“I asked the usual questions,” Cully was saying. “Had they seen anyone strange lingering nearby, or any peculiar shadows? They hadn’t. It apparently isn’t poison: like most of the Council these days, the prince has a taster. I didn’t see him myself, but according to the servants he’s wasting away. The princess is beside herself.”
“I bet she is,” Tori muttered. Motherhood hadn’t softened Amantine’s militant nature. If her husband died, she was apt to declare war on Urakarn unilaterally.
The crowd stirred and pointed. A temporary catwalk had been built over the pyre and Kruin’s body was being lowered from it through the clouds. Belatedly, with a nervous rattle, the drums began to roll. Jarred awake, one of the attendants darted forward with a torch and thrust it into the kindling.
“Too soon!” said Cully.
Indeed, before the corpse had touched the bier balanced on the top, the bottom of the pyre was ablaze as the oil-bush roared to life. Flames leaped upward, outlining the guild offerings and erupting out of the top of the pyre like a volcano. Figures on the catwalk floundered about, burning. Kruin’s stiff body swayed, then tumbled down the face of the pyre, trailing flames. It hit the ground hard, and shattered. Everyone had drawn back except Tori. Throwing up an arm to protect his face, he darted to where Kruin’s head rolled about the pavement. For a moment he held it, looking down into painted blue eyes already peeling in the heat, then he dropped the head and kicked it back into the blaze before he retreated. His fingers were scorched by the heat, and his sleeves smoldered. Cully beat out the incipient flames.
“You don’t take proper care of yourself,” he fussed. “Truly, the old bastard isn’t worth your hands.”
“Nor anyone’s,” said Tori, shakily brushing off soot. “Did you see, Cully? I could almost believe that the caves petrified his bones, and I never had much respect for his brains even when he was alive, but that head was wood, through and through.”
Prince Near lingered on, and now the princess’ twin cousins were ailing as well.
“They say that patches of their hair are falling out down to the skull, likewise odd chunks of flesh off of their bones,” Rowan remarked, washing down a chunk of bread and cheese with a gulp from a flask of watered wine. “It sounds almost like the result of a soul injury—you know, like a Bashtiri shadow assassin.”
Kencyr believed that the soul cast the shadow rather than the body. So did the Bashtiri guild, with lethal effect.
“King Krothen says he saw a man with the shadow of a wolf,” said Rose. “A white wolf, at that, with a white shadow.”
“That’s just it: if a wolf is somehow involved, you’d expect blood and broken bones, not a wasting illness.”
“Are you saying that the king is wrong?”
“Not necessarily, just that this isn’t anything straightforward.”
That, thought Tori, was an understatement. He tried to remember if Kruin’s shadow had been intact. Yes. In memory’s eye, he saw the king plunge to meet it on the chalcedony floor. The Prophet had claimed that he was dying of natural causes but might gain immortality if his male heirs were sacrificed. The Gnasher, plainly, was the assassin, but no Dream-weaver. The Master’s consort had reaped souls. What was this man with the shadow of a wolf doing and why, now that Kruin was dead? Around and around Tori’s mind went. No wonder he hadn’t been able to sleep. Besides asking questions, his little command had taken to patrolling Kothifir after dark. Tonight, rather than spend another sleepless night, Tori had joined Rowan and Rose Iron-thorn on this second-story balcony overlooking the central plaza.
Laughter and music floated down from the brightly lit uppermost chamber of the Rose Tower. Krothen held a jolly court, to which entertainers and artists swarmed from all corners of Rathillien. No one ever seemed to sleep. Tori wondered if the new king just didn’t want to be alone. The sense lingered that, although crowned, Kroaky hadn’t yet found his feet. It was rumored that he had tried to bless a caravan of spoils from the Wastes and had failed. Merchants throughout the city had been heard to curse his name when their precious wares crumbled into dust.
Kruin, alive . . . but how could that be?
“Look,” said Rowan.
A figure had descended the stair and was lurching across the moon-washed plaza, preceded by a canine shadow.
“Is that a dog?” asked Rose.
“No.” Tori leaned forward, listening intently. “It’s singing . . . I think.”
What he heard sounded more like a modulated howl, but there were words mixed up in the cacophony, and some of them rhymed.
Rose stiffened. A child had emerged from the shadows below and was approaching the raucous singer. Before Tori or Rowan could stop her, she had swung to the ground and was racing forward to tackle the latter, who went down with a startled yelp.
Tori sprinted to the rescue. “Rose, stop! I know this fellow. He clowns for the king.”
“I do not!” howled the Kendar’s prey, curled up in a furry puddle on the pavement, tail tight between his legs. “I’m a court poet! Hic.”
The child regarded him solemnly. “Is the puppy sick?”
“No, dear,” said Rose. “The puppy is drunk. Why did you attack my daughter?”
“Attack her? I didn’t even see her!”
Tori regarded the girl. She was only five or six, as far as he could tell, crowned with a helmet of dark red hair. Even in the moonlight, her eyes were a startling shade of green, her gaze solemn and unflinching. “What are you doing in the city at night?” he asked her. “The lift cages don’t even run after midnight.”
“I climbed.” She handed Rose a packet. “You forgot your dinner.”
“Oh, Brier. How often do I have to tell you not to follow me?”
Tori nudged the crumpled figure with a toe. “You can get up now. Sorry about that.”
“‘Sorry.’ Who apologizes to a poor wolver so far from home?”
“Ah.” Now Tori understood the other’s shadow as it untangled four lanky legs while its owner rose on two shaggy, shaky ones. Other than fur and a disheveled garland of flowers, he was quite naked. “That never occurred to me. Do all wolvers cast the shadow of a wolf?”
“It depends on the phase of the moon.”
“Which tonight is full.” On the chance, Tori had to ask: “Do you know a wolver called the Gnasher?”
“Oh, him. Steer clear . . . hic . . . that’s my advice. I’m from the Grimly Holt, but he’s from the Deep Weald. ’Nother kind of beastie altogether. What?”
He looked up, perplexed, at three intent faces.
“When did you last see him?”
“Why, tonight. He’s up there, entertaining the king. Juggles lights, doesn’t he? Shining Glory, they call him. He’s performed for all the best families.”
“Damn,” said Tori. “Rose, stay with your daughter. Rowan, come on.”
“Don’t you want to hear one of my poems?” the wolver Grimly cried after them. “Oh, never mind.”
Tori and Rowan pounded up the stairs of the Rose Tower. Both were breathless by the time they reached the chamber door where a guard tried to stop them, apparently taking them for performers.
“Here, now, what’s your act?”
“We save the king’s life . . . I hope.”
The crowd within had drawn back to the edges of the room to give Shining Glory room. Tori edged between courtiers with Rowan on his heels. Lights flashed ahead, a rotating circle of spheres flying now low, now high.
“Oh! Ah . . .” murmured the onlookers, except for those that turned to glare as the intruders elbowed past.
The performer was a tall, white-haired man with piercing blue eyes, clad in creamy leathers. Soft explosions of light burst from his hands as he increased the number of spheres that he juggled. In their glow he cast no shadow at all, unlike the spectators whose shades whirled against the rose walls as the balls of light circulated. Kroaky sat on the dais in magnificent sky blue robes, entranced, his shadow swaying behind him.