Seven Sorcerers(50)

“In the Giantlands we worship different Gods than Men do,” said Dahrima. “Or perhaps they are the same Gods with different names.”

Sir Nothing drew near to her foot like a fawning puppy, nuzzling her ankle. “The Gods have forsaken this place,” he said. “But I have not. And I never will.”

Dahrima wanted to push him away. His stink rose into her nostrils again. But she pitied him, so she endured his touch and his odor. The poor fellow had lost his mind long ago.

“Why don’t you leave these crumbled stones?” she asked. “You would find fellowship and comfort in Udurum or Uurz. Are you not lonely?”

He leaped away from her, curling into a ball. “Don’t take me away,” he cried. “Please don’t take me away! This is where I belong…”

“This is a place of death and foul spirits,” she told him. He gazed at the stars now, perhaps not hearing her words. “You can have no life here.”

Sir Nothing looked at her again, his eyes reflecting the moonlight. “This is my kingdom,” he said proudly. He tried to stand up straight before her, but his crooked back would not allow it. His long arms hung at his sides, and again he reminded her of a southern ape. “I am the last royal heir, you see.”

Dahrima smiled. “You told me you were nothing.”

“I am the King of Shar Dni,” he told her. “This is my realm. All the others are dead, but I still rule this place. The ghosts of my people serve me and call me Majesty. Nobody can hear them but me. They need their King.”

Dahrima recalled the account she had read of the Doom of Shar Dni in Shaira’s library. When Gammir and Ianthe led the hosts of Khyrei across the sea to raze the city, Vireon and Alua had arrived too late to save it. Yet they drove the conquerors out of the valley and took thousands of refugees back to Udurum. Andoses, the heir to King Ammon’s throne, died in that battle. Andoses had fathered no children, so this madman could not be his heir. Unless he were some other relative of Ammon’s.

“Tell me what happened,” Dahrima said. She used the voice she might offer a child. Gentleness did not come easily to her, but she attempted it for the sake of the truth buried here. “Where were you when the Khyreins came?”

Nothing slumped into a bed of crackling moss. The shadow of the broken arch obscured his face, but his dull green eyes glowed. “They locked me in a room,” he said. “I screamed and yelled and cried… but they said I must behave until my cousin returned. He would be the new King. Ammon was his father.”

“You speak of Andoses?”

He looked at her face again, his eyes growing wide. “Andoses the Brave,” he smiled. “My cousin had gone to visit the Giants. Did you know him? Tell me you knew him, Lady.”

Dahrima nodded. She had seen Shaira’s nephew about the palace of Udurum when he visited, but had never shared words with him. She knew only that he had traveled south with Tadarus, Fangodrel, Vireon, and D’zan, and that he had died at the Doom of Shar Dni.

“Why did they lock you up?” she asked. “Were you a criminal?” Silence. The night winds picked up, roaring through the valley.

“They said I was mad,” he told her, “because of what I had seen. The Prince of Shadows did it to me… He should have killed me, you see, but he left me alive and mad. That was what they told me. I remember it, too.”

The Prince of Shadows? He must mean Gammir.

“He came to visit my uncle the King. There were pirates in those days, you see. Horrid reavers spilling blood on the Golden Sea. Ammon–he was my uncle–wanted help from the City of Men and Giants. They sent Fangodrel, Son of Vod, to us then. Oh, he was a fine spectacle in his black mail and cloak of shadows. Yet he was terrifying, Lady. So terrifying…”

Fangodrel was the northern name of Gammir. He must have visited Shar Dni on his way to take the throne of Khyrei from his sorceress grandmother. Ianthe had called him to her side, urging him to murder his own brother, Tadarus. Fangodrel was not truly the Son of Vod. He was a bastard and the heir to Ianthe’s blood magic.

“Tell me all of it,” Dahrima asked.

“A feast!” Sir Nothing started. He danced a jig between the broken stones, then stopped and came near her with a whisper. “There was a feast to honor the Shadow Prince. But he did not want food. No, he wanted blood.”

The madman wept as he continued. “My seven cousins were there, the daughters of Ammon. Such beautiful Princesses as you will never find elsewhere. And my brother Dutho–he was named Duke that year. He was at the feast too… Oh, Gods, would that he were not. The Shadow Prince drank their blood, one by one. His army of shadows poured forth to strangle the guardsmen. My uncle–he was the King, you see–he died first. Oh, the screams of the Princesses were terrible. I still hear them when I close my eyes.”