– The Order of the Sages, Zynlester 10, 3100

**

"Mother, why is Thoryn called ‘Prince’ and I am not?" asked Tarlos, his innocence flooding Princess Igri with guilt at the tenets of her ancestors. It was Zynlester 5 and the seven-year-old had been with her since Mocrolester 60, when he magickally appeared in the middle of her Castle Reiglo court, giddily describing her beloved troth, Duke Tarl-Cabot, and the cant of a wish-ring that had transported the boy. From his brown skin, dark eyes and red-tinged hair, Igri had known that this was Tarl-Cabot’s son with Tropruscht of Denlineil, down to the lighter tone of his skin, the same as the original Reiglo islanders from which her High Advisor Quigley had come. "Mo-therr!" Igri laughed. "Now, son, do not trouble yourself with the world of adults. Your baby brother is called ‘Prince’ only because he will have different work than you when he is older. You should count your blessings that so many choices await you in the years ahead!" She hugged Tarlos in hope of stemming the tide of his interrogations, which had begun popping up with more frequency and in all the most peculiar places of late, so much so that Igri had amended her days completely: Whereas at first she allowed Tarlos to play by her side while she conducted the business of her duchy, now her fosterling son was under care until dusk. To smooth the change for him, Igri opened up two hours around the middle of each day to take him on her horse Goldbanns down to the Reiglan flagship Saint Guinlon where he loved to play imaginary pirates. Tarlos continued to pester and fidget and finally, realizing he would be educated in the rules of the realm eventually, Igri sat him down on the deck and, crossing her legs, took his small hands in hers. "The kingdom that we live in, Asch’endra-Conschala, has laws that say that to be a king or queen you must be the oldest child of the last king and queen."

"But why is it ‘Prince Thoryn’ and not ‘Prince Tarlos?’ If you are my mother, why can I not be a prince?" Tarlos’ voice cracked and he fought like a brave little warrior to keep from crying. Igri had waited until her thirty-sixth year even for betrothal, and though being aunt to her four siblings’ children kept her enchanted with the many stages of the various ages, she knew too that such times as these were something she always expected to grow into as she raised her own princes and princesses.

"Not everyone in Uncle Joel and Great Uncle Joel’s families are called ‘Prince!’" She tried to sprinkle merriment into her voice, and raised it an octave for good measure before realizing she sounded a bit hysterical.

"Mother, I am not dumb! You told me the only reason Uncle Joel is called ‘Lord’ is to make it easier for them to figure out who is talking, and because Great Uncle Joel is mean!"

"How about Aunt Phelra, who I told you so much about? Lady Zynor and Lord Zynir – there is no ‘Prince’ or ‘Princess’ in that."

"But they have no chance of being a king!"

Tarlos batted his eyes at her before he mercifully jumped off her lap, grabbed his wooden toy sword and stabbed the air, forgetting everything about the past five minutes. When he had appeared in her courtroom and told her about Tarl-Cabot and Thoryn’s death, she had been so heartbroken that it caused her to go into early labor. Her Reiglan thaumaturges helped her deliver a beautiful boy, named Thoryn after his heroic uncle, and was delighted that Thoryn and Tarlos were of the same skin tone, for she knew during worse times how Dwarves, halflings, Short Elves and "brown islanders" were treated.

"I think we should be heading back, my boy." She covered her eyes and looked up at the cloudless sky. Castle Reiglo, the last of the duchy palaces, was situated on Reiglo Bay atop a lush cliff overlooking a half-mile crescent garden of roses, inspired by Igri’s mother and now the most visible reminder of her grief for the Queen’s death; doubly so, for in the days before Prince Joel sent Igri and her attendants, as well as the Blue Rose court, packing for Reiglo, the magickal blue roses of Castle Moncrovia had all died. Igri could not grow the blue roses in Reiglo clay, and now she feared that the namesake of four generations of kings no longer existed in Terra. "Come, Captain Tarlos, how does that sound?"

"Aaargh!" Tarlos skipped into the arms of his nursemaid, who swept him up onto Goldbanns. As Igri made her way through the rose perennials, Tarlos nattering happily and luscious fragrance bathing the air, she recalled the frenzied days following King Joel and Queen A’gren’s deaths, the only quiet in the hurricane their funeral procession down Royal Road and back before interment within the family tombs beneath Castle Moncrovia. Prince Joel at least had been singular in ensuring the dignity of the ritual, despite the simultaneous exodus of the masses to escape the quakes, lightning and opaline fog. But with all that the Princess heard, all that she had seen of her brother since they were summoned home by their fearful parents and notwithstanding the funeral, nothing prepared her for the Prince’s transition in the days leading up to and after the murders.

