Seven Sorcerers(128)

Dahrima never spoke to Vireon of this matter. Like any Uduri, she bore her sadness in silence. In all other things, she was joyful. In her darkest hours she reminded herself that she was a warrior and a hunter. She did not need to spawn offspring to be whole. Yet the laughter of children running in the courtyards of Udurum was never far from her ears or her heart.

At the end of her first year of marriage she dreamed of the white flame. Inside the dream she lay in the pillared bedchamber next to Vireon, as she did in the waking world. Yet in the dream white flame poured like water from the window casements, spilling across the marble floors and gliding up the columns and walls. Her dreaming eyes opened while her true eyes remained closed. A woman’s figure glided through the window like a pale ghost.

The bed now floated upon a sea of white flame, yet there was no heat or smoke. The ghost-woman hung above Dahrima, who could neither move nor speak.

Alua.

Even asleep Dahrima recognized the Mistress of the White Flame whose long blonde tresses flowed and burned upon the silk of the bed. Alua’s dark eyes scanned the sleeping face of Vireon, then turned upon Dahrima with a smile both warm and gentle. There was no fear in this dream, only strangeness.

Alua’s hands touched Dahrima’s cheeks, and the white flame coursed through Dahrima’s body like a cool and pleasant wind. It gathered in the space between her hips, churning and burning there with sudden heat. Yet there was no pain.

Dahrima awoke sweating in the dark silence of the bed-chamber. There was no trace of flame or sorceress. Vireon’s slumber had remained undisturbed. Dahrima laid her face upon his shoulder and returned to sleep. No more dreams came to her that night.

She forgot the dream of white flame until many weeks later, when she discovered her stomach had swollen into a soft yet firm mound. The palace physician, well schooled in the medicine of the Uduru, examined her and confirmed what she already knew.

A child grew in her belly. Nor would it be her last.

There was much rejoicing in the City of Men and Giants.





21


Vengeance


For thirteen days Mendices languished in a dank cell beneath the Uurzian palace. His titles had been stripped, his estate emptied, and his children had fled for the southern cities. There was no way to predict how deep the Scholar King’s wrath would run, so in the days before his arrest Mendices had made certain that his progeny were far away. Yet he refused to run from the city he had once helped Tyro rule. He had served his rightful King faithfully, and his reward was a set of rusted chains upon his limbs.

On the third morning after the siege Lord Undroth had arrived from Yaskatha and officially replaced Mendices as Warlord of Uurz. That same day Lyrilan sent a squad of spearmen to take Mendices into custody. A nameless official informed Mendices that he must await Lyrilan’s judgment in the dungeon. Mendices neither protested nor begged for mercy. He would not give Lyrilan the satisfaction. So the scholar had learned a few magic tricks from some ancient text of sorcery. That did not make him a suitable Emperor of the Stormlands. Yet with Tyro dead, there was no other choice.

The guards fed Mendices well during his incarceration. The ale was bitter and the bread was stale, but the red meat was well cooked, and there were fruits and cheeses to accompany it. The groans and pleas of other prisoners along the row of iron-barred cells had ceased to bother him after the first three days. Later he realized that this was because Lyrilan had ordered them all released. Most were political prisoners who had spoken out against Tyro’s reign. Now they would fawn over the Scholar King and return to life in the city above. Mendices wondered if he would ever get that same mercy. Yet he thought it more likely that Lyrilan would take his head in payment for the death of Ramiyah.

Tyro and Talondra were gone, so there was no one left for Lyrilan to take revenge upon but Mendices. Surely the Scholar King did not know how integral Mendices had been to the plot that had murdered his wife and seen him banished as a madman from his own father’s palace. Yet Mendices had always stood high in Tyro’s favor; when the Twin Kings had divided the city into factions, Mendices had led the Gold Legions in Tyro’s name. That alone was enough to damn him in Lyrilan’s eyes.

If the Scholar King was going to sentence him to death, Mendices wished it would come sooner rather than later. Yet Lyrilan obviously wanted to break his spirit, to weary him with imprisonment and humiliation. Perhaps they would soon turn to starving him as well. Anything to make him grovel for a pardon, something Mendices would never do.

When the door of the cell swung open on the thirteenth night, Mendices expected to see that the headsman had come for him at last. He blinked against the torchlight flooding into the black cubicle. A figure in dark robes stood in the open doorway with torch and keys in hand.