The Heir (Fall of the Swords Book 3) (7 page)

As the message ended, the courier should have regained consciousness. An eternity later, Snarling Jaguar emerged from his thoughts and noticed the stench of voided bladder and bowel.

* * *

“Infinite blast it, why didn't the Usurper die?”

Easing Comfort chuckled. “That's the fourth time you've said that.”

“So?
You
tell me why he didn't die, eh?” she replied across a table of half-emptied plates.

Smiling, unperturbed, Easing Comfort looked from her to the girl. “Lady Quick,” the Wizard-medacor said, “tell us what happened, eh?”

“Everything went as planned, Lord Comfort: His profligate son responded to the implant exactly as he should have, but…” Thinking Quick closed her eyes, then shook her head. “I don't believe it! He
fades
from my sight!”

“What do you mean—'he fades'?” Purring Tiger asked.

“Remember I told you how I can't see Flaming Arrow and Seeking Sword? It's as if they're not even present when I consult the past, eh? Guarding Bear, though, is like a wraith—sometimes solid, sometimes insubstantial, sometimes invisible!”

Thinking Quick's talents included three types of time sight: Present, past and future, respectively called Extant, Temporal and Prescient.

Extant Sight, or viewing the present, was merely watching someone's current activities at a specific geographical location. As distance increased, clarity decreased proportionally. Anyone farther than five hundred miles was an indistinct blob, beyond recognition.

Temporal Sight, or viewing the past, was simply seeing what had happened at some moment in the past, whether a minute, an hour, a year, or a century ago. The further back Thinking Quick searched, the less distinct events became. Clarity regressed from the specific actions of specific people, to the movements of small groups, to the general migrations of whole populations. Anything further in the past than a millennium was a blur.

In comparison, Prescient Sight, or viewing the future, was more complex than either extant or temporal sight or their combination. Looking into the future was analogous to—and infinitely more complicated than—watching ocean breakers while lying with one's head on the sand. The glimpses afforded were of the wave crests only. The events between waves hidden, the farther away the crest was the farther in the future and the more obscure the event. The waves came at her from every point in three dimensions—above and below, left and right, front and back, and every point between.

The four axes of Prescient sight were the geographical axis of extant sight, the base axis of temporal sight, all futures springing from some causal past, the time axis, and the axis of probability, the most intricate and multi-dimensional of all four axes.

The three sights grew exponentially more complex. A person might have only extant sight. Since temporal sight enabled the person to see the past up until the present, a person with temporal sight by default also had extant sight. The only distinction between them was the
when
of the event. Similarly, a person with prescient sight had to have both temporal and extant sight.

“He fades from my sight,” Thinking Quick said again. She looked at Easing Comfort. “You've talked with Leaping Elk, eh Lord? He has some prescient sight, mostly latent, right?”

Easing Comfort nodded.

“He told me not long ago that I'm invisible to his talent, which makes sense.” Thinking Quick chuckled. “I can imagine what would happen if two or more full-blown prescients tried to kill each other. What a tumult! Anyway, when he consults the future, I can't see him, but he doesn't fade as Guarding Bear does. I wonder if Guarding Bear has latent prescience. What do you think?”

“I don't know, Thinking Quick. His talent
is
remarkable. It protects him against everything, even the subterfuge of others. I also hear that it ingratiates him into others' confidences, but that's just a silly rumor.”

“No one else's talent can thwart yours—it's too strong.” Purring Tiger smiled at her young friend.

“No one has more power than the Infinite. Besides, if the morning of Bubbling Water's death were the only time it happened, I'd say your right,” Thinking Quick said. “Guarding Bear fades from the temporal scape several times. Once, about ten months before your birth, Purring Tiger. Once, a few days before Bubbling Water divined the conception of the twins.”

“Perhaps we shouldn't have counted on the mate-empathy link.” Melding Mind looked weary, having just returned from Emparia City. “Not many people know that a pair of Wizards treated Guarding Bear for mental illness after his brother died. They were very close, possibly as close as mates, eh? Such treatment might have interfered with the mate-empathy link between him and Bubbling Water.”

“We
didn't
rely solely on the mate-empathy link, though,” Purring Tiger said. “We also depended upon his paternal shame. His own son, killing his mate, how ignominious! The shame and grief combined didn't work either.” Sighing, Purring Tiger looked at the others. “What now, conspirators?”

The four members of the coalition looked amongst themselves. The glance was a collective shrug. With Bubbling Water dead, the retired General Guarding Bear had no more weaknesses.

