Without thinking, Rodrick drew Hrym, and a wall of ice grew in front of him, ten feet high and ten feet wide. The flaming horse—no, it wasn’t a horse on fire, it was a horse made of fire—struck the wall and disappeared in a billow of steam. Rodrick stumbled back, sword held before him, looking for further attacks, but nothing came. A pale man in dark robes hurried out of the same side street the horse had come from, looked at the ice wall, gasped, looked at glowering Nagesh, and gasped again. He bowed so low his forehead almost touched his knees, at the same time holding up his hands, palms turned toward them. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it was an accident—”
“Fool,” Nagesh said curtly. “Begone, and don’t loose your abominable magics in public again.” The man backed away, bowing as he did, until he disappeared back into the street he’d come from.
“That was … unusual,” Rodrick said.
Nagesh thumped the ice wall with his knuckles and looked at the sword. “You acted quickly.”
“I don’t like fire,” Hrym said.
“Mmm, I understand. How long will the wall last?”
“Magical ice melts slowly,” Hrym said. “It could stand for days, or…” The wall abruptly began to sag, rivulets of water running down the slope toward the street they’d trekked up, and in moments only a thin scrum of ice and a puddle remained. “I can make it go away.”
“Why did that man throw a burning horse at us?” Rodrick said. “Or are horses made of fire an everyday hazard here?”
Nagesh made a sound of disgust. “His name is Kaleb. He claims to be a conjurer, an illusionist, and a pyromancer. I believe he is a sorcerer, whose bloodline is somehow touched by fire. I met him briefly when he performed at a feast in the palace, eating fire and juggling balls of flame and the like. He came here to lean how to master elementals, and had sufficient natural ability—and gold, until he ran out—to convince some of our wizards to teach him. Apparently he has not yet achieved the mastery he sought. Though I’ve never seen anyone convince a fire elemental to take on the shape of a horse.” He shook his head. “He is of no consequence.” Clearly attempting to recover his equanimity, Nagesh stood straighter and gestured toward the statues. “As I was saying—this is the High-Holy District. There are temples, as you see, to some of our gods, and also many scholars, clerics, and mystics, from across the breadth of the Inner Sea. Ice witches, Kellid skalds, Osirian priests, wise women from the Mwangi Expanse who chew strange roots and see visions, and many others beside. Wizards, too, of course. There is more knowledge within this quarter than in all your great cities combined, I would wager.”
Rodrick would have been more interested in the High-Stakes Gambling District, if there was such a place, but he made appreciative noises anyway, keeping his eyes open for more flaming horses, occasionally turning his eyes skyward to watch the figures flying overhead. Most of the people he’d seen in the skies from the ship originated here, it seemed, borne aloft by magics. Some of them really were sitting on floating carpets. They must be worth a fortune, assuming they’d fly for anyone. You could smudge a bit of dirt on one and roll it up and transport it in a cart of ordinary secondhand rugs and no one would even notice it …
They continued walking for a while past temples and statues. Men and women prayed, or sat cross-legged in meditation, or leaned over tables scowling at scrolls, or bowed and chanted, or played games with stones on boards, or argued in booming voices about subjects that were incomprehensible even though the medallion of tongues let Rodrick understand the words.
Eventually they moved out of the High-Holy District, this time walking up a broad avenue lined by tall poles with flapping banners alternating with trees laden with sweet-smelling white blossoms. “The palace.” Nagesh gestured grandly, and Rodrick didn’t have to fake his appreciation this time.
The thakur’s palace was made of white marble, mainly, but there was no end of gold, too, ornamenting the fluted towers and delicate archways. They walked up the broad steps, Nagesh nodding to guards who were armed with scimitars but probably didn’t need anything more than their bare hands to deter unwelcome visitors. They stepped through an open archway and into a vast courtyard, full of bubbling fountains and low benches, roofed by trellises of vines. Many of the benches were occupied by young Vudrani men and women dressed in flowing silks and countless jewels, some reading, some laughing, some trailing their hands in the water of the fountains and looking appealingly pensive. Servants—themselves dressed as finely as lords and ladies Rodrick had seen in other lands—circulated among them holding trays and pitchers, bowing and gliding.
