And so we settled in, enjoying the hospitality of Vol Mak Khan while we awaited the pleasure of the archons and the Prince of the White Steppes. After so many weeks rushing from one city-state to the next, our eyes always on the horizon for signs of another wyvern attack or oncoming storm, the enforced idleness – however comfortable our conditions – felt alien and maddening.
We all dealt with that tension in our own ways. After the meeting with the archons – or, perhaps, after meeting with his mothers – Derrek withdrew from us, again. He spent a whole day sequestered in the library with our host. The next day he informed us of his intention to go to his temples – “To reacquaint myself with the mysteries to which I have been initiated,” he said. The day after that he was gone.
Twice more, in those first weeks after our arrival in Ghol Vidar, Elana and Rennin were called to meet with the archons. Fine, informal dinners, where they were called upon to recount their adventures – both our current quest and those that had come before – and the archons spoke of other heroes that they had known. Trade was discussed, but abstractly, and there was no word of how our petition was being received by the Prince of the White Steppes, or when we would be called before him.
I was invited to one of those dinners, where I was called upon to recount some of my own parts in our adventures, and to dissemble around how few I’d had before joining Elana and her rebellion. I was also invited, soon after, to meet with the archon Rhinaloa. That meeting was less formal, in the priestess’ private office in the archon’s palace: a comfortably appointed room with many cushions and not a single chair. Rhinaloa’s xian g`ul companion, as small and pretty for a cyclops as Rhinaloa was for a sao`ashan and who dressed more like a dancer than a bodyguard, served us tea while I tried futilely to explain the difference between elven sorcery and human blood wizardry, and how I had come to master the one rather than the other.
Though we inevitably spent some time rehashing our conversations with the archons, there was not that much to discuss. Elana and Rennin largely withdrew into themselves and each other. I was left to my own devices.
I spent my time in the sun room, enjoying the damp dark earth smell of the living plants, and in the library, searching for any book in a language that I could read. Occasionally, I found myself in the company of our host, or their xian g`ul companion. They were quiet and courteous, but I found them deeply unsettling without Derrek to mediate. I could not move past the knowledge that Vol Mak Khan’s ancestors – perhaps Vol Mak Khan, themself, if they were old enough – had owned my ancestors as property.
So mostly I was alone. That pained me, for I had had my fill of isolation laying in Darjaran’s wagon as I recovered from the wyvern’s venom. I missed my people. I ached to hear my native tongue spoken without Vencari accent, to hear the song-like laughter of elves, to make offerings before the wooden mask of Es and the iron mask of Urassarain. I would have given my right arm to hear Rhii`aa whisper my name, to feel her hands upon me. I missed my mothers and the forests of Tanirinaal. I missed my sister, and prayed that she had found a good matchmaker and a loving marriage circle. I missed my old master and our tower. I wondered what he might have taught me had he lived even just another year.
And somewhat to my surprise, I quickly found myself missing Derrek Rowan. Even just a few days of his absence made clear, as should have been abundantly obvious before, how much work he did to assure our safety and comfort in this foreign land he had once called home. It also became clear how much I had relied on him for intellectual stimulation and for emotional support, even in the wake of Veralar’s maiming and after the revelation of his alien origins. I had every reason, and every right, to be suspicious of his actions and motivations. We all did, and had from the very beginning. And yet … we relied on him. We had to. And we all resented him for it, which was the part that was genuinely unfair. And, of all of us, I arguably had the least cause: I was not Vencari, no one I knew had died to fulfil his lover’s ambition. But the rational distrust and the irrational hurt fed into one another so that it was nearly impossible for me to feel where one ended and the other began.
We had been enjoying the hospitality of Vol Mak Khan for almost two weeks when a messenger in unfamiliar livery arrived. For a moment we hoped that it was word from the prince or even Derrek. No such luck. The messenger was from the archons, but it was no invitation to dinner or other pleasantries. It was a warning: a blizzard had been seen on the horizon, and every household was being notified to check their stores and to secure their windows and doors. In our upper-level suite, we saw little of the frantic preparations that warning elicited.
The winds began to rise that very night, howling loudly enough to be heard through the stone walls and the heavy layers of insulating tapestries that the household servants hung over the walls and windows.
