“You might find some way or someone to amuse me,” he said, pouting.
“Not today. Your father wants to see me.”
The lanky prince sat up, alarmed. “Will you tell him that I’m here?”
“Of course not, but Commandant Harn knows. I take it that you ran into him on one of your evening strolls.”
“Can he be trusted?”
“To the death, unless someone asks him a direct question.”
Kroaky settled back, marginally reassured. “You Kencyr. Inexplicable.”
Torisen rode the open lift cage up to Kothifir.
The first thing he noticed on arrival was that the swirling cloud cover had dispersed. In its absence, the summer sun beat down mercilessly on the clifftop city, washing out its usually vibrant colors and glazing everything with a layer of dust. It hadn’t rained since spring. The Amar ran shallow and bitter, poisoning its fish and withering crops in the field. A few residents moved languidly from shop to shop, where they found little to buy. Some gathered on street corners listening to men muffled in black robes and cheches—Karnids from Urakarn, Tori thought, preaching their obscure message of doom and rebirth. The Kencyrath had little to do with them. Given their own bitter experience with the Three-Faced God, most Kencyr wondered why anyone would willingly embrace any religion, much less one that made such dire promises.
“This world is but a shadow of the one to come!” cried a speaker as Torisen passed. “You, boy, stay and listen to the holy words of our Prophet!”
Here at last was the Rose Tower and the long climb up its spiral stair under the beating sun. Without the clouds, the sparsely occupied mid-towers showed up as clearly as a ring of blight. Some had broken off and fallen into the streets below. One wondered how the rest could support the gilded upper stories where the guild lords lived, although even these looked brassy and cheap in the sun’s glare.
Some claimed that it was all because the Kencyr temple was currently abandoned by its priests. The guild lords also seemed to have lost their power. Tori himself didn’t see the connection.
What he did see were carrion crows circling overhead. Something about the Rose Tower seemed to attract them.
No one guarded the king’s audience chamber at the top. Tori stopped at the threshold on the edge of the pale green, golden veined chalcedony floor, wondering if he should announce himself. No: the wide, circular room brimmed with noblewomen, all in white-faced makeup as befitted their rank. Most wore rich but somber gowns, although a few flashed almost defiantly with brilliant color. The king himself reclined on a lofty dais wearing black in regal imitation of a Karnid’s robe. He was a big man, famous for his hunting prowess. Now, however, his flesh drooped like soft wax and the color on his haggard face came out of a rouge box.
“You ask me where your fathers, and sons, and husbands are,” he said, then paused to draw in a ragged breath. His eyes glittered with feverish, defiant life in their deep sockets. I will not die, they seemed to say, oh no, not me; but he stank as if already dead in that hot, rose-tinted chamber.
“My kinsmen serve me as my sons already have, all but that runagate coward Krothen whom I will find soon enough. That is all you need to know.”
“My lord brother, I disagree.”
The voice boomed from the front of the crowd, but Tori couldn’t see who spoke. He started to edge toward the right, then froze. Genjar lounged against the wall in a turquoise court coat trimmed with blue pearls and whirls of silver thread, watching the drama play out before him with the thin-lipped smile of a connoisseur in pain. Tori moved left. He and the Caineron would settle their score, but not today and certainly not here. Now he could see the front rank of the ladies and their spokeswoman. No wonder he had overlooked the latter: she was very short and, from the width of her, very pregnant. This must be Princess Amantine, the king’s sister.
“My child needs his father,” she said, glowering.
“This city needs its king. Debate that with the towers themselves.”
Someone tapped Torisen on the shoulder. Suppressing a start, he turned to see the shadow of a black-gloved hand withdrawing, gesturing him to follow. The marble walls of the chamber were carved as thin as rose petals and separated so that one could slip out between them. Tori did so, onto an outer walkway that circled the tower. It had no rail. Birds swooped dizzyingly through the void beyond.
“Come here, boy.”
He followed the voice.
“Stop.”
The other stood just beyond the curve of the thin wall, his distorted shadow falling through it.
“I was summoned by the king,” said Tori, keeping his voice down, unsure if he was defending his presence in the royal hall or protesting his absence from it.
“Summoned at my request. So. You are Ganth Grayling’s son.”
Tori felt the flesh jump on his bones, but he held himself still. Then he remembered to breathe.
The other laughed, his voice a soft rumble. “I didn’t mean to alarm you, only it surprised me to learn that you were here. Did your father really let you leave that pest hole in the Haunted Lands, or did you run away?”
“Who are you?” Tori demanded, taking a step forward.
A raised hand stopped him, as if he had run into a wall. “Why, child, who should I be but your true lord and master?”
That made no sense. Ganth was Highlord if he still lived, and Tori felt instinctively that he did, never mind that he had thrown away his power as petulantly as a child might a broken toy. Highlord or not, though, what right did such a man have to claim anyone’s loyalty? His own Kendar had united to free his son from his unworthy tyranny.
Choose your own lord, said the mocking rumble under the stranger’s voice. Have you not earned the right, boy? Did your father keep faith with you, with anyone? Honor is a failed concept. Only strength matters. Choose me.
Tori shook his head to clear it.
“What have you done to King Kruin?” he demanded.
The other sighed. “Nothing. He is not a young man, and has lived a profligate life. Nonetheless, he wants to live forever. I suggested that he might, if he made a few sacrifices. Look below.”
Tori had been avoiding that, not because he was afraid of heights (although the Rose Tower was very high), but because the carrion birds squabbling below unnerved him. Now he looked. A ring of iron thorns circled the edifice. Many of them were tipped with round shapes from which loose hair blew in the wind.
“A lord’s followers serve their master, in life, in death, don’t you agree, little lordling? A variant on that ancient belief has worked for me—so far. But the Gnasher is no Dream-weaver. She reaped; he rends. The latter may not succeed for our dear Kruin.”
“Death and rebirth,” said Tori. Much that the other said confused him, but one thing was suddenly clear. “You are the Karnids’ Prophet.”
“Oh, he died millennia ago. The Karnids say that I am he, returned. It amuses me to play that role.” The other’s purr sank into a half-snarl. “Anyway, why should I submit to death at all? Let other fools die for me, as they were born to do.”
Raised voices sounded within the chamber.
“You would not dare,” Princess Amantine said, and this time her tone shook with more than anger.
“Would I not?” Kruin was panting now. He sounded ghastly. “If your child is a son . . . what are heirs for . . . if not to prolong . . . the life of their king? If I must take him as he is . . . I shall. So the Karnid Prophet has taught me. Now, come here.”
Someone screamed.
Tori slipped back into the chamber to witness panicked ladies surge for the door. Caught up in the rush, Genjar stumbled and disappeared beneath billowing black skirts. Meanwhile, the cause of it all, Kruin, had risen and was lurching toward his sister, a hunting knife in his hand.