Prince Joel had always had a sense of his entitlement and as children had made great sport of punching Igri’s upper arms so much that they were always bruised. Queen A’gren would tell them to go play, negotiate an agreement or that Igri should be pretend ambassador like she would have to when she was grown, and use her wiles to stop her brother’s fists. At Castle Moncrovia Prince Joel and his troth, Princess Ardanla of Joh’oprinia, were both tense, barely amicable toward one another in front of the court; With her brother’s palace suite was on the other side of the King and Queen’s from her own, several times Igri had heard Ardanla shouting. After the deaths, Prince Joel became unhinged and imprisoned Sir Thoryn, killed Baron Val Tress and sent the courtiers away even while forbidding the army to do the same; Igri invited Moncrovia’s staff and nobles to Castle Reiglo. She had not seen Sir Quigley again – in the tumult of the search for High Wizarder Oromasus, he had never returned from Denlineil with Sir Porcie before she left. Igri regretted repeatedly ever approving his service to assist the royal guard.

When they reached the clifftop, Igri left Tarlos and Goldbanns’ company. The end-grass of Castle Reiglo’s courtyard stretched all the way around the secluded bay, including pavilioned Ruby Meadow. On days such as this, the curve of the land caught the gorgeous warm mid-autumn wind and mixed it with the scent of the roses to enrapture the spirit and scrub the mind, if only for a moment, of worry and fear. Terr’Sol’s beams blinded Princess Igri and she stepped back to avoid falling. She had never wanted a fence to be placed on the cliff’s edge, preferring an open sweep to the vista of the great Reiglo Strait, but now, fifty gull-flight leagues east across the channel, along the southwest bank of Joh’oprinia, burgeoning numbers of ships and Men alarmed her so much, she had sent a spy to investigate the reason for their amassment.

Castle Reiglo was built from the island’s famous clay, the mortar mixed with a powder that made the Red Castle shine at the end of day’s light like a ruby beacon. When Igri first came to her duchy residence as a young Woman, she had so taken to the color that she plundered her inheritance treasury of its rubies and had them inlaid in the walls of the main courtroom, the Ruby Hall, to which she now returned to her duties. Nodding at the courtiers, she assumed her red throne, a servant providing her with a washcloth and fingerbowl to wipe clean the remnants of Saint Guinlon. "Welcome back from your midday rest, Princess Igri," said Lady S’mim-la, who administered each day’s schedule.

"Thank you, Claudia, who is first to see me this afternoon?"

"Sir Vivifief, my lady, reporting on the Joh’oprinian situation." Lady S’mim-la rejoined her troth as the captain of Igri’s thousand-strong army stepped forth and bowed. Like the other members of the Ruby Court army, Sir Vivifief wore red-plated armor on his chest, shins and forearms, a skirt of tough red tulip leather and a ruby Saint Guinlon’s tree on his shirt. "What word of the Joh’oprinian amassment?"

Vivifief bowed. "Two thousand, a ragtag – some wear Blue Rose insignia and others Silver Dragon, still others are wild-haired Outlanders, some Cromags, and a quarter wear the clothing of posse-going commoners. There are five rowing-ships, and though she did not spot active crews, our spy thinks she saw walking skeletons."

Igri had from her turret on the north side of the bay watched the beeline of the spyship until it crossed the horizon. There was no stopping in the waterway, whatever tiny islands that once existed washed away by the madding tides, and if Reiglo – so large it was the size of all the other islands in the chain combined, and then some – took a lashing from the elements of the north sea, the smaller, windward Isle Ola, forested Isle Edward, Isle Dervan accursed Isle Seven suffered even more. The trip across Reiglo Strait took a full day, and in winter and spring, with the Calitain waters turned black, cold and turbulent, even more, if at all, so news of the spyship’s return was gratifying.

"Sir Vivifief, what was their purpose?"

"They have only made camp and are idle at this time."

"My lord, a force coalesced as this has but for one function: Is this to do explicitly with my relationship to Duke Tarl-Cabot, who has been pursued and persecuted by my brother?"

Sir Vivifief looked as though he wanted to flee the Ruby Court. "I think…my lady, I am not accustomed to offering speculation or…I think, my lady, that you are correct in your assumption, though Prince Joel’s guards have not been told much about why they have been ordered to the coast. However, when I last saw my intended, Siress Cyr, she was headed to fortify the city of M’trossmyph’, yet I was able to identify from our spy’s description members from that contingent, some knights who I have battled alongside with honor."

"Two thousand? If we summon all of our ships from the outlying islands, how many can Siress Phora add to those already providing security?"

"With your navy twenty strong, your security vessels number six and your insipirility ships including the Saint Guinlon four more, thirty. Captain Phora can move, if you will, three from the pleasure fleet and increase the monitors’ rounds, doubling coverage of the major islands. We might consider hiring mercenaries."

"Do it all – I prefer my ship be captained by Siress Phora."

"As you wish, Princess." Sir Vivifief bowed and left.

