“It is sad that people like the Racter party have triumphed,” I said later, as we went through into our private apartments in our Valkan villa on its hill in Vondium. “But better, I think, than had the Great Chyyan triumphed.”
“The racters are blind in their evil, as we know. Most are corrupted by their own wealth and power. But Makfaril was not Phu-si-Yantong then, after all. And my heart, Naghan Vanki, who is a monstrously clever man, said this numim kept close watch on you.”
“Aye! Too close, I think.” The callousness of Rafik Avandil seemed to me symptomatic of much that is evil about Kregen. Phu-si-Yantong had spied on me in Delia’s temple, knowing my own wizard could foil his lupal projections. So he had sent those poor doomed Rapa masichieri and Avandil, his tool, had slain them and appeared to save me, just to gain my confidence. I recalled what one of the Rapas had cried out in horror. And Rumil the Point — had he too been an instrument of Yantong’s? I thought the Fristles heaven-sent to aid Avandil’s schemes. So, smiling at Delia, I walked into our private room. “But the numim is dead, and with him for a time the schemes of Yantong.”
“The racters have grown stronger, I think. But my father? They will seek to use him even more ruthlessly now.”
“They believe they have a compact with me. That can be used to your father’s advantage.”
“But he has banished you from Vondium.”
I looked up out of the window. She of the Veils cast down her golden light, tinged with a pink fuzziness. The Maiden with the Many Smiles stole gently over the fantastic silhouette of Vondium, bathing rooftops and spires with a second roseate wash of fire. All the stars of Kregen glowed in their brilliant constellations. I turned back to the sumptuously furnished room. Truly, life on Kregen is a hurly-burly of ups and downs. But who would have it any other way?
“Your father has been emperor for a long time. Now he has this Queen Lush of Lome to worry him, along with the new factions seeking to destroy him. I shall have to make him see sense.”
“And if he will not? You called him an onker. He will not forget. He is my father, and he is a terrible man in his wrath, a true emperor.”
“Perhaps onker was too harsh for your father. Not for an emperor.” I yawned. “I care not for tonight.
Now I am for the Baths of the Nine. Then I shall eat a stupendous meal. And then I shall sleep the rest of the night away.”
“That, my love,” said Delia, Delia of Delphond, Delia of the Blue Mountains, “is what you think.”