John Fultz - Seven Kings

“As it blinds your brother,” said Ramiyah. He watched as attendants finished dressing her in a gown of green silk trimmed with white roses. She added silver accoutrements chosen carefully from a coffer of jade. She would not wear gold while the division lasted. Nor would any of the Scholar King’s followers. Gold was the color of Tyro’s legions, and therefore the color of war. Lyrilan hated this random assignation of pigment and metals. For twelve centuries Uurz had been the green-gold city. Now its colors were split, as were its people.

He gazed upon his beautiful wife in all her glory. He reached out to stroke her soft hair, drew her close to him in a rustle of royal silks. Her blue eyes locked onto his, and he wished he could dive into those pools of azure. It was the color of love, undiluted by ceremony or guile.

He had known so many women, and they had all been as one to him. Until the day he met Ramiyah in the palace of Yaskatha while visiting the court of King D’zan. Lyrilan’s extended visit became a months-long affair, and he brought her back to Uurz for a wedding that sent the city into a week of celebration. Already Emperor Dairon had grown ill, but the marriage of his son revived him for a while, and he had whispered to Lyrilan that he liked Ramiyah. Soon afterward, perhaps not to be outdone, Tyro had married Talondra. It seemed a hasty decision, but perhaps Tyro felt the same about Lyrilan’s choice. The brothers had congratulated each other and made fabulous gifts to their new sisters-in-law. All under the eyes of Dairon, who would not live to see the year’s end.

I chose well in you, Lyrilan thought. Your love is as bright as sunlight. How can I ever tell you what it means to me?

She was the most lovely thing he had ever seen, but he had learned enough of women not to tell her so. At least, not too often. So he had tried instead to show her, in a thousand different ways: jewels, gowns, pearls, parties, celebrations. After a year of such indulgence, she had taught him that the best way to show his love was simply to listen to her. So he listened.

Does this same devotion consume my brother’s attention? If Ramiyah spoke of war to me, would I listen to her as Tyro listens to Talondra?

Ramiyah kissed his lips as gently as a drop of dew. “If the lords cannot reach your brother, then you must do it.”

Lyrilan’s eyes fell across the room to his new book. Volomses had finished his proofing and had only good things to say about it. Now Lyrilan might present it to Tyro as a gift. A reminder of their common heritage… a testament to their father’s legacy. Perhaps it would remind Tyro that unity is more important than glory. Or perhaps he would only dismiss it as he dismissed so many of Lyrilan’s interests. Yet this was their father. How could even the Sword King deny the life and vision of his own progenitor?

Lyrilan nodded and kissed his wife’s smooth cheek. “I will try,” he said. “If they will let me, I will try.” Lyrilan’s advisors’ concern for his well-being had trumped all his efforts at a personal meeting with Tyro thus far. The twelve lords in service to Lyrilan, the Green Lords as they were now called, represented him at all assemblies, conferences, and summits with their nemeses the Gold Lords. Similarly, Tyro’s advisors bade him stay away from such parleys. So the two brothers had not exchanged a single word since the night when Tyro slew the Khyrein spy and split the houses.

Lyrilan approached the double doors that led to the hallway and turned to look at Ramiyah once more. She planned to enter the Western Gardens today with a coterie of noble ladies, under heavy guard of course. He would see her again at the sun’s zenith, when they would dine on the terrace overlooking western Uurz. She blew him a kiss as a servant opened the doors. Three mailed guards paced at his back when he crossed the tower’s middle and entered the carpeted stateroom. There the Green Lords sat gathered about a table of black marble.

Volomses was there too, seated next to the King’s Chair. A pile of massive tomes lay before him. He had gathered whatever books Lyrilan had requested these past weeks, seeing them safely brought into the Western Tower. Yet Lyrilan had requested no books today. He did not recognize the topmost of the leather-bound volumes, though he could tell their great age by the yellowed parchment and cracked bindings.

The Green Lords stood and bowed as the Scholar King entered. Twenty guardsmen in green tabards over bronze mail stood about the room. The shafts of their upraised spears spoiled the view from the tall windows that opened on the city’s northern quarter and the fortified wall beyond. Past the massive ramparts lay a grassy plain segmented by the northern road and a few muddy rivers in the distance. Portraits hung between the windows, the bearded visages of Emperors long dead, scions of the Old Blood. Their dead eyes seemed to mock Lyrilan as they gazed upon his predicament.

Lyrilan sat and the lords followed his lead. Undroth was the first to speak.

“Good morning, Majesty,” he offered politely, striving to sound jovial. His heavy black beard was woven into a mass of braids set with jeweled bands, and his massive fingers were thick-set with emerald and ruby. His eyes were gray and his face kindly. Undroth was a longtime friend of Lyrilan’s father, a veteran of the Island Wars, and a trusted counselor. Lyrilan found it easy to place faith in the man. Since his father had no brothers, he had long thought of Undroth as an uncle.

Lyrilan nodded to all the assembled lords, careful not to show favoritism. “What news?”

Undroth frowned. “None but two more deaths,” he said. “Both of them nobles, boys barely out of school.”

Lord Vaduli sighed. “Young fools eager to prove themselves, as is usually the case.” Silver beads sparkled on the chest of his gray-green robe. Vaduli could easily pass for a sage, so long was his beard and so bright his eyes. He often displayed a sage’s wisdom in these councils.

A moment of quietude settled upon the council chamber. Servants brought platters of black grapes and yellow cheese. They poured wine from crystal decanters. Some of the lords drank deeply, while others barely sipped. Lyrilan ignored his own cup. It was still morning, and the heat of the day had not yet awakened his thirst.

“I will wait no longer,” he announced. “I must speak with my brother.”

A chorus of protests broke forth. He silenced the lords with a raised hand.

“Negotiations have proved useless,” he reminded them. “This is a family matter, a dispute between brothers… and what’s more… it is what my father would want.”

Most of the lords looked to their cups, but Undroth looked Lyrilan in the eye. “My Lord.” His voice was soft, almost a whisper. Lyrilan often felt his dead father advised him through the words of this living man. “It is not safe. The Gold Legions have their zealots, and Tyro’s loyalists are eager for blood. Give us more time to reach an accord.”

“No,” said Lyrilan. “I’ve waited too long already. No more Uurzians will die because the Brother Kings cannot see eye to eye. I have decided.”

Undroth pulled at his braided beard. He nodded, but said nothing more.

Vaduli drank deeply from his cup, then set it down and looked at Lyrilan. “Majesty, as much as I fear this course of action, I commend your bravery. Your escort shall be thirty of the finest blades. I feel it best that you too carry a sword. It will send a message to your brother that mere words may not.”

“I will carry no sword,” said Lyrilan. “I take a gift to my brother. I will not enter his presence equipped as if ready to spar. In any case, we both know it would be an empty gesture.”