Angus Wells - The Kingdoms 02 (63 page)

           
The teleman halted before the doors
to the throne room, wary now, for he found himself caught between loyalty to
Hattim and the growing conviction that Kedryn did, indeed, lay rightful claim
to the High Throne. His dilemma was taken from him by the appearance of a plump
man, his oiled hair curled in artful ringlets, earrings glittering at both
lobes, a disdainful expression on his fleshy, rouged face.

           
“What is it?” he lisped irritably.
“King Hattim demands the cause of this disturbance.”

           
“Lord Celeruna,” the teleman began,
then broke off as Kedryn stepped toward the portly courtier.

           
“You know me, Mejas Celeruna,” he
said sternly, “now stand aside.”

           
Without further ado he brushed past
the fat man and strode into the throne room.

           
“Kedryn?”

           
Surprise and anticipation mingled in
Hattim’s voice. Kedryn stared at him, loathing in his eyes, but also sadness,
for he saw a man consumed by ambition, risen higher than he had any right to
hope only to fall lower than a human should. Hattim was become dissipated,
excess flesh swelling his cheeks and bulging above the belt of his splendid
golden tunic, his lips pursed in a grimace of displeasure, as if power
magnified his decadence and left physical mark. He lounged on the throne, a
dropped goblet bleeding wine red as blood slowly down the marble steps. A
servant stooped to retrieve it and Hattim glanced at the man, then turned
swiftly to the blue-robed woman standing at his right elbow.

           
To his left, starting from her
throne, Ashrivelle stared in disbelief at Wynett, a hand pressed to her lovely
mouth.

           
“Do you know me, sister?” Wynett
asked.

           
Ashrivelle nodded, the hand that had
covered her lips moving to toy with a strand of blond hair fallen loose from
her elaborate coiffeur, doubt and embarrassment in her eyes.

           
“Then say it,” Wynett demanded. “Say
it that all here may know it.”

           
“You are my sister,” Ashrivelle
said, and looked nervously to Hattim.

           
He no longer lounged, but was
sitting forward, hands resting on pale green satin breeks, his eyes narrowed.

           
“What do you want?” he cried, his
voice shrill.

           
Kedryn moved to the center of the
room, Wynett beside him. Tepshen and Brannoc positioned themselves slightly
behind and to the sides, their eyes roving, deceptively casual, over the
watching throng of courtiers.

           
“By what right do you claim the
throne?” Kedryn demanded, his voice cold.

           
“By marriage,” said Hattim. “And
Darr’s proclamation.”

           
“I am wed to Wynett,” Kedryn
retorted, “and she is the elder sister. ”

           
Hattim gasped, turning again to the
Sister now glaring avidly at Kedryn. It was she who spoke: “Wynett is of the
Sorority. She cannot marry.”

           
“I chose to relinquish my vows,”
said Wynett. “I am wed to Kedryn.”

           
“Words,” said the Sister. “What
proof have you?”

           
Kedryn stared at the woman, ugly
realization stirring. He became aware of a tingling sensation against his
chest, a strange, cool warmth. His nerve ends prickled, but simultaneously calm
gripped him, dispelling rage and fear, leaving behind only certainty.

           
“You have my word,” he said coldly.
“But should any here require more, bring Sister Bethany before us and let the
ceremony be performed again.”

           
A buzz of conversation erupted,
stilled by an angry slash of Hattim’s hand.

           
“The Paramount Sister stands
accused,” he muttered.

           
Now Kedryn’s voice rose angry,
ringing over the throng, commanding.
“You
stand accused, Sethiyan! Of the unlawful imprisonment of my parents! Of the
murder of King Darr! Of heresy!”

           
The silence that fell then was
palpable. Into it Kedryn roared, “Come down from that throne, you foul traitor!
Or do I drag you from it?”

           
Hattim gasped, his face paling.
Beside him Ashrivelle stared dumbstruck. To his right the Sister cried, “Kill
him!”

           
“Does any dare attack their rightful
king?” Wynett cried.

           
Only one did. Mejas Celeruna
shouted, “For Hattim!” and sprang forward with a slender dagger upraised. For
so effete a man it was a valiant effort, albeit misguided and quite useless.
Tepshen Lahl spun round, right hand fastening about the hilt of his eastern
sword, the draw and cut so swift they were a single blur of movement, the long
blade slashing sideways to strike the courtier’s belly. To strike and progress
through the robe he wore and the flesh beneath. To emerge bloody as Celeruna
screamed and collapsed forward, his blade striking sparks from the flagstones
as he pitched onto his face, crimson spreading beneath his corpse.

           
The kyo turned in a half circle,
blade extended in readiness for further attack, Beyond, Brannoc’s Keshi saber
was out, menacing the gape-mouthed court. Those who had thought to lend support
to Celeruna halted with hands on sword hilts, stilled by the menace of the two
warriors and the authority that radiated from Kedryn. Hattim was on his feet,
his eyes wide with horror, looking, as though he sought her help or approval,
to the Sister.

           
Kedryn stood watching her, aware of
the steady pulsing of the talisman beneath his surcoat, hardly daring to
believe what, rapidly, he knew he must.

           
“The Messenger!” he said softly.

           
“Aye,” Wynett confirmed. “I feel it,
too.”

           
Beside Hattim, Taws saw that all his
plans stood in jeopardy. He had not anticipated his prey walking so openly into
the trap he had set, nor thought that Kedryn might outwit him, that he would come
not as some adventurer seeking only to free his parents, but as the husband of
Wynett, with lawful claim to the High Throne.

