James West - The God King

After facing Peropis, Kian almost laughed aloud at that pathetic threat. Instead, he studied the man before him. From Sharaal’s shoulders hung a thick, green woolen cloak edged in clothe-of-gold, and from head-to-foot he wore leathers trimmed in sable. He looked like a northern huntsman. His dark top-lock was shot through with the first streaks of iron gray, and was held in place by a leather thong.

“Your son is dead,” Kian said flatly, “and likely dancing to the tune of Peropis herself.” His companions shifted at this, but none betrayed that they knew Kian’s words to be as true as any ever spoken.

“My sons died on the mountain,” Sharaal corrected icily. “Varis, the shame of my loins, died to me when he slaughtered my father, thinking to raise himself to the Ivory Throne. Where is the traitor’s corpse?”

Kian nodded to the charred husk curled amid a rectangle of ashes where the table had stood, just at the place where Peropis’s portal to the Thousand Hells had been.

Sharaal gazed on the blackened shape and the heaped ash, his hard features quizzical. “How did this happen?”

“The Blood of Attandaeus,” Kian said promptly, “the Nectar of Judgment.”

The words were out of his mouth before he had time to consider them, having come from the memory of seeing Hya sprinkling dark red crystals around the wicks of her candles. He was not sure why he did not simply tell what had happened, the whole of it, beginning with the lost temple in the marshes, to Varis freeing of demons into the world, and lastly about the powers of creation his son had stolen for himself. All he knew was that the lie was out, and that he felt disinclined to reveal the truth to this man. Such instincts had saved his skin before, and he relied on them now.

“By blood or by water, by oil or by wine,” Kian explained further, “all liquids set the substance alight. In quantity, it burns through flesh or iron, and nothing will smother the flames before the substance is spent.”

Sharaal considered this. “Such must have been the way of my father’s murder,” he said quietly. Then, unexpectedly, he burst out laughing. “To hear it told, the usurper used some manner of otherworldly witchcraft . There was even rumor that he had raised an army in the west! Fools will believe anything,” he added, suggesting he had never believed anything of the sort. He turned a shrewd eye on Kian. “Tell me, Izutarian, how you came to be here, and why ?”

Still untrusting of this new king, Kian doled out a measure of truth generously mingled with deceit. “It was I and my company whom Varis employed to take him west, across the Kaliayth. Apparently the youth had read something,” he said vaguely, “about a secret substance that could change the face of the world. As it happens, he found it on that journey. I only regret that his intentions were dishonorable.”

Sharaal nodded. “Ever was Varis studious,” he said, forgetting for the moment that he had disowned his treacherous son. “Where his brothers found pleasures in the hunt and pleasuring themselves with maidens, Varis spent his day deep in the Hall of Wisdom, reading … always reading. Little did any of us know he was plotting evil as well.” His eyes grew hard again. “Still, that does not tell me why you are here.”

“After the prince slaughtered most of my company,” Kian said simply, “I followed him here, hoping to give warning to the Ivory Throne of his intentions, which he boasted of after attacking my men. As you well know, I was too late in bringing my warning. In the end, I faced Varis here-and here, his weapon turned on him.”

Sharaal considered that for a time. “As a rule, I should order your execution for threatening a member of my House … yet, as I have said, my son died to me in his betrayal. That he perished by his own traitorous hand further absolves you of any guilt, and proves that the gods, though they hang scorched in the heavens, still mind the affairs of men.”

No one responded to this, and most studied their feet.

Of a sudden, Sharaal’s features took on a greedy aspect. “Of this substance, Izutarian, this Nectar of Judgment , I do not suppose there is any left or, perhaps, the means to make it?”

Kian’s mind swam backward, recalling Hya’s words, “… imagine if you will, an ambitious and cruel man gaining this knowledge and using it for war. There would be no stopping him. ‘Tis better the secret of its making dies with me, than to sell it and swim in gold tainted by the blood of innocents-or ashes, as it were.” While Kian had never doubted Hya’s wisdom, he had not expected so soon to come across another man as ambitious as Varis. As for Sharaal’s possible cruelty, he could only assume that the potential was there, until he knew otherwise. Either way, to reveal where the substance had really come from would destroy his story and jeopardize Hya. Besides that, his false tale needed to become accepted truth.

Still looking on Sharaal, he also considered Peropis’s words to him. “A new age has dawned, an age of power, of darkness and light,” she had warned. A small, quiet voice in the deepest reaches of his mind warned that a darkness unlike mankind had ever known was falling, and all that had happened since Varis stole the powers of deceased gods and released the inhabitants of the Thousand Hells was but the beginning of an age of trouble….

Kian held his hands apart and shrugged. “Alas, I have no idea where Varis gained that dreadful substance, nor the means to create it. I was but a humble servant in his employ, and not given to questioning His Highness.”

Sharaal gusted a weary breath. “It is of no matter,” he said in a regretful tone that suggested otherwise, and turned on his heel. With all the regality of one bred to rule, he climbed the dais and sat upon the Ivory Throne, not reverently, as might have been expected, but as one who has long since grown impatient for the day of his rule to begin.

The soldiers of the Crimson Scorpion legion bent their knees and bowed their heads. Kian and the others were slower to show honor, but a sense of self-preservation swept over them, and they knelt as well.

“Rise and receive your just rewards, Izutarian,” Sharaal intoned, sounding bored. That he had freed his city of his disloyal son’s rule, or that his father was dead, or that Ammathor was still besieged by despair and lawlessness, seemed to have no place in his heart.

Kian rose and stood straight and tall, unsure what the Aradan’s newest king might offer. Sharaal held his fingers near his face, idly studying the nails. “Rewards for loyalty to the crown often involve titles and holdings … but the world has changed, grown darker and, of course, you are a northern barbarian. However, gold is desirable to both highborn and to rabble, and so you will have it in good measure. Enough, I dare say, to buy a kingdom of your own in Izutar.”

Kian bowed his head in acceptance, noting that the suggestion of buying a kingdom sounded more like a command that he leave Aradan with all haste. That, he concluded, was fine by him. His opinion of the kingdom had not grown higher over the last grueling season.

Sharaal proved Kian’s assumption correct when he looked up from his fingernails. “You may enjoy the palace this night, and refit on the morrow. Your immediate needs will, of course, be seen too. After that, I expect you and your companions to depart.” With that, the king of Aradan waved the small company out of his presence.

All too happy to oblige, Kian gathered his companions and departed the Golden Hall. He fully intended to depart Ammathor sooner rather than later, with or without the king’s promises. His intentions proved futile.