There were not a lot of tapestries adorning the throne room. Aryan Khad had not been especially fond of them. His son could care less.

However, the marble on the overhead dome mirrored the marble on the floor. There were colorful wide strokes on its hemisphere, scrubbed by the Artisans of Ilwur. They were famed designers, the most famed in the world: it was said they created such mausoleums themed on the extinct dragons that made seasoned warriors wet themselves. The Grenn Tree from the Land of Revival was depicted on the lower frieze of the inner dome. The layer above showed the Nywanic Man. The edge on the very top depicted plantations built around the Grenn, the Incanta Merchant Head with his arms upraised and the Emperor First with a circlet on his skull.

Not unlike the crown crested with rubies which sat on Alain Khad's head. The King's gold-embroidered cape was clipped to his high crimson collar. The back of the cape, red silk, had the javelin sigil of Tilva Khad sewn into it. Otherwise Alain was dressed in plush velvet clothes.

He took the steps up to the Namken Throne two at a time, while Ser Jotin Halore climbed them in a state of leisure. The knight stilled afoot from the throne, while the King settled on it. The council took to their seats as well, in a semi-circle around the altar, but there were three out of seven of them missing. Light slashed at their empty chairs through the shutters.

"Such are these slaving times," grumbled Alain, "that half my civic council cannot attend our little comfort meetings. Could have just met in my chambers."

For a ten beats the throne room echoed in silence, a hollow, anticipative kind of silence - the kind of silence which seems to holding its breath like a lady waiting for word of her lover. All sets of eyes were trained on Alain.

"Let the Session begin," said he then, and so the Session began.

Undersecretary Maraym Omelka went first. "Commander Maurya has returned from the Sunset Battle, your Gracious Majesty."

"The Sunset Battle?" Alain thought it had a nice ring to it.

"That's what they are calling the easterners' blockade in Dassan," Omelka informed. "Woebegone appears the Commander. He talks nonsense."

"I have never known Maurya to talk nonsense. Not that I claim to have heard him talk much at all. Why is it you enlightening me on this and not him himself?"

Undersecretary Omelka bit her lip. "He was supposed to be here, your Grace. I do not know his whereabouts."

"Very well. Brief me then on what drivel he spouts."

"The Commander says he saw shadows fighting for the enemy." The other three present councilmen sniggered. Even Ser Johnsy Drakhorn standing with an Ardaunt by the gates of the hall turned towards the Undersecretary. "He says they had fiery red eyes. Glowing weapons. He says only the few magi loosed could fight them competently."

"That is certainly . . . interesting," said Alain. "Now I do find myself wishing Maurya were here making the recital by his mouth."

"It is baloney, my King," promised Roshuk Cromius, the Lawmaster. "If you saw him you'd know. Need we heed this attention?"

"Needn't we? I am the last card you would draw if you talked of bullshit tolerance. Yet Commander Maurya was made Commander by my exalted father owing to his gallantry in the Therly War. My father always had his reasons for doing things, wouldn't you agree, Roshuk?"

"Yes, my King."

"I for one have never known the man to lie. Not that, again, I claim to have known him much at all. But now that the Commander has made one statement we cannot fathom to be true you say we must disregard it like a broken tool?"

The Lawmaster appeared flustered. He murmured something like "Going senile . . ."

"The walls of this castle are old too, Roshuk," said Alain, who had heard the man. "Shall we strip them down and construct them anew? Disregard is oft the cause of many downfalls. Take the Killing Drekh, for instance. Had he listened to the peddler . . . but you all want to discuss business, do you not?"

He sensed their impatience. Quite literally - by his mageic's allow Alain had learnt to judge joy, anger, sorrow, impatience and such to an impressive extent. All the civic council had better things to do than patronize history lectures by their ruler.

"Who else returned with Maurya?" he demanded.

"Him alone, your Grace," said Undersecretary Omelka. "None else lived. Or so he says."

"A whole platoon dies, Maurya comes back raving about shadow men, and still you don't believe him?"

"Do you believe him?"

Highsecretary Anauj Orlocke, a former knight and knave, had spoken. He had denounced his knighthood at his own behest after he lost his left leg in an honor tourney (in the place of which was now a brass stump), fulfilling the necessary sacrificial stipulation of a hundred goats to Mino Urba. But once a knight, always a knight, Anauj was blunt and hard-hitting. He had a sharp jaw and piercing eyes. Alain considered the Highsecretary to be one of the smarter men on the council, unlike his shady wife the Highlady Saphira. One of the harder men to read by Tester mageic on top.

"I don't think I do," replied Alain, wiggling his fingers on the armrest of the throne. "But I cannot be certain till I have personally talked to him. Or, preferably, fought the demons myself."

"Rumors do speak of the blood of Quenchbringers manifesting itself afresh," said Anauj.

"The Rys Ami, you mean?" Alain said, at which Roshuk scoffed.

"I do," said Highsecretary Anauj. "Although I am just thinking out loud here. Forgive me, your Grace."

"There is nothing to forgive. I want Maurya here soon as can be. Ser Jotin."

