The Lair of Bones (2 page)

Raj Ahten grinned. The deed pained him. He had taken many wounds in the Battle of Kartish, wounds that would have killed any lesser man, and some of those were to his face. He lay back on his silken pillows, reveled in the gentle sway of his palanquin as the bearers marched in step, and watched the frightened doves circle above the city, floating like ashes above the light.

It seemed the start of a perfect day.

Gradually, something caught his attention. Ahead, people bowed to do obeisance, but among the humped shapes one man remained standing.

He wore the gray robes of the Ah'kellah, the judges of the desert. Upon his right hip, his robe had been thrown back, revealing the handle of his saber. He held his head high, so that the black ringlets attached to his simple iron war helm cascaded over his shoulders and down his back. Wuqaz? Raj Ahten wondered. Wuqaz Faharaqin come to fight at last? Offering a duel?

The humble peasants nearby looked up at the judge fearfully from the corners of their eyes, and some begged him to fall down and do obeisance, while others chided him for his deportment.

Raj Ahten's palanquin came up beside the Ah'kellah, and Raj Ahten raised his hand, calling for his procession to stop.

Immediately, the pounding of the drums ceased, and every man in the army halted. The crowd fell silent, except for the bawling of a few babes.

The air nearly crackled with intensity, and the thoughts of the flameweavers burned into the back of Raj Ahten's consciousness.
Kill him,
they whispered.
Kill him. You could burn him to cinders, make an example of him. Let the people see your glory.

Not yet,
Raj Ahten whispered in return, for since his near death in the battle at Kartish, Raj Ahten's own eyes burned with hidden fires now.
I will not unveil myself yet.

Fire had claimed his life, had filled him with a light divine yet unholy. His old self had burned away, and from the cinders had risen a new man—Scathain, Lord of Ash.

Raj Ahten knew most of the members of the Ah'kellah. It was not Wuqaz who stood before him. Instead, his own uncle on his father's side, Hasaad Ahten, barred the way.

Not Wuqaz, Raj Ahten realized with palpable regret. Instead, his uncle had come on Wuqaz's mission.

Raj Ahten had taken thousands of endowments of Voice from his people, endowments that came from fine singers, from great orators. He spoke, and let the power of his voice wash over the crowd. In a tone sweeter than peach blossoms, as cruel as a blade of flame, he commanded, “Bow to me.”

Everywhere among the crowd, millions prostrated themselves. Those who were already bowing flattened themselves further, as if to become one with the dust.

Hasaad remained standing, anger brimming in his eyes. “I come to give you counsel, my nephew,” Hasaad said, “so that your wisdom may increase. I speak for your benefit.”

By phrasing his words thus, Hasaad made certain that all in the crowd knew that he spoke by right. Custom dictated that even Raj Ahten, the high king of all the nations of Indhopal, could not kill an elder relative who sought only to counsel him.

Hasaad continued, “It is reported that already you have sent word, ordering your troops on Rofehavan's border to march to war.” Hasaad shouted his words, so that they rang out over the crowd, but with only two endowments of Voice, Hasaad's words could not convey the emotional appeal that Raj Ahten's did. “The reavers have laid waste our fields and orchards in all of the Jewel Kingdoms. Our people face starvation. Do you think it wise to send more men to war, when they could better spend their time gathering food?”

“There is food in Rofehavan,” Raj Ahten said reasonably, “for those strong enough to take it.”

“And in Kartish,” Hasaad said, “you have sent a million commoners to work the mines, hauling blood metal from the earth so that you heap upon yourself more endowments.”

“My people need a strong lord,” Raj Ahten said, “to defeat the reavers.” Hasaad asked, “You have heaped the strengths of others upon yourself for many years, claiming that you only seek to save your people from the reavers. Now the reavers are vanquished. You have already claimed victory over the lords of the Underworld. But it is not victory over reavers that you want. When you have stolen Rofehavan's food, you will force their people to give endowments.” His voice grew thick with accusation.

Burn him now,
the voices of the flameweavers sputtered.

“Two battles we may have won against the reavers,” Raj Ahten answered in a tone that suggested grief at being questioned in so callous a manner, “but a greater battle remains to be fought.”

“How can you know that?” Hasaad demanded. “How can you know that the reavers will attack again?”

“My pyromancer has seen it in the flames,” Raj Ahten said, waving his hand toward Rahjim, a flameweaver riding to his right. “A great battle will flare up, more fearsome than any that we have ever known. Reavers will boil from the Underworld like never before. I go now to Rofehavan—to win food for my people, and to fight reavers in my people's behalf. Let every man who has access to a force horse ride at my side. I will lead you to victory!”

Cheers arose from the multitude, but Hasaad stood defiantly.

How dare he! Raj Ahten thought.

“You are a fool,” Hasaad said, “to persecute the Earth King's people. Your rapacity is endless, as is your cruelty. You are no longer human, and as such, should be put to death like an animal.”

Raj Ahten ripped back the veil that hid him from the crowd, and a collective gasp arose. The wizard fires in Kartish had seared every hair from his head, leaving him bald and without eyebrows. The flames had also burned away his right ear and scalded the retina of his right eye, so that now it shone as pale as milk. White bone protruded in a cruel line along his lower jaw.

The crowd gasped in horror, for Raj Ahten's visage seemed the very face of ruin. But he had taken thousands of endowments of glamour from his subjects, giving him a beauty ethereal, as overwhelming as it was impossible to define. In a moment, the gasps of horror turned into “aaaahs” of admiration.