Lady S’mim-la returned to the royal dais and consulted her scroll before announcing loudly, "Lord Sylvestin of Princess Igri Island!" Murmurs raced through the courtiers as the pounding footsteps of Lord Sylvestin preceded his entrance, for the native of Igri’s eponymous island, though not in her duchy, was a member of the Giants of Carouva’env. With a trace of Grey Troll that ashened his skin and made his limbs gangly and forehead beetling, Lord Sylvestin was not as handsome to Igri as his Human brethren, but he hailed from a noble house and kept his bearings proudly. Bowing at the highest point of Ruby Hall’s high-frame main doors to enter, he was at twelve feet one of the shorter Giants.

"Thank you, Claudia. Good day, Lord Sylvestin, how is your mother?"

"F-fine, thank you, my lady." The Giants talked with some difficulty, stammering their words more slowly and with visible pain in their throats. "It-t hass b-been f-far too long ssince you ha-ha-have visited us, and Mother ex-extends h-her invitation who-wholeheartedly."

"Delightful!" Igri clapped her hands. "Lady S’mim-la, when can I be let loose for a few days?"

"The latter part of Zynlester, this month, Princess," Claudia responded after consulting with the court’s Timekeeper.

"Done!"

"Also, your highness, there is another matter of concern to the citizens of Carouva’env. W-we saw five sh-shipss, the ph-phantom ships of C-Cagliostra’s n-navy." Sylvestin described Cagliostra’s necromancy within Moncrovia’s fog. "It is w-widely t-talked of, b-both the s-search for yourr troth and th-the regent’s w-wish to adjudge those res-res…accused and their allies. Th-the amass-amassment h-has b-been sp-speculated by our mayor to m-mean an assault on-n Reiglo Bay."

"Unthinkable, Lord Sylvestin!" Igri softened her stance. "My lord, it is not probable, though many things in our commonwealth’s history were not meant to be either. I recognize your theory, but I am taking strides to protect the Reiglos. I make you this oath: I have awaited any word from Prince Joel, a messenger or envoy, without reward, but it does occur to me that I might extend my own embassy. Master Sebastian!" A clean-faced blond lad emerged from the lords and ladies.

"H-he iss b-but a ch-child, my lady!"

"Do not adjudge so hastily. Sebastian is a prodigy of the house of po’Mell. Your mastery of the arts, Sebastian, your poetry and your songs, your swordplay which I have myself seen makes you first on my list to bring greetings to Castle Moncrovia. Prepare for your journey and make haste to my brother to offer an exchange of diplomacy and conference. Lord S’mim-la will assist you."

"Yes, Lady Princess."

Lord S’mim-la and Sebastian bowed in retreat, but Igri bade Sebastian to come forward and kneel on the dais, while her captain-at-arms left at her silent behest and returned with a sword. The crowd breathed in awe, for it was King Joel’s royal sword Den-mahr, its crystal clear as ice, which Igri had absconded with during the royal purge of Castle Moncrovia. She knighted Sebastian with a tap of Den-mahr upon his shoulders after his oath and gave it back to the captain-at-arms. "Stand now – and to Lord Sylvestin, have faith."

Sir Sebastian, his face red with gratitude and fealty, exited with Lord S’mim-la, Sylvestin reoccupied the space in front of Igri. If he was further offended by the youth of her ambassador to the mainland, he did not show it. "Th-there iss one more matter th-that m-my p-people wish me to parlay."

"What is that, my lord?"

"W-we have also seen th-the passage of those who P-prince J-Joel seeks, off the st-stormcliffs of Princess Igri Island."

"That is rather foolhardy, is it not?"

"T-twas perhaps l-less temerity, the Bugbear and C-captain Eedebee l-listed on the p-posters th-that have reached our city, than p-practicality, th-though we d-d-do not know to where they w-were headed."

"I know of the vessel and its captain. It seems," she said to the members of the court, "that we may be expecting the Duke to come home as told us through…Prince Tarlos’ own mouth." The Blue Rose courtiers were aghast for the countless occasion, but the Ruby Court, used to Igri’s mischievous flouting, gaily clapped and tapped their scepters, fans and canes. "I cannot imagine since he lost his ship, the Goddess, that Duke Tarl-Cabot would arrive in any other vessel but that of his friends."

"Wh-what w-will be the impact on th-those who spy f-from the east?"

"None have come near Castle Reiglo, Lord Sylvestin, but to answer your question: If and when the Bugbear arrives, with or without the Duke, I shall fulfill the obligations brought by my oath to insipirility and the teachings of the Zeusan papacy to welcome the refugee, give food to the starving, love to those without homes and at least a night’s rest to those falsely accused." Igri kneaded her brow to make sure that the Giant recognized well that she would not warrant even remote aspersions of guilt to be tossed about Tarl-Cabot.

