other town or village. Except its great walls, tremendous palace, and those massive, tenant-less buildings.

She wondered how the coming war would affect these people. The best and strongest would join the legions, inspired by tales of war and conquest, the “glory” that all Men worshipped, but that existed only in stories. It was lies that fueled wars. More sages than Therokles had documented the horrors of actual warfare and its terrible cost to those who had nothing to do with the fighting. Men were like those children in the street throwing snowballs – eager to rush off into the misty depths of legend because they had no real understanding of where they were going. Even her own brother Vireon was caught up in the illusion.

She remembered Tadarus and him as young boys dreaming of battles and victories… studying their swords and shields as she studied the books and scrolls of the world’s great thinkers. Fangodrel had been more like her, interested in scholarly pursuits. They called him “book lover” and laughed at him. Another reason for him to hate his brothers. As distant and cold to her as Fangodheisarldrel was, she still had loved him. Now that she knew they shared only a mother, the loss of him felt no less painful. But what she truly feared is that Fangodrel, bolstered by the might of Khyrei, would kill Vireon as he had killed Tadarus. The two were destined to meet, and one would die. Fangodrel had murdered Tadarus, so he must pay the price. She would mourn him when that day came, as she mourned Tadarus even now. And she would aid Vireon, her true brother, if she could.

Selfish, to be thinking of my own loss at such a time. This war will destroy thousands of families – brothers, fathers, cousins – women and children. The stakes were too great to fixate on the blood feud between Vireon and Fangodrel.

The sign of the Molten Sparrow hung from its usual doorjamb, on a street of taverns quiet as a row of tombs. A stray dog rooted through garbage in the alley, the only visible client of the larger establishments, which had catered mainly to Uduru. The Sparrow might actually pick up some business; it was too small for Giant patrons anyway.

She entered the common room, where bags of onions and empty wine bottles hung from the rafters. The smell here was not as bad as she remembered… a hint of spilled ale, smoke, and roasted mutton. A half-dozen Men with downcast faces – likely unemployed since the Giants’ exodus – sat about the scattered tables nursing mugs of brown ale. Fellow sat at his usual place, a booth in the rear corner where he could look across the room and see everyone who came and went. He drank wine from a copper goblet, a bottle sitting half-drained at his elbow. His eyes turned toward her the moment she entered the torchlight. Despite his familiar smile, he was not Fellow at all… but Iardu the Shaper… a sorcerer and a legend.

She did not return his smile.

“Arthus, bring your finest goblet for the Princess,” Fellow called to the tavern keeper.

The robust host noticed for the first time that a royal personage had entered his very own house. “Right away, Majesty!” He addressed Sharadza, not Fellow, and almost cracked his skull against the bar with an awkward bow.

Sharadza held her hand in his direction. “Save it,” she said, not unkindly. “I did not come here to drink.” She sat herself down across the table from Fellow.

“How was your… expedition?” he asked.

“Fruitful,” she said. “I managed to bring his bones home.”

He nodded, as if confirming what he already knew. Vod was truly dead. “You know about Tadarus…”

“I know about everything,” she said.

“That is quite an accomplishment.” He smiled drunkenly.

“How much have you drunk, Iardu?” she asked.

“Shhhhh,” he urged her. “My name is Fellow, remember?”

She ran her tongue along the front of her upper teeth. Of all the times for him to be drunk…

“The Gia"3" rannts have left us,” he said, feigning heartbreak. “The grand experiment is over. They’ve gone to seek blue-skinned wives and have cold-blooded little babies.”

“Listen to me,” she said, leaning closer to him. She closed the booth’s stained curtain so the owner and his meager clientele would stop staring. “I know how you used my father for your own selfish ends. I know how you betrayed Indreyah, and how it gained you nothing. I know you have tried to use me as you used Vod. But I do not condemn you for any of this.”

“What else do you know, child?” he asked, pouring dark wine into his cup.

“I suspect…” she said, “that it was you who stole the baby Vod from his parents before the fall of Old Udurum. You who gave him to that human couple to raise.”

Fellow smiled. “You have learned a few things from me… a few things only. Did I not ask you to stay and learn more? Did I not?”

“Focus,” she told him, taking the goblet from his hand. He watched it move down the table but made no attempt to grab for it. “Listen to me. Do you know there is a war brewing? Vireon, Andoses, and three other Princes are making an alliance with Mumbaza as we speak. My mother plans to lead her legions to join Dairon’s. They will march to Shar Dni, and together they will invade Khyrei. They even plot a rebellion in Yaskatha.”

Fellow nodded and sighed. “War is a season like any other… a sad season, yes, but it has its day…”

“Tell me what you know of this Ianthe the Claw, and this Elhathym who commands the dead.”

His wrinkled eyes narrowed, looking beyond the walls of the tavern. “She is old…” he said. “Old as I am… and she remembers. He is… older than either of us.” Then his voice fell to a gentle whisper. “He has come back from the void… taken a man’s form again… after millennia. She brought him back.”

“They are of the Old Breed,” Sharadza said. “I knew it.”

“More fearsome than their considerable legions is their sorcery,” he said. “Men cannot stand against such dark powers. They have traveled the Outer Worlds… breached the realms of Living and Dead… and the elements are their playthings. The Dwellers in Shadow serve them – ghosts, demons, wraiths… and worse things.”

