* * *
Cor had paid a courier, a boy only a few years younger than himself, very well to deliver the scroll to the temple in Martherus. He also gave the black stallion to the boy as an incentive for discretion, that is, lying about where he came from. Cor hoped to use Worh as his home for as long as possible; he had stayed another week after dispatching the letter, during which time he struggled to stay busy. Before leaving Worh, he purchased a new horse, a gorgeous palomino mare; she had a dark gold coat and a mane and tail of platinum. Cor was taken with her the moment he saw the horse, and her name was Kelli.
Cor took his time riding to Byrverus, keeping Kelli at a leisurely pace; he wanted to be absolutely certain that his scroll reached Queen Erella about two weeks before he did. The boy had told him how long it would take to reach Martherus, and once there, Cor knew one of the more senior priests would read it and immediately dispatch it to Byrverus with all haste. The summer heat had broken, much to Cor’s delight, as he had found that wearing steel armor in the summer sun to be a most uncomfortable experience. The days still tended to the warm side, especially after midday, but the oppressive heat of the sun had faded. Cor was vaguely aware that he would arrive in Byrverus within days of his nineteenth birthday. He felt much older than that somehow; more had happened to him in the last three months than perhaps his entire first eighteen years. It amazed him how things changed.
Cor had formulated what he hoped was a clever scheme. He knew the Loszian did not want him dead; the necromancer’s first agent had come to abduct him. In their second encounter, the Loszian offered him power, luxury and pleasure; he would live as a king. Cor needed the location of the Dahken ruins in Losz, and he had no doubt the Loszian necromancer would either know or be able to divine their location. Cor also needed to learn anything he could about Noth. He would go along with the Loszian’s plans as long as necessary to get what he needed. Then he would slay the necromancer in vengeance for his parents.
The Loszian knew Cor could be found at Sanctum; he had not divined this information from sorcery, or he would have come for Cor long ago. No, he had to wait for the knowledge to come by mundane means, and then he came by ship, smuggled into Aquis. It was possible that the Loszian had sent his own spy to Sanctum, but it simply seemed too coincidental. The Loszian arrived very shortly after Jonn and his soldiers, making it very likely that Queen Erella had a spy in her midst.
Cor had little doubt that the queen would choose to meet with him in open court. It seemed that she feared him, for what reason he still could not summon, and keeping the meeting in the open would prevent him from attempting some sort of assassination. He certainly had no intention of harming anyone, but he somehow doubted the queen would trust him. Cor saw little reason to trust her either, but he hoped to placate the queen, making clear that he harbored no ill will toward the West. He did hope to reestablish the Dahken, but this was another matter altogether. He would then publicly announce his intent to enter the Loszian Empire in search of the necromancer responsible for the death of his parents. During their short expedition, Cor had learned from Kamar that there were few passes that completely crossed the mountains between the West and the Empire, and these were heavily defended at both ends. Cor would ask for safe passage through Aquis’ checkpoints, and beyond that, he would be left to his own devices.
On some level, Cor felt this plan was daring if not clever; he was counting on the logical deduction that the Loszian had a spy near Queen Erella. But even so, he didn’t know exactly what the Loszian’s plans were for him. The necromancer was a noble or lord of some sort, however the Loszian system worked, but he was no emperor. The emperor would never come himself, even with protection. “Together we shall overthrow both empires,” he had said. That made his intent plain enough, but how Cor figured into his plans remained to be seen. Regardless, Cor had little doubt that the necromancer’s agents, if not the man himself, would intercept Cor shortly after he left Aquis behind. In fact, he counted on it.
Cor expected the Westerners would consider his plan suicidal, and hopefully would view allowing it to go forward as an easy way of ridding themselves of him. It was most definitely dangerous, but since reuniting Ebonwing and Soulmourn, Cor began to feel a proud confidence. He could feel how the artifacts bolstered his strength; he had energy whenever he needed it and simply felt stronger and more agile than ever before. Somehow, he knew his blows would rend steel as easily as flesh and bone. Regardless as to why, he would not die at the hands of the Loszians; of this he was sure.
Once he crossed into Aquis from Roka, Cor chose not to wear his hood as he had for the past two months. He had announced his coming to the highest authority in the kingdom, and the hood now seemed inconsequential. He did not hide from villages and towns, but instead rode through them on the most direct path to Byrverus, even staying the night at a small local inn if he was near one at the end of the day. Cor drew looks from nearly all of the commoners he came across; it was curiosity, pure and simple, as Garod’s priests had eliminated any history of the Dahken from common knowledge. He did not mind the inquisitive glances or even the long stares; Cor had already decided that everyone in the Shining West would come to understand that the Dahken were neither evil nor to be reviled.
Byrverus could be seen from miles off; it was a great white beacon shining brightly in the early autumn sun. The entire city seemed to be made of bright white stone, and when the sun was low to the horizon, the city reflected the sunlight with so much brilliance that onlookers had to avert their gaze. Byrverus, the most populous city in the Shining West at over fifty thousand persons, dwarfed both Worh and Martherus, and rich farmlands extended outwards for miles from the city itself.
An immense wall, larger than anything Cor had ever seen, surrounded the city proper; it was perhaps twice as tall as the city wall around Worh and made of the same gleaming white stone as the towers protected within. Even from a distance, Cor could see ballistae and catapults topping the wall, and armored figures glinted as they walked the battlements. Though the West’s premier center of learning and culture, Byrverus was clearly designed with war in mind. The wall had enormous gates much like Cor had seen in Worh, and passing through them, Cor saw the walls themselves were nearly twenty feet thick.
Cor noted more soldiers around the gates, both inside and outside the walls; they were all professional soldiers, clad in chain or scale mail, and paid him no more mind than they did most of the others who passed through the gates. Even so, Cor knew there were eyes on him, no doubt many from those people shocked by his pallor. More importantly, Cor was certain the queen would have placed spies specifically on the lookout for him, surely using his marked skin color as the defining characteristic for identification.
Once inside, Cor could not help but stare in awe at Byrverus; the city was absolutely magnificent. Every building was made of the same reflective white stone that was similar to marble in appearance, but the stone was pure white with none of the swirl associated with marble. Even the common homes were built of this material, and basalt paved the streets, which were kept impeccably clean. There were small temples to the lesser Western gods throughout the city, in the midst of businesses as well as homes, but Garod had no temples among them. At Byrverus’ center stood two massive complexes; one was the palace of the reigning monarch, who was also the highest of Garod’s clergy, and the other was the largest temple to Garod in the world.
Cor decided he would not see those buildings today. For now, he sought a well appointed inn with stable to sleep off the day’s travel and allow Kelli some well deserved rest. He had little doubt that by now the queen was aware of his arrival in the city, and surely Cor was being watched at every moment. He idly wondered if only Queen Erella’s agents had their eye upon him, or if Loszian spies watched him as well. There was one thing of which he was certain; fighting one’s enemy with a sword was far more honest than matters of intrigue.
Finding a
suitable inn turned out to be an easy task in the wealthiest city of the West. The building was wrought of the same white stone as everything else in the city, except the stable located around the building’s rear was of a normal lumber construction. Late in the day, he secured his room and lodging for the horse, as well as a hot meal. It seemed to Cor that every innkeeper in the West must look alike; either that or there was but one man with awesome powers of transportation who ran them all. Cor dined amongst the inns other patrons. He ignored the stares, some of which he was certain were more than mere curiosity, and he retired to his room in a vain attempt at a restful night’s sleep.
25.