The Crimson Legion

PROLOGUE CONCENTRATE

A white globe appeared in the black grotto that was the mind of King Tithian I, casting a brilliant light over the warped spires and gloomy depths of the cave’s snarled terrain. Sable-winged bats and ebon-feathered birds-dark thoughts given form by his mind-fluttered away into murky nooks and alcoves, angrily screeching and chirping.

“I’ve done it!” Tithian reported.

You’ve done nothing until you project it, came the answer, echoing inside the king’s mind.

Tithian opened his eyes. Before him sat the disembodied heads who were tutoring him in the elusive art of the Way. One was sallow-skinned and sunken-featured, with cracked lips that looked like shriveled leather. The other was grotesquely bloated, with puffy cheeks and eyes swollen to narrow, dark slits. Both wore their coarse hair in long topknots, and the bottom of their necks had been sewn shut with thick black thread.

“Where?” Tithian asked.

Over the arena, answered Sacha, the bloated head.

“Yes. It’s time your subjects learned to fear you,” agreed Wyan, now speaking aloud.

Being careful to keep the ball glowing inside his mind, Tithian looked toward the stadium. From his pedestal atop the roof of the Golden Tower, he could see the largest part of the vast arena, which lay between the tower and the crumbling bricks of the previous king’s ziggurat. Instead of gladiators, the immense fighting pit now swarmed with craftsmen and free-farmers bartering a wide variety of goods-thornberries, sweet lizard meats, ceramic vessels, and knives and spoons of carved bone. They had all covered their wares with tattered cloaks and shabby blankets, for a hot driving wind was scouring the field with sand and dust.

At the sight of the bazaar, the king could not help recalling how the marketplace had come to exist. At the suggestion of his boyhood friend Agis of Asticles, Tithian had written an edict converting the stadium to a public market. When he had sent it to the Council of Advisors for approval, Agis and his fellow councilors had removed mention of the levy the king wished to impose for selling goods in the stadium. Without advising Tithian of what it had done, the council had then issued the edict across the entire city. By the time the king had seen a copy of the edict “he” had issued, the field had been filled with cheering citizens.

Agitated by the memory, Tithian’s dark thoughts took to their wings and fluttered about his mind. He pinched his eyes closed, desperately trying to brighten the light and force the errant beasts back to their nests. It was a losing battle, for angry thoughts teemed out of their black holes in countless numbers. They swarmed the light, shrieking and screeching in frenzied hatred. Tithian fought back, summoning as much energy as he could. A stream of warmth rose from deep within his body and flowed into the glowing ball.

A brilliant glow erupted from the king’s eyelids and a deafening clap of thunder blasted the Golden Tower, shaking it from the foundations to the merlons. The boom reverberated through Tithian’s chest like a drum and set his ears ringing.

“Did I do that?” he gasped, opening his eyes again.

Sacha rolled his eyes. “We’re having a storm.”

The king looked up and saw that the day had grown as dark as his mood. A black haze of wind-borne silt hung over the city, reducing the crimson disk of the sun to a pink shadow of itself. The billowing mass of darkness reminded Tithian of the rainstorm he had seen ten years ago, but he knew better than to hope a downpour would quench the thirst of his city today. The thunderclouds overhead were filled with dust, not water.

“You couldn’t get a spark from striking steel, much less create a lightning bolt,” added Wyan. “Your meditations are pathetic.”

Tithian closed his eyes again. The ball of light inside his mind had disappeared entirely. All that remained in that black grotto was a whirl of dark thoughts.

“Don’t bother trying again,” said Sacha.

“You’re about to receive a messenger,” explained Wyan.

“When you hear his report, your pitiful mind will neglect the ball of light anyway,” finished Sacha, his snarl revealing a set of broken yellow teeth.

Knowing that the malicious heads would not reveal the messenger’s news even if he asked, Tithian unfolded his aching legs and slipped his gaunt body, clothed only in a breechcloth, off the pedestal. Regretting the laziness that had kept him from mastering the Way of the Unseen as a youth, the king asked, “Am I really so hopeless?”

“Completely,” answered Wyan.

“Absolutely,” added Sacha.

The king grabbed his two confidants by their topknots and walked toward the edge of the roof.

“What are you doing?” demanded Wyan.

“If I have no hope of mastering the Way, then I’ll never become a sorcerer-king,” Tithian growled. “That means I have no need of you two!” He heaved the two heads off the tower roof.