“Are these courtiers?” Rodrick said.
“These are mostly the sons and daughters of members of the Maurya-Rahm, those who govern and advise the thakur. This is a favored gathering place for those youths blessed with powerful families. They come to see and be seen, to further the fortunes of their families or to make their own connections.”
“I can see why they congregate here. It’s a beautiful place.”
A faint disturbance in the air passed by, blowing Rodrick’s hair, and he stepped back.
“Do not be alarmed,” Nagesh said. “It’s just a djinni on some errand. They are all bound, here, and serve.”
Bound genies as servants! It was not entirely surprising, as he’d received a djinni as a messenger himself, but to have beings of such legendary power pass by without arousing any comment from the locals … This truly was a strange place.
Nagesh continued, leading him to a set of golden doors, these guarded by men holding spears, though the weapons looked more ornamental than functional. Still, a spearhead of gold would gut you as neatly as one made of steel if driven in with sufficient force. The guards opened the doors so smoothly that Nagesh didn’t even have to break stride, and Rodrick followed on his heels.
He’d expected to enter the palace proper, but instead, they stood in a garden, larger than some farms Rodrick had seen. Everywhere fruit trees flowered, and paths wound among them, perfumed by blossoms of every shape and hue. Songbirds fluttered and filled the air with music, and there were more fountains, stone wrought to look like trees and vines and branches. There were fewer people here, but he caught glimpses of some, older than those in the outer courtyard and even more richly dressed, walking in pairs or alone on distant paths. An earth elemental passed by on an adjacent path, a mobile statue of immense size, and no one paid it any attention. They probably had creatures like that as groundskeepers here.
“These gardens are not so fine as the thakur’s own at the center of the palace, but they are pleasant enough,” Nagesh said. A servant—Rodrick could tell because he was only dressed as richly as a Taldan noble—with a shaved head appeared, bowing low. “I must take my leave of you now, Rodrick, and Hrym. This man will show you to your rooms. You will be honored guests at a feast tonight, and you will meet with the thakur afterward. In the meantime, please rest, or explore the palace.”
“I get free run of the place, then?” Perhaps Rodrick’s larcenous reputation hadn’t preceded him.
“There are some areas you may not enter, but they will be … clearly marked.” Nagesh bowed and turned, strolling away.
“Lead on, my good man,” Rodrick said.
The servant didn’t speak, just bowed again and gestured along a pathway.
Rodrick followed the man, asking one or two questions, but the answers were brief and factual. Sometimes servants were useful gossips, but apparently not this one. They left the gardens and entered a grand hall with an actual roof over it, though the place was so full of statues and more fountains and plants in huge pots that the transition from garden to interior seemed gradual. The floors were polished marble, the walls decorated with friezes depicting gods and strange scenes, one or two familiar from his reading of Vudrani fairy tales—a woman with a scimitar confronting a tiger-headed rakshasa, a man wearing a snow-capped mountain on his head like a crown, a monkey with a scepter, a tower of those strange creatures called elephants standing on one another’s backs.
The servant pointed out doors that led to baths, other gardens, the library, the dining hall, and many more places, and finally bowed and pointed to a wooden door in an archway. “Your room.” He opened the door, and Rodrick stepped inside.
“This is fit for a—” he began, but the servant was gone. “King,” he finished. “Or at least a prince. Maybe a duke.” He drew Hrym and gave him a look. “Don’t you think?”
“I’ve known kings who lived in worse places,” Hrym said. The room was huge and round, with a bed big enough for five people, several well-cushioned armchairs, low tables holding books and bits of statuary, lamps both conventional and alchemical, tapestries depicting scenes like those from the friezes in the hallways, and a washbasin next to a fountain that bubbled endlessly. Doors filled with glass panes stood open, white curtains drawn back, giving access to a balcony that was larger than the best room at an Andoren inn. A table on the balcony held bread and fruit and a pitcher of something that proved to be very fine pale wine.
Rodrick leaned Hrym against one chair on the balcony, then dropped into another, poured himself a second cup of wine to savor, and sat looking out at the gardens below and the high wall beyond. “This is acceptable,” he said. “Don’t you think? We’ve landed on our feet quite nicely. I mean, I have. You don’t have feet.”