The knight saluted the typical Five Kingdoms salute: a stamp of left foot with the right hand on a swell chest. Then Ser Jotin descended the stairs, this time with not much leisure, and left the throne room to summon the Commander.

"Now. Regarding the revolts. Word?"

Ureen Bugraile, the Coinmaster, spoke up: "The General is at Woodstocker's Lane. He will be taking care of the revolts there. He has deployed vanguards at every spot where there has been an unsolicited rally in the past several months."

"These protestors grow increasingly dauntless day after day," Alain contemplated. "I'd want to join their cause myself, were I not the victim of it. Have we asked what their demands are?"

"Many times, your Grace," said Ureen. "Each time either they die or one of ours does. They want only to overthrow the regime and unleash chaos."

"And here I thought people would be happy to have an unwrinkled hand in their ruling for once." Alain patted the armrest. "Take heart, father, in that this never happened in your rule. Moreover, why am I hearing of news from you, Ureen? Wherever do you suppose is our beloved Namesaker?"

"Lord Fanzel is hoping to settle the matter of these revolts collectively by . . . diplomatic means. In his own words, he had 'spicy threads' to grab on to."

"Ah, yes. Our Fanzel the Fiddler has always been rather good at anything that required diplomacy. So, council, is there more to this meeting for me to not adjourn it?"

There was silence, this one dull. It had been a rather sterile meeting for such terribly exciting times.

Highsecretary Anauj said, "I heard Biseri's son lives."

"Is that the truth of it? Fanzel would know."

"I heard a similar rumor, my King," said the Lawmaster shyly.

"Define similar, Roshuk."

"I heard, my King, that the Lord Lenout Biseri, youngest son of Highlord Keshar Biseri, escaped to Fehnia with the rest of the citizens . . . unbeknownst to his father. Perhaps in hopes he might be the next Highlord. As he will be, I should prophesy."

"He'll be the Highlord of Rubble then," Alain snorted disdainfully.

"Beg your pardon, your Grace," said Anauj Orlocke, "but the Dassan fort still stands. Ptirre could not breach it in their empty distraction of entrapping the evacuees. We can secure the princedom yet."

"Now this is something I can work with," said Alain. "The Canton of Ras Demin wanted to ride west? So he shall. Ser Johnsy?"

"Your Grace?" The knight carried himself to the Namken Throne from the gates stiffly, his boots ringing against the marble floor.

"In our Namesake Fanzel Elroy's absence," ordered Alain Khad, "I endow it upon you to ride to the Muscale Keep and apprise Aleth Sanghon in that he shall go secure the Dassan fort ere another attack from the east. Nothing less than a personal touch will do for Tilva Sanghon, though I shall write a sharply worded letter for you to take with yourself."

Sharply worded indeed, Alain thought gleefully. To show that old cur how fiercely my father's blood courses through these veins.

"His Grace honors me." Ser Johnsy Drakhorn sketched a bow. Actually it was scarcely an honor for a knight to act a messenger, but it was Aleth Sanghon that was being talked about here. Sanghon's status begged to be coddled, challenged, and then strangled.

"Will that be all, then?"

Undersecretary Omelka stood from her chair like a rect-plant from its bore. "There is word of small disturbances from all over Charmat. I was told this in detail by Lord Fanzel."

"Small problems are best discussed in the small of night," suggested Alain, suddenly tired and all for disregard.

"Many small disturbances, your Grace. Most centered around a man who calls himself Shmeg'nar. Khannar Shmeg Reincarnate. He might be at the root of all these uprisings we have been having trouble with."

It did not turn out to be so sterile a meeting after all.

"Roste, for the love you bear the crown, ask yourself - is this really important?"

The squire shuffled on his feet, eyeing the equal-aged boy standing besides him. Next to Roste in his routine leather jerkin, the boy's feathered cloak looked positively ridiculous. It had many plumes, brightly colored all, attached to the skin of the hidden fabric. The plumes brought out the brown of the boy's eyes, whose lids were painted purple in shoddy design. His face looked like it were made of fur and parchment, like he could fold it in or beat it into any shape he desired.

"You told me to tell you soon as I had the fool arranged," said Roste with well-contained aggravation.

Alain heaved a breath. "What's your name, fool?"

"Narnbutter, they call me," sang the boy, "for slick as butter am I!"

"Do you like being called a fool?"

"I'll tell you what I like, oh great king! I like diamonds, I like rainbows, and I like cuddling tamed wolves, I do!"

Alain chuckled, more at the inanity of it than humor. He had spent the day discussing preventions for the bleak future of the Five Kingdoms, and now here he was having dialogue with an entertainer younger than himself.

"Perhaps," he worded, "this lad will be my Szekeeth mummer after a long day's labor." Aryan Khad had been fond of Szekeeth plays. The proscenium theatre in the palace was there because Aryan Khad had had it built.

"Oh great king, oh generous, generous king!" crooned the boy, his face squishing itself into a most hilarious contortion. "You have given me wiiings!"

The fool flapped his feathered cloak around like he were a man-sized quail.

"You may take your leave, Narnbutter," said Alain. "Roste, come in and help me with the gods-awful cape."

