Seven Princes bots-1 Read online

  Ianthe told him the truth in the ecstatic depths of the bloodflower trance. In that heaven of red shadows, he embraced her and she kissed his forehead.

  “You must find your way back to me,” she told him. “To your inheritance. You will be Emperor of Khyrei. All of my kingdom, my wealth, my great knowledge is yours.”

  “I will steal away this very night,” Fangodrel swore. “I’ll travel in disguise and take passage from Shar Dni.”

  “No,” said Ianthe. “The danger is too great. The Golden Sea is full of death and pirates. War is brewing.”

  “But Grandmother…” he protested, crying tears of flame. “I want my true family… I want-”

  “You want power,” said Ianthe, soothing him with her gentle touch. How old was she? She seemed as young as he, her skin so white and unblemished, her body firm and perfectly sculpted. It seemed impossible that she could be two generations removed from his own, yet he believed her. He felt it in his very soul. Saw it in the visions poured like dark wine from her mind into his.

  “Power you shall have, darling boy,” she told him. “It is yours by right of your bloodline. That power will grow within you and bring you to me. The kyreas, which you call the bloodflower, will be your guide. Here in the Red Dream I will teach you the power and glory of blood, red and hot on your tongue. You will call upon the Dwellers in Shadow… The blood will liberate you; the blood will bring you to me.”

  “What blood?” he asked, ashamed of his own ignorance.

  Ianthe smiled, and again she was the white panther, her claws and fangs stained with fresh crimson.

  “The blood that you spill,” she said. “The blood of your enemies.”

  At last the great valves opened and the Giants of Steephold welcomed the three Princes into the vast courtyard with rumbling laughter. A sliver of moon rose just above the central tower, and lowering clouds promised more storms.

  The keep and its [keeower, environs had been built exclusively to accommodate the Uduru, so every hall, chamber, corridor, and passage was three times larger than any human would need. The royal quarters were built with a few man-sized accommodations, but the bulk of the soldiers from Udurum and Shar Dni would bunk in the massive barracks meant for Giant troops in times of war. Those chambers had never been used because the citadel, like New Udurum, was only a quarter-century old. Steephold was built over the ruins of a much older fortress, one built by Giants a thousand years ago. It had fallen into ruin centuries past, but the caverns it had guarded still remained, a series of tunnels running deep beneath the mountains. In the old days, Serpents often crawled up from those depths, and Giants marched into the subterranean realms to hunt them. Now they were paved over and corked shut with great stones.

  Fangodrel doubted there were still any Serpents living beneath the range, but many of their skeletons hung upon walls inside the citadel. These were the relics of ancient hunts, fleshless bodies longer than the Giants were tall, with a dozen clawed legs and a mouth full of ivory fangs. If not for the bones of these creatures kept as trophies, he never would have believed that such creatures existed. But then he was learning much these days that he might not have believed until now.

  Tallim the Rockjaw served as Lord of Steephold, appointed by Vod himself when Fangodrel was an infant. Rockjaw greeted the Princes in his main hall, rising from his great chair and stalking toward them like some beefy monster. His laughter rumbled toward the high ceiling, rattling the bones of the trophy Wyrms along the walls. The furs of a dozen bears composed his great cloak, and the teeth of those same bears hung about his trunk-like neck. The hall was filled with all fifty of his Giants, standing at attention with hammers and axes in their gnarled fists.

  “Young Princes!” bellowed Rockjaw. “You do us honor! How many seasons has it been? Ten? Fifteen?”

  Fangodrel wished to avoid ceremony and go directly to his chamber, but Tadarus jumped at any chance to indulge in royal etiquette. He loved these vicious brutes and their savage manner. I will not play their games of mock respect. Let Rockjaw fawn and pretend to be civilized with Tadarus. They are two of a kind.

  “Tallim!” yelled Tadarus, matching the Giant’s volume. “Good to see your beard is still thick and your hands still strong.”

  The Giant bent to embrace Tadarus as best he could, but he did not lift him. Tadarus was, after all, a Prince, and that would not be appropriate. At least not until they are both drunk and sprawling about the hall an hour from now.

