The Shattered Circle

18. The Audience

I stopped outside the door to the Innermost Study, letting my eyes trace over the arcane patterns etched into the bone doors, each ward stained into the carvings with life-blood that had been neatly wiped away to leave only dark lines where it had seeped into crevices. It was an intricate and power-bound scrimshaw, done with a particularly macabre hand. I recognized them as wards, but my knowledge of magic was effectively secondhand. It required a gift, a spark, that I lacked. I would never know the feeling of casting a spell, of being able to comprehend everything that the King in Black or even Naltheme knew, of being an equal.

Truth be told, however, I had never desired the spark of magic. I could reshape the world in other ways, even if it was a struggle. Besides, I found the ability to spell nonexistence with the lifting of a single finger bothered me on a level. The King in Black used it only when required, but the others were not so parsimonious with their power. Their self-indulgence with their abilities seemed to cheapen it somehow.

Shira shivered at my side. I knew she had heard enough stories of the King in Black that she likely had no expectation of surviving. Perhaps it had been cruel of me to bring her, but the immediacy of Varys's attempt to have Riyd kill me meant seeking an audience immediately. I didn't have time to leave her at home and even the entry level of the Tower was not a place for the living to be left unattended, even with the edicts that would have preserved her life. For one, Varys was not barred entry.

I glanced over at her. "Venture into the conversation only if you are spoken to. If the Lady of Bones is present and asks you anything, I will answer. If the King in Black asks you anything, answer him truthfully. His Majesty does not tolerate lies."

She signed nervously, fingers twitching. Will he understand this?

"He will understand." Even if in life he hadn't known Rusan sign, one of the boons unlocked after ascending to godhood was a celestial's comprehension of languages. He put it to immediate use, ever expanding His collection of magical lore now that even secret scripts no longer presented a barrier to His understanding. "Mind your manners as well. He is to be addressed as Your Majesty at all times."

Shira bobbed her head anxiously.

"Good." I placed my left hand against the door, ring burning with cold like a brand. The twisting lines of sigils on the door seemed to writhe at my touch as the magic responded to its own. Then they melted into the ivory, dissipating momentarily to allow us access. I pushed and the door split down the middle, opening without a sound. Needing no invitation to enter, I stepped in, drawing Shira along in my wake.

The Innermost Study was a mammoth, labyrinthian room that extended in space well beyond what even the giant size of the tower should have allowed. There were no shelves, only neat rows upon rows of books floating in the air, carefully arranged according to some byzantine sorting system that mapped perfectly onto the King in Black's memory. He was as obsessed with His collection as a wyrm with its golden hoard: removing even a single book absent permission was a crime punishable by worse than death.

The books extended out and upward seemingly into infinity, lit by flickering blue-orange flames in fixed positions absent any sconces that cast a strange light throughout the room. His desk occupied the center of the study, the main workshop for experimentation mercifully lost amongst the shelves. With both His Majesty and Naltheme ever pushing the boundaries of magic, particularly necromancy, their experiments could be grisly beyond what Shira likely had the stomach for.

I focused on the desk. It was an exotic variety of wood, Madyan irontree, that had come at no small expense. At the time we had been at war, but I had scraped together every coin in my personal belongings to have it made for Him. By the time it was complete, the northern lands had been free of Rusan control for ten years. The surface gleamed with mirror smoothness even though the grain was wild and knotted, kept religiously polished and oiled.