"If-f there are any sh-ships we can bring to s-supplement your own f-fleet, I have been re-requested to offer them t-to you." Princess Igri was moved by Lord Sylvestin’s graciousness and accepted his offer on the spot, sending him off with Captain Phora before moving on to her next order of business.

"We have a petitioner, Princess Igri," announced Lady S’mim-la. "Master Chalister of Denlineil!"

"It cannot be," whispered Igri. A red-haired Man of twenty years, his powerful arms freckled as the skin of his cheekbones, entered and genuflected. The Princess rushed down the steps and embraced him. "Chalister, dear friend! How are you!" She did not know Chalister very well, mostly through Sir Quigley, but the sight of him – the closest she had gotten to Quigley or Tarl-Cabot since the halcyon day of her betrothal – uncoiled a wellspring of devotion.

When Chalister was able to step back from Igri’s bearhug, he said, "I am doing well, my lady. I apologize and also thank you for the hospitality your island has already provided me, I have been at Jalenica Lake, a fortnight."

"Why, that…you have been here and not come forth? Please, explain yourself!"

"I come to you now seeking amnesty."

"Why did you camp at Jalenica Lake? It is but a few leagues away – were you hiding from me?"

"Only to protect you from persecution, Princess! I beg your mercy – there is nothing sufficient I can offer you but that upon two weeks of crude living after I swam the channel to the Gem Islands, it was where I thought it best to keep myself."

There was great murmuring from the courtiers, and Igri was shocked, for even with his renown as an athlete, Reiglo Strait was no mere pond. "Master Chalister! A hundred and fifty miles you swam?!"

"Prince Joel began to widen his net, so convinced was he of a mass conspiracy to kill – pardon, my lady – the King that it came to a great battle in Denlineil, even though many accused and suspected had fled – Lord Nopaach-to, Lady Farron and Lord Andy…" Dread did not usually cobweb Igri’s mind, but Chalister’s account of the Battle of Denlineil and the fog that beat at the city’s doorstep filled her so. "Gregarcantz summoned ten thousand stone statues of all shapes and sizes to life and they beat back the Black Dog invaders who had come to take the Mayor himself for what they deemed treason against the regency. I ran without looking back across Conschala." Chalister seemed weary from his memories.

"I have missed High Advisor Quigley with all my heart," said Igri. "I grant you the sanctuary you seek, dear friend. In addition, I promise that when we have resolved the current crisis involving my brother, I shall send forth the ruby masthead of Saint Guinlon itself to find our beloved knight."

"Thank you, bless you, lady!" Chalister threw himself at her feet and began to kiss them, and it was with some labor that Princess Igri had him drawn away for a much-needed bath and perfume.

**

"Pray Zeus, not again!" protested Trisahn.

"I fear so. Cover yourselves, ducks," said Farillon the wagonmaker to the companions. "There are others ahead." The Apocanian half-Dwarf, with a beard and appearance so Manly that she was often mistaken so, could not identify whether the four figures in the distance were Black Dogs or not; Val’ha pulled the blanket over her, which Farillon had rather cleverly devised so that the journeymates when under them looked like sacks of potatoes. Since she had become with child, Val’ha felt as if a thousand gnats burrowed into her skin when she stretched the sackcloth over her, and today they had done so a dozen times.

It was Zynlester 7, three days since Xorus’ First Wraith had invaded her dreamstate and Sir Quigley’s, bringing them together to produce the child who would by her birth kill Val’ha, only to be killed herself when she had a daughter. Val’ha was fraught with compassion for her unborn as much as for her half-sister, Ma’teus of Denlineil, borne of their mother Chext’a by force of Feukpi, a murderous conjurer slain during the Siege of Apocania by Porcie. Feukpi also struck down Porcie, but the knight was resurrected by the power of three gods and became one himself, patron of war.

One of the gods, Dynamos, remained over Apocania the next day when the companions left. As the residents of the city discarded the charred remains of the barricades, buried their dead and those of Prince Joel’s High Advisor and the other invaders and restored their merchantries and homes, they began the greatest task of all: covering Xorus’ Fault, a Terran fracture that split the eastern side of the city. They also convinced the surviving journeymates to stay the night, and every inn and tavern overflowed with frothy brews and joyous townsfolk. "I think," slurred Mecnoarv shy of midnight to Val’ha as they made their way from the Ogre Power Inn to see the Green Orc catapult in its proper place, "that with all the hails and cheer for what everyone has accomplished here, we should stay permanently! Dynamos – look at him up there! And the pleasures are many."

"A moment!" broke in Quigley. "Do you imply that you are continuing with us to the Reiglo Islands? I assumed you were remaining here with your lady’s family."

"Come, sir knight! Even if I was not convinced of your plight and intent upon justice’s deliverance, I would still be searching for my dear Wiiws’ spirit for at least…" Mecnoarv made calculations, hoisted his mug of hopsbrew as the barkeep pushed back his silver and chugged back. "It is past the midnight hour, Happy Zynlester Day!"

