The Fall of Rath: Blood and Magic

By Gavin South

Little more than a century old, Yerikan is young for an Undying mage. Already, he is learning the cost of his years. He finds it easier to fight for his master and the kingdom of Rath than against his fondness for wine. Fearing an invasion from the East, Yerikan is sent to the Jehari Empire to stir up trouble. He succeeds too well. Will his seduction of Nyreni and its discovery sets the Four Realms on a path to brutal war?

The Fall of Rath is a novel of High Fantasy, with blood, magic, and romance. Please note that this novel contains adult themes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gavin South
• Release date: Oct 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386295334

Gavin South

Gavin South is a British writer. He lives in Sweden with his wife and two children. The Fall of Rath is his first novel and if enough people like it, he might write another one. You're welcome to contact Gavin at: [e-mail].

Book preview

The Four Realms

THE FOUR REALMS: KASSUA, Jehar, Keln and Rath. North, East, South and West. The hues of our skins are the least of our differences. The Kassuans and Kelni are not without worth. The former are passionless but deep and the latter reckless but inspired. The Rathish, however, are worth only contempt, for they lack both depth and feeling. It is only the Jehari that reach perfection. Only the Jehari are flame and thought made one. The sun rises with us.

–HER EXCELLENCY IHKENI OF LAAHI, ON THE PERFECTIONS OF JEHAR

BE CIRCUMSPECT, FOR foreigners are a peculiar and indecent sort. If you must offend someone, I beg you offend a Kassuan. You will probably never even realise a Kassuan's contempt for you. Next best is a Kelni. A Kelni will most likely beat you half to death and then buy you a drink. In this one matter, our countryfolk are less agreeable. We Rathish do feel obliged to meet on the morning to touch swords. Worst of all, however, is to offend a Jehari. A Jehari will smile at you. My advice, should this occur, is to find a fast horse.

–AMBASSADOR BREGAN, THOUGHTS ON THE FOUR REALMS

Prologue. The Scheme

City of Esfell, Western Realm. 1243 Years After Founding, Tenth Week of Autumn.

IN A CASTLE OF THE Western Realm, a man was seated at an old oak desk. The sturdy desk was well worn, the leather top having been recovered many times. The piece of furniture stood in a chamber walled with cold grey stone. Fine tapestries and paintings mitigated the austerity without entirely eliminating it. Natural light poured in through windows, the glass having been imported specially from Kassua. The chambers were worthy of a king. However, it was not the king that sat looking through papers, but the Chair of the Inner Council of Rath.

A loud knock sounded at a door and echoed around the chamber. Lord Paelan looked up. Like all the Rathish, his eyes were pink and his skin a pale violet. His hair and beard were the black of the northern duchy, though streaked now with the white of age. Lord Paelan could perhaps have passed for a hale man of sixty summers. He was much older.

'Come,' he commanded.

The double doors were pushed open and a grey-whiskered clerk entered and bowed his head respectfully. 'Lord Paelan,' he declared, 'Captain Yerikan has arrived.'

'Good. Send him in, Alfin.'

'Yes, my lord.'

The elderly clerk turned quickly and left. In the waiting room he found the visitor standing slouched by an unshuttered window, staring out. Captain Yerikan was leaning forward, as if pulled towards the long drop and a violent meeting with the forecourt below.

'Admiring the view, captain?' Alfin inquired, with polite disdain.

As he turned from the window, Yerikan's slightly haunted expression animated into a smile. The smile turned an already handsome face into one that could ruin marriages.

'Just so, dear Alfin,' Yerikan replied. His affability was undiminished by his recognition of the clerk's contempt.

'Lord Paelan is ready for you now,' the clerk announced with a trace of a sneer.

'Very well. It does not do to keep the old man waiting.'

Yerikan stepped briskly past and entered his master's office, leaving Alfin behind to close the door.

'Take a seat,' Lord Paelan ordered.

Yerikan took a chair. While Lord Paelan's attention lingered on a document, Yerikan ran his fingers through his ash-blond hair and stared at the oil painting behind his master. It was of Lord Paelan in state robes with King Harin I, at the signing of the Constitution of Rath. That was over twelve hundred years ago.

