Death and the Emperor

Book 3 Chapter IX: What Nadriet Saw

Accustomed to petty intrigue, and necessarily involved in a thousand paltry and selfish discussions, ambitious also by nature, his political faith was tinctured, at least, if not tainted, by the views of interest and advancement so easily combined with it; and at the moment he should unsheathe his claymore, it might be difficult to say whether it would be most with the view of making James Stuart a king or Fergus Mac-Ivor an earl. This, indeed, was a mixture of feeling which he did not avow even to himself, but it existed, nevertheless, in a powerful degree. -- Sir Walter Scott, Waverley

Gialma wasted no time. The minute he left Tinuviel, he went straight to his rooms and began to compose a letter to Princess Ixerthi. He went through several drafts of it in the course of the evening. When he returned to his parents' home the next day he was still working on it.

His parents' reaction to the news that not only would their son be put on the High Council, but he had been made an "unofficial ambassador" (in their eyes) to Istogu, made their previous pride and boasting seem downright restrained. From morning to night they told everyone they met about how their son had a glittering career ahead of him.

"We thought he was too shy and awkward to ever amount to much," Gialma's mother told a visiting noblewoman. She looked so insufferably smug that it was a wonder the noblewoman could bear another minute of her company. "But see where he is now!"

Gialma, locked in his room and agonising over the right word to use in a sentence, avoided his parents as much as possible. He claimed it was so he could give his full attention to the important business the Emperor had given him. But another, stronger reason was his increasing feeling of guilt. He was planning to betray Tinuviel, and the Emperor trusted him enough to give him this duty.

The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth.

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All was not well in Malish. Ridanwes-Iqui did not trust any of his sons, but he was getting old. It was undeniably true that he needed a successor. And more importantly, he needed a successor who could deal with Carann once and for all.

So he consulted with his viziers and his advisers on which son would make the best successor. They argued and argued, and discussed the personalities of all seventy-eight of Ridanwes's living sons, but they came nowhere near reaching a decision. Finally the Iqui came to a conclusion on his own. He would call all his sons back to the capital. They would take the opportunity of being in close proximity to each other to plot against and kill each other. Once they started to kill each other off, he would have a smaller number from which to make his selection.

In the Land of the Dead, every living mortal had an hourglass that represented their lifespan. Some of the hourglasses had more than half the sand still in the upper half. Others had only a few grains remaining.

Had Ridanwes-Iqui been able to see his own hourglass, he might have made a different decision.

For there was only a thin layer of sand left in the hourglass's upper half. And it was draining away. Rapidly.

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Nalginton's reaction when he received his father's summons was brief panic. Common sense quickly took over. There was no way his father would summon him to Ihalāiksonen if he had discovered his treachery. The Iqui preferred to deal with such things secretly. Nalginton would have been quietly assassinated, and his death officially attributed to illness or an accident.

There was some other reason for this, then. Nalginton didn't know what it was, but it gave him an opportunity.

At sunrise on the day he was to leave for the capital, the prince and his wife went to a shrine and sacrificed an iloeen[1]. With this precaution taken, they set out on their journey.