The Masks of Sentinel Chapter Three (part 2 of 2)

  
          Light and colour pulsed and swirled through the incense-misted hall.
          A mood of expectancy hung heavy in the air, underpinned by nervous whisperings and stifled laughter, the creaking of leather and the rustling of brocade, the rasp of metal against metal.
          A trumpet sounded.
          As one, all turned to face the heavy, ornate doors.
          No-one entered.
          Time passed.
          The assembled throng grew restive.
          Jewelled hems grazed the marble floor as courtiers turned and bowed like mechanical figures in a clock-face pageant -
          And they froze as if at the final chime when the doors flew open and slammed back against the walls.
          Overcoming shock, a group of priest-musicians began to perform their sacred duty. Presently, however, the cicada-like rattle of sistra and the brazen voices of gongs could barely be heard above the tension-releasing shouts of astonishment and anger.
          A figure dazzling in jazerant of steel and white leather towered in the entrance.
          Thus did Starkad Frostmane come to the audience chamber of Castle Erastor.
          As the uproar and the music guttered, the Skarnyr king viewed the scene with grim amusement.
          The table and chairs had been removed at the conclusion of Falk's private meeting with Xaltoran, and a narrow, empty aisle, lined with panoplied warriors, ran from doorway to dais.
          Spiked bucklers and patterned shields formed effective barriers. Above them gleamed the enamel of visor and helmet-mask, the steel of javelin and halberd blade, the silk of gonfalon and crest. Behind the lines of armoured men, perfumed courtiers, representatives of Erastor's fading nobility, shuffled and preened like exotic birds. It was as though the scenes within the vitrailled windows, already vibrant in the afternoon light, had been brought to life and thrust into the echoing space of the hall.
          Powdered faces, with lips and eyebrows tinted and sequined, and with foreheads and cheeks painted with sigils of rank, turned like flowers to the sun as Starkad advanced towards the dais. Eyes behind helmet-grilles followed keenly his every movement; gauntlets tightened about hafts of metalled and polished wood, fingered hilts of ivory and rare stone.
          Five warriors were equipped with light-lances: praetorians, signified as royal guards by masks graven to resemble Xaltoran's, though fashioned in bronze instead of silver. As watchful as the planet's namesake, the commander was stationed near the front of the dais; the others, one to each far corner.
          The Masked King rose from his aureate throne as Starkad approached.
          To Xaltoran's right, in line with the praetorian commander, stood a tall man, pigmented various shades of brown, and clad in green leather armoured with plates of gold: Lord Nissuraj Terl Taq'Eftyr, the King's General. And granted an equal place on Xaltoran's left: Falk, with Hawk on his shoulder, and Wolf sejant at his feet.
          Starkad, like almost everyone else in the chamber, was fascinated by this living triptych. He recalled his sister's words, a bright flaw in dark crystal, then thought: More like real gold among the fools'.
          Six eyes bored back, appraising in turn the imposing figure of the northland king.
          Inclining toward Erastor's black-garbed lord - Xaltoran had no use for robes of state, it appeared - Starkad diverted his gaze to the graven silver face above him, then raised his right hand in brief salute.
          Starkad said, quietly, "A lifted arm and a lowered glance, rightly due from a subject to a king, are precious gifts from a king to a king."
          Xaltoran replied, "These words suscribe to formula, nothing more. Your actions belie them. There is no room for pretence between monarchs. Enough: if you are well then it is well. Describe your purpose, and leave no space for doubt."
          Starkad unleashed the full power of his voice so that all might hear.
          "First, I wish it to be generally known that I gained this audience by agreeing to cast aside the prescribed trappings of kingship." He raised both arms and turned full circle. "As you all can plainly see, I am here alone, unattended by heirophants, courtiers, warriors. I am weaponless, save for my sword, which only death can take from my side. I have complied with all conditions laid down by your king. I have abased myself in the cause of friendship. And yet I find myself surrounded by a veritable army. Walls of steel threaten to crush me at any moment."
          He smiled briefly, sardonically, at Falk. "Your king even guards himself with a barbarian and two wild beasts."
          This bolt hit the mark: Falk's rapid elevation was widely resented.
          "I have surely proved my peaceful intentions. In return, your king has heaped indignities upon my person. He is fully aware of my mission. Therefore, I ask him now to state whether harm or travail will come to any here as a result of agreement to my proposals."
          Starkad's ringing tones died away.
          An expectant hush settled on the assembly.