“I feel cold more than most of my people,” our host said to us over dinner, the fire at his back built up so that we could barely see him for its light. “But I know that you mortals feel it more keenly still. You must let me know if you need more warmth.”
We promised we would do so.
The next evening, Derrek returned to us, swaddled in heavy furs over a new set of priestess’ robes, more ornate than the last. Mere hours later, the full weight of storm fell upon the city. The wind howled like demons. The windows rattled like someone was trying to break in. I barely slept that night: the wind reminded me too much of the accursed charnel ground we had crossed to find the Blade of Xadaer. What sleep I did get was haunted by dreams of the dead, of demons, and of dying.
That first blizzard of the winter would not prove to be the worst by an order of magnitude, but it was the worst storm that I or Elana or Rennin had ever seen up to that point. It lasted for days, and piled snow as high as the walls of the compound in which we stayed. Even Derrek, who had endured worse before, was rattled.
“It has been decades,” he reminded us that first morning, as we lounged in the greenhouse sitting room, watching the white snow swirl so thickly that it was as if there were no world at all beyond the thick, enchanted glass. “And though my mind cannot remember it, my body knows that I nearly died in such a storm when I was a child.”
Lesser storms followed that first blizzard, depositing just enough new snow to make removal of the old a futile gesture. Not even the servants left the house: long accustomed to this climate, Volk Mak Khan and his household had stocked their cellars deep and well. More blizzards followed that. Our host continued to see patients, though they came two or three in a week instead of two or three in a day. We were welcome to leave, of course: to explore the city below, if we wished, even to visit the temples above. As restless as we became, we never braved the weather further than the courtyard.
We settled into a routine quickly enough. Breakfast and lunch were brought to us in our rooms, and dinner was served in our host’s great hall. We spent our mornings practicing the giant’s tongue, both spoken and written, under Derrek’s tutelage, and learning fragments of the immortal tongue the sao`ashan spoke among themselves. We would separate for the afternoon, taking turns at luxuriating in the baths, marveling at the icebound wonder of the city and valley visible through the windows of the greenhouse sitting room, reading or napping in the library or in our suite’s common room. Between Derrek’s wizard’s chest and my own, we had brought a surprising assortment of books in the elven and human tongues, and once we began digging into our chests for entertainment purposes, we both made our rooms into ad hoc laboratories, to which we retired each night after dinner with our host.
It took Derrek two weeks of nightly work to diagnose and repair the damage done to his scrying orb when Veralar had inadvertently exposed it to sunlight, damage which had been compounded as Derrek had continued to use it to ensure our survival in the Holy Lands. He was kind enough to allow me to assist, and in the process vastly improved my understanding of divinatory arts.
In return, I permitted him to assist and observe as I began making a series of puzzle boxes which I intended to offer as host-gifts to Vol Mak Khan, and to the archons and the prince. His mastery of blacksmithing and knowledge of woodcraft made him a uniquely apt student of my own arts, though his knowledge did not always scale down to softer metals as perfectly as either of us would like.
He was a patient teacher and a diligent student, and the most companionable lab partner I had ever known. Somewhere in those long weeks of waiting … I found that I had forgiven him. And I was glad.
Then, finally, we enjoyed an entire week without new storms. Teams of giants and sorcerers worked in tandem to clear the streets. Our host’s patients returned in droves. And, at long last, a messenger came to us from the prince. Three days hence, barring an unexpected storm, the prince would grant us an audience.
Our routine came to an abrupt end. Every moment after the messenger’s departure was turned toward preparation. Garments we had commissioned in anticipation of our audience were checked for fit then hung and delicately brushed free of wrinkles. Final decisions were made about accessories and points of order. Speeches written and memorized weeks ago were rewritten and polished.
We were excited. We were also terrified. Our lives, our quest, the very nation of Vencar, all hung on our reception by this alien prince who had so far disdained to meet with us. For all that nearly every archon had met us with warm hospitality, we had no guarantee that this prince – whose task was not just to oversee a single city, but an entire region of this impossibly massive empire – would receive us similarly. Even if we were treated well, there was no guarantee that we would be permitted to return home. Or that, if we were, that we would not be magically bound against speaking or writing of what we had seen or done, here, as clearly the bard Dano`ar had been, like the Illustrian traders of old.
