The Assassin King

39

Trug was the Archon known as the Voice.

The Bolg were an emergent race, demi-humans that were both primitive and instinctually resilient. In the time that Achmed had been king, they had gone from being scavengers and cannibals who scratched out whatever meager living they could from the rocky and jagged peaks that were their home to an up-and-coming nation of weapons builders, agriculturalists, carpenters, craftsmen, and weavers of tensile nautical ropes and fine women’s undergarments. It was a strange and comical medley of trade that sensibly exploited the resources of their kingdom of mountains, canyons, and forests of unique bluish wood and ancient vineyards planted in the Cymrian era that had been revitalized into producing fine grapes for wine. Achmed’s vision required more of a support network of leadership than could be provided by just him and Grunthor alone, especially now that Rhapsody had moved on, claiming a protective responsibility for the Bolg as well as for the sleeping Earthchild, but spending the majority of her time tending to the needs of the Lirin kingdom and her duties as the Lady Cymrian. To that end the Three had selected Bolg children who had been identified as especially intelligent or gifted, most of them orphans, to train in specified areas that would assist in the growing of the kingdom.

Trug was one such child. Like most of his race, he did not give voice to his inner thoughts but rarely. Unlike most of his fellow subjects, it was part of Trug’s training to be able to speak; what he was speaking, however, were the thoughts of the Bolg king, both within the mountain and outside it. It was his path to be trained as the Voice, the Archon that King Achmed expected to handle all of the communications, both official and secret, on behalf of the Bolglands, including the management of the miles of speaking tubes that ran throughout the mountains, left over from the Cymrian Age. In that capacity he had been trained from childhood for the last seven years, selected at an early age by Rhapsody as having the potential for the task at hand, and systematically familiarized with language, cryptography, anatomy, and a thousand other studies of communications, verbal and otherwise. More than a year ago he had been deemed worthy to supervise the aviary, with its extensive fleet of messenger birds, as well as the mounted messengers who rode with the mail caravans. Shortly thereafter he had assumed responsibility for King Achmed’s network of ambassadors as well as his spies.

Now he served as one of Achmed’s most trusted archons. And so when his voice came resounding up the speaking tube into the Firbolg king’s planning chamber within the throne room of Canrif, it was almost always answered immediately in the raspy tone the Bolg had come to know and fear.

“Your Majesty?”

Achmed, Grunthor, and Rhapsody looked up at each other in surprise. Trug had chosen a formal address, generally indicating that someone from outside the mountain had arrived. “What is it?” Achmed demanded.

“There is a visitor to see you, sire,” the thin, uncomfortable voice answered in return. “Whoever he is, tell him to go away,” Achmed retorted. They had been poring over schematics in the back chamber in secret since returning to Canrif, and his mood was already sour.

“He has been here for quite some time, sire.” Trug’s voice echoed back up the tube, followed a moment later by another sound.

“Tell the bastard I must see him at once,” came a familiar voice that was not immediately recognizable. “I have been waiting more than a fortnight in this godforsaken place, and I will not wait a moment longer.”

Achmed closed the speaking tube. “Who do you suppose that is?” he asked. Rhapsody was listening, her forehead furrowed. “It sounds a little bit like Faedryth, the Nain king,” she said uncertainly. “But what would he be doing here?”

Achmed opened the tube again. “Tell the misbegotten warthog he can wait another fortnight as far as I care,” he said in a surly tone. “Or for the rest of his unnaturally long life. I’m busy.” A string of ugly words uttered in a guttural tone and an unknown language rumbled up the tube in return. Rhapsody nodded. “Yes, those are Nain curses,” she said. “It’s probably Faedryth.”

“What is he doing here?” Grunthor asked. “ ’Is kingdom is more than two weeks away, and unreachable by normal methods of land travel. Oi don’t remember any event that would give ’im cause to be in this area.”

“I’m not at all enamored of the Nain,” said Achmed, studying the parchment scroll before him. “When they were here for the council at the Moot they consumed more than four times the victuals of any other race. I have finally returned home, and I am not in the mood to entertain a slugworthy lout like Faedryth at this moment.”