          Fingering his sword-hilt, Lord Nissuraj, the King's General, aimed a nervous glance at Lady Kaihima. Falk caught not only this, but also Kaihima's answering hand-signal. While the actual meaning of her response eluded Falk, the very fact of it was significant.
          With the conspicuous exception of Lady Kaihima, Erastor's nobles and courtiers appeared riddled with listless decadence. They jerked like glittering dolls through the motions of ancient games. Contrived mysteries and fruitless intrigues relieved their boredom. And to judge by their unfriendly glances, they were already plotting against Falk, a stranger unaccountably honoured with the newly created rank of King's Champion.
          Xaltoran, despite everything that Falk had been told earlier by his young guide, plainly lacked the qualities of kingship necessary to save Erastor from further decay. True, he had engineered almost miraculous improvements in the castle's defences; unfortunately, however, the powerful mind that could conceive and create weapons such as the light-lance had neglected to cultivate its human equivalents. By all accounts a shadowy, reclusive figure prior to his brother's death, Xaltoran continued to dwell in a world apart, a world of logic and learning.
          Starkad provided a direct contrast.
          The northland king exuded an air of combined intellectual and physical potency. If all the Skarnyr were like their lord - and Falk remembered well how Tarush had panicked on sighting an eagle-ship during their outward voyage - then the castle's only hope resided in superior ordnance. This was no criticism of Erastor's fighting force - in Falk's estimation, infinitely more impressive than the nobility - but of its leadership: an assessment confirmed by Lord Nissuraj's blatant indecisiveness in the face of Starkad's merely verbal onslaught.
          The Masked King's reaction was typically calm.
          "Empty rhetoric," Xaltoran averred, "is better suited to the battlefield. Clearly, you are more used to rousing the rabble to fight beneath your sanguine standard. Your inexperience in the ways of the court is thus excusable. However, your proposals remain unacceptable."
          Starkad turned to face the crowd. "But who, besides yourself, is aware of the details of my mission? My ambassador was well versed to speak on my behalf. I find it strange that no members of your Council were in attendance when he presented his credentials ... and my proposals."
          An angry, querulous murmur ran through the assembly.
          With a flourish better suited to a masque, the King's General drew his blade and advanced to the edge.
          "You know full well," said Xaltoran, "that your communication was not a matter of state."
          Falk concentrated on the Lady Kaihima, now making her way towards the dais.
          A triumphant smile played about Frostmane's lips. "Then surely a private audience would have been more appropriate than this. Could it be that the desire to daunt me with a great display of arms overruled all other considerations?"
          The crowd grew more restive. Open discontent with the proceedings flared. Prominent nobles gathered to form conspiratorial groups.
          Lord Nissuraj glanced again at Kaihima. This time, the meaning of her signal, a hand lifted vertical, was obvious. With ill-concealed relief, the King's General returned to his original position and stance.
          Xaltoran said: "There are times when a ruler must seek no counsel save his own. The conscience of a king is sacred, inviolable."
          "And so is his duty to defend his realm," Starkad countered.
          Kaihima reached the dais and climbed without hesitation to the third step.
          "So, King Starkad," she said, her voice mocking, challenging. "Your sword is now, if only metaphorically, out of its scabbard. The threat is clear. The people of Erastor will not fail to answer it."
          "Has your king been struck dumb?" Starkad wondered.
          "I know that I speak with his authority, and with the full consent of those assembled."
          There followed a roar of approval, echoing to the high vault.
          The Masked King said nothing.
          Starkad whirled to confront the milling, murmuring throng.
          "How can you believe in a king who fears to speak? A king who fears to show his face?"
          A silence like that after thunder followed Starkad's outburst. Instantly, he realized his mistake. He had hoped to erode the people's faith in their lord. Instead, he had polarised and intensified their instinctive distrust and fear of himself, a stranger and potential enemy.
          While the soldiers remained impassive (for which condition the praetorians were especially suited) the courtiers hurled abuse at Frostmane.
          Starkad tried to speak again; but his voice was soon drowned in yelps of anger, issuing from all parts of the chamber. Disdaining further attempts at making himself heard, he signalled his intention to leave. Secretly, he was not displeased at this outcome: the northlander harboured contempt for diplomacy, favouring solutions carved out by steel, and treaties signed in blood.
          Kaihima turned and walked up to the throne.
          "I regret the necessity," she said quietly.
          "Of course," Xaltoran replied, as if lost in abstraction.
          "I warrant this place hasn't seen a man like Starkad for a thousand years or more." Kaihima's admiration was obvious.
          "I suspect," Falk muttered, "it'll see him again soon enough."