"A-are you leaving my hand, oh great king, oh venerable king, my King?"

Alain smiled, a genuine smile which lit up his tired face. "You can hop out of character. What's your name, fool?"

The boy scratched his head in mock thought. "It starts in nuh and ends in buttuh, since master of rhetoric and slick as buttuh I am!"

"No. Your birth name."

Narnbutter straightened up, collecting his widespread arms. His fur face turned stony. Further it hardened, to be decorated only by a grim grin. He suddenly looked the very opposite of a fool. Alain suppressed a shiver.

"Name's Otius, your Majesty. Casteless."

Even his voice sounded like the voice of another man. Alain tried reading the fool, but failed. "I look forward to getting to know you better, Otius," remarked he.

The fool was on his mind still more than the false Khannar Shmeg when Roste had undone his cape. He requested the squire to bring him pipes, taper, sheaf and grass.

Thus it was that Alain and Sterya later that night sat on their grand bed in their smallclothes, smoking, kissing, smoking and kissing. Alain did things to her he hadn't known he was capable of doing. They made love first and conversation second, but the conversation was brittle redolent to Resas's blood-forged sword. Something was bothering her.

"What is bothering you, my love?" he hence asked of her. The Belling Tower chimed for midnight.

Sterya put her head in his palms, stared into his woolgathering white eyes. "I do not think your mother likes me very much."

"Again with this. Why do you think that? Because she is cold and cruel and distant? She has always been that way, more than ever since . . . But she's getting better. And it is impossible for any bettered person to not love you."

At least she doesn't go on around wearing my father's memorabilia anymore, Alain reflected. The gods know it's nice to see her normal once more. And my Lady Mother might just be right about half-forgotten monsters invading our land. Holy Seohrah, is she right about the monsters invading our land?

Sterya smiled like she had read his thoughts, that smile which his world whirled around. "If you say so," she whispered. Her sweaty olive skin sparkled like a galaxy of brown stars in the taper's flame.

"Tell me what it is and be done with it," said Alain, for he knew what had bothered her was bothering her still.

"My budpicker. My . . . lovely, lovely budpicker." Sterya's smile wavered and her eyes grew distant, and right before she spoke Alain felt anger boil in his chest for that she must be thinking of his banished brother. But his wife said, "When I went to the Ations House with your mother on Ozl, it . . . some things there made me feel shameful in the manner we treat those mages.

"Admiral Hasheem – a man I admired a lot – he said when mages are placated . . . it’s like we take a piece out of them, the piece that makes them them, you know. We take away their . . . theirness. It’s like Tanmay the Conqueror hacking off the hands of those masons so they can’t make statues again.”

A brief pause.

"I see, and I do understand. I have felt that way since I first discovered I could heal myself and others." Even as he said this, Alain let his mageic soothe her ever so slightly; tampering with emotions was not fitful, and mighty difficult. Anyway the smoke had ruptured his senses and he could not tap into his mageic accomplishedly.

"There was this man," Sterya was saying in her strawberry-sweet voice, playing with his palm and her teardrop-necklace. "He came to give away his son to the high priests. He gave his son, a lad of ten, twelve summers perhaps, away for fifty scintis. The ner'ang would have given him a hundred had he asked, but . . . the man was content with fifty. Not contented, per se, but . . . relieved. He sold his son because his son had mageic. Sold him like he were cattle. Nay, beneath cattle. It just . . . it didn't rub me the right way like you do."

At this moment a headache threatened to divide the King's head. He winced.

"Are you quite all right, love?" Sterya asked, raising her face.

"Yes, don't worry for me. I . . . I don't know what just happened. Likely the grass."

"You are tired," she told him. "You should sleep. May be that you'll have reposeful dreams."

I'm the Tester, and she's the one soothing me. Irony at its ironic. What Alain said out loud was: "May be that I will, but you don't. I apologize in bringing this up, but you awoke fret this morn."

Sterya evaded his eye, starting to suckle on his fingers. "I had a bad dream," she said simply 'twixt the suckling. "Now that I have spoken what it was that troubled me, perhaps my dreams will restore their usual cheer."

"Mind telling me what dream fretted you so?"

"I don't remember." Yet Alain by his mageic could clearly sense the rush of blood to her xela, indicating she was lying. "It was likely those Ardaunts which keep tailing me all day. I don't see how you live with those creatures around all day."

"I hardly live when I'm outside these chambers."

She suckled more fervently. "I can't imagine a dead man doing the things to did to me."

"Revolts. Pickets even in the New Market, even in Toechurner Lawns. Soon the lords will demand they get turns on the throne as well. Omelka suggests we can stub the protests for the being if we have the protestors in our employ. We do need weapons, and for that we need smiths."

"All will be fine, budpicker. You can tell me anything. And all will be fine."

Alain could take it no longer. He grabbed his queen by the waist, flipped her on to her back, mounted her. As the night grew old, it may just have carried certain noises from their chambers all the way over to the east wings.

A half-baked chapter, but I hope you liked it.

Trust me, I don't waste a single line.