“What on earth are you thinking?” Rhapsody demanded. “Faedryth is your ally, and mine. Now is not the time to be inhospitable to members of the Alliance, especially those who have done you no harm and offered you no real offense. Besides, if common courtesy is a requirement for visits of state within our realms, no one would ever have received you.” She pushed him away from the speaking tube. “Send His Majesty up forthwith, Trug.”

Achmed glared at her and returned to the schematic of the Lightcatcher Rhapsody had been graphing.

After a surprisingly long period of time, the Voice archon appeared, the Nain king in tow. The two Bolg ignored him, but Rhapsody rose immediately and made her way across the floor of the throne room that had been built more than a thousand years before during the height of the artisanship of Gwylliam’s reign. It was richly inlaid with mosaics and fashioned from some of the most beautiful marble mined in the Manteids.

“Your Majesty,” she said warmly, “what a pleasure to see you. To what do we owe the honor of this visit?”

The expression of thunderous annoyance knitted into the Nain king’s brow softened a bit at the sight of her.

“I hardly expected to see you here, m’lady,” Faedryth said. He was attired in leather garments and boots of fine workmanship, but without the standard trappings of royalty. His glorious beard showed signs of inattention and travel, and he carried in his hands a velvet sack that he was clutching tightly. “I’d have thought you would most certainly be at the new home your husband has written to me of; he sought my advice in some of the fortifications, you know.”

“Yes, indeed. He was most insistent that Nain traps and defenses would make it most secure.”

“No doubt,” Faedryth agreed. “And yet I find you here, in the lands of a man of questionable wisdom, instead of the safety of your husband’s home.” He glanced at her bulging belly. “I offer both congratulations and the rebuke of being a father myself, m’lady; I had not heard that you were with child.”

Rhapsody cleared her throat. “Yes,” she said.

“Well then, I suggest you take yourself at once to High-meadow. No child, and no one of any value, is safe here at this time.”

“What are you blithering about?” Achmed said in annoyance. “I did not invite you; you’re not welcome in this place without a legitimate reason to be here, and yet here you are, insulting me. What do you want?”

Faedryth eyed the Voice. “Send your servant away,” he said quietly. Achmed did not even look up, but gestured to Trug with his head to comply. Trug coughed politely and left the room, looking relieved.

“All right, now, what do you want?” the Bolg king asked again. “Or perhaps you need a hot bath and some biscuits first?”

Faedryth’s nostrils flared, and his brow blackened again.

“Your arrogance is precisely why I am here,” he said. “Once again, you are meddling with forces you do not understand, and yet it does not stay your hand, or make you even reconsider your actions. I have to say this does not surprise me, at least in your case.” He turned and looked at Rhapsody. “On the other hand, given your training and your profession, m’lady, I have to say that I’m shocked to find you participating in such a dangerous and inadvisable activity.”

Achmed rolled his eyes. “Oh, this again,” he said. “Did I not throw out your ambassador several months ago when he came to bring me this very same demand of yours? I believe that I was quite specific in my response to him. I directed him to give it to you in no uncertain terms, and if I recall it was rather to the point. And yet here you are, in my lands, without an invitation. Go away, Faedryth. I find your concern to be insincere at the very best, and hypocritical at the very worst, given that you yourself have built the same instrumentality that you would see me not reconstruct.”

“You arrogant horse’s arse,” Faedryth retorted angrily. “I built the original instrumentality of which you speak, I did. It was designed by a man who had more genius in the clippings of his toenails than is present in your entire kingdom, even with the presence of the Lady Cymrian. And it was an unwise thing to do. You do not understand the risks that you are undertaking; if it were only your wretched kingdom that was in the balance, you could blow yourself to smithereens for all I care, along with your entire miserable population. But alas, your ineptitude and indiscretion may spell disaster and doom for all of us—all of us. And I do not intend to see that happen.”