          Watching the Skarnyr lord's departure, Falk mused on the outcome of the curious drama he had just witnessed. Undoubtedly, Xaltoran had mishandled the confrontation, and the hour should have belonged to Frostmane. If only the young conqueror had learned to wield his tongue as well as (Falk readily imagined) his sword. Once the anger of the nobles had not been aroused - to them, any flagrant reference to the king's disfigurement was grossly distasteful, a breach of etiquette - any chance of inciting them to doubt further their lord had been lost.
          On balance, Falk concluded, the Lady Kaihima, with a little audacity and a few stirring words, had managed to steal all the glory.
          Taunts, insults and derisive laughter ebbed as Starkad progressed down the centre of the hall between the gleaming ranks of soldiery. Feral light from his cerulean eyes stabbed at the crowd, inspiring fear and respect. Without a backward glance, he left the audience chamber and plunged into the corridor beyond.
          The armed statues, though peculiarly vigilant, allowed him to pass.

          Lord Nissuraj and three other men sat around a five-sided table in a pentagonal room.
          The high vault, walls, floor, table and chairs were all coated with lacquer of the purest white, against which the coloured robes and gemmed adornments of the occupants clashed violently. Light from invisible sources permeated the enclosed space, allowing no shadows to mar the albescent planes and angles. A rectangular mirror filled the doorway, reflecting the lineaments of the chamber with such flawless clarity the illusion of an identical apartment beyond an open arch was powerfully suggested.
          An ebony longstaff rested in the corner opposite the door; the skull of a horned rat, its eye-sockets inset with red jewels, crowned the black shaft.
          The four men fell silent and looked towards the arch as the mirror slid sideways into the wall.
          Lady Kaihima entered; the door closed behind her.
          Without any word of greeting, she took her place at the pentagonal table. The others waited for her to speak. Before doing so, she looked intently at each of them in turn. Her eyes, in the pure light of the room, appeared as hard and brilliant as the emeralds in her necklace.
          "I see that recent events have left their mark," she said finally. "Perhaps now you'll agree the king is not fit to rule."
          "It's possible an explanation will be forthcoming," ventured the man on her left, a totally hairless individual with intricate black patterns inscribed upon all visible skin surfaces.
          "We drift perilously close to the maelstrom of treason," said another, nervously adjusting amber-tinted spectacles on a somewhat inadequate nose.
          "We did that when we formed this cabal," Kaihima pointed out. "And that was two years ago. Without our clandestine influence, the fabric of the state would be even more threadbare than it is."
          There were murmurs of agreement.
          The King's General said, "Any reasonable monarch would consult with advisers before making crucial decisions."
          Kaihima pursued the point: "I need hardly remind any of you that Xaltoran has never consulted the High Council, on any issue whatsoever, during the course of his unfortunate reign." With sweet sarcasm, she added, "Apparently, he prefers to commune with metal familiars ... or perhaps his chessmen are privy to state secrets."
          Laughter ripped around and across the table.
          "As to treason," proclaimed the hairless one, "that is surely a crime committed against a kingdom, not a king. Xaltoran's subreptive parleys with this barbarian Starkad, which have brought us to the brink of war, surely qualify as treason."
          "Aye," Lord Nissuraj said. "Your argument is sound. But the fighting men of Erastor will act as the king commands - he's gained their favour by devising new weaponry. As King's General, I'm little more than a cypher."
          Kaihima leaned forward, her face rigid with conviction. "All this is true. But the fact remains that only we here can save Erastor now. Our fellow nobles will pirouette to destruction without a thought, albeit with a suitable degree of patrician disdain. I don't know how much time we have. Very little, I suspect. The situation now arising is outside all previous knowledge and experience. Erastor faces a crisis unique in recent times. Even the age-old threat from Challun-Tioch seems illusory by comparison."
          She scanned the faces of her fellow conspirators. "Are we agreed, at least, on this?"
          They were.
          Pressing home the advantage, Kaihima said, "It's obvious that Starkad will have little use for the tactics of delay. When he strikes, it'll be soon, and with the determination to pursue his chosen course to the finish. In the event of war, we must act swiftly to depose Xaltoran, then establish an immediate truce."
          She placed her hands palms down on the white table.
          The others followed suit without hesitation.
          Kaihima sighed.
          "We've forged broad policy only," Lord Nissuraj cautioned. "A detailed plan is bound to prove more tasking."
          "As you might expect," Kaihima deftly responded, "I've already given this some thought. It's essential, first, to undermine Xaltoran's authority. The only way of guaranteeing this is to cast certain doubt - is that a paradox? - on his right to the throne. I believe this is not only possible, but readily achieved."
