Michael Stackpole - The New World

“Yes, that must be done.” Nelesquin reached over and pulled a blanket around himself. “I pray the search will not take much time.”

“I imagine we shall find it directly. I shall perfect a spell to find it, though my lord’s precautions have not made that simple.”

Nelesquin snorted. “But they were necessary. You successfully severed my soul from my body.”

Kaerinus nodded. “I bound it into a ruby.”

“And you passed it to another who bound it into something else, and he passed it to yet another.”

The slender vanyesh tugged on the ends of his emerald sash. “And so on, through a half dozen, all of them slain afterward. Their deaths kept your soul safe.”

“But we know it is in Moriande. This much I can feel.” Nelesquin stood and rubbed a hand over his beard. “The taking of Moriande will accomplish two things. My Empire will be reunified, and I shall be reunified. Then even the gods will tremble.”

Kaerinus bowed his head. “I have no doubt they tremble even now, my lord.”

“Flattery does not become you, Kaerinus. You were not a flatterer when I knew you before.”

“I have spent much time alone, Highness, and have practiced flattering myself.” The xingnaridin smiled. “I do not know why your spells did not affect you on Anturasixan, but I suspect it is because, in that place, the rules governing death were blunted. It allowed you to escape from the Underworld.”

“You’re doubtlessly correct. The sooner we take Moriande the better.”

The blanket slipped from Nelesquin’s naked body. He shuffled across to the wooden stand from which hung his golden skeleton. It, naturally, stood almost as tall as he did. He turned and pressed his back to it. The cool metal chilled his flesh, then he invoked a spell.

The metal warmed and the skeleton flowed onto his flesh. The heavy bones split, armoring shin and thigh, forearm and upper arm, with their halves up and back. Thin gold bands linked them at three points, holding them in place. Golden ribs plated his chest, and vertebrae thinned into overlapping strips covering his spine. Where collarbones joined they pooled into a gorget and below the pelvis covered his genitalia. Gold gauntlets warded his hands and the entire skeleton took on a supple vitality that supported him even when he felt weak.

“It would not do for them to know I suffer.”

Kaerinus shook his head. “It might dishearten them.”

Nelesquin laughed shortly. “Not my Durrani. Nothing could take the fight out of them. No, I meant my enemies. Imagine how Soshir would laugh at my infirmity.”

“He would laugh at his peril.” Kaerinus brought a hand up and a black-and-green butterfly picked its way over his knuckles. He watched it for a moment, then smiled. “There is news, my lord. The Anturasi arrived last night.”

Nelesquin drew a robe on and belted it quickly. “Why was I not informed?”

“None of us noticed.” Kaerinus pulled the curtain aside, then sped ahead of Nelesquin to open the tent flap. “When I awakened, I found this.”

South of the army camp on a hilltop-a hill that had not existed when they had made camp-a pavilion had been erected. It dwarfed Nelesquin’s tent, and appeared to be made of granite. This feat was rendered even more remarkable by the fact that the walls fluttered in the light breeze.

“This could be a problem.” Nelesquin’s expression darkened. “I had not expected Qiro to follow me, and I certainly had not expected his power to come with him. In fact, when I left him on Anturasixan, he was a broken old man.”

“No more so.”

“Agreed.” Nelesquin looked around. “Wasn’t there a Durrani regiment camped on that spot?”

“I believe there was. The Sun Bears. They have been moved to the other side of Count Vroan’s Free Naleni Battalion. Better you had spared Pyrust, I think.”

“Pyrust’s eventual rebellion would have been dangerous. Vroan will die in the first wave we throw at Moriande.”

Kaerinus smiled. “I have little doubt Pyrust intended him to die at Tsengui, my lord.”

“But Pyrust also thought Vroan had more than mere political value. I do not labor under such an illusion.” Nelesquin straightened his scarlet robe. “Shall we see what the Anturasi desires?”

Kaerinus’ butterfly preceded them, riding nearly imperceptible breezes like a tiny ship on a storm-tossed sea. The pair threaded their way through the endless rows of tents. They’d been gathered beneath their unit standards, with slit trenches dug to the east and water drawn from streams to the west. Smoke from cookfires created a low haze hiding some of the more-distant tents, and Nelesquin enjoyed the fact that his army was so vast he could not easily see from one end to the other.

Qiro’s hill did provide him more perspective, and that pleased him. In addition to his Durrani troops, he had levies from the Five Princes and mercenary companies joining him. New groups came on in the army’s wake and, to the south, an encampment swelled with those who habitually follow armies.

The question of how to announce himself was rendered moot when the stone flaps slid apart like theater curtains. Guttering torches illuminated a spare interior that appeared, at first, devoid of luxury. The grass underfoot, however, grew thickly and was of no native variety. Flowers blossomed, though hidden in the shadows of stone folds. Two dwarf trees had grown and bore fruit-though on one tree the fruit came in the shape of roasted capons.

Qiro, wearing a white robe featuring a simple gold circle as a crest, bowed his head in greeting. “Your visit pleases me to no end, Highness.”

Nelesquin smiled, hoping Qiro’s good mood would last. “You have no idea how much your joining us pleases me, Master Anturasi. You should have informed us of your arrival.”

“I did not wish to disturb your rest, Highness.”

“You must have news. Have you prepared another womb-land to breed more of my creatures?”

Qiro nodded, but his white brows contracted in a frown. “It was not easy. I cannot bring them to maturity rapidly.”

“How can that be?”

Qiro shrugged dismissively. “You know the nature of magic, Highness. Anturasixan was a place of my creation, so I was the supreme master there. What I wished to happen, did happen. Here, there is a complication. You see, in Moriande, in my tower, I created a map of the world. It was exacting in every detail. I created it with jaedun, before I realized what I was doing. It has become an artifact of great magical power. It is a focus of power, even, and it limits me.”

“It did not limit you splitting Helosunde and Nalenyr. I saw you do that digging your heel through mud.”

“True, Highness, but it is because no one else understood my map and its significance.” Qiro plucked an orange fruit from the other tree and sank long fingernails into it. “It seems that someone who does understand has studied it. Before, it was completely mutable. Now, with another in possession of it, my control is not absolute.”

“You are powerless because of a map in Moriande?”

“Powerless?” Qiro bounced a piece of the rind off Nelesquin’s chest. “Was this hill here yesterday? No? Will it be tomorrow? Only if I will it to be. I have power beyond your wildest dreams. And the meddler will know my power, my wrath.”

Nelesquin plucked a bit of white rind from his breast, sniffed it, then cast it aside. Their gazes met: Qiro’s, angry and resolute; Nelesquin’s so very cold. It would have been the work of a heartbeat to cross the room and snap Qiro’s neck, but Nelesquin needed him still.

“Master Anturasi, when I ask you a question, it is not done to embarrass you, but rather as a solicitation of information. If another’s possession of this map causes difficulties, then I shall take all steps necessary to remove the obstacle. Now, you have said this map is in your tower in Moriande. We must not destroy the building then, correct?”