“We don’t even know why we’re here yet,” Hrym said. “You think it’s going to be all free wine and garden views?”
“You never know. We did save the world from the depredations of a demon lord, you know. Saraswati told me about something called ‘karma’—the idea is, if you do something good, good things will happen, and if you do something bad, bad things will happen, with no tedious waiting around to be judged in the afterlife first. Maybe this is our just reward for our virtuous acts.”
“Ha. I think our bad actions still outnumber our good. Maybe, at best, we’ve achieved neutrality.”
“Here’s to neutrality,” Rodrick said, and poured a third cup of wine.
* * *
Rodrick woke with a start, slumped on the balcony, to find a shaven-headed servant bedecked in gold clearing his throat loudly.
“He’s been doing that for five minutes,” Hrym said helpfully from the other chair. “I told him to smack you on the side of the head when you wouldn’t wake up, but he refused.”
Groaning, Rodrick looked into the wine cup, which held only dregs, and then into the pitcher, which was in a similar state. Oh well. It had been very good wine. Most of the day had passed, it seemed, the sky tinged with colors as bright as those of the silk banners that fluttered over Niswan, all violets and oranges and reds as the sun set beyond the gardens.
The servant bowed. “May I help you prepare for the feast?”
Rodrick rose to his feet. He hadn’t been asleep long enough to develop a hangover, so that was something. After picking up Hrym he followed the servant back to his rooms, and from there out into the hallway and toward the baths. The opulence there was a fit for the rest of the palace: marble columns, dizzyingly high ceilings, friezes on the walls of people bathing in rivers and waterfalls, and the pools themselves, tiled in pale blue, one cold and still, one warm and still, and one hot and bubbling, but apparently magically, and not because it was boiling. Each pool was big enough for a dozen people to bathe without jostling one another, though no one else was there. “Does everyone in the palace bathe here?” he asked.
“This bath is for guests such as yourself.”
So much for the hope of seeing a few Vudrani women dressed in nothing but flowing water. Rodrick bathed, enjoying the warm pool and the cold, letting the servant scrub his back with a sort of rough sponge on a stick, and declining the array of oils, perfumes, and unguents offered while he toweled off. He wrapped himself in a robe and went back to his rooms, where another servant was laying out a suit of clothes in the local fashion: loose white trousers, silk shirt, embroidered vest, and shoes that were more like slippers, all of the finest cut and cloth. A golden scabbard lay on the bed, too, studded with sapphires, rubies, emeralds, and diamonds. “Hrym!” he called. “They have a fancy scabbard for you!”
Hrym, still leaning against the chair on the balcony, said, “You know I don’t like being cooped up in those things. I can’t even see.”
“Hrym, the thing is literally made of gold. Or at least gilt—I suppose if it were pure gold it would be abominably heavy. But still: you could rest inside gold.”
A pause. “I suppose that might be all right, but you have to take me out when we get to the feast. I like to see what’s happening.”
If the servants found the conversation strange, they didn’t give any indication. They must be used to even stranger things than a talking sword. Rodrick glanced at them. “So are these things gifts, or loans?” The servants blinked at him, and he sighed. “Do I have to give back the clothes and the scabbard and things when the thakur’s done with me, or do I get to keep them?”
“They … are yours, of course, sir,” one said, a man with a curiously high-pitched voice. “We would not give any guests clothing or gifts that had been used by another.” He shuddered delicately at the very idea.
“Excellent. The thakur’s hospitality is justly famed.” The jewels in the scabbard alone would make this trip worthwhile, even if there were no other riches to be had on this little expedition. He put Hrym on the bed while he dressed, buckling on the bejeweled sword belt that held the empty scabbard. “If you’d wait in the hall, gentlemen? I’ll be right there.” The two servants exchanged glances and the slightest of frowns, so Rodrick said, “I need a few moments to pray to my own gods. It’s important to do so before a meal.”
They seemed to understand reverence, because they bowed out and shut the door. Rodrick picked up Hrym and went out to the balcony, just in case the servants were listening at the door. “Well, old friend, here we are. I try not to worry too much about momentous events that are off in the future, because they may never arrive—the ship could have gone down with all hands on the voyage over, or we could have been eaten by leviathans, and then all that worry would have been wasted. But it seems quite likely we’re going to end up at a feast soon, and will be at some point in the presence of the thakur, who will presumably tell us what we’re doing here. I find the immediacy of that prospect a bit alarming. Don’t you?”