That possibility rankled me beyond words. I knew that the others felt the same. We had tried not to dwell on it, but it had been an undercurrent in every planning session and language lesson. We intended to protest such a demand, but there was no guarantee that we would be successful in swaying the prince against that tradition.
Most of our costumes were a careful and artful admixture of local and Vencari styles, commissioned with the aid and intercession of Shaelodor in the days after the first blizzard.
Mine was a coat and trousers in the style of a sao`ashan sorcerer. It was cut from magnificent, shimmering black silk, trimmed in fine crimson rope and fastened up the front and at the cuffs with silver buttons, each set with rubies the size of my thumbnail. Over that I draped the himation of my order, I carried my Black Mask in the hand opposite my wizard’s claw. My braids were freshly re-woven with the aid of Derrek and Elana, pulled back from my face by an elaborate golden clip that Derrek had made for me when I began to teach him the art of fine metals.
Rennin wore the robes of a cyclops warrior and his own breastplate, which Derrek and I had burnished and polished to a shine such it had not possessed even when we left Liddarn. He wore the Blade of Xadaer on his back, and his family sword at his hip, and a cloak he had been gifted by the archons of Khrigo City around his shoulders, all in the white and blue and black of his House. His head was freshly shaved and oiled.
Elana wore a fine and formal dalmatica of bright gold, over which she had buckled her grandfather’s heroic breastplate. Her head and hands dripped with gems and jewels that we had been gifted by various archons. Having never thought to bring a formal wig to display the authority of her station, Elana had elected to shave her head like Rennin and Derrek, and wore a bejeweled half-crown of the sao`ashan style that dripped strings of pearls and gems down from elaborate medallions at her temples.
Derrek, though, had abandoned the priestess’ garb that he had worn since we had arrived in this Holy Empire. Instead he wore the elaborate white robes of the Obsidian Cabal, the same that he had worn to the feast Elana had thrown to welcome him to the resistance. It looked all the more austere and threatening with his head shaved. We had spent too many hours, maybe whole days, discussing the merits of Derrek presenting himself to the Prince of the White Steppes as Derrek Rowan or Yma Rinlo. In the end, Derrek had insisted on coming as the self that we had known.
“I have lived longer as Derrek Rowan,” he’d said, “than as Yma Rinlo. And of my two selves, that is the one who has standing and power to confront a prince.”
A giant-borne palanquin waited for us outside, and carried us to the prince. It was tight fitting all four of us inside, but that made it easier to stay warm. As usual, the walls of the palanquin robbed us of any real view of the city, or of the palace as we approached.
We were let out into a high-walled courtyard at the foot of a great cliff-face, into – or, perhaps, out of – which the prince’s palace had been cut. Blinded by the sudden brightness of the courtyard after our dim travel by palanquin, we were barely able to see the cyclops who came to welcome us, let alone the details of the rock-cut edifice into which we were led.
Once inside, we were again blinded by the change in the light. Though blessedly out of the wind, the antechamber was almost as cold as it was dark, and we were grateful to be led through it quickly. Finally fully inside the palace, our eyes at last adjusted so that we could see our honor guard and admire the fine stonework through which we passed.
Like every palace and mansion we had seen in our time in the Holy Empire, the Prince of the White Steppe’s palace was gargantuan even on the scale of the giants who marched its wide and towering halls. The halls, cut directly into the flesh of the mountain, were wide enough for four or five giants to walk abreast, and the vaulted ceilings were twice as high. Support columns emerged from the walls every twenty paces or so. We saw arched doorways leading away from the main hallway, but our guides led us straight through, ever deeper into the mountain, until a grand pair of doors – opened by the only guards we had seen so far – admitted us into a throne room even more enormous than any of the archons’ we had yet seen.
Here, the raw grey granite of the living mountain had been clad in shining white marble. Black basalt caryatids, carved in the even-larger-than-life image of nude and beautiful Jor and cyclops, raised their stone arms to support the arches of the vaulted ceilings. Where other sao`ashan buildings had been mostly lit by the sun, guided in by rock crystal windows, this room was illuminated by gleaming quartz crystals, each the size of my torso, which floated in the air in a slow and steady circle around the central step-pyramid that served as the prince’s throne.