          She turned towards the councillor seated to her right: an unusually tall individual, robed in grey velvet, who had kept silent throughout the meeting.
          Kaihima said, "You know what must be done."
          The man rose from his seat, bowed, took the longstaff from its corner, then moved swiftly to the door.
          As the grey councillor left the pentagonal chamber, Kaihima smiled enigmatically. "Checkmate, I think."
          "The king is dead," Nissuraj intoned. "Long live the queen?"
          "That is a decision for the High Council," Kaihima demurred. "I would not, even as Xaltoran's only extant blood relative, presume to an automatic claim."
          "How fortunate," Nissuraj murmured, "that the late King Jethuran proved impotent in so many crucial ways." Then he was struck by another thought. "Have you ever known such a predicament? We're about to have a war - at least, we must proceed on that assumption - and none of us understands the cause."
          "I've the strangest feeling," Kaihima said, "that Xaltoran and Starkad have crossed swords in the past ... that this is a personal conflict, and the rest of us have no choice but to be drawn into it."
          "Nonsense!" It was the shaven-headed one. "There's no mystery here. Starkad is a barbarian, a pirate. All he seeks in Erastor is plunder. The purpose of the audience was to gauge our strength. Xaltoran was a fool to agree to it. At least, that's the general consensus."
          "And surely this creature Falk is Starkad's spy," the bespectacled man contended. "What's our policy regarding him?"
          Kaihima's eyes narrowed. "I would not have him killed," she said slowly. "But it may prove unavoidable."

          Ulainn sat alone in her cabin aboard the Rimedawn.
          Her mind full of turbulence, she sought peace in solitude and the gentle motion of the galley. Anyone else would be able to shut out visual distractions by the simple expedient of closing eyelids; for the Skarnyr princess this was, of course, impossible.
          She had long accepted that her life would never be one of calm and quiet. Her rare ability ensured this. As did the path of conquest her brother followed with iron determination.
          Ulainn never forgot that her gift (a word she found mordantly amusing) had partly stimulated Frostmane's vaunted ambition. Her wild talent constituted a potent weapon, and Starkad endeavoured to wield it as effectively as he did a sword or an axe or a phalanx of warriors.
          She loved her brother. Yet his obsessive dream of an empire spreading over the world from the north like the inexorable glaciers of an ice-age frequently terrified her. Being Skarnyr, she was accustomed to conflict, but saw it as rooted in the hostile conditions of her homeland. However, she accepted her status in the game of kings with a degree of fatalism.
          Ulainn waited, then, for Starkad to return from his audience in Erastor - where the prize was, she knew, a weapon as curious and cogent as herself. As she did so, she could not help but muse on the visions that had arrived with such force soon after his departure.
          In the most vivid, she had seen Falk standing in the depths of a great forest, on a road gleaming like steel under a misted sun, with a noctivagant rider approaching on a spectral steed.
          The comparisons between Falk and her brother were obvious and tempting - black wolf set beside tawny, eagle beside hawk - and she wondered if Falk, too, might be a prize to be wrested from Erastor.
          Chimeric barriers falling like stormwood across the many paths of the future rendered the outcome uncertain.
          Ulainn knew only that Falk faced dangers beyond those of the immediate present. If the gold-eyed warrior survived Erastor, there were other forces ready to destroy him. Two were stark clear, as if lit by flares.
          First, the Hunters of Challun-Tioch, potential foes along a distinct branch of futurity. The Hunters were no strangers to Ulainn. They had prowled often the deepest, shadow-haunted recesses of her mental labyrinth. Ulainn was unaware, however, that Falk had already witnessed the climax of one of their sacred rites: that if the Hunters knew nothing of him, Falk understood at least a little of them.
          With Erastor conquered, Starkad intended to advance on Fallen Moon and waken and whelm the power that slept there; but even the war-loving Frostmane did not relish conflict with the Hunters.
          The second force threatening Falk, though a single individual, was even more potent than the first, for it shared Falk's fountainhead (a source Ulainn had not yet discovered) and followed him, hungrily, out of the past.
          A lone hunter, a man whose hands shone and flowed like quicksilver. If swords had souls, then such a soul did this man possess. If steel could think, then this man thought like steel. If dreams could freeze, then this man's dreams would freeze the heart of a sun.
          A war-horn sounded.
          The mirror of ice in possession of Ulainn's mind shattered.
          Stars fell through blackest night.
          She whispered, "It begins."

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