Hrym harrumphed. “What are you suggesting? If we tried to go for a stroll in the garden in the general direction of the front gate, we’d probably be herded back like sheep, with djinn as the shepherds. I wouldn’t want to fight my way out of this place. You drank the wine and put on the clothes—they’ve paid for you, so we might as well find out what they think they bought. Besides, it could mean more gold.”
“I just wanted to take a moment to recognize the gravity of the situation. Usually when authorities want to see us, we make a point of running away. But perhaps I’m nervous for nothing. I just hope they don’t mean to marry me off to someone. Maybe word of my prowess as a swordsman has spread, and they want me to audition for a place in a House of Perfection.”
“Or to put me in the hands of a halfway competent swordswoman, to see what she could do with someone as wonderful as me,” Hrym said.
Rodrick sighed, rising, then slid Hrym into the golden scabbard, where he fit perfectly. “I’m capable of facing reality. I know it’s more likely they’re interested in you than they are in me—or that they’re interested in me mostly because I am presently your wielder, and the only person you can be trusted not to freeze into a lump of magical unmelting ice.”
“Oh, good. I’m glad you can admit that. I didn’t want to say anything, because I know your feelings are delicate.” Hrym’s voice was muffled but perfectly comprehensible.
Rodrick frowned and put his hand on Hrym’s hilt, realizing something. “Wait. You never got an amulet to let you understand the languages these people are speaking, or to make them understand yours. How are you communicating?”
“Hardly anyone talks to me anyway, it’s very rude, but as for how … well, they make as much sense to me as any of you humanoid creatures do, and I suppose I can make myself understood. I must have picked up their tongue somewhere.” Hrym had potent magical properties of absorption—he’d gained his ice powers by stealing them, over the course of long years, from an ice dragon, and had picked up a demonic taint after a much shorter period of time in proximity to a demon lord, so maybe at some point he’d soaked up other abilities as well. His memory was fragmented, though perhaps not so badly as he claimed, and there were depths in Hrym that were hidden from Rodrick, and possibly even from Hrym himself.
“Hmm. You’re full of surprises, but I’m glad I don’t have to play translator for you. Speaking of voices, though, did you hear that servant? He could sing the soprano part in a choir.”
“He’s a eunuch, Rodrick.”
Rodrick blinked. “What, you mean someone cut his … particulars … off?”
Hrym snickered—not the creepy demonic titter, but his more usual crass indication of amusement. “You male humanoids are so attached to your reproductive organs. Even you, though as far as I can tell you never have any intention of reproducing, at least not intentionally.”
“I enjoy going through the motions, though,” Rodrick said. “Why would they unman the man?”
“I don’t know much about the Vudrani, but I know it’s not uncommon in their culture to do that to servants. Cut off that part of a boy before he starts to become a man, and he’s made more reliable in various ways, or so it’s generally believed. Do you always think with your head, Rodrick, or do other parts of you sometimes make the decisions?”
“I have made some choices based on suggestions from my lower regions that, in retrospect, were unwise. Cutting them off seems a bit extreme, though.”
“Humanoid carnal relations are baffling and disgusting to me, of course, but I gather some men in power feel better if their women are attended by men who can’t, ah, compete with their masters in certain respects.”
Rodrick made a disgusted face. “I suppose it makes a sick sort of sense. I’ve never demanded faithfulness from any woman, myself. It’s true I’m frequently dishonest, but asking for that would be downright hypocritical. It’s not as if the eunuchs have their tongues and fingers removed, though, so it seems a half-measure at best … I’d worry about a eunuch revolution, personally. I can’t think of many things that would make me more likely to go into a frenzy and try to kill someone than having those cut off.”
“Do the cutting early enough and they don’t know what they’re missing,” Hrym said.
“Poor bastards. I mustn’t tell them what they’re missing. There’s nothing sadder than a weeping servant.”
He slid Hrym back into the scabbard and strode out into the hall, toward destiny—or, at the very least, a free meal.