“You made my father into the Giant-King,” she said. “You shaped his life so that he would be both Man and Giant. You tried to stop Ianthe, didn’t you? You tried to balance the world by giving it Vod of the Storms. And for a while it worked…”

He stared into her face, grinning without pleasure. “Nothing lasts, child. Not in this world.”

“What about you? You have lasted. You wanted Vod to do what you feared to. Now you have a second chance. Come with me. Help me destroy her. And him… both of them. Before it’s too late.”

His face soured. “It is already too late,” he said. “You have seen the patterns. The patterns never change. Though I tried and tried… anm back. they never change.”

“What do you mean? You have re-shaped the world again and again. You have changed the patterns.”

“No,” he said. “I’ve only complicated them. Added a tiny flourish here or there. The river flows on. I stand on the shore making ripples with stones.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Give me that wine,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

Reluctantly she handed him the full goblet. He poured half its contents onto the oaken table. It spread into a dark puddle, the color of half-dried blood. He stirred it with his forefinger.

“Look…” he said, his eyes growing large.

She stared at the puddle. The light of the table’s candle flickered there, danced, and begain to swirl. The reflected flame broke into a tiny flood of colors, and visions danced on the surface of the wine.

An ancient plain, dotted with the raging fires of war. Shaggy men rush upon each other with stone axes, clubs, and their own gnashing fangs. Blood spills like rain across the blackened earth. Women flee from savage oppressors, brought down like forest deer. Children perish like blossoms trampled beneath the feet of red-handed primitives. Along the horizon, strange piles of stone rise toward the moon, the early temples of some dark God.

The scene shifts to another plain, outside a walled city. Men with spears, swords, and axes, armored in leather and bone, tear each other to bits. Torn standards droop from poles driven deep into the ground. The gates of the city collapse inward and the blood-mad conquerors rush inside, spilling the guts of defenders, pulling women and children from stone huts and setting fire to gardens. The red sky mirrors the flames devouring the streets, and piles of severed heads rise in the central plaza.

The colors diverge, cascade, and blend into a new dream. Two armies clash along a river; it runs red with their blood. The men ride horses now, and wrap their bodies in plates of bronze, fantastic helms perched on their heads. They impale one another, hack off limbs, open bellies and split skulls like melons. Their flags whip furiously in the wind, and their generals watch from distant hills, ordering more men to their deaths. A village burns nearby, scattered with blackened corpses. Some are tiny.

Flames consume the vision, giving birth to a new one. A tall proud city built of marble, jade, and crystal. Along the perfection of its streets, red war flows like a tide of disease, invaders cutting down the white-robed citizens and once more bringing the scourge of fire. Groves of divine beauty become the killing grounds of a wizened people; children twitch on the end of lances; warriors toss women between them like blood-soaked trophies of silk and skin; a vast library holding the knowledge and histories of eons goes up in flames while the gauntlets of men rip the living hearts from their enemies.

“Enough!” Sharadza cried out. “Stop it!”

Iardu wiped away the wine with the edge of his sleeve, and the vision with it.

Tears ran along her numb cheeks, and she looked at him stunned and wordless.

“You see?” he said.

“Why did you show me those horrors?” She wiped at her eyes. She was tired of weeping.

“Sharadza, dear girl… I have spent thousands of years trying to cure men of this disease that afflicts them. This thing they call war. They worship it even above their own gods. It dwells within them, girl. It is part of their inherent nature. I have educated them… inspired them… terrified them. I have re-shaped their kingdoms and their religions. I have even re-shaped their bodies into a multitude of diverse forms. Still this pattern emerges. It is who they are.”

“I don’t believe it,” she said.

“Even the blue-skinned Udvorg in their isolated kingdom engage in bloody tribal feuds. War is a part of human nature – they are made to slaughter themselves periodically. I no longer have any hope that I can prevent it. Or that I even should.”

“When did you give up, Iardu? When did you stop trying to re-shape the world? You made Vod. You shaped him so he could build the City of Men and Giants.”

“I made giants… out of men long, long ago.”

“And later you re-united them. You are still shaping the world. You re-shaped me.”

He grunted. “You are not the world, Sharadza. You are only one lovely girl.”

“ The part is the whole,” she reminded him. “ There can be no separation.”

Now he smiled at her, his eyes red and swollen. His head fell back against the booth wall.

“How can you be so blind to your own teachings?” she said. “When you change one person… one being… one life, you change everything.”

“And nothing.”

“ All is One… There can be no distinctions. Success and failure are illusions. You taught me to reject duality. Whatever victories or defeats you have endured in the past do not matter. The only question before you now is, will you help me?”

He stared at her, a new expression in his old man’s face. Or maybe one she had simply never noticed before. Was it… love?

He sighed and drank the last of his wine in three large gulps.

Now Fellow was gone and Iardu sat across the table. His face looked far younger than Fellow’s, and his eyes were flares of prismatic light, unable to settle on a single color. His pointed beard was short and silver-gray, as was his mustache. A robe of orange-red silk hung upon his narrow frame, and on his chest a living blue flame danced without heat, strung like a burning sapphire from a silver neck-chain. He was handsome in an ageless way, his gold-brown skin inhumanly smooth. Rings of ruby and emerald lined his fingers; his nails shined white as pearls. His 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.”