The New World

Chapter Three

4th day, Month of the Hawk, Year of the Rat

Last Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

737th Year since the Cataclysm

Wentokikun, Moriande

Nalenyr

Prince Pyrust of Deseirion wanted to laugh. There he stood, nine steps from the Naleni Dragon Throne. Prince Cyron, having lost half an arm to an assassin, sat there waiting to die. Yet, at the other end of the red strip of carpet running to the throne room’s doorway, a small, dark-haired courtesan known throughout the Nine as the Lady of Jet and Jade had just commanded Pyrust not to kill Cyron.

The Desei Prince shook his head. “Beautiful and yet insane.” He smiled at Cyron, stepping closer. “She’ll not outlive you by much.”

Cyron did not reply. He just stared past Pyrust, at the Lady of Jet and Jade, his eyes already glassy as if he were dead. Still, his nostrils flared with a heavy, irregular breath.

Pyrust intended to take another step forward, and another. With one strong blow he would decapitate his enemy. His sword would so swiftly pass through the man’s neck that his head would remain in place until a bloody geyser vaulted it into the air. The head would land on the carpet, rolling to his feet, eyes staring up at him from a blood-dappled face. Then his greatest enemy would be dead, and Nalenyr would be his.

He sensed her at his elbow before she spoke. “Nalenyr will never be yours, Pyrust.”

She had advanced silently and stood within striking distance. “You think it a rival nation, but it is merely another province in my Empire. I deny you the right to slay my provincial governor.”

Pyrust spun, his sword poised to strike. “Prattle on about being Empress all you like, but it shall save neither you nor him. I am not a simpleton to believe in wishful tales. There is no protective matriarch who will return to save us.”

The Lady of Jet and Jade smiled beguilingly. The courtesan’s hand came up slowly, twisting, fingers opening as a lotus might blossom. The seductive gesture captivated him with its delicate ease. Then, there she was, right up against him, inside his guard. Her other hand rose up his rain-splashed breastplate and caressed his cheek.

Heat flashed through him, rising to his face. Sweat condensed on his brow and spilled down to burn his eyes. He remembered the sensation from his last coupling with his wife, Jasai. In the heat of passion he had gotten a child on her. The pleasure had filled him with warmth and peace.

Just as I feel now.

“No!” Pyrust went to shove the woman away, but she danced beyond his reach. He stepped toward her, but his left leg weakened and buckled. He went to a knee and a hand, still managing to keep his sword off the carpet. He tried to rise, but his right leg failed as well. He struggled to lift his head, then found himself on his knees before the Dragon Throne-a position he had imagined only in his worst nightmares.

His only solace was that Cyron, too, stared unbelieving at the courtesan. Had he moved, had he lifted his sword, Pyrust would have been at his mercy. The Desei Prince’s limbs trembled uncontrollably.

The Lady of Jet and Jade bowed to both of them. “You have my sincere apologies for the fraud I have perpetrated. Since my return from Ixyll eons ago, I have known many leaders. You have given me the most hope-and caused me the greatest fear.”

Cyron slowly shook his head. “It is not possible. You are not the Cyrsa of legend. You cannot be.”

The woman smiled warmly, and yet with a superior air that almost made Pyrust believe her story. “Would this be because Cyrsa was the warrior empress who led the expedition to destroy the Turasynd?”

Both men remained mute, which drew a quiet laugh from her. “History remembers me as it does because I have spent a great deal of money bribing minstrels, storytellers, and playwrights to present me as a warrior worthy of the Keru. Many know that I was but a Pleasure Wife to the last Emperor; but since I led an army, they assume I had military training. But I was never a warrior, only a courtesan who was given to the Emperor to distract him. He dithered when decisiveness was needed to save the Empire, so I acted to save it myself.”

Pyrust frowned. “Then you would be over seven hundred years old…”

“Closer to eight hundred, though I think the time I slept in Ixyll has not been counted against me.” She brought her hands together at her waist. “I am a Mystic. Mastery of my arts has conferred upon me the customary longevity. You, Prince Pyrust, have had a mild taste of what my magic allows me to do.”

Pyrust nodded slowly. He had not had an orgasm when she touched him, but his body responded as if it had. The intense pleasure, the exhaustion leaving him so weak he could not stand, the clues were all there. It was as if, with a simple caress, she could reawaken sensations to leave him sated.

Helpless.

He looked up at her. “You could have killed me, couldn’t you?”

“Far more pleasantly than your Mother of Shadows harvests her victims, yes.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Cyrsa smiled. “It has never been my way to destroy assets which are useful to the Empire. My Empire.” She looked past him to Cyron. “Prince Cyron has informed me of the situation in Erumvirine. The invaders, whoever they are, have likely taken Kelewan. From there, they can either strike south at the Five Princes, or north. But I have a feeling they’ve attacked in both directions and suffered for it.”

The Desei Prince frowned. “Is their host that great?”

“I do not know, but the ego of their leader certainly is.”

Cyron shook off some of his lethargy. “Who leads them?”

The Lady of Jet and Jade’s face closed. “Prince Nelesquin.”

“The vanyesh leader?” Pyrust weakly rubbed his half hand over his forehead. “He died in Ixyll.”

“He did. I saw to it that he was entombed in the Wastes. Then the survivors and I-who had been bathed in so much wild magic that the miracles the vanyesh performed were as conjurers’ tricks to us-retreated and built a sanctuary. We raised Voraxan with magic so the power could drain from within us. We did not wholly succeed and could not return here lest we destroy the Empire we fought to save.

“We slept, in shifts, and some of us went out on patrols. I was awakened and taken to Nelesquin’s tomb.” Her eyes focused distantly as she spoke. “It had been fashioned of black basalt and was flawless. We wrapped stone around it like thorned ivy. You could not look upon it and see it as anything but a fell place, a lair of vipers and poison. We hoped any who ventured into the Wastes would shun it.”