That is enough to intimidate any visitor.

Yerikan looked over at another familiar painting. It was of a Rath nobleman with a pack of hounds, hunting a red fox.

I keep hoping, one day, that fox will escape.

Lord Paelan finally set his papers down. 'It is good that you have returned from Nestafell.'

The younger mage bowed his head in acknowledgement.

Lord Paelan tapped the desk with his fingers. 'How did matters go?'

Yerikan leaned back in his chair. He crossed his legs and sighed deeply.

'The nobles are vain and grasping fools, as ever. It did not go well. We will not have a majority in the Council of Nobles in favour of your proposal.'

Lord Paelan nodded grimly. 'Yes. I have counted the numbers also.'

Yerikan waited patiently for his master to continue. It was a long moment before Lord Paelan finally did so.

'Our sister realms do not suffer these problems.'

'Pardon, my lord?' Yerikan asked with mild surprise.

Lord Paelan scowled. 'I have worked hard and long and yet we slip slowly backwards from the greatness I once believed we might achieve. Perhaps I should have been a tyrant, like the Empress of Jehar?'

Yerikan sat uncomfortably, saying nothing.

'The nobles,' Lord Paelan continued with quiet fury. 'They do not listen to me. I have been pushing to reinforce the army for the past two centuries.'

Yerikan nodded grimly. And they will vote you down again, next week. They sit in their crumbling castles, make-believing Rath is still the power it once was.

'And now,' Lord Paelan said through bared teeth, 'Jehar is preparing to invade and occupy eastern Rath.'

Yerikan's smooth manner disintegrated and his mouth flapped for a moment. 'Impossible,' he exclaimed.

Lord Paelan shook his head. 'They will come. I have sources that can be relied on.'

He frowned. 'Yet, winter is close upon us. The Easterners will wait for the thaw. We have until spring at least.'

'But we can block the Keln Passage,' Yerikan countered. 'And it would be impossible for an army to cross the Quiet Sea safely. They would need to come via Kassua.'

'Yes.'

'Chancellor Vaczir would not permit it, surely?'

'For centuries, Vaczir has coveted our mineral fields this side of the Spur Mountains. It is said that Kassua and the empire have made an accommodation.'

Yerikan sat still in his chair, shocked. 'It is against all conventional wisdom. That one of the Four Realms can hold another.'

Lord Paelan nodded slowly. 'But the empire's population grows and their land does not grow more fertile. They will try and rewrite this wisdom.'

Yerikan grimaced. 'A spring invasion you say, my lord? We cannot raise more than twenty thousand good soldiers in that time. We will be routed.'

'Yes,' Lord Paelan agreed grimly. He met Yerikan's eyes. 'We must delay them at any cost. Campaigns take time to execute and victories time to secure. A few months delay will mean a year's respite. For the desert empire will not risk being hammered on the anvil of our winter.'

'And then, my lord?'

'Constitution be damned, I can do much with a year. I do not believe I have forgotten how to be ruthless. I will blackmail, bribe and murder until we have a majority on the Inner and Greater Councils. We will be ready.'

Yerikan nodded. 'But how to gain this respite?'

Lord Paelan paused to tap his fingers on the table. 'That is where you come in.'

'My lord?'

'I need a man with little conscience, firm nerves and a tolerable level of intelligence.'

'You flatter me, my lord.'

Lord Paelan leaned back in his chair. 'Tell me what we know about the Sisters.'

At the abrupt question, Yerikan hesitated. 'Not a great deal, my lord,' he began uncertainly. 'Or rather there is a great deal said, but little corroborated.'

'Elaborate.'

Yerikan smiled grimly. Elaborate. The word that my lord's vassals most fear.

'The Sisters?' he asked. 'Well, despite its achievements in antiquity, the Jehari Empire for many centuries fell into stagnancy and decline. Around five hundred years ago this seemed to be changing. This coincided, as was identified from copies of the court proclamations, with a succession of empresses appearing to have the same advisers: Their Excellencies Isaah and Nyreni no less. For the past five hundred years they have been the real force behind a string of weak empresses.'

