This week’s message was nothing unusual, to the Kingpriest’s disappointment The banditry in the hills continued, the robbers sacking occasional caravans that dared to break the ban he had placed on trade with the Taoli. The patriarch’s men caught some, mounting their heads on gatehouses and at crossroads, but the bandits’ losses were few. Durinen wrote about the plague too, this Longosai that continued to ravage his holdings. It had spread farther north, encroaching on Govinna itself. Symeon shook his head as he read about the hundreds who had died, and the thousands still sick, but only for a moment did he dwell on the Longosai. No healer-not even Stefara of Mishakal-had the power to stop it He only hoped it would run its course before it spread to the lowlands. Clucking his tongue, he set the missive aside with the rest and went to hold court.
He remained in the Hall of Audience the rest of the morning, hearing more word from the Lordcity’s various nobles and merchant princes. It was tedious work, and by the time the basilica bells sounded the midday, his head had begun to ache. Adjourning court, he returned to his sanctum, where he sat in silence, rubbing his temples. He barely touched the buttered lobster his servants brought for his midday meal and only drank one of his customary two goblets of watered claret When the noontide passed and the audience resumed, the ache had become a stab, flaring behind his left eye with every heartbeat.
It soon proved too much, and he withdrew more than an hour early and forewent his usual appearance on the Temple’s front steps, where it had been his habit to pronounce blessing on the folk who gathered in the Barigon’s wide expanses. Instead, he retired to his private rose garden to while away the rest of the day. He lay on a cushioned bench in the sunlight, listening to the distant, muted murmur of the city outside the Temple’s walls as servants fanned him and fed him golden grapes. A hippogriff, a winged horse with the head of a raptor, cropped clover nearby and drank from a pond whose bottom was made of crushed amethyst.
Around sunset the pain abated again, becoming a low throb he could nearly ignore. He rose and waved to a waiting servant, who brought over two violet apples. Symeon fed these to the hippogriff, the docile beast taking the food from his hand, then wended his way back toward the basilica. It was twilight, and the bells tolled the evensong.
When the Opiso, the Sunset Prayer, was done, he returned at last to the manse for the evening banquet. Most of his inner court attended, as always-among them Loralon and Quarath, First Son Kurnos, and Balthera, the acting First Daughter. Symeon’s banquets were something folk tried not to miss, every night a different delicacy from Istar’s many and various provinces. Last night it had been peacock in a spicy sauce favored in Lattakay. Tonight it was seshya, a stew of shellfish and rice from the seaport of Pesaro. More watered claret accompanied the meal, and milk sweetened with palm sugar.
The conversation remained light, though the hierarchs whispered of brigands and borderlands when they thought he wasn’t listening. When the courtiers began to leave after the meal was done, he let them go, until only Kurnos remained.
He and the First Son retired to an open balcony, where fireflies bobbed lazily on the night breeze and golden cats with six legs slumbered on the cool marble floor. Someone was reading poetry in the garden below, a soothing ode whose words Symeon couldn’t quite make out, as he and the First Son sat down at the khas table.
Khas was an ancient game, and folk played it in all Ansalon’s realms. It was one of the pastimes Symeon enjoyed most, and his set was one of the most remarkable in the world. The board was made of ivory, lapis, and moonstone, interwoven and shining in the moonlight, but it was the pieces that made it so unusual. Where most khas men were carved of wood or forged of metal, the Kingpriest’s were something altogether different.
They were alive.
It wasn’t quite the right word, but the right word didn’t exist outside the spidery language of wizards. The warriors and knights, viziers and wyrms that stood upon the board, none more than six inches high, were creatures of magic, not flesh. They stood frozen most of the day, seeming nothing more than exquisite crystalline sculptures-half white, half black-but when the Kingpriest and his heir sat down they shuddered to life, one by one, and began to move-heads turning, tails twitching, lances dipping to salute the foe.
Symeon took the white pieces-he always took the white-and they set to playing. When their respective turns came, they leaned forward to whisper to their pieces, which moved in response, marching, galloping, and slithering across the table according to their commands. The game passed quickly, mostly in silence, as they sipped moragnac brandy and ate almond-paste sweets.
“Aha!” the Kingpriest declared after they had been playing a while, as one of his pillar-shaped Fortresses rumbled forward on creaking wheels, crushing one of Kurnos’s Footsoldiers beneath it The soldier let out a tiny cry as it died, then vanished and appeared, twisted and broken, in front of the First Son. His side of the table was littered with little black corpses, and the remnants of his shattered forces huddled defensively in a corner of the table, surrounded by the white army.
“You see, Kurnos?” Symeon asked. “You left your flank open again.”
Kurnos grunted, scowling at the board and stroking his beard while the Kingpriest sipped his moragnac. Swallowing, the First Son leaned forward, whispering to one his champions, a tiny, perfect replica of a Solamnic Knight. Crystal armor rattling, the Knight bowed and gave ground, moving close to bis Emperor, then brandishing his needle-sized sword at the foe.
Symeon chuckled at this and leaned forward at once to murmur to his Guardian, a coiled gold dragon that hissed and slithered forward. Talons and sword flashed for a moment, and then the wyrm caught the champion in its jaws and bit it in half. Kurnos shook his head in disgust as the remains of his Knight vanished from the board.
Four moves later, pinned down and unable to move, the First Son sighed and spoke to his Emperor. With a resigned sigh, the grizzled Emperor rose from his jet throne, drew a dagger from his belt, and plunged it into his own breast.
“Rigo iebid,” Kurnos declared as the Emperor crumpled in a heap. The realm has fallen. “A fine game, Holiness.”
“Yes,” Symeon agreed, plucking a sweet from the plate. “I’m improving, I think. Perhaps one day, you won’t need to lose… deliberately.”
Kurnos stiffened, flushing, as the Kingpriest nibbled his confection and smiled. He opened his mouth then shut it again, shrugging. “Sire, I don’t know what to say.”
“Then say what’s on your mind.” Symeon chased the sweet with a swallow of moragnac. “You’re thinking overmuch of Lady Ilista, aren’t you?”
The First Son’s face darkened even more, and he coughed into his hand. On the table, the khas pieces rose from death and shuffled back across the board, revivifying themselves and jostling one another as they resumed their positions. Down below the balcony, in the rose garden, Symeon’s pet hippo-griff made a sound that was half-whinny, half-skirl.
Two months had passed since the First Daughter’s departure. Ilista had sent reports as regularly as the patriarch in Taol, first when she reached Palanthas, then as she and the Knights who guarded her made their way south across Solamnia. At first, the messages had been hopeful, expressing her certainty she would find the one she sought in the next town or monastery. When the later messages came, however, it was always the same-the man of light from her dreams was not there. Lately, the hope in her previous missives had darkened to discouragement. In her most recent one, two days ago, she wrote of leaving Solanthus, Solamnia’s southernmost city, still with nothing to show for her quest. She would cross the border from the Knights’ lands to Kharolis within the week, and everyone who read her words could tell she was losing energy and heart.