Allan Cole - The Gods Awaken

Instead a man, wearing the very same robes Asper had been entombed in, stared blindly up at him.

And the twins chorused: "Surprise, Little Master! Surprise!"

It was his father…

Safar Timura!

Palimak blinked, stunned.

Then Safar's eyes came open. His lips moved, forming words.

In a haze of unreality, Palimak leaned forward to listen.

"Khysmet," Safar whispered.

Then a hand came out, gripping Palimak's tunic and drawing him down with surprising strength.

And Safar said, insistent, "Where is Khysmet?"

It was near the end of day when the king's spies brought him the news. Rhodes hurried out to his castle's seaward wall and clambered up onto one of the big ship-killing catapults that defended this portion of his fortress.

According to his spies, Palimak and his party had left the warrens of the Idol of Asper and were now carrying a strange burden to the airship.

The catapult-hewn from the largest timbers in Syrapis-made a difficult climb for a man of Rhodesa€™

bulk and he gasped curses at his underlings. But the curses were really directed at himself for the sloth that had turned his once muscular body into such a wheezing mass of fat.

This was the reason, he thought, that Palimak and the Kyranians had been able to best him. He'd not only allowed his body to become larded, but his mind as well. He'd grown lax-and by example had allowed his subjects to become lax. His own mother had belabored Rhodes when he was a prince for his lazy tendencies.

Barbarian though he might be, Rhodes had a good mind and a natural instinct for strategy, plus an unerring eye for spotting his enemy's weaknesses.

He was also blessed with formidable strength and speed, especially for someone so large. At birth he'd been over fifteen pounds, which would have made for a difficult delivery if his mother had been a normal woman. But she came from a race of overly large people-not quite giants-and Rhodesa€™ entrance to the world through her wide hips and iron womb had been rather routine. If passing a cart horse could ever be called routine.

This combination of superior size and mental acuity had made Rhodes an easy winner over the other petty kings and queens in Syrapis. That was what had made him lazy, he thought. It had been too easy.

And when Palimak and the Kyranians had arrived he had not been prepared for their new forms of warfare.

Rhodes finally reached the top of the catapult and peered over the walls to see what his enemy was up to. Across from him, hovering over the little island that was home to the Idol of Asper, was the airship.

Not for the first time, envy gripped him as he gazed on that remarkable machine.

It was this magical device, he thought, that had been the key to the Kyraniansa€™ many victories over him and his royal Syrapian cousins. If only he had been blessed with such a thing the tale might have had a different ending. The humiliating scene in the courtyard two days before would not have happened.

Instead it would have been Palimak and that bitch warrior woman of his who would have suffered the shame of defeat.

He lapsed momentarily into a reverie in which the two of them were being dragged before his throne to be condemned to the nastiest agonies that Rhodesa€™ best torturers could devise.

Rhodes brought himself up short. No time for imaginary pleasures. He must be stronger than ever before.

He must spy out his enemiesa€™ doings and look for the weakness that might deliver them into his hands.

He saw the tide was turning below. Waves were already beginning to wash over the island. In an hour or so there would be no dry ground. An hour after that the idol itself would disappear beneath the creamy froth of the waves.

He gestured and an aide handed him a spyglass. Rhodes peered through it and made out Palimak directing four soldiers who were swaying up a large, mysterious object. What in the hells was it?

He adjusted the focus, following the object up as it rose in the net that enclosed it. Was it some sort of box? And what was that carving on the lid? Then he realized it was shaped like a coffin. If so, it was a very big coffin indeed. Large enough to hold a man twice Rhodesa€™ size, that was for certain.

Once again he studied the carving on the lid. Just before the coffin came level with his eyes, he realized what the carving was. It was a demon! Not only that, but the demon's face had the same features that were carved into the stone idol.

It was none other than Asper! He was certain of it. Then the coffin rose out of sight and a moment later the airship crew were muscling it over the rails to the deck.

Heart thundering, mind whirling with questions, Rhodes swung his glass back down to the island. Two men were carrying a stretcher down the stairway that descended from the idol's head. On the stretcher was a tall man, dressed in black robes. Rhodes couldn't tell if the man was conscious, but he noted with interest how tenderly his stretcher bearers treated him. A man of importance, no doubt. A man beloved.

This impression was underscored when he saw Palimak and the woman general rush over to the stretcher. Palimak gripped one of the man's hands. While Leiria bent over to kiss him. Then the stretcher was placed in a net, which was swayed up to the airship.

Rhodes followed its progress, then nodded with satisfaction when he saw the dwarf who captained the airship and his first mate, the exotic dragon woman, personally assist the crew in getting the stretcher aboard. Whatever the identity of the man, he was obviously of enormous importance to the Kyranians.

Rhodes had never seen him before, but that in itself didn't mean anything. There were many Kyranians he had no knowledge of. What gnawed at him was that his spies had never brought him word of someone of such obvious importance. Did the Kyranians have a secret leader? Someone of far greater importance than Palimak, whom everyone had been led to believe was the supreme commander of the Kyranians?

Was this fellow, the object of such respect and affection, the secret power behind Palimak's throne? The reason why one so young could perform so many remarkable feats of warfare and magic? If so, what had happened to the mystery man? Why was he in the stretcher, obviously ailing or injured?

A spark of hope flared in Rhodesa€™ chest. If his suspicions were correct-and the man was their secret leader, then his weakened state might weaken the Kyranians as well.

He lowered the spyglass and quickly clambered back down the catapult. Excitement made the return trip much easier. Rhodes needed advice to take advantage of this vulnerability-assuming that's what it was.

And the best person who could provide it was his mother, Clayre, the beautiful witch queen of Hanadu.

Later, Rhodes would berate himself for not tarrying a bit longer on his catapult perch. If he had, he'd have seen his daughter, Jooli, unfettered and armed, making her way out of the idol's entrance and hurrying down the stairs. And he might have wondered why the Kyranians were allowing their hostage such freedom.

Aboard the airship, so many tears of joy flowed at Safar's miraculous return that they would have filled an ocean.

"He'th alive!" Arlain sobbed, smoky rings issuing from her dragon's mouth. "Thafar hath come back to uth!"

Biner honked emotion into a kerchief, then knuckled moisture from his eyes. "Methydia would be so happy," he said, "to see the dear lad with us again."

Renor and Sinch, mere striplings when the exodus from Kyrania had begun but full-grown young men now, knelt by the stretcher, crying unashamedly.

"If only Dario could be here," Renor said. "He always insisted Lord Timura was still alive." Dario, dead two years now, had been the grizzled warrior who had trained and drilled all the young men of Kyrania.