Prince Maximilian of Gulphay rushed through the palms, their luxurious leaves just a whisper removed from his naked skin. He weaved between them, sacrificing speed for stealth, leaving only a soft in his passing.
Not since the footraces of his infancy did he depend exclusively on his physical body for any kind of exertion, but he had no choice. Above him stretched the starry Abyssinian night; around him, the colossal estate of the Demon Sultan unrolled mile upon endless mile, cut through with black-silted rivers and nectarine groves. The Sultan’s palace, his prison, with its mile-tall spires of brass, had already dipped below the dim horizon, yet the border of his domain was nowhere in sight.
Over this vast expanse swept the watching eyes of innumerable guards, all prepared to seize him. Maximilian had heard no alarm, no commotion, but he had no doubt his escape was already noticed. Behind every bush was he feared a pack of monstrous watch dogs, and he expected every dark nightcloud to birth a colossal eagle mounted by one of the Demon Sultan’s Immortals.
He had no inkling of where he was, nor of where he was going, only that the palace was to his back and that he must press forward.
All of his hard-earned powers were worse than useless: to ride upon the wind or stride the lightning would take him over the horizon in barely more than a breath, but it would also reveal him to his captors. He was confident in his ability to defeat any one of the Four Thousand Immortals, but he could not risk even a single fight. Any delay would bring many more of their number down upon his head, and then his capture would be sure. He had no artifacts with which to speed his travel or become invisible, and his clothes he burned in a brazier, on the off-chance they held some scrying charm. He had not noticed the Sultan’s servants taking any blood or hair which might be used to track him, and though the Sultan seemed arrogant enough not to take such obvious measures, Maximilian could not be sure. So the prince relied only on his body, well into the fifth realm of alchemic transformation, and subdued all his spiritual powers, using none of them except to hide his presence.
He had only dared this escape because the Demon Sultan himself, for the first time in the months since his capture, was off-world. He had taken a great host of Immortals with him, perhaps to scout another world in preparation for an invasion, and the bustling palace had quieted down. There were fewer guards on patrol, no longer a servant in every hallway, and major figures in court from the provincial ambassadors to the queen herself had either returned to their home worlds on business or taken their leisure elsewhere in the vast estate, perhaps in the tidal baths of its great inland sea or the snow-capped peaks which sprung up from a great plain, imported whole from a conquered world along with all the little villages dotting its passes.
As the well-watered plains became arid and rocky hills, a great canyon opened before the prince, and he leapt its hundred cubits in a single, quiet bound. At the apogee of his jump, when the wind whipped around his ears in a great rush and a moment of weightlessness overtook him, Prince Maximilian cursed his foolishness.
Descending, he recalled his last conversation with the Demon Sultan before his departure for distant worlds. In his boundless condescension he spoke to Maximilian as though he were a child, some wayward nephew living under his roof and not a prisoner, and told him of news abroad: the conflict between the Fulminous and Magnanimous, the upcoming coronation in Fleur, and the ransom. His ransom, totaling one billion Anthusan anthems, which his family had already agreed to pay.
He could already hear the whispers in high towers across a half-dozen worlds. Gulphay’s vassals and allies would be panicking, searching for new sources of revenue to pay their part of the great sum. Some of them, hopefully few, would drag their heels and decide that Gulphay’s continued support did not warrant such a cost. House Gulphay’s own power and wealth would become an open question. And through all that, the Sultan’s purse would only grow, in coin, treasure, and magic.
But that leering grin the Sultan shot before boarding his ship burned in Maximilian’s memory. Was there more to this? In their desperation to pay the ransom, many of Gulphay’s allies could become much less circumspect in their affairs, welcoming collaboration and loans from strange sources. It was an excellent opportunity for the Sultan to insert his spies into new domains and gain influence over his enemies.
Maximilian could not allow that to pass. He must escape, or failing that, go down fighting against the Immortals. This was his best, and only, opportunity.
His bare feet landed on the far lip of the canyon, his legs flexing and a subtle application of power muffling the crash as he immediately bounded forward across the rocky hills.