The prince, himself, was a sorcerer dressed in the cloth-of-gold dalmatica that seemed to be the fashion or uniform for rulers in the Holy Empire. He wore little ornament or jewelry, just a single dark-colored ring on his left hand and a spiked black semi-circlet of a crown. His face was serene, as unreadable to us, now, as all sao`ashan had seemed when we had first arrived in Khrigo City. Two pairs of Jor twins guarded him, one set to each side at the edge of the step below the one where he sat, each armed with a halberd and a longsword. A cyclops with a xian g`ul tattoo on his brow lounged at the prince’s feet. He bore no visible weapon, but he radiated the same sort of languid strength and physicality that had marked Veralar Tann even when she had left her swords and sticks behind.
On the floor to his left, the archons sat in three throne-like chairs. Their faces were closed and distant, too, but they greeted us with infinitesimal nods. Across from them were another three lesser thrones, bearing another trio of priestesses dressed in the ecclesiastical robes of their temples – the Stars, the Flame, and the Storm, I could recognize, now. Their gazes, if anything, were hostile. A third set of thrones, smaller in both scale and stature and clearly intended for us, had been set out to face the prince, closing the circle at the prince’s feet.
The cyclops who had brought us in stopped just inside the door. We stopped a mere two steps further – a formality that Vol Mak Khan had warned us about yesterday. One of the cyclops announced us in a deep, musical voice: “O my prince I present to you these petitioners, adventurers from foreign lands found lost in the desert. Behold, O my prince, the fallen tyrant Elana of House Traianum, from beyond the Great Ice Wall. Behold, O my prince, the tyrant’s consort Rennin of House Ösh. Behold, O my prince, the sorcerer Khanaarre of Tanirinaal. Behold, O my prince, the prodigal child Yma Rinlo, priestess of the Stars.”
As each of us was announced, we took two more steps forward and bowed. A long silence followed. At last, the prince nodded – not quite a bow, but an acknowledgement.
“Welcome, strangers,” he said in the giants’ tongue. The word he used, ‘strangers’, equally meant ‘guests’ and ‘travellers’. There was a similar word in both Vencari and my native tongue. In llamesnas, it meant someone toward whom certain hospitalities were warranted. I was not certain that it meant the same, here.
“Thank you, your grace,” we said, not quite in unison, revealing formally our command of the language. We had been in the empire for six months, now. If anyone pressed us, we would dissemble and say that we had studied with dedication. Elana went a step further: “You honor us.”
The Prince of the White Steppes made a subtle gesture and the cyclops who had announced us ushered us to our chairs.
“I welcome you all to my White Steppes,” said the prince. “And, on behalf of the Emperor, I welcome you to the Holy Empire.”
“Thank you, your grace,” said Elana, taking charge.
“I have heard many rumors of your coming,” he said. “And as such, I believe that I know what you will ask of me as petitioners before this seat of the empire. But before you ask, I would speak to you as travelers and as guests. Tell me, O fallen tyrant: how did you lose your throne, and how did you come to the Holy Lands and this Holy Empire on the wrong side of the Great Ice Wall?”
Elana took a deep breath. She straightened her back. And she told him.
“My kingdom was stolen from me when I was a child,” she began. “A powerful wizard coveted a magical artifact which could only be wielded by the emperor, and he murdered and usurped my father in order to take it.”
We had been prepared for the question. It was too obvious. How to render the tale into something intelligible to a prince of the Holy Empire had been less obvious. The word Elana used for ‘wizard’ was an obscure word in the giants’ tongue for an exile with magical powers unknown to either sorcerers or priestesses. Framing the rebellion and resistance had been trickier. Vol Mak Khan had made clear to us that the Holy Empire was not nearly as stable as it often claimed to be, but political turmoil in a theocracy had theological implications. Ultimately we had chosen to minimize the long history of the Compact in favor of the obligations its modern incarnation entailed, and to emphasize the roll of the Sun Court in adjudicating succession in Vencar.
As Elana spoke, giant servants appeared with folding tables that fit neatly between each of the thrones. Those tables soon overflowed with teapots and finger foods that the giant servants never allowed to run empty.