“Infinite blast it, why didn't the Usurper die?”

O
nly a father can set the requirements of a boy's manhood ritual. To prevent unnecessarily difficult or degrading requirements, the son chooses a mediator. His duties limited to stating objections only, a mediator cannot make suggestions to either father or son. If the father is unable to set the requirements, the patriarch decides. A father consults no one but a patriarch. Even then custom obligates the patriarch to ask questions only. In setting requirements, only the father decides and in this the father is alone.—
Rituals Before the Fall
, by Keeping Track.

* * *

Flying Arrow, Conqueror of the Northern Empire, seventh Emperor of the Arrow Dynasty, frowned at the speaker and fidgeted in his seat.

The Sorcerer Exploding Illusion was recounting what he had heard of the conversation between the Heir and the Matriarch Water, moments ago. Also present was the Sorcerer Apprentice Spying Eagle. The two Wizards sat on cushions twenty paces from the dais in the audience hall. As usual, the pimpled, pock-faced Exploding Illusion was slouching, and Spying Eagle was sitting correctly.

Very bad manners not to sit at attention, Flying Arrow thought. Worse manners to have halitosis so bad I smell it at twenty paces. The Sorcerer's rotten-toothed smile particularly disgusted the Emperor. Soothing Spirit, the Imperial Medacor, prognosticated an early death for Exploding Illusion, if Flying Arrow didn't tire of him first.

“What?” Flying Arrow asked, having heard the word “assassin.”

“The Lord Heir said, 'Why hasn't an assassin ever worked?' ”

“On whom?”

Exploding Illusion slid a glance at the apprentice beside him, then frowned. “They were discussing Scowling Tiger, Lord Emperor.”

“Assassinate Scowling Tiger?” Flying Arrow said, scoffing.

“Yes, Lord, that's the plan.” Exploding Illusion picked something out of his beard, chewing a crusty lip with a black-rimmed tooth.

“Who? Whose plan to have who assassinate him?”

With the same hand, the Sorcerer put something in his mouth—probably what he had picked out of his beard. “Flaming Arrow's plan, but no mention of who would do it, Lord Emperor.”

Flying Arrow frowned. At least the Heir wasn't planning to assassinate
him
! “What else did they say?”

“Not much of importance, Lord Emperor—the usual lovers' prattle.”

Flying Arrow nodded, looking toward the two men. “I've a request to make of you, Lord Sorcerer. Your ideas, Lord Wizard, are welcome as well. A boy has only one manhood ritual. I have only one son and Heir. The requirements are most difficult to set. They can be neither too harsh nor too easy. They must be worthy of an Heir, yet be easy enough to insure his survival. You both understand the dilemma, I'm sure.”

Spying Eagle bowed. “Forgive me, Lord Emperor. What you're asking violates the traditions surrounding the manhood ritual. We can't advise in a matter involving only father and son, and perhaps patriarch.”

“I know, Lord Eagle. I would, of course, ignore such advice. I've racked my brains for days and can think of nothing. I want you two to tell me what your rituals were like.”

“Mine, Lord Emperor, can be of no help,” Exploding Illusion said. “My father asked me to build a city of illusion and hold it for a day.”

“I, Lord Emperor,” Spying Eagle said, “had to construct a complex implant from a distance of twenty-five miles.”

“Neither exactly suited to my talentless son,” Flying Arrow muttered. “With all his talk about bandits lately, do you think I should turn him loose on them?”

Neither man replied.

“Oh. Forgive me,” the Emperor said, having forgotten that the customs of the ritual proscribed an answer. Waving as if to dispel a noxious wind, Flying Arrow stared at the banner above the double doors. The blue and white silk shimmered, the seven arrows standing tall. “I'd like you both to witness from there.” He pointed. Servants placed cushions to the right of the carpet that stretched from the base of the dais to the doors.

Spying Eagle bowed. “It's a great honor, Lord Emperor, to witness such a momentous occasion.”

“I asked the Lord Oak, but he declined,” Flying Arrow said.

The Sorcerer and Sorcerer Apprentice settled themselves on the cushions.

The ancient personal servant slipped through the doors and awaited the Emperor's attention. Flying Arrow gestured.

In a voice hoarse with age, the servant announced, “The Lord Commanding General Aged Oak, the Lady Matriarch Rippling Water, and the Lord Heir Flaming Arrow.”

In that order, the three of them entered.