It must have been a trap. For the Sultan to leave the palace under such light security right after informing Maximilian of his ransom, insulting him, all but daring him to escape and giving him every reason to do so, could not have been other than an intentional provocation.
Maximilian pressed his back to a cold rock, cast in shadow by the light of Abyssinia’s three moons. His heart was thundering, less from the exertion and more from the terror that he might still be in the palm of the Sultan’s hand, that all his actions still played into his captor’s schemes somehow.
As he forced his heart to quiet and slow, he felt a vibration from the stone. Touching the pads of his fingers to it, he sensed it again, faint but rhythmic. Concentrating all his senses there, he heard speech: not the barks of guards but the lilt of a lecture, or a prayer.
Even more strangely, he could tell it was being spoken in Vintic.
Keeping all his wits about him and his movements silent, he searched around the crags and found a winding crevice, the hidden entrance to this mountain hermitage. The prayers grew ever louder, leading him through the darkness and into the warm candlelight of a cave.
But this was no humble hermitage into which he had stepped; its high walls were cut with row on row of shelves carrying books and scrolls, great tables and chairs of mahogany and fixtures of gold and brass filled the open space, and perfumed incense burned on an altar before which knelt the would-be hermit.
He was wrapped in a simple robe and spoke Vintic as a native. Had the Sultan hired—or kidnapped—a priest of the church to serve as one more curio decorating the vast estate?
If that were the case, then this hermitage would have been much more accessible and visible from outside, and there would be guards posted here to watch him. Why would such a person, to all appearances a scholar, be here willingly?
Though Maximilian made no sound that he could hear, the hermit turned towards him. To Maximilian’s surprise, this man looked quite young, barely over thirty years old if he had no cultivation of his own. He was surprised to find a naked stranger entering his hideaway in the dead of night, but made no alarm or sudden movement. He only beckoned Maximilian closer and spoke in a hushed tone.
“Good prince, why have you come to this place so late?”
Maximilian was taken aback. “You know me?”
“Indeed, my prince. I saw you once from afar, in the Holy City, and had hoped to make your audience then.”
Then this was surely another prisoner taken by the Demon Sultan in his assault on the Holy City.
“Are you well, friend? Has this monster done anything to you?”
“No, my prince. I am well. In his generosity, His Puissance has permitted me to live on his largesse, and continue my studies.”
To hear a resident of the Holy City simpering before the name of the Demon Sultan disgusted him. “Have you not tried to escape?”
The young hermit shook his head. “There is no chance of escape, for either of us, my prince. But neither shall I turn away a guest in need. You may shelter here as long as you desire, and I shall provide all that you desire, should it be in my power.”
He turned to a great wardrobe of dark wood and silver, almost twice as tall as himself, and took from it robes in simple fashion but spun from exquisite silk, and dressed his guest. He poured out water from a jeweled ewer, warmed a pitcher of coffee on a stove of smokeless flame, and served a dish of chilled sweetmeats from an icebox concealed in the stone. Maximilian reconsidered his assessment of this hermitage. It was not merely opulent in order to cow this hermit, but it was no less luxurious to live in than his own well-guarded quarters in the palace. Did the Demon Sultan really have so much wealth that he afforded even captive hermits such luxury, or did this one have special favor?
And if the latter, could he be sure that his offer of shelter was genuine?
“What is your name, friend?”
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“I am Fenici, your Highness.”
“I thank you, Fenici. Tell me, is there anywhere I can wash off the road?”
The hermit accepted his euphemism without remark.
“There are baths in the chambers beyond, my prince, but I would caution against them. There is already another guest here, taking her leisure. Fear not, I will hide you when she comes out, and shall induce her to leave quickly after.”
Maximilian weighed the hermit’s words. With some concentration, he heard the flow and splash of water through the stone, and hints of gentle singing.
So he ate and drank, keeping an ear out at all times for signs that this other guest was returning, and perused the shelves. At his request, Fenici pulled out an atlas of the Abyssinian worlds, translated the names there, and helped him draw out an escape route, which he nevertheless said was hopeless. Maximilian had his bearings in short order, and knew how to get beyond the borders of the Sultan’s estate, moving through a mountain pass and into a populous region which possessed a spaceport.