Pyrust shivered, her words painting pictures in his mind of a dark place, twisted and obscene. The angles warped, the decorations grotesque and terrifying. There could be no mistaking the foul nature of what lurked behind those walls.

“But what we found rekindled terror in our hearts. Nelesquin had come on the expedition, bringing his vanyesh with him, but it was never his intent to save the Empire. His goal was to have the Turasynd and the Imperial heroes destroy one another. He had anticipated the Cataclysm and wanted his vanyesh to harvest the power. Then they would return to strengthen the Empire into a machine that would enable them to conquer the known world.

“And there, at his tomb, we found his ambitions had not died with him. His tomb had been burst open, from within.” She stared at them intently. The chill running down Pyrust’s spine tightened his bowels. “None of us had believed he would have the power to return from the dead. Apparently he did.”

Cyron shifted slowly in his throne. “And this was when you returned to watch and wait. You built up your network of spies to alert you to his return.”

“I had no choice.”

The Desei Prince came up on one knee. “If you feared his return, why did you not work to reunite the Empire? As separate nations, we are at a disadvantage.”

“I did not know how he would return. He might just as easily usurp a provincial throne as the Imperial throne. By maintaining the split, I denied him a significant power base. He, alas, found one elsewhere.”

Cyron sighed exhaustedly. “Anturasixan.”

She nodded. “I feared that to be the truth when you mentioned it to me.”

“What are you talking about?” Pyrust looked from one to the other. “A land named after your cartographers? Did the Stormwolf expedition discover it?”

“No.” Cyron’s eyes narrowed. “Qiro Anturasi, it would appear, was able to achieve magic. He is a Mystic and, in the wake of his granddaughter’s slaughter at the hands of a madman, Qiro lost his grip on sanity. He created a map with a continent drawn in his blood. He called it Anturasixan. The map warns ‘Here there be monsters.’ I fear that if the Stormwolf expedition did find it, they were destroyed there.”

Blood drained from Pyrust’s face, but he forced himself to his feet. “He has a continent to breed an army? How large is it?”

“A quarter of our landmass.” Cyron looked off in the direction of Anturasikun. “I will show you the map, if I live that long.”

The Empress shook her head. “There will be no killing. I need you both. Either one of you could have reunited the Empire. One by the sword, the other by gold. Prince Cyron, you have described Prince Pyrust as a wolf. That he is-ruthless and implacable. He may even be a match for Nelesquin in that.”

Pyrust did not smile, determined not to reveal her flattery’s effect on him. He could not be certain if the pleasure he felt was because of her magic, or the truth in her words. Either way, she was correct: two steps and he could still harvest Cyron’s head, making Nalenyr his.

“And you, Prince Pyrust, you have rightly feared Prince Cyron’s domesticating influence on you and your nation. Had the invasion not weakened Nalenyr, you would have been kept at bay indefinitely. Another disastrous harvest would have crippled Deseirion. Your nation would have become a Naleni client state. Soon thereafter, the other nations would have joined you, all bound with golden chains.”

Pyrust would have bristled, save that Cyron appeared to take no pleasure in her assessment. But what she said might well have been true. With Helosunde as a buffer between them, and its Council of Ministers willing to fight a proxy war, Nalenyr would have been ascendant.

So close. Pyrust slid his sword back into its scabbard, then stooped and recovered the lacquered wooden scabbard for Cyron’s blade. “You need us both how?”

She smiled. “You each have your talents. You, Pyrust, will be my warlord. Naleni troops will march with your Desei warriors to destroy the invaders. You will crush Nelesquin.”

Pyrust cocked an eyebrow. “And I leave my brother here to consolidate our nations with himself on the throne?”

“You forget, it is my throne, and I would have neither of you upon it. Political affairs I can deal with easily enough, but Cyron has special talents.”

Cyron coughed lightly. “I fear, Empress, I will be of scant use to you in my condition.”

“You will get better, I am certain.” She crossed to him, accepting the scabbard from Pyrust, then freeing the sword from Cyron’s hand and sheathing it. “You have never been a warrior, but your grasp of logistics is superior. This war will require as much organization as the Turasynd expedition, maybe more. Logistics were never Nelesquin’s strong suit, and I mean to use that against him.”

Cyrsa pointed the Naleni blade at Pyrust. “So you shall fight my war, and Cyron will enable you to fight it.”

Pyrust’s eyes narrowed as he looked past her to Cyron. The man still slumped in his throne, looking like an ashen-faced child trapped in an adult’s armor. His gray pallor and the blood seeping through the bandages on his arm’s stump suggested he was finished. And yet, in his light blue eyes, there now burned a spark, dispelling any notion that he was going to die of his wounds. He would survive.

He will thrive.

Pyrust nodded slowly. All his life he had prided himself on his heritage. The Desei had done so much with so little. He’d always wondered what he could do if given a tenth of his enemy’s resources.

The Desei Prince rested a hand on his sword’s hilt. “I have but one question for you, Empress.”

“Please.”

“You said before that you arranged for Nelesquin’s demise. That he was a threat to you. How do I know that you do not see me the same way?”

Her eyes hardened, becoming at once cold and ancient. “I do see you as a threat. If I didn’t, I’d not pit you against Nelesquin. If you were not a threat you’d have no hope of defeating him.”

She leveled the sheathed blade at his heart. “You are a man of ambition. So is Nelesquin. I pit your ambition against his. When you succeed, you will be rewarded. Greatly rewarded, both of you.”

“There cannot be two emperors.”

“As long as I am alive, there may never be one.” Her eyes softened. “But destroy this threat to my empire, and many possibilities may make themselves known.”