At a pace inside the door, Aged Oak stopped, sniffed the air, and took the measure of everyone in the room. He stepped forward, his brow wrinkled in consternation and wrinkles on top of those wrinkles. Stopping at twenty paces, he again took stock of the room and its occupants, then stomped his feet twice. Finally, he bowed, his sword still loose in his hands. “Forgive me, Lord Emperor, but I plead with you for the thousandth time to rip this room apart and let me rebuild it!” He glanced between the two obsidian statues at the forward corners of the dais. A frown wrinkled the wrinkles on his grizzled jowls. Aged Oak had become very wrinkled.

Beside him, Rippling Water and Flaming Arrow made their obeisance.

Flying Arrow nodded.

The other three sat back, the Heir taking the central cushion a pace ahead of the other two.

“We all know why we're here, Lords and Lady,” Flying Arrow said. “For the record, let me state that on this fifth day of the eight month of the year of the Infinite nine thousand three hundred eighteen, I, the Lord Emperor Flying Arrow, seventh Emperor of the Arrow Dynasty in the Eastern Empire, will set for my son, the Lord Heir Flaming Arrow, the requirements of his manhood ritual, thereby allowing him to prove to all his readiness to assume the title of man. For the record, does anyone here doubt his preparedness for the ritual?”

No one spoke. Unnoticed, a woman slipped into the room.

“According to the ritual, the son may choose a mediator. Have you chosen one, my son?”

“I have, Lord Father,” Flaming Arrow said, bowing. “Since the Lord General Guarding Bear isn't well, I've asked the Lord General Aged Oak.”

Flying Arrow nodded. “Do you, Lord General Oak, promise upon the Infinite to have the interests of my son and only my son at heart, in this matter only?”

Everyone glanced askance at Flying Arrow. The last four words weren't part of the ritual.

“In this matter and in all matters, Lord Emperor,” Aged Oak retorted, “I have the interests of the
Empire
at heart.”

As if I don't! Flying Arrow thought. “Why shouldn't I execute you for treachery?!”

“Because you need only ask me to walk the plank!” Aged Oak had lapsed into the dialect of Cove, the fishing port where he had grown up.

“This is disgraceful, both of you!” Flaming Arrow said. “If you want to bicker and hear disloyalty in each other's words, then I'll throw away the Heir Sword, get myself adopted by a peasant, and ask
him
to set my requirements!”

“I feel ashamed that I let the Emperor draw me into a petty squabble, Lord Heir,” Aged Oak said, bowing to the young man.

Flaming Arrow nodded to acknowledge, then looked toward his father.

Flying Arrow stared back, unrepentant.

Standing, Flaming Arrow untied his sash, lay the Heir Sword on the floor and turned to go. Then he saw the woman near the doors.

His mother, Flowering Pine, had come to observe.

“Wait, my son,” the Emperor said, wondering why the ignorant wench had deigned to grace the occasion with her presence. “I, uh, might have spoken rashly. Forgive me.” She acts like an Empress or something.

Nodding, the Heir returned to his seat.

Flying Arrow wondered if he really would have kept walking. He's as stubborn in other matters, and has been since the day he was born, he thought.

Back on his cushion, Flaming Arrow said, “I accept the Lord Oak's oath as solemn and binding, Lord Emperor. Do you?”

“Eh? Of course, I do.”

“For the record, no one questions the Lord Oak's loyalty. His devotion to the Empire is without parallel, excepting the Lord Bear's, of course. Now, may we continue?”

“Yes, Lord Emperor Heir,” Aged Oak said, bowing.

Everyone laughed, the tension breaking. Flaming Arrow turned red.

Even the Emperor chuckled, a smile reaching past his lips and to his eyes. “During the six days since you asked me to set the requirements, my son, I've searched my soul. My own ritual, unofficially, was to defeat the Lord Emperor Lofty Lion in duel. Fortunately, you won't have such difficult requirements. Still, they must be suitably hard for a boy who'll become the eighth Emperor Arrow.

“I've heard that you've devoted much time to the study of bandits. The bandits concern us all. The situation's intolerable. The Lord Emperors Jaguar and Condor are being deliberately obtuse in refusing to help me forge an Heir Sword for the northern lands!” Flying Arrow recognized that he was digressing. Sometimes, he didn't catch himself. His loquacious obloquies became delirious diatribes that unchecked included everything under the sun and sometimes the sun as well. “Be that as is, your analyses of their effects upon our internal politics are most insightful. Yes. Good for an Emperor to have a hobby. Always liked consorts myself. Yes.”

* * *

Everyone had become accustomed to Flying Arrow's disjointed speech. “If we wait long enough, perhaps he'll come out of it,” Aged Oak murmured to Spying Eagle, loud enough for Flaming Arrow to overhear.