Instead of falling into the gauzy moss-trees at the base of the palace, the heads simply hung in the air, a dozen feet from the roof. Tithian’s jaw fell slack, for he had never seen Sacha or Wyan levitate. Still, he suspected that he should have known they would not be destroyed so easily. The pair could not have survived a thousand years by being as helpless as they seemed.

“Quite amusing,” said Wyan, baring his gray teeth at Tithian.

“Kalak would have gotten an axe and hacked us to pieces,” added Sacha. “You’re not brutal enough.”

“That can be remedied,” Tithian warned.

“I doubt it,” Wyan returned. “You’re a coward at heart.”

Before Tithian could rebut Wyan, Sacha added, “You’ve ruled Tyr for six months, and the Golden Tower’s treasury is emptier than when you killed Kalak!”

Tithian could not deny Sacha’s charge. Instead, he spun away and looked toward the city’s bustling Merchant District. Now that the iron mine had been reopened, Tyr was once again doing a booming mercantile business, but the Council of Advisors was using every coin of the caravan levy to fund the pauper farms surrounding the city. Of course, that was Agis’s doing-as were all of the programs diverting the treasures that should have been filling the king’s vault.

Reading the king’s thoughts, Wyan suggested, “Assassinate him.”

Despite his past relationship with Agis, it was not friendship that made Tithian hesitate. “That would only make things worse,” he growled. “Rikus, Neeva, and Sadira would take Agis’s place in an instant. A self-righteous noble is bad enough, but slaves …” Letting his sentence trail off, the king turned back to the heads and saw that they were drifting toward the roof.

“Kill all four,” said Wyan.

“You can’t believe that things are that simple,” Tithian growled. “Half of Tyr saw Rikus wound Kalak, and it’s common knowledge that Agis and the others finished the task. If I execute them, the city will rise against me.”

“I have the names of several minstrels adept with poisons,” offered Wyan, his sunken eyes burning with murderous light. “Kalak often used them to good effect.”

“All four dying of mysterious illnesses? How stupid do you assume the citizens of Tyr to be?” Tithian snorted. “I’ll find another way.”

Tithian’s chamberlain climbed onto the roof, putting an end to the debate. She was a blond woman of stauesque proportions, with icy blue eyes and a humorless mouth. Like most of Tithian’s bureaucracy, she had been recruited from the ranks of the templars who had previously served Kalak.

Behind the chamberlain came a haggard young man wearing dusty riding leathers. Though he was covered with grime, Tithian could see that his clothes were well-made and his hair trimmed. He had a patrician nose and a proud jawline that was slack with amazement at the sight of the floating heads.

“I present Taiy of Ramburt, second son to Lord Ramburt,” said the chamberlain, raising a brow at the floating heads.

“How dare you come before us in such rags,” Sacha snarled. “And did your father not teach you to bow before your king?”

“Kill him!” spat Wyan.

The color drained from Taiy’s face. “I beg your forebearance, Honored King,” the youth said, bowing.

“You have it-for now,” Tithian replied, amused by the youth’s anxiety. “Let us hope your news justifies my patience.”

Swallowing hard, Taiy stood upright. “Honored King, I have just returned from hunting in the Dragon’s Bowl.”

“That’s near Urik, is it not?” Tithian asked scowling.

“Which is the point of my visit,” Taiy answered. “As my party was returning to the road, we saw a great cloud of dust approaching from the horizon. When I investigated, I found an army, complete with siege engines, a war argosy, halfling scouts, and five hundred half-giants. They were marching under the banner of the lion that walks like a man.”

“King Hamanu’s crest!” hissed Wyan.

“He’s coveted our iron mines for five centuries,” added Sacha, sneering at Tithian. “How will you defend the city? You’ve an empty treasure vault and no army.”

Tithian cursed, barely keeping himself from lashing out at the young noble who had brought him this disastrous news. He would not have bothered to restrain himself, except that his subjects credited him with Agis’s endless stream of reforms, and Tithian wanted to cultivate his reputation as a noble ruler.

Inside, Tithian bit his lips and stared out over the city. At last, a wicked smile crossed his lips. He still had no idea of how to stop Hamanu’s army, but he had hit upon a way to remove the problem of Agis and the three slaves without resorting to Wyan’s minstrels.

Tithian dismissed Taiy with a wave of his hand, simultaneously addressing his chamberlain. “Summon the freed slaves Rikus, Neeva, and Sadira, as well as Agis of Asticles.” The king felt a pang of regret as he spoke his old friend’s name, but he shrugged off the feeling and continued with the business at hand. “Tell them the safety of Tyr hangs upon their swift arrival in my audience chamber.”