'Yes,' said Lord Paelan impatiently. 'But what of the Sisters themselves?'

Yerikan hesitated again. 'Here is the story, as has been popularized in Jehar. Isaah is the political force, the military genius, a ruthless tactician. Nyreni is perhaps a more considered strategical counterweight to her sister. But her most significant role is culturally and educationally. She founded the University. She is a patron of Jehari arts in all their forms. She also oversaw the reformation of the Jehari written language, to allow efficient administration in the territories. Although she still champions the ancient pictogram in certain forms of poetry–'

'Enough of Nyreni,' interrupted Paelan roughly. 'What is believed outside of Jehar?'

'That Isaah is the dominant sister. That she lets her sister play with cultural institutions as long as she does not interfere with the running of the state.'

'And what do you believe?'

Yerikan parted his hands in entreaty. 'All we know for sure is that the Sisters are at least six hundred years old, look identical and rule Jehar absolutely. And that they, without official sanction, are literally worshipped by many as god-like figures. They are the Hand and the Heart of the nation. What we do not know for sure is, whether there really is an Isaah and a Nyreni. For all we know they may be roles they play and swap as they please.'

'But I ask you,' insisted Lord Paelan, 'what do you believe?'

Yerikan paused and thought. 'I believe there really is an Isaah and a Nyreni,' he said with conviction. 'And that they have much the characters ascribed to them.'

'Why so?'

'I have a source, my lord, who has met Nyreni and talked to her alone.'

'You do?' exclaimed Paelan with irritated surprise. 'A source that you have not shared?'

'Yes, my lord,' Yerikan replied with a smile. 'He is not wholly reliable, as he was a very young man studying at the University and he became quite infatuated with the woman.'

'Who is this source?' demanded Lord Paelan.

'Myself.'

Lord Paelan looked disagreeably surprised. 'How is it that I do not know this?'

'It has not been documented in my records, but it is no secret. It was long ago. A century past.'

Lord Paelan mused quietly. 'I should not be surprised. I knew that you had been in Niisi City. Fate drives those such as us together. It was said, in ancient times, that if two Undying were to pass within ten leagues they could not help but meet.'

Yerikan still smiled, but his brow now also creased with thought. There were many more Undying once then? More than the widely known four of you, Vaczir and the Sisters? Add myself and that is still only five. You rarely let such hints slip, old man. You must be distracted.

Lord Paelan suddenly leaned forward. 'Are you hungry?'

'No, my lord.'

'Well, we are going to be here deep into the night. So I am going to order some refreshment.'

He shook a brass bell. The double doors opened and his elderly clerk appeared.

'Yes, Lord Paelan?'

'Send a servant to fetch some victuals and a pot of tea,' Lord Paelan commanded. He glanced at Yerikan. 'And a bottle of wine for Yerikan. It is one of his many weaknesses.'

The clerk bowed his head. 'Very good, my lord.'

Much later, as midnight approached, Lord Paelan was walking up and down the chamber. Yerikan was sitting back-to-front on his chair, astride it, with his elbows resting on the chair back. He was watching his master pacing. On the floor was one plate with the crumbs of pastries and another with the bones of a cold roast chicken. An empty bottle of a fine Devish wine sat on the desk. An unrolled map of Rath was spread on the floor and weighted down with a pot of a tea. Counters from a bjati board were placed on the map. It looked like the army of Jehar was doing rather well.

'I do not like it at all,' announced Lord Paelan, as he stopped his pacing. 'It is reckless and unwise.'

Yerikan sighed. 'What choice do we have?'

'None,' Lord Paelan replied emphatically. 'Do it. Announce yourself as an Undying. That alone may drive them to caution and give us the delay we need. But cause what disruption you can. Play the Sisters off against each other. Even contrive an intimacy if you can.'

Yerikan nodded. 'As you command.'

'I will get the documents drafted and ratified. You will be the ambassador to Jehar within days.'

'When should I leave?'

'Soon. Within a fortnight. Before the first snows fall.'

Lord Paelan straightened to his full height and looked uncomfortable. He put his hands behind his back.

'It is unfortunate that I have been unable to complete your training.'

'I am prepared,' Yerikan insisted.

