There is not but one god, nor is there less than one, nor are there multitudes. Three are They, not more, nor less. Three heads of one divinity: the God Above, Who made the world and protected it in the Time Before Time; the God Below, Who despises the world and seeks to devour it; and the God Among, Who walks the earth in judgment of our works. So it was in the Time Before Time; so it is now; so shall it ever be. If all other words fall away, let these be carved in the deepest stone until the Time After Time.
-The Triptych; Creed of Three
Castle Tern, Dridon
All was unwell in Dridon.
Between the scattered shouts in the streets, the hooves of horses stampeding this way and that, and the general commotion in Castle Tern, Lucanh could hardly concentrate on the ornately illuminated pages of the Triptych. He’d reread a passage in the Book of Earth several times already without absorbing any information. The boy blinked, started again from the top.
“My Prince,” said a knight who stood at the open door of the royal library. He lifted his helmet’s visor. “Forgive my interruption. Queen Rhoda has ordered an emergency assembly in the throne room. Thought you’d like to know.”
“Thank you, Sir Godwald,” said Lucanh. “Did she send for me?” The knight shook his head. “Of course not. I’m already becoming a man, and yet she doesn’t want to treat me like one.”
“Far be it from a humble knight of my station to question Her Majesty,” said Sir Godwald. “But if I may speak a word in her defense, you are only fourteen, Your Grace.”
“Only fourteen and already making you work for every sparring victory,” Lucanh taunted him playfully. “When do I get a real sword already?”
Sir Godwald smiled. “Excuse me, Prince Lucanh. I am needed.” The knight shut his visor and marched away.
“I wonder what that feels like,” Lucanh sighed. “Must be nice.”
Lucanh closed the Triptych with his gloves of deerskin, removed the gloves, and set them on the velvet pillow next to the thick holy book. He stepped down from his stool. The immaculate marble pedestal where the Triptych rested was even taller than he was. Not for long.
Lucanh hurried down the castle corridor toward the throne room. He hoped his mother wouldn’t have the knights turn him away at the door this time. He was fourteen now, old enough, he thought, to be present when his mother held court and to be informed about important Dridic affairs.
He wondered if this had anything to do with that wise king across the sea in the rich nation of Qarda.
Lucanh took his seat two thrones to the right of his mother. She wore robes the colors of mahogany, copper, and deep gold, and a crown of silver; these were the Dridic colors of autumn, of crisis, and they signified some yet unknown danger on the horizon. Her worried glance shattered his budding confidence in his belonging there—she looked at him like he was still a helpless little boy who needed minding.
“Order, please,” said Queen Rhoda. She could command the attention of the room without raising her voice, a quality he admired about her. It was one he himself hoped to cultivate when he was a man, a time that drew so tantalizingly close now. “I have called this assembly to discuss recent troubling developments in the north.” There were murmurs and mutterings among the courtiers; the knights rattled in their armor. “As we all are aware, the presiding monarch of Qarda has been assassinated. With the death of their hierophant, however, comes some even more unsettling news: slavery has been reinstated in Grackenwell.”
A silent beat. Then the court erupted in outrage, the sound swelling so loud that it scared Lucanh, almost hurt, even. Commoners of the middling caste shouted and pressed forward to be heard, many of them triarchs of the clergy. Knights banged their gauntlets against their breastplates to control the crowd. Even the lords and aristocrats hollered their displeasure.
Most incensed of all were the beggar caste. They represented those who had the least in the whole country—power, wealth, land, food, and some might say dignity, though Lucanh wouldn’t, and he knew his mother wouldn’t, either. These people knew better than anyone the true price of Grackenwell’s treachery, how their northern counterparts were bearing the burden of it even as they were invited to court with their own queen.
“I speak for all of us when I say that this news turns my stomach,” said the queen. “Were I to act on impulse, I would ride north to Holcort myself, sword in hand!” At this, her court roared with approval this time, but she called for silence. “However, here in Dridon, we call ourselves Tomebound. We are bound by the principles of our sacred text, just as any Tomebound in any other part of the known world. We would do well to keep in mind the importance of a measured response. Triad teaches us the value of discernment and caution in all things.” More murmurs in the crowd. “Bearing in mind the wisdom of the Triptych, I call the issue to a vote by the Council of Three.”
Lucanh gasped and fidgeted on his throne. It took him a moment to look princely again after collecting himself. The Council of Three was a rare happening in Dridon and took place but once every few years.
He remembered the last time it happened—his ninth birthday—when Dridon’s poorest rioted in the streets and beat the wealthy with clubs and sticks. That was when the beggar caste was given the opportunity to elect their own representative, rather than having one appointed for them by the monarch; Queen Rhoda held court with the poor that day to hear out their requests, rather than having them hanged for inciting a riot. His mother forbade him from entering her court on that day.
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As in all castes, whether here in the south or even to the north, the beggar caste was home to many shades of flesh from pale to dark, but the High Supplicant was a woman of near black skin. Zumawi was her name. She stepped out from among the beggars in a tattered garment stitched together from old potato sacks. Even still, she carried herself with the posture of a queen in her own right, moving airily across the long carpet toward her temporary throne at Rhoda’s left hand. Zumawi met his gaze on approach and smiled; he blushed and pretended to look away into the crowd.
The High Knight, Sir Stepan, marched to the throne immediately to the queen’s right. He represented the interests of the middling caste, the commoners with homes but not much wealth, the triarchs and the minor officials. He crashed into his seat with a great clamoring of metal, removing his helmet and setting it in his lap. Sweat plastered his black hair against his pallid forehead.
