Level by level, I led them down again. Another speedy tour through the Guardian’s rooms, taunting the villain himself along the way. I shoved another pursuer into a wall and heard the satisfying crack and scream when I slammed my boot into his kneecap. Six left, plus the Guardian. Four would be better, but I was slowing down. Another drop and vault, skipping the second level, and skittering into the ground-level dining room. Careful now…
I deliberately slowed - not a comfortable situation, as it gave me leisure to note that the fiery cut on my throat was bleeding again and my skull on the verge of exploding. But then, things were not going to be comfortable for a while yet… if ever. My instincts were still good; I felt the pursuers closing in.
Wiping my hand across my throat, I smeared blood everywhere I didn’t have it already. As the chase caught up to me - six maintainers led by the scarlet-faced Guardian - I staggered backward through the short passage. There, in the doorway of the retiring room, the small room adjacent to the audience hall, I collapsed into a heap.
Things settled out rather quickly. Two maintainers grabbed my hair and arms and dragged me to my feet. The Guardian squeezed past us and sank into his chair, a grotesque grin baring his ugly teeth. I ignored the vigor with which the maintainers twisted my arms and shoved me into the retiring room. My only worry had been that they’d kill me right away.
As the two pressed me toward the Guardian’s desk, the rest of the chase party tried to crowd through the door behind us. But the retiring room was small, and the Guardian sent two men to guard the main entry of the tower, left two outside the door we’d just come in to prevent my escaping that way, and kept just the two close at hand to prevent my exiting by way of the gold curtain and the audience hall.
“We have unfinished business, Guardian,” I said, wrenching my right arm from one of my captors and using my shirttail to blot the blood dribbling down my face.
A brutish Singlar did his best to break my arm while recovering his grip on it. I resisted… moderately.
Smugly, the Guardian motioned the two maintainers to leave off. “He can’t get away.”
They released their hold, but stayed close, growling under their breath.
Eyes glittering, the Guardian leaned forward on his elbows, his knobby fingers twined in a knot under his square chin. “We have no business, impostor. We will continue exactly where we left off, but with better supervision and better result.”
The gold curtain that closed off the audience hall swayed slightly.
I raised my voice. “You mean where you left me to die in your dungeon?”
“Your dying is your own business,” said the Guardian. “I will just give you ample opportunity.”
“Yet when I made claim to be your king, you did not deny it.”
The Guardian motioned one of the maintainers to close the door to the outer passage. “It is no matter who you are. I rule the Bounded, and that will not change. Not ever.”
“Yet I showed you my scarred hands, and you noted the color of my hair and my age, and you agreed that all is exactly as prophesied by the Source.”
The Guardian’s pale skin stretched tight over his bones. His smile lost its mirth. “That makes no difference.”
“And so, when the firestorms come again, the Singlars will do as they have always done. Mourn their neighbors. Rebuild. You will allow them no king who might help them change their fate. You will allow them no names.”
He jumped from his chair and moved around the desk to stand between me and the gold curtain. He towered over me. “This conversation is at an end. Maintainers, take this impostor back to the dungeon and seal it closed forev - ”
“Hold, Guardian!” I yelled it loud enough to make the two brutes stop. Time to play my last card. “If I’m an impostor, then you must slay me immediately. I’ve escaped from your prison once and may do so again. What if I found the Source and listened to what it had to say? You claim I tried to destroy it before. What if I tried again? Surely it is your duty to execute anyone who might damage the Source. Maintainers, give the Guardian a weapon so that he can perform his duty.”
The Guardian, skin flaming, spluttered incoherently as one of the Singlars, accustomed to instant obedience, pressed a sword hilt into his hand.
“You have the power to pass mortal judgment on anyone save your rightful king,” I said. “Surely that could not be causing your hesitation?”
I dropped to my knees before the astounded man, spreading my arms wide as did the Dar’Nethi slaves in Zhev’Na. “Before these witnesses, I lay claim to the throne of the Bounded. I say that I am the one spoken of by the Source. I have granted names. I quelled the firestorm. If I am an impostor, a danger to the Source, it is your duty as Guardian to slay me. But, of course, if I am your king, then you are forbidden to take my life. Make answer, Guardian. Choose my fate, for there are witnesses to your deeds.”
And so, I laid down my wager. I believed the Guardian to be a cruel despot. But I also believed him driven by his ignorance, too fearful to blatantly disobey the Source.
The Guardian’s big hands massaged the sword grip, and his face twisted slowly into a feral snarl. “Hold his arms. Spread them wide so I can take him cleanly.”
The brutish pair had me before I could move, each taking a firm hold of one of my arms and stretching it so far to the side, I could not shift a finger’s breadth. With an experienced two-handed grip, the Guardian raised the sword, a wide, efficient-looking edged blade.
So my gamble had failed. I whispered a quick apology to Paulo.
But as the air shivered with the passing blade, my neck remained intact. Amid spouts of gore, the red-haired head of the guard on my left thumped to the floor and the massive body slumped. Then the dripping sword slashed again, severing the neck of the surprised maintainer on my right. The Guardian was astonishingly quick, and I was astonishingly unlucky that the grossly heavy left maintainer fell on top of me, pinning me to the floor.
The bloody sword tip teased at my lips. “I cannot slay you, my king, but I’ve silenced the witnesses to your claim. And when the two outside the door come at my call, they’ll find you tongueless. You’ll not put me in such an awkward position again.”
I smiled then, as will any gambler as he sweeps the coins into his purse. “I would advise you to pull back the gold curtain before you act so rashly, Guardian.”
The color fled from his face. He stepped away and flicked aside the curtain that separated us from the audience hall. The sword clattered to the floor.
I craned my neck to see.
Vroon had managed what I asked of him. Filling the vast hall was a sea of faces: misshapen, grotesque, ugly, some beautiful, too, atop malformed bodies. All silent. All listening. Every one of them my witness.
“You cannot kill them all,” I said.
“Behold the One Who Makes Us Bounded!” cried Vroon, standing proudly in the first row. The cheers did not die out for more than an hour.
And so it was I gained myself a kingdom, and the most unlikely subjects any ruler had ever governed. Unfortunately, I had not found any answers as yet, only a fistful of new questions.
CHAPTER 16
I didn’t kill the Guardian, nor did I allow any of my more bloodthirsty subjects to do so. I might need him to help me unravel the mystery of the Source and get it to answer my questions. So I had six Singlars take the bitter man to his apartments and confine him there, and I commanded Ob not to leave his side.
While they took him away, I stood on the dais of the audience hall, thanked the residents of the Tower City for saving my life, and asked Corionus the mapmaker to record the identity and description of each one present on the vast walls of the audience hall. “On the third light from this one,” I said, “each of you will receive the name of your choosing. Until that time comes you must tell everyone you meet what treachery has been done in the name of greed, and that no more of that will be tolerated in this kingdom. From this hour, all judgments of the Guardian are overturned. I will rehear all grievances beginning on the first light after the naming day.”