“Sometimes we have to remind him what he was saying, Lord Oak,” Spying Eagle replied. “The condition has developed so gradually over the last fifteen years, it's easy to forget he has it.”

Aged Oak grunted, looking toward the dais. “For a long time, we thought he was fishing without a net. Can't you or Healing Hand do something, Lord Eagle?”

“The Imperial Sword is so rigid that no one can correct the disorder.”

“We were discussing bandits,” Flying Arrow said.

The others sighed. Flaming Arrow looked closely at his father and bit his lip. How can I help him? the Heir wondered.

“Intolerable situation. Perhaps, my son, you'd like to do something to help. How many are there, a hundred thousand? A pity you can kill so few yourself. I'd like to see, oh what's reasonable? Would ten be too … uh, yes, I guess it would. Five. My son, bring me five bandit heads, and you'll be a man.”

How do I tell him five is too few? Flaming Arrow thought in the sudden silence. Even ten wouldn't be enough. Ten thousand might satisfy me! the Heir thought. Flaming Arrow could only object to the requirements—not suggest alternatives. “Thank you, Lord Emperor. I'll try my best to fulfill the requirements.”

“You don't find them too difficult, Lord Heir?” Aged Oak asked.

“No, Lord Mediator, I find them just challenging enough,” Flaming Arrow replied, the lie coming easily.

“I too find them appropriate, Lord Emperor,” Aged Oak said. “All parties have agreed. The Lord Heir Flaming Arrow must return with the heads of five bandits. Lord Heir, have you selected an assistant?”

“I have, Lord Mediator. The Lord Colonel Probing Gaze will be my assistant.”

“I'll personally vouch for the Lord Colonel,” Aged Oak said. “I know few men more honorable than he. He'll take boundless pleasure in killing bandits.”

“Send for him,” Flying Arrow said. “I wish to speak with him.”

“The ritual forbids it, Lord Emperor,” Aged Oak said. “There must be no collusion between father and assistant.”

Unnoticed, Flowering Pine slipped out the double doors.

“Oh, yes, I'd forgotten. When do you leave, my son?”

“Sunset tomorrow, father. Pray to the Infinite for my success.”

“I will, my son. Infinite be with you.”

They bowed to each other. Flaming Arrow held the bow much longer than Flying Arrow to signify that this was the last time they would meet unequal in status, child and parent. As Flaming Arrow backed toward the double doors, however, Flying Arrow bowed again and held it until the Heir had gone, an incredible honor.

In the corridor, Flaming Arrow waited, feeling a vast melancholy at the honor the Emperor had shown him. One tear dripped down his cheek. Joining him in the corridor, Rippling Water touched the moisture, then put her arms around him.

Aged Oak, behind her, huffed in disgust but smiled, a sparkle in his eye. “You should have seen the Lord Emperor,” the wrinkled General said, grinning. “I thought he was about to spring a leak!”

Flaming Arrow let the knowledge sink into his soul.

“Now
you're
springing a leak, Lord Heir! We need to plaster more pitch on our wallowing sterns.”

Sighing, Flaming Arrow smiled at his betrothed, then grinned at the wrinkled General. “Lord Oak, I need to talk with you. Would you join me for coffee?”

“Thank you, Lord Heir, you honor me. Unfortunately—”

“Please, Lord Oak,” Flaming Arrow interrupted. “I wouldn't insist if it weren't important. We have to prepare.”

The Heir's implacable gaze upon him, Aged Oak couldn't refuse.

* * *

Silently, they wended their way up stairwell and across corridor.

Walking beside the Heir, Rippling Water knew her betrothed well enough to want to witness whatever was ahead. Upon hearing the requirements, she had thought he might abandon his suicidal mission. The resolve of his progress through the castle confirmed that he wouldn't. Knowing some but not all his plan, she was curious about the rest.

Running up from behind, Spying Eagle joined them with only a nod to each.

At the Heir's quarters, the Sorcerer waited. When Flaming Arrow strode right through him, she recognized it was just an illusion. Not susceptible to psychic images, the Heir hadn't seen it. Everyone followed Flaming Arrow through the illusion, despite the Sorcerer's pleas and threats.

Beyond the shielded door of stout oak, Flaming Arrow invited them all to sit. A knock sounded at the door. The Heir responded before the servant did. He returned with two blond men, Healing Hand and Probing Gaze. Flaming Arrow shut and bolted the door, called for the headservant and dismissed them all for the night, insisting that they leave.