Танит Ли - The Storm Lord

Then, abruptly, the fit was finished. He lay quite still.

To those watching from the towers, he was a black cross against the snow.

The high council had been formed in haste in the palace on the Avenue of Rarnammon. Many were absent, keeping to their beds on this chill and inauspicious day and sending word their physicians would not let them rise. Mathon, the Warden of the Council, rubbed nervously at his cold hands. He was an old man who had been elected for his safe vacillating and his well-known lack of ambition—and this situation was quite beyond his ability.

Sharp-faced and sick-eyed, Amrek sat in the dragon-legged chair. He had recovered from the terrible spasm at Sar, only to ride to Dorthar with all the frenzy of a madman. The treacherous thaw had ended, and the snow was falling heavily by the time he reached Migsha. It did not dissuade him. He tore across the caravan tracks of the Plain lands and the hills, camping at night in a sodden tent and traveling through blizzards that sent him blind for two days in the Ommos town of Goparr, his chariot clogged to the wheels in snow. His Guard fell behind. He lost them and left them to the wolves and the deadly cold, and to struggle after as best they could. He crossed the Dortharian border with ten men at his back. He rode unknown through Koramvis and came immediately to the Council Hall. The mud-stained cloak he had worn lay on the floor behind the chair.

“Well, we are agreed then,” Amrek said. “No army of Dorthar can march until the snow is done. Word must go to Xarabiss. She’s a lazy land, but has enough troops to quell a Plains rabble.”

“My gracious lord,” Mathon said, “I fear Xarabiss will evade such work.”

“She’s a vassal,” Amrek said, “and will obey. Send a messenger to that effect.”

The Council was silent. They had heard rumors out of the Lowlands, even ahead of Amrek’s crazy race. They did not care to exacerbate him further.

From the edge of the room came a man’s voice, a voice made unmistakable by its Zakorian slur, that gift of his dam.

“There is one small matter which disturbs me.” An uneasy movement ran over the chamber. It was like Kathaos Am Alisaar to touch baldly upon a point which, until now, they had so scrupulously avoided.

“Your Lordship’s soldier claimed that the Lowlanders’ ‘king’ was Raldnor the Sarite.”

Amrek’s black eyes glared unseeingly.

“The fool was mistaken.”

“A mistake of unusual magnitude, my lord.” Kathaos paused, allowing the Council to see, by inference, how Amrek permitted his judgment to be clouded by his jealousy and shame. “My lord, surely it should be considered that if the Sarite lives, suspicion falls on a Commander of these same armies we all trust to defend this city. You’ll recollect that Kren, Dragon Lord of the River Garrison, informed us, without a doubt, that Raldnor was dead.”

“I recollect.”

“Then surely, my lord—”

Amrek was on his feet.

“We’ll have Kren here to answer your charges.”

The Council sat frozen.

“Damn you, Mathon, move yourself! Send a Council guard to escort Kren here.”

“Storm Lord, you’ve not yet rested—”

“Rest be damned. Do as I tell you.”

“And if he declines to come?” Kathaos murmured.

“Then I shall make him come.”

Nevertheless, this Amrek could not do. Garrison it was, and fortress too, built, long before the wharfs and hovels had grown up about it, as a defense of the river. Battlements surrounded the buildings inside; the place was stocked with food and drink and a community of men and women entirely loyal to Kren. It could withstand a year of siege, but the streets and houses around it could not.

To Amrek’s demand, Kren returned the courteous message that he was sick and could not leave his bed, but that he would welcome the Storm Lord’s person at any time he cared to approach the gates.

Mathon paled on hearing this, fearing some endless strife was about to tear the city in half.

“We must send a party of Councilors to the Dragon Lord. We must try to persuade him to reason.”

Amrek thrust past them and, with his improvised escort, rode to the Garrison gate.

He stood in the chariot like a supplicant, his face yellow with fatigue. The red-cloaked sentry saluted him and presently led him in.

Kren was waiting for him on his feet, and without a trace of subterfuge.

“You seem in excellent health to me, Dragon Lord,” Amrek remarked.

Kren smiled.

“Shall we say, my lord, the sight of such an illustrious visitor has done me good.”

“Kathaos suggests that your reluctance to present yourself before the Council proves your guilt conclusively.”

“All suggestions, perhaps, should be considered carefully, my lord. Do you believe the Sarite lives?”

Amrek’s glance faltered like a candle.

“You must tell me that, Kren.”

“There is a grave within these walls, my lord.”

“Yes. I believe my mother sent her guard to make sure of that. She was very anxious for my honor at that time. Is it the Sarite’s grave?”

Kren’s steady eyes met his own.

“Indeed, my lord, it is. Is there some proof I can offer you?”

“Your word will do, so I’ve heard.”

“That, my lord, without hesitation, you have.”

And yes, he had buried the Sarite there, the invention that had been the mask of a man he had enlightened and made whole, and broken at the same instant.

When his royal guest was gone, Kren stood some time alone in the shadowy room.

The early dusk was numbing the bitter whiteness of the palace courts. The mountains loomed on the distant sky like threatening clouds.

The cold dazzled Amrek’s eyes. Coming from the chariot, he stumbled and seemed to hang above a gaping vault of blackness before one of the Guard caught his arm.

Crossing a room where the lamps were already lit, a woman came rustling toward him in glimmering brocades. He looked up from his stupor and saw his mother, Val Mala.

He pushed away the supporting arm and glared into her white painted face. How beautiful she was still, this mother. Would her arms have been a comfort to him if they had ever spared him a moment’s solace when Kathaos and Orhn and the others had done with them?

“Well, madam. You’ve heard.”

“Yes, I’ve heard everything. I’ve heard that the Lowlanders sent you packing from their dunghill. I’ve heard that you rode like a peasant across three lands, and after that went begging to Kren. What a son I’ve made. The midwives must have turned me in my labor so that I lay on your brain and crushed it.”

He watched the diamonds glittering in her hair and ears. Their refractions made him dizzy and sick.

“You tell me you hear all these things, madam, yet you’ve never heard what happens to a woman with a Lowlander’s face. You’ll use another unguent, madam, before I see you next.”

“What faith you have in my obedience, Amrek. I am your mother,” she said with spiteful sweetness.

“And I, madam, am your King, distress you as it may. If I chose, I could send you to the fire for your whoring.”

For a second he saw how afraid of him she was; a bitter triumph surged through his veins, like a poisonous yet refreshing drug.

But she said: “No, Amrek. This is your sickness. You confuse me with another.”

In the black ruin on the Plains, anvils rang, and the makeshift forges turned the night clouds red. Into the melting pots went iron caldrons, brazen bowls, the accumulated metal of the villages, the bolts from city doors; in went the armor taken from the bodies of dead dragons, those eight hundred men who had perished in a single hour. New swords lay stacked in empty houses—also shields and metal plates to guard the chest, back and limbs.