John Fultz - Seven Princes

The wide chamber lay shrouded in the gloom of a small brazier topped with low-burning flames. On the bed behind him the servant girl Yazmilla lay senseless among the silken pillows. Her flesh had not been enough to quench his restless hunger. At least her ceaseless yammering had stopped, now that she was unconscious. Now he might have chance for concentration.

He turned his attention to the parchment on his writing table. The poem was almost finished. A few more lines would bring the piece to a transcendent climax. Forty-two lines were ideal. The first thirty had taken a month of agonizing introspection… long walks beneath the cold moon… a hundred meditations in the moldy air of the city graveyard. Every line was a piece of his soul, a shard of truth, jagged and dangerous to the touch. The splinters of his essential self. This would be his greatest work, a poem that would shame all the hundreds that came before it. His crowning achievement in the realm of verse. If he could only finish it.

He took up a white-feathered quill and dipped its point into a cup of black ink. The point hovered over his parchment. His mind reeled with blank frustration. He hesitated. A drop of ink fell onto the page, blotting like black blood. His left fist clenched, fingernails digging into his palm, and he bit his lip until it bled. His red eyes watered, and he threw the quill across the room like a dart. He stuffed the unfinished poem into the drawer of the table, slamming it shut.

Inspiration is a fickle whore.

The sleeping girl would wake soon, whimpering and crying, begging for more of the bloodflower. He lifted to his lips th pi his lie long pipe, carved from white oak into the shape of a many-legged Serpent of legend. Touching a candle’s flame to the round bowl in the back of the Serpent’s skull, he inhaled the sweet crimson vapor. It sang in his veins and sent sparks flying behind his eyes, so that he imagined it was his skull, not the Serpent’s, to which he touched the flame. Leaning his head back, he slumped onto a divan of burgundy velvet. From his reclining position he watched the stormclouds moving toward the window. A few wet drops blew in to kiss his naked skin.

The lights of the city were kindled below as the day turned to night; a million tiny jewels spread in secret patterns far below the tower chamber. He drew another lungful of the bloodflower smoke into his lungs, and watched lightning caper among the thunderheads. He enjoyed the advent of a storm, the casting of light into darkness, the warm air growing cold, the faint stench of fear that rose from the streets as the commoners fled for shelter. He brought the Serpent’s tail to his lips once more. Now thunder rang inside his skull, shaking his very bones with its violence. He fell prone on the divan, trembling, moaning his pleasure to the corners of the dim chamber.

The girl must have heard him. She raised bleary eyes toward him and staggered to his side on the narrow couch. She placed a long-nailed hand upon his white breast. He flicked it away. He would touch her only when he pleased. She was merely a servant, and should know better than to touch him when she chose.

“My Prince,” she mumbled, her pouting lips close to his ear. “Let me taste the smoke with you again.”

He passed her the pipe and the candle. She inhaled, coughing, and lay back on the couch beside him. The candle fell from her fingers and singed the rug. He rushed to grab it, but its flame had scored a black mark into the vermilion fabric. He grabbed her by the neck and slapped her face. She awoke, staring into his black jewel eyes, timid as a cornered hare. Her fear reignited his desire.

“I could have you whipped for that,” he whispered in the breathy tone of a lover, but his threat was a bludgeon of iron. “Or thrown from the roof of this tower.”

“I’m so sorry, My Prince,” she muttered. Silly wench, nothing but a scullery maid he’d pulled from the kitchens a week ago. She made an interesting plaything for a while, but he had grown bored of her. She was barely seventeen years and knew nothing. He was Fangodrel, and had celebrated his manhood at fifteen – ten years ago.

“Perhaps,” he told her, “you can earn my favor once again.”

He took her, this time on the divan, and far more roughly than before. The rain fell in silver sheets beyond the window as the black clouds moved in to separate palace and sky. He wrapped his hands about her throat, the bloodflower singing in his veins. Flames seemed to burst from his eyes as he took his pleasure. His body moved of its own volition, while his mind floated in a miasma of swirling crimson. The bloodflower danced in his vision, telling its tale of endless secrets. He listened… at the edge of awareness… he burned… he almost, almost understood. The flames faded.

When he was finished, cold rain blew in through the window and the storm still raged. The girl lay limp in his hands. He pulled away. Her neck bore a purple ring, and his fingero sd his fs were numb.

Lightning threw mock daylight into the chamber, and for an instant he saw himself in the oval mirror on his far wall. A pale, emaciated figure bending over the pink and lifeless carcass of a slain animal. He stared into his own eyes for an eternal instant. Then the chamber plunged into darkness again. The coals in the brazier had burned out, moistened by the big raindrops blowing through the window.

He stood and fastened the obsidian panes into place, shutting out the storm. He re-lit the candle with a tinder stick and held it over the body of Yazmilla. So beautiful she was, even in death. More beautiful even, for the absolute stillness of her features, the cool pleasantness of her pallid skin.

A pounding at his chamber door brought him out of the trance, and he turned from the dead girl to face the oak-and-bronze portal.

“What is it?” he bellowed.

“My Prince, your Lord-King Father summons you.” A thin, reedy voice. “Even now he gathers in the Chamber of Audience all those of his household.”

Fangodrel watched the candle flame dance in the dead girl’s eyes, twin rubies captured in orbs of glass.

“My Prince?” came the voice again, through the heavy door.

“Rathwol, is that you?”

“Yes, My Lord. So sorry to trouble you. The summons comes from the King’s Viceroy.”

He stumbled to the door and unfastened the heavy chain. Opening it just enough, he motioned his body servant inside.

Rathwol entered, a slight man with a hawkish nose, his lavender tunic reeking of turnips, sweat, and sour ale. His bald pate was covered by a leather skullcap, and his tunic bore the fine gold trim of a palace servant, though it needed a good washing. He appeared to have crawled out of a gopher’s burrow somewhere. The man was an offense to royal sensibility, but he was very useful.

“Light a brazier,” Fangodrel commanded him, handing over the candle.

Rathwol followed the order, using a fine oil to ignite some coals in a dry bowl of hammered iron. His close-set eyes immediately fell upon the body of Yazmilla, lying on the soiled couch. Another man might have screamed in shock or revulsion, but Rathwol had seen much worse. He had prowled the streets of Uurz for twenty years before finagling his way onto the palace staff in New Udurum. Most likely he had fled his native city to avoid imprisonment. Fangodrel had never asked what crimes he may have committed, and he did not care. He only knew that Rathwol was a loyal subject, and a man who could keep his many secrets.

Fangodrel scrubbed himself with a towel and bowl of lemonwater. Rathwol bent to examine the dead girl’s neck, checking for a pulse.

“Oh, My Prince,” he muttered. “Here was a tasty bit of flesh for the nobbin’…”

“Get rid of her,” said Fangodrel, pulling on a pair of doe-skin leggings and boots of black leath"›‹ black er. “ Discreetly.”