Te?ma?nu was thoroughly out of breath by the time he made it back to his lodgings along the port, but he’d beat the elders there, albeit barely. He’d hardly managed to wipe the sweat from his run away and struggle into a set of fresh clothes, once more suitable for an appearance at court, when a hearty knock echoed at the door.
He let the servants answer and waited at the top of the steps until he was certain the guests had been ushered in before descending down the spiraled staircase. A trio of men waited in the manor’s landing, two soldiers and the elder who’d greeted him when Te?ma?nu had stepped off the ship. “Lord Dab?l,” he greeted the man. “Has King H?ah?h?uru sent for me?”
“Lord?” The man snorted. “I’m no lord.”
Te?ma?nu frowned as he walked down the narrow stairs, forced to move slower than he would like as the railing was on the same side as his withered arm. “Are you not an elder of the council?”
“Aye,” Dab?l agreed, “but that is an elected position, not a noble one. The only lords we have are the heads of the thirty clans, and as the second son of a second son, I will never be that.”
“Thirty?” Te?ma?nu. “I could have sworn I’d read of thirty-four.”
“The true number varies,” the elder shrugged, “but no matter the number, they are known as the thirty. You won’t be meeting many of them tonight, though.”
As Te?ma?nu reached the landing, the elder opened the door and gestured for him to follow. “Come along. Thanks to your trip to the temple, we’ll need to move quickly if we are to make it to the feast on time.”
The elder, who towered three or four feet above Te?ma?nu, set off down the street at a brisk pace that Te?ma?nu was forced to nearly jog to match.
“You were following me?” Te?ma?nu asked, between gasping breaths, and Dab?l snorted again.
“I know you Empire folks think we’re just a bunch of hicks, but did you really believe we would let you wander around our capital without someone keeping an eye out.”
“I…” Te?ma?nu had thought exactly that, but knew better than to say it. “We’re allies, are we not? If I had gone somewhere important, like the barracks or the palace, I could understand keeping an eye on me, but I was simply stretching my legs. Walked through some neighborhoods, stumbled on an old temple.”
“Hmm.” The man hummed noncommittally. “Yes, my man was rather puzzled by how long you stayed in the Ekallas?.”
“Why? I spent some time talking to the priest,” Te?ma?nu protested.
“Priest?” Te?ma?nu shrunk back, biting down a gasp of pain as the elder stopped in his tracks and, spinning around, grabbed hold of his arms. “What priest? The Ekallas? has been abandoned for centuries.”
“The-there was a priest tending the flames,” he sputtered out, and the man’s grips tightened.
“What did he say? No, what did he look like?”
Te?ma?nu’s essence quickened as he reached for the wind, enhancing the breeze already blowing off the sea into a gust that shoved the elder back. “Is this how the Strythani treat their allies?” He asked icily, cradling his withered arm.
Dab?l’s eyes had quickened with anger when the wind hit him, but it died just as quickly at Te?ma?nu’s words.
“Forgive me. We are a passionate people,” he replied awkwardly. “And you don’t understand the significance of what you said.”
“Then enlighten me.”
The elder glanced down the street. With night fast approaching, there weren’t many people still wandering around the marketplace, but a cluster still remained around the food stall closer to the docks, and he shook his head. “We shouldn’t speak here. And do not mention this at tonight’s feast,” he warned. “If King H?ah?h?uru were to learn of this ‘priest,’ I cannot say what would happen.”
While still angry at Dab?l for wrenching his arm, Te?ma?nu took the elder’s warnings to heart. He didn’t know why the man had believed the temple to be abandoned, but the revelation had cast the priest’s harsh words for the king in a new light. It was clear Te?ma?nu had stumbled into a political minefield he lacked the knowledge to navigate.
They walked the rest of the way in silence, navigating through the mostly abandoned streets of Ka?r-Ap?m until they reached the heart of the city, where the Hall of the Elders sat.
Like the rest of the city, the ancient palace was mostly buried beneath a massive earthen mound that protected it from the harsh winters that beset the settlement. Only the eastern side of the palace, which faced the warm winds that sometimes rolled off the sea, remained uncovered by earth. Its facade was surprisingly ornate. Entirely built from a wood so dark it was almost black, rows of intricately carved pillars stood in front of a sheer wall whose only decoration were exceedingly narrow windows filled with red glass, wide enough to allow the sunrise to pierce the darkness of its halls without posing a security risk.
It was clear the place had once been a fortress, but war no longer seemed a concern for the Hall of the Elders. A large garden was planted on top of the earthen mound, complete with an artificial river that wound its way through rows of terraced steps and quiet pools that were as beautiful as any Te?ma?nu had seen in the Empire.
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“Not what you expected, huh?” Dab?l asked as they neared the gates of the hall.
“Tis truly beautiful,’ Te?ma?nu agreed. “I’m surprised the former ambassador never mentioned these gardens. Even in Celestia, they would be highly praised.”
Irritation flitted across the elder’s face. “The former ambassador never bothered to visit - or are you forgetting that you nearly lost an ally without even realizing it?”
“The former ambassador was a fool,” Te?ma?nu swiftly replied, “But I’m here now.”
“Humph. We’ll see,” Dab?l grunted.
The ponderous wooden gates, stained a rusty red that looked suspiciously like blood, creaked open as they approached, so massive that it took two teams of ten men pulling on the chains to open them, and Te?ma?nu followed Dab?l inside.
The great hall was just as impressive as the exterior. While he doubted it compared to the lost glories of their occupied capital or the radiant city of the North, it was more than equal to the emperor’s current abode in Du?r-Tsadê.
