Seven Sorcerers(134)

“Perhaps I should avoid building another fleet,” D’zan had told Cymetha. “If there is no fleet of warships, there will be no war upon the sea. If I build another fleet, some King who comes after me might commit the same crime of which I am guilty.”

His Second Wife, who had become his First Wife in all but name, soothed his pain with kind words and the pleasure of her skilled touch. “You acted honorably,” Cymetha reminded him, “and honored our long treaty with Mumbaza. You sought to end the ancient threat of Khyrei. How could you or anyone know that these strange invaders would overwhelm your fleet and that of Undutu as well? I have thanked the Sea God many times that the Feathered Serpent was there to save you. Be glad that you have returned alive and wiser, and that you have a healthy son to carry on your bloodline. The Four Gods returned you to us because Theskalus needs you. He will be a great King someday like his father.”

Yes, Theskalus.

Another miracle that should have brought D’zan happiness. Yet when he had returned home to meet his three-month-old son for the first time, when he held the infant in his arms, he had felt only suspicion. He saw none of himself in the child’s face. The baby’s eyes were blue, yet D’zan had been born with his father’s dark eyes. His grandfather had shared those same black pupils. The eyes of his sorcery-built body were green, but that color was only a reflection of Sharadza’s power. If Theskalus was the product of D’zan’s loins, he should be dark of eye. Cymetha’s own eyes were dark as well. Perhaps some blue eye color lay in her family tree somewhere, but D’zan did not ask. He did not want her to know of his suspicion.

The baby was handsome and healthy, but his hair was also dark. D’zan and Cymetha both possessed hair as yellow as ripe corn. D’zan had no dark hair at all in his family, unless it had been so many generations ago that it had been forgotten. All of his living relatives were slain by Elhathym when the necromancer murdered Trimesqua and stole the throne of Yaskatha. In gaining back his dead father’s kingdom, D’zan had been forced to surrender his very humanity. Only recently had he realized the cost of that victory.

He loved Sharadza, but she had given him no child. So he had turned to Cymetha. Within months his mistress had grown heavy with child. Sharadza had fled, unwilling to share her husband, even for the sake of royal heirs. Yet now D’zan wondered, not for the first time, if his own seed was barren instead of his First Wife’s womb. He had asked Iardu that very question at Uurz, when the Shaper was explaining the truth of D’zan’s enchanted body.

You need not fear, the Shaper had told him. Your son will be fine.

D’zan believed those words at the time, yet upon his return to Yaskatha they had lingered in his mind. Every time he looked at the round, soft face of his infant son, they rang in his head again. Had Iardu lied? Had Sharadza done the same? It would be just like her to bear the secret of his impotency and take the blame for it upon herself. She was always one to put the welfare of others before her own interests.

Is this truly my son?

The question haunted D’zan even more than the nightmares of his shattered fleet. For three months he sat above the royal court conducting the affairs of state, and he returned to Cymetha and Theskalus every evening. Peace had once again fallen upon Yaskatha. There were rich harvests to swell the pockets of the people and the holds of trading vessels. The merchant houses had actually benefitted from the demise of the royal fleet; the King had no more ships of his own to send on trading missions, so the merchant fleets took up the slack. The Jade Isles were constructing a new capital to replace the one sunk by Zyung’s wrath, so Yaskatha had replaced Ongthaia as the central hub of trading among the Five Cities. There was also the newly opened trade with Khyrei, a business which turned minor investors into wealthy men as their ships came in loaded with goods from the black city.

The nation prospered while D’zan brooded.

On the day that Theskalus turned six months old, the King of Yaskatha decided that he could no longer suffer the pain of his own doubt. If D’zan was ever to love his son as a father should–if he was ever to trust Cymetha as a husband must–then he must discover the truth. If Theskalus was a bastard, he would never be heir to the throne. And if D’zan was truly incapable of fathering children, then he would never have a blood heir.

I owe it to my son to find this truth.

D’zan announced his intention, though not its true reason, during a court assembly.

“My mind is troubled by dark dreams and bloodstained memories,” he said. The rouged faces of courtiers, advisors, and attendants looked upon him with concern. “In order to find the peace that eludes me, I must speak again with Iardu the Shaper. Although I would rather not sail the unforgiving sea again, I must seek the wizard on his lonely isle. Until I do so, I will know neither peace nor rest.”