"Happy Zynlester Day!" Everyone raised and quaffed their beverages.

"Lady Val’ha, my blessed Wiiws shall be wholly consumed and I may never recover her in time for her to reach Convah. My only hope remains with you." Mecnoarv raised his hand for another round of drinks.

"That is?"

"That is, great Baroness, the First Wraith – pesky wasp that he is – buzzes about Lady Val’ha, and where she goes so does he. If they do appear again in this time, it shall be around her."

"Well, that is comforting." Tarl-Cabot, like his friends, muffled his words a bit with the haze of liquor in his blood.

"Three cheers!" Bynagor, one of the local guildleaders, stood atop a stool and stretched his mug toward Val’ha and her fellows. "Our bosoms burst with freedom!"

"Our bosoms burst with freedom!" everyone cried.

"To the blue god, Dynamos, protector of our fortunes!"

"Hail!"

"To The Tunnels, which helped us unite against the invaders! Who thought that passages of thieves would one day save our city!"

"Hail!"

"To Mayor Alyson, though she does not drink here, and her sheriffs and allies, and their days behind the barricades! Your inspiration made us all…made us all…" Bynagor stepped down and, finally thinking of something, jumped once more atop the stool. "To the return of the catapult, and a new wall for the Green Orc!"

"Hail!" The crowd became even more uproarious, with randy jesting and plenty of backslaps and hugging.

"As Master Mecnoarv confesses his intentions regarding your company," said the Baroness, "I do so also: After tonight I am going not with you, but to the coast of Joh’oprinia with the Conschalans." Her words so stunned the others that Mecnoarv spit his hopsbrew across the bar to the catapult. "And you, Sir Tarl-Cabot, do not glare at me so, for my abandonment is no renege upon the promises I made to Lady Val’ha or anyone else here! But do not fret, I expect I will find you again, one day; I will be there at the end." Their protests and arguments, rather than sway the Baroness, only further vexed her. "Stop! All of you, cease your drunken babbling and listen to me. I have traveled this past year with Lady Val’ha and hold her in great esteem. If there is anything in the wind that speaks of her release from the curse Xorus had placed upon her family, I will fly to her side with it. I do not know where her father’s libra hides any more than the rest of you – if it is the key to unlocking her from her fate, I cannot see how you would find it any faster with my sword, but if we are in two parts we may double our chances of discovery.

"Seeing my daughter Contessa, after all that is gone…" The Baroness faded into her hopsbrew for such a time that Val’ha thought she had finished. "Brother Ziegler, whom you met at Insipirility Pass – I once knew him long ago, before the Baron. When this is over I shall go to Zcembrota to be with him again. I am glad he took my – advice to seek safety for his family abroad."

"Baroness Val Tress, I have wondered since told so by Sir Preston-Altraine why Ziegler only bypassed Apocania instead of directly into Baroness Rae’s company; was he unaware of the ring’s function?"

"He is a recluse," said Trisahn. "Perhaps he cannot imagine the world to be so large as that!"

A hearty round of haw-haws followed before the Baroness slammed her pewter mug onto the bar and, to Val’ha’s neverending surprise with Val Tress, joined them. "I think the ring was limited, homemade, his daughter’s thaumaturgy."

Trisahn turned melancholy and put his arm around Val’ha, who wanted suddenly to dance and sing as she used to run across the clearing in the glade of her youth, chasing after chirping, eye-bursting dweemtweezles. "I was going to refrain myself from making any decisions, sweet friend." He kissed Val’ha’s cheek and burped. "I am coming along with you to Loran and beyond to Reiglo, if you wish me to."

"Dear Trisahn! What happiness it will be to journey with you!" Val’ha flashed a glance over at Tarl-Cabot, who had not since the long, cursed-air days of the Island of Dragons gotten along with Trisahn; he cradled his drink for a moment, then joined in the cheer for those who would continue on toward Reiglo Isle.

After another half hour, Mecnoarv yawned. "There is only one trough from which we have not drunk this fine night, my friends – the Dragon about Town!"

"I vote for the warm down of Flooher’ty and Vreblanth Arms, courtesy of the halfling clan," said Trisahn. They left the smoky gaiety of the Green Orc and Catapult without a decision. The street in front of the tavern contained the Xoran faultline, and Trisahn was neither the first nor the last that night to stumble into the sandbags and construction. "Whoa, master me! Thank you for your shoulder, Lady Ma’teus." Dynamos’ nocturnal breeze carried his gas toward Val’ha. "Oh! That is a healthy relief!"

"Trisahn! You pig!" said Tarl-Cabot angrily.

"Would you look at the sky, there he is!" Trisahn pointed toward the giant vortex above the city, beautiful, a permanent spinning cylinder of blue wind that during the day was nearly invisible but for the fact that it sucked up clouds which drew too near. "I wonder that they did not just do away with the Black Dogs from the beginning!"