  To Fangodrel, Rockjaw offered a stiff bow, and when Tadarus introduced Prince Andoses, the Giant repeated this motion. “My heart has been heavy since I heard of your father’s fate,” said Rockjaw. “There has never been a King like Vod of the Storms. He made a better world.”

  Tadarus nodded, accepting the sycophantic words. Fangodrel said nothing. A moment of awkward silence filled the hall, but for the crackling of the fire bowls.

  “We received no word of your coming, Prince,” said Rockjaw. “Was there no advance rider?”

  Tadarus shook his head, [ok llim! removing his purple cloak. “There was no time,” he said. “Our errand is urgent. We go to Uurz and on to Mumbaza, to make a case for war.”

  Rockjaw’s huge eyebrows rose, and his great fingers plucked at his beard with interest. Several Giants grunted their approval.

  “Come!” said Rockjaw. “We will feast and we will drink, and I will listen to you speak of war.”

  “And later,” said Tadarus, a stupid grin on his face, “perhaps we’ll wrestle.”

  The Giant laughed and clapped Tadarus on the back, a gesture that would have knocked Fangodrel or Andoses to their knees.

  “I am ill,” Fangodrel announced. “No drink for me this night. I’ll take to my quarters immediately. My servant will return for food and necessaries later this evening.”

  “Yes, Prince,” said Rockjaw. He assigned a Giant to escort Fangodrel to his apartments, although Fangodrel could have made the walk by himself easily enough. Three times before, he had stayed here, the last time five years ago when his father – no his false father – had dragged him to Uurz for some diplomatic assembly.

  Rathwol, sneezing and huffing under the weight of the bundles lifted off his steed, followed Fangodrel. As they paced a vaulted corridor, a trio of spotted hounds barked and ran up to sniff them and gnaw at their boots. The Giant growled a command and the dogs fell back, following along now like Rathwol himself. In truth, there was very little difference between Rathwol and the canines. Except that Rathwol could speak as well as follow simple commands.

  Fangodrel demanded the King’s Chamber for his own, and the Giant had no choice but to give it him. “King Vod is dead,” Fangodrel reminded him. “I am his eldest son. Where else should I sleep?” The Giant bowed and took up his post at the end of the hall. Fangodrel entered the drafty quarters, Rathwol struggling in behind him. Shucking his bundles, the little man closed the chamber door, shooing off the trio of yapping dogs.

  The apartment was dull, hardly fit for a King, but it would serve. A great bed sat untouched for years, probably rife with dust. Rathwol would attend to it. A single Serpent skull hung on the wall, alongside a tall standard bearing the silver hammer of Vod’s house. There were rugs about the floor to stave off the cold, crude pelts torn from mountain animals. Someone had at least enough sense to set a fire in the great bronze bowl at the chamber’s center. A few couches and tables, and a bathing tub, completed the furnishings. There was far too much space in this room, as in all the rooms of Steephold, but Fangodrel was simply glad to be out of the cold and away from his brother and cousin.

  “The coffer,” he said.

  Rathwol immediately opened one carefully tied bundle and removed the small box of jade and crystal. From a sturdy wooden case he took the Serpent-carved pipe, and a packet of tinder sticks. Fangodrel shed his outer cloak and sank into a cushioned chair by the fire bowl. He opened with his secret key the coffer’s lid and looked upon the twelve scarlet blossoms stuffed inside.

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bsp; “Prepare my bed and heat some water,” he told Rathw [he

  “Master, I am hungry,” said the rat-faced one.

  Fangodrel glared at him. “Then do what I have told you, and you may join the feast a while. Bring back food for me as well.”

  “Yes, Prince,” said Rathwol, hurrying to dust off the bed.

  Fangodrel filled the bowl of his pipe with three delicate petals. He touched a lit tinder stick to it and inhaled the sweetness he had anticipated for days. His head fell back on the cushions, and the Red Dream enfolded him.

  Flying, floating, swimming, he moved through the crimson fog. Somewhere far away, his hands moved again to lift the pipe to his lips, and his faraway lungs inhaled once more.

  A spark of brilliant white in the red universe.