Now the Council was assembled and a hush fell over the court.
“Zumawi and Sir Stepan have been instructed to prepare arguments for this session of the Council of Three,” said the queen. “I will now hear from my Left Hand.” She turned to Zumawi, who gave a slight bow of her head.
“Your Majesty,” said the beggar, “my caste is greatly troubled. We feel that Grackenwell’s reinstitution of slavery is cause for war. The Book of Hells speaks of such abomination and what is to be done with slavers. Slavery is repugnant under the Six Eyes of Triad. To declare war on such evil is our Tomebound duty.”
Words of assent rose from the court like sparks off a well-fed fire. Lucanh felt that same fire burning in his own heart. His hands shook and his teeth pressed themselves together. His mother’s words about riding to Holcort echoed in his mind, and he longed to charge through their city gates and free each slave himself, to be the hero they needed—the kind of hero he read about in books besides the Triptych.
“Order, please,” said the queen. “Thank you, Zumawi, for your counsel. I will now hear from my Right Hand.” She turned to Sir Stepan, who brushed aside his matted hair as if it had just occurred to him that he was in the presence of the queen.
“Your Majesty,” said Sir Stepan, whose high-pitched voice belied his bulky frame, “I would appeal instead to the Book of Heights. Panel Eleven tells the story of the wayward boy who goes to fell a beehive and is stung to death. Panel Eleven reminds us of the folly of unwarranted aggression. Let the Qardish reclaim Grackenwell once the dust settles. They could already be sailing to do just that as we speak—with a military ten times the size of ours, I should add.” The crowd’s response was less enthusiastic this time, but it sounded to Lucanh like more people were quietly agreeing with Sir Stepan.
“Thank you, Sir Stepan, for your counsel. Having heard from both caste representatives, I will now deliver my decision.” The queen surveyed her courtiers, regal in the look of confidence she wore. It was quiet enough in the throne room to hear a single knight adjust his footing. “Matters in the north weigh heavily on my heart—on all our hearts.” Lucanh saw shoulders slumping in the clutch of beggars in the crowd. “But Panel Eleven weighs even heavier at this moment. Dridon stands in steadfast opposition to the practice of slavery, as she has officially since Qarda’s arrival a century ago—and unofficially centuries prior to that. But we cannot declare war over a difference in domestic policies.”
“Queen Rhoda,” Zumawi interrupted pleadingly, “as little as a deployment of soldiers at our northern border—”
“Hold your tongue,” Sir Stepan cut her off, hand flourishing near his sheathed sword. He set that same hand on his lap, as if it were an ill-tempered dog that had almost gotten away from him. “Your queen is speaking.” His blank face betrayed nothing that was happening behind his eyes, not anger, not contempt—nothing. He bowed his head to Queen Rhoda after that. “Apologies for speaking out of turn, Your Majesty.”
Lucanh’s mother continued. “What is happening in Grackenwell is an atrocity against human dignity. Let us all pray to Triad for the delivery of the slaves from their chains and a swift rebuke from the land of Qarda. If Grackenwell had a hand in the hierophant’s death, let justice be done to them. Until such time as Grackenwell makes a formal declaration of war on us, Dridon will maintain neutrality. That is the end of the matter for the time being.”
The queen struck the bottom of her scepter thrice against the stone floor before her throne. The court dissolved into scattered conversations, the nobles dispersing and the knights herding the commoners toward the front door of Castle Tern.
Lucanh wanted to talk to Zumawi, to say something conciliatory, but she was on her feet and storming away from her throne before he could even open his mouth. The look on his mother’s face spelled heartbreak and inner turmoil. On the surface, it was nothing more than concern, but he could see by the way she tapped her pinky finger on the arm of her throne that something was deeply wrong.
He rose and approached her throne. “Mother?”
She looked at him with that babying look again. “What is it, son? Do you need something?”
“I need to help,” he replied, sticking out his chest. “What if I went to Holcort myself? I could speak with King Garro—”
“No!” His mother’s eyes were now plainly wide with fear. “Don’t say such a thing. Not ever again.” She drew back, taking notice of her emptying court still full enough of potential onlookers. Lucanh knew they expected bravery of her. He wanted to prove his own bravery, too.
“You’re saying we can’t do anything?”
“I am the Queen of Dridon, but I’m your mother first and foremost.” She pulled him closer to her in an embrace and ran her hand through his earth-brown hair once. He jerked away from her touch but it didn’t faze her. “Even if we were to do something, I would never send you north to those monsters. Those Grackenwelsh beasts believe only in power. They worship a dead man for lording power over death itself. They know little of humanity, let alone mercy or charity.”
“So why can’t we attack them? Why can’t we make them stop?” Lucanh dwelled on the verses he’d read in the Book of Hells, his favorite book of late; it spoke less of virtues and meditation and more of carrying out vengeance.
His mother rested her scepter against her throne and put a hand on each of his shoulders. “I can’t give you that answer, Luke. Study the Triptych. Pray to Triad for guidance. As mortals, we must tread a narrow wall separating the Heights and the Hells. Seldom is it easy.”
Lucanh was about to ask his mother another question when a detachment of knights marched up to her throne. “Your Majesty,” said one of them, and Lucanh could tell by the voice that it was Sir Godwald again. “More news from the scouts. Might we speak to you in private?”
Without another word, the queen strode off to lead them to another chamber away from the prying ears of the court, and Lucanh stood alone among the remnants of the court.
He heard the whispers of the Heights above, felt the rumblings of the Hells below, and tried to make sense of it all.