"Foolish oaf," the Baroness said. "They are new gods of the limbic realm, their purpose is balance and justice. If anything, Oromasus for his own sake was dutybound to get Porcie’s Sword back to him, much less Porcie’s lot. They were able to help end this battle, but I warn you: Do not wait for them to charge down from the heavens twice. Do not expect such divine intervention again."

After Val’ha watched the Conschalans and their newly elected leader head off the following morning, she and her journeymates – Trisahn, Mecnoarv, Tarl-Cabot, Quigley and Ma’teus – boarded Farillon’s wagon and began their own trek, leaving their mounts in the safety of Jonathan the Trainer’s stables. Farillon brought them east through a procession of trails and fields to Verdish Road, the highway at the base of snow-crested Mount Verdish, which would bring them near Loran where Aeysla, Eedebee, Flegretha, Tarnac, Andy and others waited on the Bugbear and the Dwarfkeep to take them to Tarl-Cabot’s court and family.

The first few days were fairly uneventful – that is, until the night of the First Wraith’s rapacious invasion of Val’ha and Quigley’s dreams. Since they awoke from the horror of what had happened, Quigley avoided discussing the matter and stayed his distance from her. The strain of her conception – in addition to making her body sore, her breasts raw and her minty tongue crave meat for the first time in her life, which she promptly vomited out – had also unraveled whatever courtesy Tarl-Cabot showed toward Trisahn; the two of them had as many spats in as many days.

Ma’teus tried to give solace to Val’ha, who was wary and threw barriers to her half-sister, thinking, If not for my birth, she would have been the first daughter, cast to her death by Xorus’ malcraft. Of the many dark thoughts and resentments that ran amuck in Val’ha’s mind (and she cared less about stopping them), several times, to thwart the venom from crossing her lips, she had to bite them. Only Mecnoarv Snooteliicore seemed free of the poisonous currents brewing within the companions, but he rode at the front of the wagon with Farillon and not the sackcloth covers his journeymates suffered under.

"Move your Sword, Tarl-Cabot, it is pushing against my back!"

"You might have thought yourself to bathe, dirty thief, you smell like a gutter-kissing drunk!"

"Now how could the Duke of Reiglo know such redolence, such malodor?"

"I will be very, very happy," said Val’ha, "when we mix our company with our friends on the ships!"

The sound of horses silenced the companions in the wagonbed. "Good day," Mecnoarv said as they passed by. Val’ha peeked from under her blanket until the travelers were a fair distance before she and the others uncovered themselves. "Lady Farillon, I need at some point in the near future to stand and stretch my legs."

Farillon turned, the beads at the base of her black beard rattling. "What do you say, champions of Apocania and outlaws of Asch’endra? We are only hours from the end of Chesp’k’vil Trail. By the autumn sky and birdsong, if we hold our course we can reach it by nightfall. But if you are weary we can stop." They had barely rested in the day since they passed through the small mining town of Chesp’k’vil for provisions before crossing the Great Loran Pass where the trailhead began. In his comfortable perch, Mecnoarv was the sole vote for respite and he lapsed into a pout when they continued on to the trailhead, which filled Val’ha with more than a drop of impertinent pleasure until she pulled on Farillon’s cowl and threw her head over the side of the wagon to retch.

The northwest forest of Loran was a colorful feast of red, yellow, brown, orange and dark purple on the western bank of the milewide Ospet River, brown with the sediments of Great Ospet Lake and Lake Knife on Mount Chespeake, Farillon said, and the port city of Ospet lay to the east, just beyond the river’s bend. Eventually the ground beneath Chesp’k’vil Trail rose to hundred-foot cliffs above the Ospet. With Terr’Sol just starting to call forth the night, the woodtrail came to a halt at the corner of the confluence of Ospet with Lorax Stream. And there, beached across the way on Lorax Stream’s north shore, were the vessels, sails down. "This is where I leave you, my loves!" said Farillon on the cliff’s edge as several of the journeymates jumped up and down, cried out or waved to see if Aeysla, Flegretha or Tarnac could detect them. They said their goodbyes and with a high bark, Farillon the wagonmaker returned home to Apocania.

**

Though the food taken from the Carian farms conscripted into his service were as varied and plenty as those of the highest insipirile feasts his father once threw weekly, Prince Joel’s family dinner was gloomy and sedate, like every other hour since his return. His grandchildren did not play and laugh in the hallways of Castle Moncrovia; his younger children did not swoon and grow petulant at the first signs of adulthood or love’s first fire.

Instead, Lord Joel picked at his potatoes, his mind a thousand leagues off and his child, two-year-old Duke Joel VII, with a nursemaid, after his divorce from Baroness Ifrz, who returned home to Joh’oprinia at the beginning of 3100 when their second, Duchess Almesbury, had been born.