“Well, hooray for thee,” replied the Bolg king. “Contrary to what you may believe, Faedryth, I do not intend to see that happen, either.”

“It is precisely that you believe that you know what you’re doing that makes you so dangerous, Achmed,” said Faedryth. “That really does not surprise me.” He turned to Rhapsody. “As for you, m’lady, I am disappointed to discover that you are part of this. I would’ve thought you had better sense.”

“I am here precisely to lend my knowledge of lore to this project, in the hopes of ensuring its success,” Rhapsody said flatly. “And, quite frankly, Your Majesty, I am insulted by your assumptions about both the Bolg king and me. Rude as we all may be to one another, we are still allies.”

Faedryth exhaled, and looked suddenly older.

“Please reconsider,” he said less stridently this time. “You do not know what you are risking.” Achmed finally looked up. He threw the quill he had been using to scribble notes on Rhapsody’s drawings onto the table, and walked over to the much shorter man. He looked down into the Nain king’s broad face, studying it for a moment, then took down the veils that shielded his own nose and mouth from the stings of the world’s vibration. “Hear me,” he said quietly. “You would not even be aware of my rebuilding of the Lightcatcher if you did not now have one of your own, which you use to spy on my lands. I know two things very much better than you do, Faedryth. First, unlike you, I understand how this magic works, or at least Rhapsody does. I know that the incarnation of it that you possess threatens to wake a sleeping child that dwells within the Earth.” He smiled slightly at the look of surprise on the Nain king’s face. “Yes, Your Majesty, in spite of what you believe, there are others in this world who understand its lore as well if not better than you do. If I did not feel the need to have its power available to me in order to prevent something irreversible from happening, I would not be wasting my time; there are, after all, so many innocent villages of humans to raid, so many fat, adorable youngsters to feed upon. “Second, and far more significant, is this—I have actually seen what it is you fear to waken, Faedryth; with my eyes I have seen it. And if you fear that your puny ministrations with powers you don’t understand are justified, allow me to set you straight; the Nain would be the first to be consumed should that Sleeping Child be awakened. It will come up from the depths of the earth beneath the mountains, following the heat of the river of fire, and swallow everyone in your kingdom whole before it consumes the rest of the world. So trust me when I say that I’m not listening to your wisdom, but to my own on this matter. Now get out of my mountains and go back to your own. We are not in need of your counsel here.” The Nain king stared at him with undisguised astonishment that melted a moment later into black fury. He walked over to Rhapsody and placed the velvet pouch in her hands. “I have to say, m’lady, that while your friend’s abominable rudeness does not shock me in the least, I’m appalled at you. If anyone should know the dangers of toying with elemental lore, I would think it would be a Lirin Namer.”

“Again, no one is toying with anything here, Your Majesty,” Rhapsody said. “And I do apologize for Achmed’s impoliteness. But what is unfolding is beyond the bounds of normal discretion now; we need every tool at our disposal to safeguard the mountains and those that live within them, as well as all die other members of the Alliance. Sorbold is gearing for war, and the holy city of Sepulvarta appears to be in its sights. I hope that when the time arrives, if you are needed you will come.”

“I suspect this is the last time you’ll ever see me, m’lady,” said the Nain king bitterly. “We retreated once to our lands because of the greed and selfishness and stupidity of a male and female ruler in this place. I had hoped to never see such a situation again, but alas, history appears to be repeating itself. May you not bring about the destruction you seek to avoid in the very process of doing so.”

He turned on his heel and strode from the throne room, slamming the great gold doors behind him. The sound waves reverberated through the room, showering dust from the columns that held up the ceiling.

“What’s in the bag?” Grunthor asked after me noise had died away. Rhapsody loosed the string and opened the bag. Within it was a small hinged box of solid gold. She lifted the lid to find it was lined in black ivory, a dead rock formation that was said to be implacable to all methods of scrying.

Lying within it was a single scrap of brittle material, filmy and translucent. She picked it up gingerly, and suddenly felt as if the world had ended around her. “I’ve no idea,” she said.