“There you are! My fellow monarch!” He raised an imperious finger. “Bring a seat for His Majesty.” Two servants scuttled across the great cabin, then hurried back, carrying a chair between them. “I have waited so long to meet you, King Olin. I have heard so much about you, I feel as if I know you already.”
Olin sat down. “How interesting you should say so. I feel very much the same.”
“Oh ho!” The autarch laughed again; he sounded as though he were genuinely enjoying himself. “And what you think you know you do not like, do you? A good joke. We will be friends. In fact, we must be friends! If we insist on formal protocol, our conversations will be so long and so dreary— and we will be having so many conversations in the days ahead. I look forward to it!”
Olin folded his hands carefully on his lap. “So you will not kill me yet?”
“Kill you? Why would I do such a thing? You are a prize, Olin Eddon—worth more than gold or ambergris—worth more than the famed rubies of Sirkot! I have been doing my best to lay hands on you for the longest time!”
“What are you talking about?”
Vash could not help cringing at the northerner’s tone of voice—one simply did not talk to the Golden One that way, not if one wished to keep one’s skin stretched over one’s meat. But instead of calling for Mokori, his favorite strangler, the autarch only chuckled again. “But of course,” he said gleefully. “You could not know. In fact, I wonder if, with all your learning, you will understand even when I explain to you.”
Olin regarded the monarch of all Xand with a combination of interest and growing discomfort. Vash was oddly reassured—he had begun to wonder if his master was truly as mad as he seemed, or if he, Pinimmon Vash, were simply losing perspective, so he was glad to see he was not the only one who found Sulepis puzzling. “It does sound as though you do not intend to kill me today.”
“But I already told you that!” Sulepis feigned astonishment. “You and I have much to do, see, and speak about. First, though, we really must get you cleaned up. Ludis has taken shocking care of you.”
The northern king inclined his head. “May I ask what price you paid for me? Or was I a gift to you from Ludis—a sort of welcome present?”
“Ah, Olin—you do not mind if I call you Olin, do you? You may call me Golden One, or even...yes, you may call me Great Falcon.”
“You are too kind.”
“Ah, we will get along splendidly. You have a sense of humor!” The autarch leaned back in his throne, flicked his hand at the servants. “Take King Olin and let him bathe, then feed him. Give him one of my tasters so that he can dine with a peaceful heart. We will speak again later, Olin— we have much to discuss. Together we will remake the world!”
“You seem very certain that I will agree to help you with this...grand project.” Olin tilted his head, examining his captor; Vash could not help admiring the poor, doomed savage.
“Oh, your agreement is not necessary for my success,” the autarch told him with a sympathetic little frown. “And, sadly, you will not live to see its fruits. But you may rejoice in knowing that you were indispensable—that without you, the world would have remained lost in shadow instead of gaining the salvation of the great light of Nushash—or of Nushasha Sulepis, to be precise, for that is who it will be this time.” Now he favored the foreign king with the lazy smile of a predator too full to eat but not too stuffed to terrify a few lesser animals. “As I said, we will speak later, Olin Eddon—oh, we will speak of many things! We will be something like friends, don’t you think? For a little while, anyway. Now, go enjoy your bath and your supper.”
The man who had kidnapped Qinnitan had only to produce a few parchments from an oilskin envelope—documents with the seal of the autarch himself prominently displayed— and the sailors and soldiers on the great flagship Flame of Nushash scuttled to do his bidding. Just when she wanted life to slow down to the slowest crawl the immense Xixian bureaucracy could provide, everybody around her seemed to be swarming as busily and industriously as ants. The three of them were escorted up the gangplank by soldiers —some, she could not help noticing, in the same Leopard helmet that Jeddin had worn, the architect of her current misery. Why had she not denounced him the moment he had begun his mad talk of loving her? Because she had been flattered? Or because she had pitied him, glimpsing the fretful child she had once known inside the hardmuscled body of the soldier? Whatever the case, he had doomed her with his love as certainly as if he had drawn his dagger across her throat: this trip up the gangplank was only the ending of something that had been inevitable from the first moment of his foolish treachery and her equally foolish silence.
At a murmured aside from their captor Pigeon was taken in hand by one of the Favored. She was about to protest, then realized that although the boy was desperate to stay with her, being separated from her was his best hope.
“Ssshhh,” she said, and then told him an awful lie. “I’ll be back. Everything will be fine. Just go with them and do what they say.”
He was not fooled. As he was led away he wore the shocked, disappointed look of a dog tied to a tree and left behind by its master.
The Leopard officer who had now taken charge of Qinnitan and her captor asked if he wished to make either himself or his “gift” ready to be received.
“I was told to bring her to the Golden One with all speed,” the hunter said. “I am sure he will forgive me if I take him at his word.”
The officer and one of the more important of the Favored looked at each other apprehensively, but the courtier bowed. “Of course, sir. As you say.”
Qinnitan took a shaky breath as they were led down the long, surprisingly wide hallway of the rocking ship. She felt nothing, or at least nothing she could recognize. If she had fallen into the water this moment, as she had imagined doing earlier, she knew she would sink straight down. She felt cold and hard and dead as stone.
They paused outside the doorway of the ship’s central cabin while the Leopard officer discreetly and almost apologetically searched the man who had caught her. The chief of the Favored did the same for Qinnitan. The eunuch’s breath smelled of mint and something sharper and fouler, the stench of a rotting tooth, perhaps; at any other time she would have been revolted by his touch, but now she just stood and let herself be handled like a corpse readied for burial. There was no point in feeling anything. No use caring.
The Favored led them through the door and across the broad cabin toward the tall man seated on a plain chair at the center, legs spread, booted feet planted firmly on the ground, examining the documents Qinnitan’s captor had given to the courtiers.
It was not the autarch.
“All hail High Polemarch Ikelis Johar, Overseer of the Armies!” said the Favored, striking his staff three times on the cabin’s wooden floor.
The general looked up, his heavy-browed face turning from Qinnitan to her captor. “Vo, is it? Daikonas Vo. I think I have heard the name before—your father was a White Hound, too, am I right?”
So the empty-faced man who had taken her had a name, Qinnitan realized—not that it mattered. Soon she would be beyond remembering any name, even her own.
“Yes, Polemarch.” The man seemed a little taken aback, although his face was still stony and indifferent. “Forgive me, Lord, but can you tell me when I may see the autarch? I was given very specific orders...”