Prince Joel’s other son, Lord Erasmus of Zehdr, thirteen and a mirror of his grandmother, put his fork down and stood. "I am going to my bedchamber, Father."

"Sit down and finish your meal, Erasmus, and get your hair out of your face!"

Erasmus slumped back into his seat. "I wish A’gren was here."

Mention of Prince Joel’s middle child, Lady A’gren II, inflamed him with anger. "Never mention her name during the dinner hour – ever – do you understand me?" Erasmus pouted. "Answer me, you little demon!"

Joel began to stand; Erasmus’ eyes widened and he quickly said, "Yes, Father."

The Prince resumed his seat. "That is much, much better." He took a deep breath. "Sons, it has been a year beyond anything we have ever known. The split in your family, Joel, your grandparents’ deaths and that of your sister in Vendredi have been horrifying, sad and difficult beyond measure, but if we buck up our chins and keep our faith, we will get through this time."

One of the undead servants dragged itself into the room laden with a basket of bread. As it leaned over to place the basket on the table, part of its jaw dropped onto a scone, making the boys howl with disgust. "Could you, at least, replace these foul beasts with real servants?" Lord Joel burst. "We have used up every perfume philter we could find to cover their putrescence!"

"What did you say? Did you enter your grandmother’s chamber? You will find yourself sleeping in a cell this night, boy, if you desecrated…"

"No! I did not, Father." Lord Joel almost whispered the last words, contrition taming his heated blood. "I think I shall go check on Duke Joel, excuse me." Since Lord Joel was both a father himself and nearing nineteen years, there was little the Prince could say but goodnight.

Lord Erasmus’ eyes followed his brother’s anxiously out the door and his body jittered in his seat with yearning and Prince Joel thought again of the empty halls where had once been lords and ladies, fighters and courtiers and envoys and the castle’s vast assemblage of servants, cooks, healers and crafters. Black Dog Hall was in its repainted blackness too oppressive even for him, and he had sent forth guards to kidnap weavers from Knife to create tapestries of himself and the symbol of the Black Dog to cover the walls. But what depressed Prince Joel most was the courtyard: Once the high, surrounding whitewalls and every building glinted, every rose sparkled or glowed shades of moonlight blue; now even against the daytime, opaline fog, the wandering lifeless and aggression within and without the commonwealth left nothing for joy or his father’s Hafer’tian insipirility.

"Wartime, all the time – that is the greatest fear that I have if ever you should become King," Princess Ardanla had told him last year. "Your anger unmitigated is Asch’endra’s concern, and you know what has happened in 3087 with the Conschalans." It was neither the first nor the last time he had wanted to hit her, but he would not: Even at the bitterest points during their two prior divorces neither Prince Joel nor Princess Ardanla had gone beyond emotional violence. The temper of their trothship to one another reminded the Prince of two covered kettles at full boil, broth sizzling into the fire below.

Erasmus’ plate was clean and Prince Joel allowed him to slump off. "I promise you I shall reconsider my decisions about the servers." Accepting the undead as slaves had been, like the army tax, one of the concessions he had made to his much-missed High Advisor Zini, killed during the Siege of Apocania. With the absence of Women from his army, all of whom had deserted with most of the Blue Roses, the Prince had redirected every possible member of the household toward warfare, and with the elimination of posses, though none came to petition, the army conducted every facet of business, from quest to conquest, that had once been civilian.

He did not regret hiring twenty thousand mercenaries to supplement his own Men, but they cost a great deal, and with the army’s pay he had intended only to double the royal tax once paid annually; Zini convinced him to station collectors and five fighters in each mayoral structure, an idea that had met with fierce resistance from city after city. Bylikaegra had seceded wholly from the Terran realm; Apocania barricaded itself and now enjoyed the auspice of a limbic god’s protection. Moncrovia he had destroyed to build the ships of his Black Dog fleet. Zehdr City…Prince Joel returned to his bedchamber, checking the sacrosanct door to the King and Queen’s private suite to ensure that Lord Joel was telling the truth about the perfumes. The corpses do not reek with the same potency as the newly dead, whatever my sons claim – they carry our Master’s magic and it slows their decay if indeed flesh remains upon their bones. What fills me with dread and loathing about the damned things are the visages of people who I once knew. It is said that the slaves do only what they are told, that they attack only if attacked themselves or directed by Cagliostra, yet her report to me of mass beheadings in the shipyard makes me wonder: Did they rise up against themselves like a flock of lemming-sils intent upon ending their existence, or did someone enter the fog?

"May I enter?" Cagliostra’s voice at such an hour made the Prince heatedly throw his quill and push back his chair from the cabriole desk, until he remembered that he had requested she do so. She sat on the edge of the bed spidered her fingers in front of her, Xorus’ light-circle tight around her body.

"When you take on the light of a god, I am curious, does it ever disappear? Is it always with you, corrupting your blood? Can you never be touched again, loved?"

