The weeks back at Bewic had been hectic for Nathye. Messages had to go out to outpace the rumors that were bound to be spreading already, telling his fellow dukes, as well as his own barons, of his father’s death and his ascension. It rankled him that he only had barons owing him liege, no higher-ranking nobles.

There was no body to bury and, therefore, no funeral to organize. Sir Ancis fussed, but a body could not be manufactured, and a somber remembrance ceremony was held instead.

The searching guards trickled in over the next few days.

“How can they have found no sign of him?” asked Nathye.

“I don’t know where he had gone to, my lord. He might as well have killed himself or hid in some cave on the mountain. We may never find him,” said Ser Dafeld.

“He left us a message on that mountain. That was not the act of someone who disappeared. He’ll come to us,” Nathye said, certain.

Ser Dafeld glanced at him from under his heavy eyebrows but said nothing.

The preparations continued for the ascension ceremony. A few other dukes sent polite messages, though only two sent representatives, minor functionaries, to attend. One sent a young son, the disrespectful old fool.

Nathye invited his barons, a few rich burghers, and even, much as it pained him, a couple of his father’s friends of no consequence. Ser Ancis insisted it would help portray him as a kind ruler, one who carried on his father’s legacy. Nathye had no plan of carrying on a legacy of wasting away in Bewic but liked the idea of showing the world that he was now the duke and that he mattered.

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On the day of his ascension, Ser Ancis came to him early in the early morning hours.

“What is it, Ser Ancis? Are we being invaded?” asked Nathye, reluctantly coming out of a dream where the world bowed before his magnificence.

“Your Grace, we need to go down to the crypt.”

“Why? My father isn’t there.”

“We need to visit the pillar. It’s been done like that since your family came to power.”

That gods-cursed pillar had ruined his dream, just like it almost ruined his life the day after his father died. Ser Ancis was not given to flights of fancy or to deviation from protocol, so Nathye reluctantly dressed, putting on a coat for the cold that permeated that benighted place, and together they descended.

Once more, they made their way through, Nathye now paying closer attention. He was carrying his own torch, and the servants had been hard at work cleaning the place. His grandfather’s tomb was a grand affair, covered in depictions of the young man’s expeditions to the Suenu plains. Further back were other tombs showing famous battles from before and after the fall of the empire. The family was old, serving emperors when there were still emperors to serve. The only tomb that was undecorated, a plain sarcophagus, was the one of Duke Ephel. There was no epithet, but “The Incompetent” could be read from the lack of any adornments.

This would not be how Nathye’s life ended. He had a destiny. He would be known far and wide. Nathye the magnificent. Nathye the Conqueror. Nathye the Triumphant. Maybe even Emperor Nathye. It was time the empire was pulled back together.

Ser Ancis stopped in front of the pillar, Nathye coming to stand by him. The light of the torch moved in some unseen draft, making the shadows dance around the room. This area of the crypt was a natural cave, stalactites hanging down from the ceiling, forever reaching for but not attaining their stalagmite halves on the floor. The pillar had a wide open space around it as if neither ceiling nor floor protrusion wanted to intrude into its space.

The pillar was about chest high, undecorated, except for the stick figure of a man cut into it about midway. The figure was a simple construction of two legs, two arms, and a round head. It wasn’t holding anything or doing anything. If Nathye didn’t know any better, he would have guessed a child found the pillar and carved a picture into it with the untalented but enthusiastic fervor of the young. Somehow, the figure conveyed the weight of years in the way it held its head and body.

“Do you know the word, Your Grace?” asked Ser Ancis.

“You know I do not!” Nathye looked at his seneschal, narrowing his gaze.

“I must ask, Your Grace. It is part of my duty to prepare you for the ascension. Will you try to wrest control of the pillar?” The seneschal had taken a few candles and placed them on some of the stalagmites around the pillar.

“I don’t even know what it does,” Nathye clenched his fists. “How would I wrest control of it?” his voice was rising, echoing in the cavern.

“I don’t know, Your Grace. These candles might help give you clarity”—He’d used the torch to light the four candles he had placed—“but I do not know much about this pillar.”

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Nathye had not found much in his father’s writing about the pillar. One of the older journals just said that his own father took him to the pillar, and another said that he used the word to reach an accord with it. He didn’t say what the word was, did not say what power he had received from the pillar.

“I will try,” Nathye said.

Ser Ancis retreated, taking both torches with him. Nathye remained alone with the pillar and four small candles casting their meager light at the cage of stone formations that enclosed him in the dark. A shiver ran down his body, and he approached the pillar, getting closer to the stick figure. He reached out a hand to it, caressing it.

“Please,” he said, “I don’t know what the word is, but I want to make a name for myself, for my family.”

The pillar remained mute, the figure on it uncaring.

“Submit to me!” he tried, wondering if commanding it would have an effect.

The candles flickered, then one of them went out. He was down to three. Was it a draft, or was the pillar rejecting him?

“You will not control me!” he yelled, kicking the pillar.

Pain exploded in his toe, the slippers he was wearing not great protection from a solid stone. He jumped on one foot, grabbing at the foot that hit the stone and pressing down on the throbbing area. The pillar remained solidly standing, not budging a whit. The remaining candles did not flicker.