With the building’s only windows facing the wrong direction to receive any light from the setting sun, Te?ma?nu had expected the hall to be cloaked in darkness, but it was anything but. A massive fire pit ran down the center of the hall, long enough for a hundred men to lie down end to end, and the fire raging in its center spread light and warmth through the whole chamber. On either side of the fire pit were two equally long tables, laden high with food and drink for a feast that was already well on its way.
There must be thousands here, Te?ma?nu realized, and caught Dab?l’s eye.
“This feast isn’t for me.” It wasn’t a question.
“No, lad, it isn’t,” the elder chuckled. “It was pure luck that you arrived on the day of a wedding.”
He nodded toward the far end of the hall, where an elevated dais for the guests of honor sat perpendicular to the other tables.
“Today is the wedding of House Akk?’s heir to a daughter of House Barba?ru. Quite the coup for the lady's house,” he added with a grin.
Te?ma?nu felt a pang of wistfulness as he caught sight of the new couple. The man was nothing remarkable - tall and sturdy like most Strythani, with chestnut hair and beard tinged with a hint of red - but it was easy to see how the woman had managed to marry up.
Hers was the sort of beauty that inspired bards. She wore a delicately brocaded, deep-blue gown, with a sapphire pendant dangling between her chest. A silver tiara of exquisitely wrought flowers and hummingbirds held back her lustrous raven hair, which was so long that it reached her waist and woven with fresh cornflowers and baby’s breath.
Will that ever be me? Second sons of impoverished houses didn’t have many prospects in the first place, and that was doubly true for those with a withered arm. Steeling his heart, he forced himself to look away and searched for the king.
“Is Lord H?ah?h?uru here?” he asked the elder.
The man shook his head, pointing to an empty chair a few seats down from the bride’s. “It appears the guards alerted him of your coming. He’s probably retreated to his study. Come, I’ll take you to him, and then we can join the feast.”
They walked around the edge of the hall, slipping through the crowd of revelers, servants, and performers, and Te?ma?nu found his eyes drifting back to the bride despite himself.
Though surrounded by a crowd, she sat alone. Not even the groom seemed to notice her as he drank with a swarm of young men gathered around him. She toyed with the food on her plate silently, only lifting her head occasionally to stare at the performers or to steal a sip from her goblet, and Te?ma?nu’s envy was replaced with pity.
Dab?l had said this marriage was a coup for her family, and perhaps the elder had been right, but it was clear it was not one she was happy about. She stirred again, and as she looked up, he caught her eye.
His face flushed as he tried to add the withered arm, unsure if she hadn’t seen it, and offered her a stiff nod before quickly looking away.
“Right this way,” Dab?l spoke up, seeming unaware of Te?ma?nu’s embarrassment. The elder led them through a smaller set of doors and down two flights of stairs before they reached the king’s study.
A pair of guards waited in front of the doors but stepped aside as Dab?l approached. “Go on, I’ll wait outside,” the elder said.
Te?ma?nu paused outside the door and fumbled with his bag. The gift Eligon had provided was too heavy for him to hold with just one hand, but he compensated with a bit of wind magic, gently circulating the currents enough to hold up, and nodded at the guards. “I’m ready.”
His eyes quickly crossed the room as he entered the study. Once more, the Strythani had defied his expectations. The stately library he found himself in would not have looked amiss in the courts he’d grown up in, even if it was a bit smaller than those in the south. Two chairs had been pulled up by the hearth, with a table between them bearing a brace of goblets and a bottle of wine.
“Have a seat,” the king greeted him.
“Thank you, my lord.” As he slipped into the plush, leather chair, Te?ma?nu discretely studied the man. The king looked ill at ease in the study. A giant on par with Elder Dab?l in size, he dwarfed the same chair that comfortably ensconced Te?ma?nu, and the cruel scar that marred his left cheek suggested that his size was not just for show.
“A clever choice,” H?ah?h?uru remarked idly as he poured himself a glass of wine and gestured for Te?ma?nu to do likewise.
“I’m afraid I don’t follow, my lord.”
“The emperor,” he replied abruptly. “He wanted us to underestimate you. Most Strythani only care about strength, and the only magic they’re familiar with is shifting. I imagine that fool outside the doors saw you as a cripple. Doubt he even realized you were a mage until you knocked him on his ass,” he chuckled, before a thoughtful expression returned to his face. “But your level of control is truly remarkable, especially for a follower of a god as fickle as Va?ya.”
“Thank you, my lord. When you’re lacking an arm, you have to find ways to compensate,” he replied and, abandoning any pretense of holding the emperor’s gift in his hand, floated it over to the king. “I had not heard you were a mage.”
“Not a drop of talent, I’m afraid,” H?ah?h?uru admitted, “but my older brother was one of the rare talents amongst our people, and I learned a great deal from watching him.”
“I’d be eager to meet him, then,” Te?ma?nu replied - words that he regretted as soon as he saw the shadow flit across the king’s face.
“He didn’t survive the recent…crisis,” H?ah?h?uru said simply. Eager to move on, the king took hold of the box Te?ma?nu had given him, and rested his hand on the lid. “Did the emperor tell you what he sent?”
He shook his head. “Only that Lord Eligon was certain you would be pleased to receive it.”
"Tells me nothing," the king mumbled, but he set it on his lap and flipped the locks up before prying open the lid.
Te?ma?nu shifted in his seat, vainly trying to see what was in the box, as the king silently stared at it, his face giving no clue as to whether he was pleased.
“Was he right, my lord?”
“Aye,” H?ah?h?uru finally replied. “Everything and more than I expected. Tis an auspicious start, Ambassador Te?ma?nu, a very auspicious start indeed,” he added, raising his goblet in a toast. “To the Empire.”