Lord Paelan cleared his throat. 'There are many mages in the Four Realms, but only a handful of immortals. You would be an irreplaceable asset to Rath, just because of what you are, were you to have no other redeeming features. You do have some.'

Yerikan smiled with amusement and said nothing.

'I will send word of your true nature to Chancellor Vaczir in Kassua,' Lord Paelan continued. 'It will provide some measure of assurance regarding your safety. He will want to meet you. But be careful.'

Yerikan stood from his chair and nodded.

Lord Paelan frowned. 'Now go.'

Yerikan bowed and departed.

Part 1. The Seduction of Nyreni

A new ambassador

Niisi City, Eastern Realm. 1243 Years After Founding, Eighth Week of Winter.

THE SISTERS SAT ON richly upholstered divans up on a raised dais. The empress's divan, to their left, was grander, higher, with more copper-tinted gold worked into the folds of crimson cloth. But the empress's seat was unoccupied. The audience was to be with Their Excellencies only.

The envoy from Rath strolled confidently across the cold marble floor with a book under his arm and stopped at the bottom of the steps to the dais, as protocol demanded. The man, seeming little more than thirty in years, appeared young for his post. Yet he negligently ran a hand through his ash-blond hair and calmly regarded his betters. The two women who had been advisers to an unbroken succession of over thirty empresses, now leisurely ignored him as beneath their notice. He adjusted his doublet of moss-green. It was cut in the Western style and unsuitable to the climate, but in the cool marble corridors of the palace it was bearable. He smiled to himself as he analysed the Sisters. They looked to have seen barely more years than he, but of course that was not the case.

Which sister is which?

Statue-still and considering the bjati board that stood between them, they seemed like reflections. Their skin was a dark carmine red. The carefully arranged hair that reached down to their shoulders was equally sanguineous. He could not see clearly from his position, but he knew the colour of their eyes was the lighter vermilion of the desert sands. Heavy make-up artfully covered their eyelids, extending beyond the corners of their eyes to their temples like black masks. Suddenly, he was reminded of the two ferrets that he had used, as a youth, to flush rabbits for his hawk.

I must not laugh.

Their legs were drawn up with their knees pointed to each other, showing bare feet beneath their long white gowns. Even when you realised that this was a staged pose, practised over centuries, its effect was not much diminished. It was easy to see how they were worshipped by many in Jehar.

But which is which?

The sister to the left reached out and took a stone from the board. Having made her move in the game, she stretched and yawned. As she did so, her eyes fixed on the ambassador, as if noticing him for the first time. As her attention came to rest in his direction, her sister began turning her head and added her uninterested gaze. Both women shifted and stood slowly. With their feet now hidden, they seemed to float towards him and down the steps of the dais. He felt a shiver.

Ah. Two identical statues in a frieze, they are two different animals in motion. Rattlesnake and gazelle. Isaah and Nyreni.

The leftmost sister spoke as she descended the last steps. 'Do you speak a civilized tongue, Rathish man?' she asked quickly, choosing an intricate and difficult phrasing in Jehari.

The ambassador smiled and bowed his head. 'I speak Jehari, Your Excellency,' he replied with fluency.

A flicker of irritation crossed the woman's face. 'Well, ambassador,' she continued with calculated insincerity, 'how unforgivable to keep a servant of the King of Rath waiting. My sister and I were so absorbed in important matters.'

The ambassador smiled again. 'There is nothing to forgive, Your Excellency. I understand how absorbing games of strategy can be.'

He drew up the corners of his mouth further. 'And to meet the immortal Isaah, I would have stood until the game of bjati was finished.'

Annoyance re-entered Isaah's features and the ambassador's smile became genuine. You did not like that, did you? he thought. That I guessed your name correctly?

Contemptuously, Isaah pushed out her left foot. Her bare toes appeared from beneath her dress. She waited. The ambassador raised a quizzical eyebrow.

'It is traditional for new visitors to the empress's court,' Isaah insisted, baring her teeth in a smile.

'But not for a foreign emissary meeting the empress's advisers,' the ambassador countered.

Isaah said nothing and her foot remained extended.

'Of course,' the ambassador said after a moment.