While he could not easily pass among the citizens of Abyssinia, the Sultan did employ foreign mercenaries. With some luck, he might be able to steal some arms and a disguise. Getting papers to move around freely would be much more difficult, and he doubted there were ships traveling anywhere near Konigsphare without heavy guard. His best bet would be to sneak aboard a smaller ship and commandeer it once it was already underway, and hope it had enough range and supplies to reach his home, or else stop on a closer planet like Achae.
It was a long shot. Now that he laid it all out, he had to agree with Fenici that it was hopeless. Yet he couldn’t afford to wait or try something else.
As they finalized this plan, both men heard the stream of water in the chambers beyond stop. Fenici turned to him with an urgent whisper.
“My prince, hide yourself in the wardrobe, quickly! I shall distract her and see her off. Do not come out until she is gone, for both our sakes!”
The prince, his face burning with indignity, jumped at once into the wardrobe, more than large enough to fit several men, and was at once enveloped in the soft embrace of innumerable clothes. Only a slit of wavering candlelight made its way inside, but his hearing was by no means impaired.
He heard the gentle dripping of water in time with light steps. Fenici offered his other guest a drink and a bite from his midnight snack, and a honeyed voice accepted.
Maximilian recognized that voice.
He strained to see through the narrow slit without so much as rustling the clothes around him. Fenici entertained her, showing the various atlases he had been examining in a fit of curiosity, and they settled into a conversation on the subject of Abyssinia’s geography. The minutes crept like hours, with Maximilian hardly able to move but desperate to confirm his suspicions.
Finally, Fenici begged leave of his guest, saying that he was fatigued from their studies and wished to retire. She accepted, and asked to borrow several books they had been reading together, to which the hermit effusively agreed.
Only then did she pass by the narrow range of his sight, and he knew his ears did not lie. This guest was none other than the astrologer Jullanar, the wife of the Demon Sultan.
Her back was to him, and she was completely off guard, with no fear at all of the hermit. Indeed, being here without guards and speaking so familiarly on scholarly subjects, it was clear she trusted him deeply. Maximilian knew she was a powerful sorceress in her own right, no less of a threat than any of the Four Thousand Immortals, but so far from backup, unaware of his presence, she was vulnerable.
If he took her as a hostage, he might be able to travel to the spaceport with impunity. He might be able to commandeer a ship directly and ensure his safety all the way to Achae.
He didn’t think twice. Maximilian leapt out of the wardrobe, surrounded at once by a shining nimbus of power. He dared not manifest his guardian angel, Gadreel the Protector, to enact such a dishonorable plan, but the deep well of energy within him was his own. It would just take one strike to stun her, and then he could seal her power. Maximilian would deal with the hermit if he tried anything.
She didn’t react quickly enough. Even before Fenici could give any warning he was behind her.
Yet his attack never reached its target.
The world was like broken glass.
Each shining shard was a possibility, spinning out into the void, growing more distant with every infinitesimal fraction of time.
Maximilian was suspended mid-strike, and in the mirror-like fragments around him he saw innumerable possibilities. In one, he rose to the peak of the known worlds atop a mountain of corpses; in another, he fell to a traitor’s poison before he returned home. In others, he remained in the Sultan’s estate forever, succumbing to its luxuries and forgetting all his duties.
But in the vast majority he died, here and now. He saw thousands of shards in which his brains boiled out and splattered across the cave floor, in which his heart was crushed, in which the breath ran from his lungs and he perished without air.
One fact was instinctively clear: this was no power of Jullanar or her guardian angel, nor was it any defensive talisman. This inexorable doom came from something else, some power that dwelt within her and threatened to burn him from the inside out for his offense.
He tried to run, to twist his frozen body towards those possibilities in which he survived, but he moved as if swimming in molasses, and with each passing moment another shard wavered and displayed his corpse.
Then he heard the hermit’s voice, like a song, like a bell.
“Have mercy, mighty one.”
Maximilian was pulled back by the collar of his robe, and the world collapsed into a single form.