Cagliostra arched an eyebrow at him. "Is this why you have asked me here? To chatter nonsense, my lord?"

"Did you not just dine with him?" Cagliostra’s words danced with snickering poison. "Do you not speak to one another? It is Zynlester 8, only four days since you demanded that I teach the – your magic-blood High Advisor to graveyard rites and command of the Diamond Sword, at the same time you saddle me with Count Orafeld and appointment to High Wizarder when all my predecessor’s writings and spells vanished with his death."

Prince Joel raised his hand, eradicating Cagliostra’s face from his view. "Cease! I have had enough of whining children today – does your life’s body of work consist only of running a merchantry and your witches brew, which a blind cleric and a drunken zettel-monster could probably concoct if they had the right ingredients?"

Purple-faced, Cagliostra scratched her teeth and glared at him. "I die each time I hold a raising – the Master confers gifts upon the willing, but you will find few who can survive them. The raising at Val Tress Pass cost me two days, so damaged and drained…"

"I should wonder of that – the Princess and I leave to deal with the King of Joh’oprinia with explicit instruction that you remain here to counsel Lord Joel and Feukpi, yet you stray off through the fog to practice your necromancy skills, only to return to a grisly shipyard filled with rolling heads. How, dare I ask, could anyone have gotten past your procession’s return?"

"I will not have this – this inquisition, Lord Prince, when I have filled bucket and barrel with my suffering and blood to hang flesh on your dream for a hundred-ship navy. The ships have to be built, the oars pulled, warriors…we are three-quarters to your goal in the homefleet; did you not state before others of their significant performance alongside your Human forces in North Mibwaze?"

"I did, though by the time of the South Mibwazan assistance we were too few in number and returned home…how then, I ask you once more, is Lord Joel’s training?"

Cagliostra straightened herself. "Five ships patrol the Reiglo channel, five others blockade the Flooher’tian straits and another five support the Human guard at the port city of Taramas. With the score from your Joh’oprinian fleet, you are actually already at your target. Without my labor, you would have none of this. My return upon the Moncrovian highway took two days, and need I remind you that besides the old beach route, Oomarouge Pass and Magickal Road, though I realize that the incident began with the beheadings of Baron Val Tress, Arpon-Altraine and Lady Frippe on the east side. Lord Joel’s training does not go very well – he is a poor student, distracted and spoiled. Does that answer all of your questions? The midnight hour crawls ever nearer."

"Tedious Woman – get out of my sight." Prince Joel let his enmity flow into his edict and pointed toward the door.

Cagliostra ignored him, laying across the bed. Prince Joel stood; suddenly, however, the glow of the fireplace became hazy, black and soft and he resumed his seat, his mind swirling. He closed his eyes and focused on the blackness as Cagliostra spoke. "With our Master’s conference of powers, there is something I must tell you so vital that his very existence depends upon: With the demise of the coven at the Holy Convent, the task of the twenty-fourth day has fallen to me. Master Xorus grows unspeakably weaker since his feeding time, Mocrolester 62, passed without consumption. If by the fifth day hence – the next twenty-fourth day – he has not fed, his existence will end here and much of your power with it. I have been appointed to find him a child."

"Get yourself to the convent, then! And never try your seduction-spells on me again or I will add your head to those of your corpses!"

Cagliostra flew to her feet. "We must have a child! The convent is abandoned – they all fled to the western cities. There is nothing available to us that would not take at least four days’ travel."

"Can you not fly? Find a wish-ring? A spell?"

"If I could I would do so – have you so little faith in my intelligence? Have you become so inured to mediocrity that…" Cagliostra composed herself. "As I have said, Master Xorus suffers a grievous drain in his energy, at least in part from his hindrances against the Elfwoman and her friends."

"Well, can he not eat his wraiths?"

"He needs an unspoiled spirit and there are none, infant or child, we can reach. I will myself fight neither the City of 10,000 Statues nor Apocania’s god."

"I just sent forth to Knife for threadspinners…"

"Threadspinners! Your concern with banners and shirts distracts you from far more serious concerns, Lord Prince, I do hope your son counsels you thus!" Cagliostra stepped behind the bedchamber door before poking her head in once more. "Think about these things that I have told you, Prince Joel; the time is well beyond nigh. As to your son – two days from now, to demonstrate his mastery over Dop-splythe, High Advisor Joel and I shall perform for you. Would that sate your questioning?"

Prince Joel bade her goodnight and tried to return to his journal, but with Xorus’ suffering he could not concentrate and slipped into bed. An hour later a light rapping on the door brought him to his feet, puffing with fury. "Who in Terr’des name…?"

He fell back, for in the dying ember-light, from the darkness of the royal family hall, a ghost if he had not pinched himself, stepped Princess Ardanla. She took his hand in her own, making sure that their trothal banns clinked. "I have returned home, dear Joel," she said, kissing his cheek.