The Prince of the White Steppes rarely interrupted Elana’s tale. The archons and the priestesses showed no such compunction. It was the archons who required ever-more-elaborate explanations of the fall of Imperial Vencar and the Compact that replaced it. The priestesses fixated on the Children of Enhyl and their new-come Prophet, the conflicts with the dragons, and the Tomb of Xadaer.
Rennin was beseeched to present the Blade for examination – we had expected this, as well – and did so with some trepidation. The prince’s xian g`ul roused himself from his languor to examine the blade – looking strangely small in his hand, though it was the proper scale – and bowed low when he returned it.
“When we came back to the place where we had crossed over from the Wolfwood,” Elana told them, “we found a flight of dragons waiting to bar us passage. We had defeated one, but barely, with the aid of Veralar Tann who was not able to continue the journey after. We had little chance in a second such confrontation … and no chance against three. And so Derrek directed us to turn north and follow the path of the Dragon Bard Dano`ar.”
Throughout the whole of the tale, Elana had obliged Derrek and referred to him by that name instead of Yma Rinlo. That had caused a small confusion, at first, but none had pressed the issue, yet.
“We made the passage through the Holy Lands with little trouble but blisters,” she finished the tale. “But when we crossed into the Lighting Plains, my consort was stung by a scorpion. That injury slowed us enough to make us tempting prey for a six-legged hunting cat, which killed our companion Orland even as scouts from Khrigo City stumbled upon us. Derrek presented his mark of passage, and we were escorted into the city and into the hospitality of those kind archons.”
The telling had taken the whole of the afternoon and well into the evening. Each of us was called upon occasionally to expand or elaborate on certain points, but the overwhelming majority of the telling fell upon Elana. I could only imagine how raw her throat must feel, how exhausting that scrutiny must be. I was exhausted just from bearing witness.
“We thank you for your tale,” said the Prince of the White Steppes. “Go, now, and rest. We will send for you again, tomorrow, and we will speak further.”
And we did.
We should, perhaps, have spent the intervening hours strategizing, but the interview so far had left us drained, and we had every reason to believe that the next day would be as bad. Not that the prince or the archons had been hostile – though the priestesses had, especially the priestess of the Flame – but they had been thorough. And so we slept. Morning did give us some time to discuss things over breakfast and while we bathed and dressed ourselves, this time in best imitation of Vencari garb that the archons of Khrigo City had been able to manufacture for us under Derrek’s direction, but the prince’s messenger and palanquin came for us well before lunch.
Once more we were carried through the icy wind to the palace of the Prince of the White Steppes. Once more we were led, half-frozen and half-blind, though the long hall to the prince’s throne room. Once more we were announced by our guards and led to comfortable chairs that, however comfortable and throne-like they might appear, still meticulously placed us below the sao`ashan around us. Once more the Prince of the White Steppes welcomed us all in the name of the Holy Empire and its distant, unnamed Emperor.
“Khanaarre of Tanirinaal,” the prince addressed me directly. “You are the first of your people to grace these halls since the long-ago rebellion and exodus. Yesterday we welcomed you as a companion of your Vencari prince. Today we welcome you in your own right.”
Though the archons had acknowledged me as such, we had not anticipated the prince doing so. We certainly did not anticipate him rising and bowing to me.
“Thank you, your grace,” I said in as neutral a tone as I could manage.
“We know that you come not as a representative of your Queen,” he went on, seated once more, “but as a companion to these djuunan adventurers. And yet … there is an incredible debt between our peoples, and to fail to acknowledge you out of deference to the circumstances which brought you would only compound that debt, which is already so deep that it is difficult to speak of.”
He paused, and I suspected that some response was expected of me, but my throat was closed. Eventually, the prince continued.
“We have some knowledge of what traverses in the mortal world, but we would hear in your own words: how do your people fare, now? Do you even remember us, so many generations later? And how did you come to accompany this prince, if your people are not a member of her Compact of Nations?”
One of those questions had been expected, one was a surprise, and one was a subject that we had intended to avoid. Having been asked directly, though…
I took a deep breath, and a long gulp of tea.
“My people thrive, your grace,” I told him. “A mortal mountain range lies beyond the Great Ice Wall, and we and the rrotran settled there, on the banks of the River Venn. The first centuries came with certain challenges, the scars of some of which remain to this day, but we made our homes and we have found our gods and we live in harmony with the lands upon which we dwell.”