He had little time to appreciate this change before Jullanar’s knee struck him full in the stomach. His body cracked the stone beyond and sent irreplaceable books flying in all directions, but the greater damage was not to his physical body: in that split second of contact, a splinter of raging spiritual energy attached itself to his soul, eating through him like an acid.
Given a few minutes to concentrate, he could have isolated and neutralized it without issue. In a fight, it forced him to gamble: carry on and hope he could win quickly, or split his effort and attention in the hopes he could outlast his opponent.
At present, Maximilian had no good options.
That didn’t mean he planned to surrender.
The moment his feet hit the ground, he charged forward. Jullanar held her ground, and their battle shook the mountain around them, opening cracks in the cave and throwing it into darkness. She retreated into the night and he pursued, the pair trading blows as they arced through the open air.
The furious energy in Maximilian’s soul burned away his spirit, but he pressed through the agony, because he could see the same struggle in his opponent. Whatever power had been unleashed before, without her own knowledge or intent, inflicted a cost on her body.
So they battled, both of them gradually slowing, weakening, neither willing to fall first.
Their battle ended on the lip of a high waterfall, where Jullanar’s resistance broke. Surrounded by the frigid mist, burning from exertion for the first time in decades, she slipped back on a slick rock and fell just shy of the cliff. Maximilian grinned, barely standing on his own feet as Jullanar’s energy continued to assault his soul. He staggered forward, careful not to slip and join her on the ground, victory just within his grasp… and then he felt a blade at his throat.
A trio of Immortals, their golden armor pale in the light of three moons, threw Maximilian to the ground and wrapped him in chains. Cursing himself between agonized breaths, he turned his attention inward to the energy ravaging his soul.
“Mistress, what is wrong?” cried one of the Immortals.
Jullanar could barely respond through pained gasps. “I… don’t know. Get Fenici.”
The Immortals swiftly retrieved the hermit, who rushed to Jullanar’s side and gave Maximilian only a passing, disgusted glance.
The hermit’s face, now twisted with defiant anger, reminded Maximilian of where they had met. This was no mere scholar, but Fenici da Mirasol, the arch-heretic nestled under the wings of the wealthy Manzi family, whose trial he had been invited to judge after the Conclave in the Holy City. Right before everything went to hell.
“Fenici da Mirasol, you traitor! Dog! I’ll have you boiled in oil, you rat!”
“Be silent!”
The hermit’s words rolled over him, and carried speech away. Maximilian was unable even to wonder what manner of esoteric power he had cultivated in his words, but he could understand what was spoken between the others.
“Fenici, what… is happening?”
“Breathe, my lady, and calm the energy inside you.”
When her breath and the roiling power alike stabilized, Fenici da Mirasol examined her, and his astonishment was plain to all.
“My lady, you are with child.”
“About… time.” she said, covered in a sheen of sweat. “But why did… I felt…”
“It was defending itself, my lady.”
“How?”
The hermit hesitated. “An angel has chosen to enter the world through your child. It placed you at risk to manifest its power, just for a moment, and protect you both from his attack.”
His disdain for Maximilian, who had violated his hospitality and assaulted the hermit’s other guest, was clear.
“Which angel, Fenici? What does it want?”
The hermit closed his eyes, as if listening for a faraway voice over the waterfall’s din.
“He will shine upon your empire like the sun, a bringer of law, his magnificence unequaled. He-”
The hermit recoiled, paling.
“I can say no more, my lady. Congratulations.”
⚜ ⚜ ⚜
Otto Orczy sat behind his ducal desk, reading the last night’s letters. Many were responses from the leaders of surrounding cities, eager to deepen their ties, unaware of the role they would play in securing the secret fortune near Velatri. Others were requests from his own citizens, for audience and aid. At the bottom of the stack, just as he was growing weary from all the demands on his time, he reached a letter sealed with the stag and key.
He stopped, staring at it. He hadn’t heard from her in months, not since the Holy City fell. In truth, he hoped not to hear from her again, though he knew she was not caught in that disaster. Some wishful part of him just hoped that she would never reach out again, and he would be spared from giving a proper answer.
But it was not to be.
The duke sliced open the envelope and pulled out the letter within, bracing to read the latest news from his fiancée.