           
It was that, he saw, that stilled
the hands of the Galichian’s sycophants, for while they were fully prepared to
support Hattim in his regal claims, they still adhered to the customs of the
Kingdoms and must therefore acknowledge the Tamurin’s prior right. Frustrated
rage burned within his borrowed body, and a mighty fear of his master’s fury
should he fail Ashar now, so close to the successful culmination of his design.
Desperately, he sought to retrieve the initiative and whispered in Hattim’s
ear, “Challenge him!”

           
“How?” moaned Hattim. “He has the
right. Wed to Wynett, I cannot gainsay him.”

           
“With swords, you fool!” cursed
Taws. “Take the throne by sword right! Hold it, lest we lose everything!”

           
Hattim swallowed, licked fleshy
lips, remembering how Kedryn had defeated him before, remembering how Kedryn
had slain Niloc Yarrum, a youth then, a man now, confident of himself;
frightening in that confidence.

           
“I cannot,” he groaned. “He will
slay me.”

           
“Ashar curse you,” snarled Taws,
anger getting the better of him.

           
“Heresy!” Kedryn’s voice thundered
through the silence, an accusing finger leveled at the body of Sister Thera.
“The Messenger walks among you and Hattim Sethiyan is his acolyte.”

           
The gaze of all present fastened on
the trio now standing before the two thrones. Mouths gaped wide in horror as
Sister Thera’s eyes burned an unholy red, like coals blazing in some hellish
furnace. A woman screamed; a man shouted, echoing Kedryn’s . accusation. Hattim
felt himself hurled forward, staggering from the throne to stumble on the steps
and topple face-down to the floor. He raised his head to find Ashrivelle at his
side, stooping to aid him, her hands clutching with painful force on his arm as
she froze, her face horror-struck as she looked toward the throne.

           
At Kedryn’s side Wynett cried out in
disgust. Tepshen mouthed a curse. Brannoc shaped the warding gesture with his
free hand. Kedryn himself stared with an awful fascination as Taws, his fury
incandescent, finally revealed himself.

           
The blue-robed body that had once
belonged to a woman contorted. It stretched upward, rising to the tips of its
toes as its arms flung out, the fingers clawed. Red eyes bulged above flaring
nostrils, the mouth wide, the lips curling back from parted teeth as a weird,
high-pitched shrieking filled the throne room with ear-piercing sound. The body
shuddered, blood erupting from the mouth and nostrils and ears, from the eyes,
staining the gown of Estrevan blue about the loins. It thickened where it came
from the gaping lips, oozing over the chest, coagulating. The body fell back
against the throne, fouling the stone with its outpourings, and the blood
pooled dense in the lap. Then, though afterward none there could describe it
precisely, unsure whether what they saw came from the blood or from thin air, a
shape formed, hovering about the writhing body, becoming solid.

           
Kedryn gazed at the wraith. Saw it
become flesh, if flesh it was that clad that awful shape, and knew that he
faced his destiny. Taws stood before him, ghastly in his nakedness, though even
the malformed contortion of his unhuman lineaments could not surpass the sheer
horror of his rage. Red eyes burned in sunken sockets, narrow lips drawn back
in a snarl from pointed teeth, the mantis face framed by a mane of corpse-white
hair. An arm that hinged unlike any human limb extended taloned fingers toward
Kedryn, and from them came a wash of flame.

           
“No!” Wynett’s shout was a denial of
Taws’s power, of his intent, and at the same time a declaration of her love.

           
She flung herself before Kedryn, one
hand about her talisman, holding it out so that the flame of the mage’s
gramarye burst against it, filling the air with a charnel stink. She was thrown
back against Kedryn, and he held her, believing her burned until she cried
again, “No!”

           
That shout broke the hypnotic
fascination Taws exerted and he set a hand to his own talisman, knowing
instinctively that only the blue stones could offer salvation from the
destruction that threatened. It seemed then that he stepped aside from time,
that with Wynett he entered some limbo existing contemporaneously with the
chronology that governed life, facing the Messenger on a plane that transcended
the existence of human flesh. He saw Brannoc hurl a knife, and witnessed the
blade burst into flame, falling in molten droplets to the floor. He saw Taws
laugh and turn both taloned hands, palms outward, toward him, a great Hood of
fire, a tidal wave of flame, roar toward him. Not knowing how he knew, he
thrust out his own free hand—saw Wynett do the same—and saw Taws’s fire again
repulsed. He saw Tepshen raise his blade high and charge the mage, and turned
his hand to send a wash of blue light out to the kyo, bathing the yelling
warrior in its radiance. He saw Taws turn, sending tongues of flame licking at
Tepshen, and the tongues die as they touched the pulsing blue effulgence,
Tepshen’s blade descending in a lethal arc that ended and rebounded as it met
the gray-white hide of the Messenger, Taws’s hand lash out to send Tepshen
staggering back as if his blow had struck a wall of rock.

           
“Stay back!” he roared, and felt
Wynett take his hand, her touch enhancing the power he could feel within
himself, the glow of their two talismans increasing with the contact, pulsing
fiercer, surrounding them until they moved within the shield of its radiance.

           
That sense of purpose that had
gripped him before, that surety, was on him now, stronger than when he first
fought Hattim or Niloc Yarrum, stronger than ever, and with Wynett at his side
he moved toward the insectile figure that roared and bellowed beside the High
Throne. Waves of furious red fire burst from Taws’s outthrust hands and were
repulsed by the blue light. Tapestries burst into flame and stone melted, lava
seething across the chamber’s floor. Tepshen Lahl rose unsteadily to his feet
and retreated from the capering figure of the mage, Brannoc moving to support
the kyo, the two drawing back from a duel they recognized as Kedryn’s and
Wynett’s alone, knowing it utilized powers far greater than sword blades. The
Galichians and those incumbents of the
White
Palace
still remaining ran in screaming panic from
the holocaust.