“How dare you,” Raj Ahten roared, “after all that I have suffered for you. Bow before my greatness!”

“No man can be great who is not also humble,” Hasaad intoned in the calm, dignified manner common to the Ah'kellah.

Raj Ahten could not let his uncle continue to stand against him. He would seek to sway the crowds after Raj Ahten left, when the power of Raj Ahten's voice became only a memory.

He smiled cruelly. He could not kill Hasaad, but he could silence him. He begged his followers, “Bring me his tongue.”

Hasaad grabbed the hilt of his sword. His blade nearly cleared its scabbard, but one of Raj Ahten's bowing servants yanked Hasaad by the ankles so that he went sprawling forward, and then faithful peasants leapt on the man, ending a brief struggle. Someone wrenched Hasaad's head around, while another man pried his teeth open with a dagger. There was a flow of blood, a clumsy cut.

In moments, a sweet young girl came skipping up to Raj Ahten, bearing the bloody flesh in both hands, as if it were a gift given with great respect.

Raj Ahten pinched the warm tongue between two fingers, showing his own disrespect for the gobbet of flesh, then tossed it to the floor of the palanquin and covered it with his slippered foot.

The peasants remained piled upon Hasaad, so that he could not breathe. Raj Ahten tapped the side of the palanquin twice, ordering the procession forward. “To the stables,” he said. “I ride to war.”

As his procession made its way toward the Elephant Palace, a knot of men dressed in black watched from the shadows of a darkened bedroom, in the uppermost chambers of an inn. Their leader, Wuqaz Faharaqin, said softy to the others. “Raj Ahten will not abandon the ways of war, and his people are so blinded by his glamour that they cannot see him for what he is.”

Wuqaz felt within himself. For long years, he too had been blinded by Raj Ahten's glamour. Even now, he fought the urge to bow before the monster, along with the rest of the crowd. But Raj Ahten had tipped his hand. He'd slain his own men in an effort to murder the Earth King, including one of Wuqaz's nephews. For that murder, Raj Ahten would have to pay. Wuqaz hailed from the noble tribe of Ah'Kellah, the judges of the desert, and his own language had no word for
mercy.

A young man whispered, “How can we stop him?”

“We must rip the veil of glamour from him,” Wuqaz said.

“But we have tried to kill his Dedicates,” one of the men said. “We can't get into his castles.”

Wuqaz nodded thoughtfully. A plan took form. In Kartish, the reavers had cursed the land. For hundreds of miles around, the plants had died, promising famine in the southern provinces.

This had forced Raj Ahten to move most of his Dedicates north to the Ghusa, a mighty fortress in Deyazz. According to conventional wisdom, no one could hope to break down its huge doors or climb its towering walls.

“Let us go to Ghusa,” Wuqaz told his men. “Raj Ahten's greatest weakness is his greed. I will show you how to make him choke on it.”

1

Rofehavan has always been bounded by the sea to the north and to the east, by the Hest Mountains to the west, and by the Alcair Mountains to the south. In an effort to assure that no war was ever waged over a desirable piece of land, Erden Geboren reached a concord with kings of Old Indhopal and the elders of Inkarra. He set the southeast border of his realm, where the three great realms met, in the most undesirable place on earth: at the opening to a vast and ancient reaver warren called the Mouth of the World.

—
from A
History of Rofehavan
by Hearthmaster Redelph

“Milord, there you are,” someone called. “I was growing worried. We've been waiting for hours.” Averan woke. She recognized the voice of The Wizard Binnesman. She found herself in a wagon bed filled with sweet-smelling hay, new from the summer fields. For a pillow she used Gaborn's rucksack filled with chain mail and leather padding. All of Averan's muscles felt heavy and overworn, and her eyes were gritty. She lay with her eyes closed. Yet almost by instinct she reached out for her staff, her precious staff of black poison-wood. She touched it, felt the power in it surge beneath her hand.

Gaborn answered, “I hurried the best I could. But the horse was on its last legs, so I turned it loose and left the driver to care for it.”

“So, the Earth King pulls a wagon to save a horse?” Binnesman scolded gently, as if worried that Gaborn might be pushing himself too hard. “Even those with great endowments have their limits—both horse and man.” Binnesman laughed. “You look like an old farmer, hauling a load of rutabagas to market.”

“It was only thirty more miles,” Gaborn said. “And my cargo is far more valuable than rutabagas.”

Averan found herself startled to greater wakefulness. She had been
sleeping so soundly that she hadn't been aware that she slept in a wagon, much less that the Earth King himself pulled that wagon by hand.

Binnesman offered, “Here, let's hitch up my mount.”

The wagon came to a complete halt as the wizard got off his horse and unsaddled it.

Averan sneaked a peek upward. Overhead, stars arced through the heavens as if intent upon washing the earth in light. The sun would not crest the horizon for perhaps an hour, yet light spilled like molten gold over the snowy peaks of the Alcair Mountains. To Averan it seemed that the light was sourceless, as if it suffused from another, finer world.

The heavenly display fooled even the animals. Morning birdsong swelled over the land: the throaty coo of the wood dove, the song of the lark, the jealous squawk of a magpie.

Close by, knobby hills crowded the road and the dry wheat growing along their sides reflected the starlight. Leafless oaks on the slopes stood black and stark, like thorny crowns. A burrow owl screeched in the distance. Faintly, Averan could smell water from a small stream, though she could not hear it burble.