  She was there before him, a gorgeous panther, then a gorgeous woman. Her beauty stunned him as it always did. For a moment he wished they were flesh in this place, so he might take her in the manner of a whore. Then he remembered who she was, and brushed away a pang of guilt.

  “Ianthe.” He smiled.

  “My darling boy,” she said, floating closer. “It has been many days and nights.”

  “Duties at court,” he said. “Now I have privacy again.”

  “Tonight I will give you your true name. That false name we must burn away.”

  “Yes, Grandmother.”

  Flames swirled about them, driven by invisible winds.

  “Your name will be that of your father, so that you may fulfill his legacy. You are Gammir, Son of Gammir.” She placed her phantom hands on his cheeks.

  “I am Gammir,” he said. Waves of radiant bliss washed over him.

  “Your throne awaits, Gammir.” She kissed him.

  Sitting in the chair, in some other dimension, his true body writhed with delight.

  “But first you must learn the Ways of the Blood,” she whispered.

  “I am ready…”

  “You will need something to kill,” she said. “Something warm-blooded. An animal or a slave.”

  Fangodrel considered this. Rathwol would certainly not be missed. His death could easily be explained as an accident. Nobody in Tadarus’ or Andoses’ companies would even blink. But Rathwol was useful… and loyal.

  “There are no slaves here,” he said. “There are hounds…”

  “Yes.” His grandmother nodded. “Turn away from me now and take up a sharp dagger. Slit the dog’s throat over a burning flame. Be sure it still lives when you do this. eigh [do ow

  “Yes, Grandmother. What then?”

  “Give some of the blood to the fire, and drain the rest into a cup or chalice. Mix with it a single petal from the bloodflower. Then you must drink it, all of it, but not before you say these words…”

  She whispered in his ear the strange syllables of a language that was not a language. They rang somehow with an odd familiarity in his skull. She repeated them twice more, until he could say them back. Then he shook himself, rose from the cushions, and pulled his long dagger from its sheathe. He stared at it as if he had never seen it before, red vapors swimming through his vision. The pommel was carved into the head of a snarling wolf, with tiny rubies for eyes. The blade was straight and of one piece with the hilt, forged of silvery Uduru steel. Rathwol had kept it sharp for him. It glittered in the light of the fire, anticipating the blood it was to spill.

  The little man was pouring a bucket of steaming water into the bathtub when Fangodrel called his name.

  “Lord?” asked Rathwol, wiping his nose with the back of a gloved hand. His watery eyes were small and hungry.

  “Bring me one of those hounds.”

  8

  In the Kingdom of Ice

  Cold was his first sensation. It wrapped him like a second skin, a blanket of glittering diamond frost. Pain, formerly a stranger to him, now bent low and kissed his lips, his forehead, his chest, smothering him in its frozen lust. Then hunger, gnawing at his guts like a trapped bear cub, tearing its way from the inside out. He had never been truly hungry – or cold – before now. So many new discoveries… so many ways to suffer. He opened his eyes, spikes of fresh agony grinding into his skull.

  Light, aquamarine and without a trace of warmth, momentarily blinded him. Emerald-indigo brilliance… was he underwater? No, he could breathe, though the air raked his lungs with iron claws. The numbness in his shoulders and wrists suddenly made sense – he hung suspended from his arms, fists bound together with iron chains. His feet dangled in the same loop of chain, thick black links gone white with rime. Squinting, he peered at the sheer walls of blue-green ice rising to left and right. Above, some rafter or stalactite of ice held the end of the chain. He thought of slaughtered cattle hanging in Udurum smokehouses, sides of skinned beef awaiting the butchers’ cleavers.

  Below him yawned a pit of sullen darkness. If not for the chain, he would fall and be lost forever in that glacial crevasse. The cavern was carved of raw ice, or ice had frozen over its every earthen surface. He saw no bare rock behind the filmy crystal; it seemed the ice was solid as granite. The watery light filtering through was refracted sunlight. Now fully awake, he realized what he had first taken for brilliance was in fact dimness.