Another drink of tea as I tried to gather my wits about me. It had honestly never occurred to me that the prince would ask about the state of the llamenan nation. None of the archons had asked about my people. Few had asked for any real information about Vencar or the Compact – epic, almost mythic, versions of their histories, yes, but nothing deep. Nothing political or personal.
“The Queen who rules us descends from the daughters of the sorcerers whose leadership kept us alive in our worst days,” I went on. “The sorcerers who advise her are the wisest and most powerful of our people.”
The former was the simple truth. The latter was a little idealized. And it, because of the way grammatical versus real gender and social roles worked in our two languages, it felt uniquely difficult to discuss the sorceress’ council.
“We are not as close to the rrotran as we were in the early days, nor are we as close with our djuunan neighbors as some might wish, but we remain friends and allies.” Another deep breath. Skip the second question – the dangerous question – for a moment. “It is on the basis of that alliance and friendship that Prince Elana came to my Queen and begged aid in reclaiming her throne. In her wisdom, my Queen will not commit the whole of our people to war, but she gave us leave to follow our own consciences and ambitions.”
Another pause, but only a brief one. A sip of tea. This question was easy. This story I had been telling and re-telling for two years, now.
“I had met and befriended Prince Elana on the road to petition the Queen,” I went on, “I joined her after the Queen’s judgement, and have travelled with her ever since, visiting the courts of the Compact Nations and urging them to offer stronger support of her claim. It has been an honor and a pleasure to call her my friend.”
Another long drink of tea. A bite of fermented fish and rice. I met the gaze of the Prince of the White Steppes, and I knew that he was waiting for the answer to the question I had so far avoided. I could dissemble. I knew that Elana would prefer it if I did. But in this moment, appointed not, qualified or not, I was representing my people. And I thought that we deserved to answer this question honestly.
“Yes, your grace,” I said, at last. “Our history begins with our escape from your Empire. My people remember yours, but I cannot say that you are remembered kindly.”
After a pause that felt longer than it probably was, the Prince of the White Steppes nodded slowly. I cannot imagine what answer he had expected or hoped for, but that seemed to satisfy him.
“I thank you for your candor,” he said.
I dipped my head in a subtle bow, and his attention drifted to Derrek.
“Yma Rinlo,” he said. “Or, as your prince has called you, Derrek Rowan. We remember when you were brought to the city as a child, to confirm your priestess status with the Oracle here. Tell us, how did you come to be a … ‘wizard’ among the djuunan?”
The word he used for wizard was the same uncommon-exile-power word that we had borrowed.
Derrek rose and bowed. Perhaps I should have, too, but it was too late now.
“Your grace,” he said, then sat. “I am honored that you remember me. You know, then, that I was found in a snowstorm as a child by the hunting hand Jijuma. Our oracle announced, and the Oracle here confirmed, that I should be raised as a priestess. And so I was. I trained and served as a priestess of the Stars for a decade – a measure of time barely noticeable to the rhu xian, but in which my human body and mind matured from child to adult. And in the way of young adult djuunan, I grew restless. With the blessings of my mothers and my temple, I sought out djuunan lands and people.”
Now Derrek paced himself with tea, as Elana and I had before him.
“Jijuma guided me back to the general area where she had found me. From there I made my way south and west, following the curve of the mountains to where I knew the djuunan territories from where I must have come could be found.”
I had heard a version of this story before, of course. I found myself fascinated, though, wondering how different the tale would be when intended for this sao`ashan audience to whom he owed such different debts of allegiance than he owed to Elana, Rennin, and myself.
“What I found was the nation of Handar, whose outlying settlements were cruder and dirtier than anything I had ever seen in our Holy Empire. My other adoptive mother, Almanata, had equipped me with an ancient diplomat’s spell that let me absorb the djuunan language, and I spent days skulking at the edges of that first filthy village, listening until I could understand what was being said. Eventually, I stole a set of local garments, and chose a local name.”
“The diplomat’s tongues spell is a ham-fisted thing, though, and the folk of Handar are suspicious and xenophobic. My accent and my manner revealed me as a foreigner as soon as I opened my mouth. I spent my first months in djuunan territories moving from village to village, staying as long as I could make myself welcome, and then fleeing as soon as suspicions began to raise. I lasted two seasons in Handar – summer and autumn – before fleeing further and further south until I crossed into Namora, where I was amused to find that every oddity that had made Handarmen suspicious was dismissed as Handari backwardness. By this time I had chosen and settled into the name Derrek Rowan, which I have worn far, far longer than I was ever Yma Rinlo.”