“Stupid pillar, stupid word, stupid carved figure,” he said.

Turning around, he yelled into the dark, “Ancis!”

The light of the torches preceded the man as he approached from the dark, creating a small haven in which they both silently walked back out of the crypt.

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Nathye sat on his father’s chair, his chair now, in front of the gathered guests. Most of them were local to Bewic, though Nathye saw the son of Duke Drewill. That insult of a child had his finger so far up his nose, you’d think the lost crown of the emperor might have been hidden there.

Ser Ancis and Ser Dafeld approached. They were both wearing their best garb, Ser Dafeld’s hair slicked back with oil, Ser Ancis’s bold pate shining in the torches lining the hall. Ser Ancis was carrying a small, blue velvet pillow on which rested his father’s coronet.

They stopped before him, and Ser Ancis said, “Please kneel, Your Grace.”

That did not sit well with him, but he wanted to get it over with. He got up from the chair, kneeling on the floor before them.

Ser Dafeld took the coronet from the pillow and held it before Nathye. It was a simple thing, gold and silver, unadorned. Nathye would have to improve it, make it more fitting someone of his station, of his ambition. A conquering hero needs an appropriate mark of office.

Ser Dafeld placed the coronet on Nathye’s head, then bid him rise as duke. Ser Dafeld knelt, helping the aging Ser Ancis do the same.

That was more like it, Nathye standing tall and the world acknowledging his greatness.

His people all followed suit, kneeling to acknowledge his ascension. Georguy Drewill, that cross between an alleycat and a burrowing worm, had found something in his quest for the crown. His finger was holding up what he had dug out of his nostril. After careful consideration, the future Duke of Drewill stuck his finger in his mouth.

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Dinner was a merry affair. Nathye, at the behest of Ser Ancis, had spared little expense, and the guests were all arrayed in the great hall enjoying the feast and wine. At least this was a use for his father’s wine, the bottles that had been accumulating in the basement.

To Nathye’s left was that discoverer of the lost emperor’s crown, the boy Georguy Drewill. By now, he was ignoring the food, the sampling of his nose’s bounty had satiated his hunger. He mostly drank of the wine and was already nodding off.

To Nathye’s right were a few of his barons, and the other dukes’ representatives were seated around the table. A few had tried striking up conversations with Nathye, talking about trade rights and favorable deals. He had no patience for this. His father was content to play that game, but Nathye was more interested in glory.

“How is trade with Rameri?” he asked Duke Walteph’s representative. The rotund man was sitting opposite Nathye, emptying his plate of anything the servants put on it and constantly getting his wine glass refilled. His thinning hair formed channels for the rivulets of sweat that streamed down his face.

“Oh, Your Grace,”—he raised his wine glass in one hand and gestured with a spoon in another—“it is well. They like our pelts, and we like their spices.” He licked the spoon with that, ahhing in pleasure, though the spoon was empty.

“You don’t think the Duke will need to mount an offensive against them?” Nathye probed.

“An offensive, Your Grace? I don’t see how. Crossing the Gebluff Range and the plateau with an army is always challenging. And what—” hic ”—would we conquer? Even the empire didn’t stay there for long.”

Nathye had had similar conversations all day. Commerce ruled everything. The Dukes did not want to conquer, or at least their representatives did not know of any such plans. They were all content, dealing with small squabbles, enjoying their lives.

“We should…we should…we…”—Georguy Drewill was waving his booger-digging finger in the air like a sword—“fight the mountains!”

The next course arrived, servants coming to stand behind all the diners at the table holding covered plates in their hands. The conversation slowed as the servants, as one, leaned in to place their plates on the table, removing the covers as they stood back up.

Steam billowed from the plates, the scent of cooked meat with pepper and coriander floating into Nathye’s nose. As the steam cleared, he saw two eyes staring at him from the plate. The dallen had been skinned and splayed, lying on the plate with its head pointed at Nathye.

Nathye pushed back from the table, knocking the waiter behind him down. His heart was beating, his eyes locked on the dallen in a staring context he could not win.

“Your Grace, is something wrong with the meal?” asked Ser Ancis.

Nathye was standing now, hearing just his blood thumping in his ears. The dallen continued staring at him.

“Your Grace?” Ser Ancis, again.

He noticed everyone staring at him. That snapped him out of the contest of wills with the dallen. Looking around, he saw that even Georguy Drewill, future Duke of Nose Picking, had snapped from his mountain-conquering daydream and was staring at him wide-eyed.

“I hadn’t realized we had dallen on the menu today,” he said, not sure how to make them all forget his sudden jump.

“It is customary, Your Grace,” said Ser Ancis, not explaining what was so damn customary about this.

“Well, I don’t like dallen.”

Nathye turned around, walking out of the room. They must have done this on purpose, making him look at the dallen.

Well, he’d done his part. He’d formally ascended, and it didn’t matter what they all thought. He couldn’t stand the stares of all the people, those fools. It wasn’t the staring, dead dallens in the room who were making him uncomfortable.

He left the people to enjoy their stupid dinner.