He knelt and bent with a flourish to pay obeisance. Instead of kissing the floor before her toes, however, he allowed his lips to touch her skin. Isaah's foot shot back as if burned, outrage leaving her momentarily speechless. The man stood once more. He turned to Isaah's sister. Nyreni's face held a bored and neutral expression, but there was perhaps a trace of a smile at a corner of her mouth. The ambassador bowed.

'We, however, have already had the pleasure of acquaintance, Your Excellency.'

Nyreni's eyes became focused and sharp. 'I do not recall,' she replied warily.

'You were gracious enough to lend me a book,' he replied. 'I hope you will accept its return.'

A puzzled frown appeared on Nyreni's brow as she took it from his hands.

The ambassador turned back to Isaah. 'Reluctant as I am to turn from your beauty to the ugliness of state business, I must fulfil the duty placed upon me by my kingdom. I bring a communication from Lord Paelan.'

A personal communication from Lord Paelan via an ambassador was unusual. Yet, Isaah managed to take the rolled and sealed parchment with weary condescension. She motioned the envoy towards some less richly upholstered divans at which the rulers of Jehar would deign to sit with mere men and women. The ambassador found himself sat with Nyreni on his left and Isaah on his right.

A most disconcerting position. Caught between two cats. But am I a pigeon?

While Isaah was unsealing the parchment, the ambassador stole a glance at her sister. Nyreni was looking at the book held out in front of her with visible disquiet. Isaah, meanwhile, was scanning the message. He caught her freeze on one particular line. She lowered the parchment to her lap with a scowl and then passed it across to Nyreni. The ambassador knew its missive.

Your Excellencies Isaah and Nyreni, sisters in our art. It is many centuries since I walked the sands of Jehar and I fear the time shall not be soon that I see the Great Desert again. I recommend to you Rath's new Ambassador to the Empire and he shall walk that path for me. Yerikan is also a student of our art and I take a particular interest in his future. I would consider it a personal favour, were you to assist his improvement during his tenure as ambassador. I should also mention that Yerikan is somewhat a scholar of Jehar, having studied at the University a century ago, during the reign of Empress Yusaah IV. I hope my loss of his presence can bring your gain and our kingdoms closer together. Yours with gratitude, Lord Paelan, Chair of the Inner Council of Rath.

Isaah's face had become contorted. Abruptly, she stood up. Yerikan felt obliged to do the same.

'Prove it,' Isaah demanded.

Yerikan frowned. 'Pardon, Your Excellency?'

'Prove it,' she repeated.

A dagger was now in Isaah's hand and she offered it to him. Startled, he found himself taking the golden hilt, the ruby in the butt pressed to his palm. He looked down at the blade. For the first time he felt unsure of himself.

Not such a game now, is it?

'Surely,' Isaah said, regaining control of herself and assuming a voice of poison laced with sugar, 'you cannot expect us to take this revelation on faith?'

She smiled sweetly at him, standing just a little too close. Glancing back, he caught the sight of Nyreni standing close behind him. Despite his height advantage he felt physically threatened by the two women.

Between two cats. Fine, I am a pigeon. I admit it.

Then Nyreni spoke. 'I ... now I do seem to recall an encounter in the gardens,' she said. 'Yes, during the reign of Empress Yusaah. Her reign ended almost a hundred years ago, sister. So perhaps such a graphic test will be unnecessary. After all, this Rathish man looks well for six-score years.'

Yerikan looked to Nyreni and smiled, bowing his head in gratitude. Isaah, however, glared at Nyreni with a fury. For a moment, Yerikan believed that she was going to strike her own sister.

'I require proof,' Isaah insisted, stifling her anger. Isaah smiled murderously, sat down and reclined as if waiting to be amused by a juggler. 'If you will, ambassador?'

Yerikan gave a casual shrug. He threw the dagger up and caught it deftly as it dropped. He placed the point over his heart, holding the hilt towards Nyreni.

'I accept the challenge,' he said. 'If your sweet sister will run me through.'

Nyreni reluctantly stretched her fingers out to grasp the dagger. She stood still, looking uncertainly into Yerikan's eyes.