Though they had not, to me, seemed any stranger than other humans, I had been hearing jokes about backward Handarmen for as long as I had traveled the Compact with Elana. I found myself wondering whether Handari insularity was cause or effect of their reputation with the rest of the Compact.
“I could spend days, weeks, even months expounding on those adventures,” Derrek went on. “Suffice to say that I travelled the western kingdoms of the compact for five years, mastering the language and learning the histories and cultures, before moving to the wealthier and more urbane nations in the east. I made a life for myself in Vencar, apprenticing first as a blacksmith before I had the opportunity to learn the arts of human magic.”
Again, he paused for tea. Having known him in such intimate circumstances for almost a year now, I could see him composing his thoughts even as worked to keep his face impassive for his immortal audience.
“Vencari wizards organize themselves into groups with no analogue in the Holy Empire. I will compare my sect to an adoptive family, but it is a family allegiance which runs both parallel and perpendicular to Houses and blood kin. The group of wizards who adopted me, who took me on as an apprentice, found me extracting secrets from books that perhaps should not have been in the public library where I found them. They were impressed by my grasp of languages and by my ingenuity, and decided to overlook my apparent youth and Handari birth, and my very real and undeniable poverty.”
The Prince of the White Steppes nodded slowly and solemnly.
“I would,” he said, “like to hear more of the story. But that would be best saved for another occasion.”
Derrek bowed his head.
“Of course, your grace,” he said.
“Tell us, Derrek Rowan. How did you come to serve and then leave the throne-usurping wizard that you and your Vencari prince now oppose?”
Now Derrek glanced at Elana. In another venue it might have been a subtle gesture. In this time and this place, it felt like overacting. This, too, was a subject we might have avoided, but we had known it would not have been possible. The question was too obvious, and too pertinent.
“As an apprentice wizard, I became fascinated with the shadow-magic of Illustria, the long-fallen nation with whom this Empire once traded to spite the rrotran. Aemillian Solirius was already a senior wizard in the order, and he shared my fascination. My investigations, and my linguistic and magical aptitudes, drew his attention and earned his patronage. I thrived under his tutelage, and we worked together closely once I proved my mastery and was awarded full membership in our society.”
Another pause, this one less stoic.
“When Aemillian’s ambitions turned political, I followed him out of loyalty and gratitude. I helped him to usurp the Vencari throne. But I could not stay to serve at his right hand. The intrigues of the court would inevitably have revealed my allegiance to this Holy Empire. And so I left, and spent most of the next decade living as a blacksmith, listening to rumors of his rule. I was not always content with what I heard. The rest, you already know.”
“Thank you, Derrek Rowan,” said the prince.
There was a long pause, then, as a wave of liveried giants carried away our tea trays. New trays appeared almost immediately, bearing small, empty glasses. The prince’s own xian g`ul rose to claim a tall bottle from one of the liveried Jor, and walked the circle, filling each of our glasses, starting with the archons and ending with the prince, himself. The liquid was viscous and golden, shimmering in the ever-shifting light. Even in the dry winter air, the glass began to sweat as soon as it was full.
“I believe that we now better grasp the circumstances that brought you here,” said the prince. “So in the ancient tradition of hospitality between princes, let us toast in the name of the Lord of Storms, and then I will formally hear your petition.”
The Prince of the White Steppes raised his glass, holding it delicately in three fingers. The archons and the priestesses did the same. We all followed suit.
“Hail to the Lord of Storms, the first Emperor, father of the rhu xian,” he said in a ringing voice. “Hail Tal Thannu!”
He lowered his glass to his lips and threw it back in a single gulp. We copied the gesture. The liquid was the sweetest thing I had ever tasted. At the same time, it burned my mouth like the strongest curry we’d had on the road. It was thick and cold, coating my throat as it went down. I swear smoke burst from my mouth when I coughed.
“I am the Prince of the White Steppes,” he said. “And I speak for the Emperor. What would you ask of us in the name of hospitality?”
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