All Helbin’s careful work came to naught, and Mellamax did gain the throne of Ergoth for one hundred days until General Gonzakan gathered Ackal loyalists and deposed the Pakin emperor. Bereft of power, unable to keep the dark, mysterious bargain she’d made with the sorcerers, Mellamax once more became Mellamy. She fled to Tarsis, where she lived in eccentric splendor until assassinated by agents of Regent Gonzakan.
Empress Valaran did not long enjoy her freedom from her vicious husband. Lord Hellman wooed her, but she rejected his advances and ended her days a lonely prisoner. Confined to a rocky promontory overlooking the western sea, Valaran was consigned in the same stone keep that once held the deposed Empress Kanira. The governor of her prison was changed twice a year to prevent any one man from falling under the sway of his beautiful, clever captive.
Valaran adapted to life in her remote prison. Her main expenditures were for parchment, quills, and ink. She wrote eighteen additional books before her death: histories, commentaries, and learned discourses on natural philosophy. Her most famous title was The Life of Lord Tolandruth, which predictably was suppressed by the Ergothian regent. Still, copies were smuggled to the capital and circulated in secret, copied in back rooms and cellars. The biography was popular in foreign lands, too, particularly Tarsis. Over the years, many errors-both accidental and intentional-entered the text. Much of what later generations read about Tol of Juramona were copyists’ tall tales.
The mind of the former empress remained acute to the end of her life, it is said. For forty-two years she dwelt in captivity, although as she once remarked to one of her governors, she had in fact been a prisoner from birth-thirty-seven years in the Inner City, forty-two in Kanira’s Keep.
Her only protest against her fate was a symbolic one. She refused to cut her hair. By the time she died, it swept the floor behind her. Although no longer its original warm chestnut shade, the pure white fall was still breathtakingly beautiful. On her deathbed Valaran made only one request: she asked that her hair be cut close to her head and sent away for separate burial. Not to Daltigoth, city of her ancestors, Valaran asked it be interred in the rebuilt city of Juramona. Her last jailer, a young warlord named Gabien Solamna, faithfully carried out the wishes of the former empress.
Uncle Corpse, long-lived chief of the Dom-shu, met his fate while hunting. An enormous boar, the largest ever seen in the Great Green, turned on the hunters pursuing him and gored the old chief. Voyarunta managed to thrust his spear into the beast’s heart. Man and boar perished side by side. The Dom-shu didn’t practice blood succession. A new chief was chosen from the leading men of the tribe.
Miya and her son Eli lived quietly in their forest home, the old woman much respected for her many adventures. Eli, inheriting his father’s facility with his hands, spent six years among the dwarves, learning metalworking. He introduced both iron and steel to the forest tribes.
Kiya married a Dom-shu warrior name Voraduna, a stocky fellow with black hair and eyes, half a span shorter than she. They were together many years, until during a minor fight with the Karad-shu Kiya stopped an arrow. Mortally wounded, she asked her husband not to leave her to the mercy of the enemy. He gave her his dagger. The Karad-shu did not get any prisoners that day.
Hanira, Syndic of Tarsis and mistress of the guild of goldsmith and jewelers, never married again. She lived for twenty-four years after the death of her daughter, Valderra, and when the gods claimed her she was reputed to be the richest woman in the world. It took a hundred laborers three days to empty her personal hoard of coins from the vaults of Golden House.
The forty-three years of war and dynastic struggle that raged after Ackal V’s death were known collectively as the Successors’ War, because each faction put forth new heirs and new claimants to the power of Ergoth as soon as the previous pretenders perished. It was a war of pities and sieges mostly, and the countryside was spared heavy damage.
The eventual victor was Pakin IV-not an Ackal, but a true descendant of the great Pakin Zan. When his armies were sweeping through the Eastern Hundred, one of his scouts became separated from his horde. Confused (one hill looked very like another to the city-bred Rider), he rode down cart tracks and cow paths, searching for his comrades. He could get no help. Frightened peasants fled at his approach.
Early one spring morning, the lost scout came across an old man working a field. The peasant saw him coming but didn’t run away. The Pakin warrior rode up slowly, hailing the farmer in a friendly fashion, and offering a silent prayer to Corij that the oldster could tell him where in Chaos’s name he was.
Stooped and weather-worn, the farmer looked up at him. “Greetings, my lord,” he said readily enough.
“And to you, good man. I’m lost. Can you tell me where I am?”
“This is the Jura Hill Country, my lord,” the peasant replied, leaning against his hoe.
“I know that!” Striving to control his exasperation, the young warrior added, “Where is the nearest town?”
“The village of Pate’s Knob is half a day’s ride that way.” The old man pointed due east with one large hand.
“No, no. Where’s the nearest real town?”
“That would be Juramona, my lord. Three days, north-northeast.”
Relief spread across the rider’s face. He grinned, teeth white against his grimy, sun-baked face.
“Juramona! That’ll do. We took Juramona ten days ago!”
“ ‘We?’ ”
The proud Rider straightened his hack. “The loyal hordes of our rightful emperor, Pakin IV!”
Pursing his lips, the old man nodded slowly. He unhooked a heavy gourd from the cloth sash around his neck and offered it to the Rider.
The warrior took it gratefully. After the first swallow, his eyes widened. Instead of the spring water he’d expected, it was filled with potent cider.
The farmer chuckled at his expression. “That will light a fire in your veins, eh, my lord?”
“Indeed! You must have a leather throat to drink this stuff, old man!”
“I’m used to it.” The farmer took the gourd back and drank two quick swallows of cider before hooking the gourd on his sash again. “So, the Pakins took Juramona. By storm or by siege?”
“By storm. We scaled a section of wall by night.”
“Mmm. Not like the old days.”
Warmed by his unexpected libation, the Pakin leaned comfortably on the pommel of his saddle and asked what he meant.
“Juramona used to be a more formidable place. In Marshal Odovar’s day, no one could have scaled the wall and survived.”
The name of the long-ago marshal meant nothing to the twenty-four-year-old warrior. “You sound like you know what you’re talking about,” he said. “Were you a soldier once?”
The old man plied his hoe again, loosening the soil along a row of onions. He shook his gray head. “No, my lord. Just a poor farmer.”
The Rider turned his horse in a half-circle, toward the northeast and Juramona. He took a single coin from the purse at his waist and tossed it to the elderly farmer.
“Thanks for your help, old man-and for the drink!” he said, and spurred away.
The farmer let the coin hit the ground. It was a newly minted silver crown and bore a glowering profile. The latest Pakin Pretender must be doing well enough if he had time and money to strike coins.
Raising his hoe, Tol cleaved a dry clump of soil into bits and raked them over the coin. He had no need of it. The directions were free, and so was he.