  His stomach growled, and he coughed. Something moved in the cavern behind him. A grunt, a shifting of great bulk, heavy footfalls. Something grabbed the chains above his fists and slung him to the gro ^h [do grund. He almost lost consciousness beneath the waves of pain washing through his body, beginning from the top of his skull and raging through his limbs – all agony but for his numb shoulders and wrists. He remembered a great iron mace…

  Two blue-skinned Giants stood over him, staring him down with blood-red pupils. Their beards were tangles of icicles, their white manes heavy with frost. Their stinking carnivore breath was colder than the wind in the cavern. They grinned at his helplessness. They boomed with laughter as he strove against the chains, gritting his teeth and pulling tighter the links of metal. Exhaustion and hunger had taken their toll. On any normal day he might tear these chains from his limbs like silken cloth. Now, fearing that his head would split open under such effort, he ceased and lay back, sucking chill air into his lungs.

  One of the blue-skins grabbed the chain and dragged him along the floor like the carcass of some forest kill. The other followed with that same iron mace slung across his shoulder. Another swing of that weapon would crush Vireon’s skull to pulp. But he was too worn out to continue his struggles. He lay still and let himself be dragged along a carpet of frost.

  The ice cavern gave way to others, larger and wider, and carved into Giant stairwells at intervals. They dragged him through vaulted galleries grown or hewn from the endless ice. A world of frozen crystal, steeped in the turquoise glow of filtered sunshine. Walls sparkled like miniature glaciers. Icy pillars thick as Uyga trees bore spiral designs depicting tribal warfare in a style reminiscent of the ancient Uduru. His captors dragged him through a domed plaza that must have been the very heart of the palatial glacier. There hundreds of blue-skins went about the common tasks of their daily lives, oblivious to the tiny captive hauled through their midst. Gravelly voices babbled in a melange of half-familiar syllables, some ancient dialect of Uduru speech.

  They wore the furs of mammoth, bear, tiger, and wolf, white as snow or dyed to shades of crimson and black. Rusted spikes adorned the iron helms of male and female warriors. Their spears were taller than their heads, and tipped with frozen blades. Enormous broadswords hung on wide belts of sealskin. Ice and frost hung in the mens’ beards, in the braided tresses of the women, and their breath did not turn to vapor when they exhaled, for their bodies were as cold as the ice itself. Some stood around gouts of writhing blue flame that gave no warmth. None spared him a glance as the guards dragged him past, though in his wake he often heard avalanches of laughter.

  At the top of a great pile of crystalline stairs, his captors flung open a gleaming gate and pulled him into a massive hall set with sparkling pillars of turquois
e immensity. The booming of drums filled his ears, mixed with a chorus of eerie voices, low and rolling like thunder across the cold spaces. This must be the loftiest hall, the royal chamber. Blue-skin warriors lined the viridian walls. Now his jailers picked him up, only to throw him down again like a stolen treasure at the feet of their King. The savage drumming hammered against his skull.

  Vireon stared up from the slick floor, blinking stars from his eyes, and inhaled a musky animal scent. The King of the blue-skins reclined on a throne built of tarnished mammoth tusks. On his left, a harem of nude Giantesses danced for his pleasure around a fountain of cold blue fire; at his right, a band of blue-skin drummers sang their primal cadences. A trio of white tigers sat at the King’s cthee ffeet, chained by iron collars to the base of his throne. The felines stared hungrily at Vireon, who lay merely fingerspans from their fangs; they licked their chops with ruddy tongues.

  Chained like me. But still deadly.

  The blue-skin King wore a crown of black metal set with sapphires. It gleamed in the icy light, like the weird fires of his domain. The ice in his beard crackled as he shifted in his great chair to stare at the prisoner. A huge axe lay at his side, its double blade of iron glittering with a sheen of frost.

  The Ice King raised his hand. The drums stopped, the dancers fell upon their furs, and silence reigned in the hall. Vireon ignored the pain in his skull and limbs… his shoulders were coming back to life now. He forced himself onto his knees, then to his feet. They hadn’t bothered to give him cloak or blanket, but at least they had let him keep boots and leggings. There was a terrible absence at his waist where his long knife should be. He stared into the blood-bright eyes of the Ice King.

  The monarch spoke, and Vireon strained to understand his words. It was the speech of the Uduru – surely these people were Uduru, or had been in some remote age. But the accent was guttural and hard to grasp. He snatched what meaning he could from them.