Can you do it? he wondered. Will you do it?

After a long moment, Nyreni's face hardened. Yet, just as Yerikan began to regret his boldness, she turned away.

'I will not,' she said quietly.

'You will,' demanded Isaah.

She began to sing. Isaah sang for only a single breath and the notes were strident and harsh. Nyreni’s eyes became unfocused and her jaw slackened. Her arm jerked out, all will for a moment subverted by her sister's magic. Yerikan looked down. The dagger was buried deep in his chest.

That rather hurts, he thought.

Yerikan fell down heavily on to his knees, gasping for air. He collapsed on to his back, put a hand to the dagger and then fell limp.

NYRENI CROUCHED DOWN holding her dress free from the pooling blood on the floor. She looked up at her reclining sister.

'Dead.'

Isaah stood up in and kicked the ambassador's corpse savagely in the head. Yerikan's head rolled away and then back.

'Not so cocksure now,' she said with glee. 'You Rath pig.'

Nyreni stood up, looking uncertain. 'What should we do, sister?'

'Do?' her sister asked vehemently. 'Why, throw him in a latrine and fill it in.'

'Do you really want war?' Nyreni asked. 'Now? Remember our plans.'

Isaah sighed with frustration. 'Very well.'

She placed a bare foot on Yerikan's throat and pulled the blade out from his chest. She looked at the blood on it with distaste and wiped it thoroughly clean on Yerikan's doublet. The knife then disappeared, hidden with a twist of her wrist. Isaah turned away and smartly clapped her hands, sending an echo around the hall.

A servant appeared, his eyes held low. He knelt and pressed his hands and forehead to the floor.

'Immortal Ones?'

'Tea.'

'Yes, Your Excellency.'

He rose gracefully and cast a glance at the body. 'And should the floor be cleared, Your Excellency?'

Isaah smiled. 'No. Leave this little mess a while longer.'

Quickly, a large gold tray of pots, small cups and sickly sweet pastries was brought in and placed in front of the two sisters. They reclined at the divans, the corpse lying half-a-dozen feet away.

'The insolence of the pink-eye,' seethed Isaah to her sister, in a fresh variation on the theme she had repeated for the last minute.

Nyreni sighed. 'Yes. As Empress Teshjil said in her epigrams, A young man walks clothed in arrogance; be he handsome, moreover dressed for the desert night. '

Her sister narrowed her eyes to slits. 'You thought this Rath handsome then?'

Nyreni put her cup down heavily. 'Sister, please. We were enjoying tea and you make me feel suddenly ill. I was just quoting a wisdom of our ancients.'

'Apologies, sister.'

Nyreni licked a honey-smeared finger, still sticky from a pastry. She pondered.

My sister will be slow to leave this foul mood.

There was a sudden gasp. It resembled that of a diver who had pushed too far and only barely regained the surface. The sisters' attention darted to the ambassador. He arched his back, coughed up blood and rolled himself on to his side. He grimaced. With an enormous exercise of will he pushed himself to sitting, then on to his knees and after a few ragged breaths, shakily to his feet. He looked pathetic, standing, wavering there. His doublet was in disarray, stained with blood, there was a crimson hole in his chest and a bruising blotch covered the left side of his face.

My sister has her humiliation. He looks pathetic.

Nyreni began to dip her head sadly, but that motion was arrested by the sight of the Rathish man breaking into a smile. A spark of mischief reached his eyes.

'I must ... beg permission to retire,' Yerikan said in a voice that started shakily, but finished with flourish. 'I think my long journey has tired me more than I had realised.'

He looked down at the puddle of his blood in front of him. 'I feel quite drained.'

'By all means go,' Isaah replied with contempt.

Yerikan half-turned, but then stopped with that smile on his face again. 'Besides. I have a volume of Empress Teshjil's epigrams to read.'

He looked directly at Nyreni. 'It has been recommended to me.'

She frowned with surprise. He heard us.

Yerikan walked away slowly, trying not to stagger. Nyreni shook her head.

He has courage. But such arrogance. Teshjil was right.

When the new ambassador had stumbled out of the entrance arch, Nyreni turned to her sister.

'Lord Paelan will take this treatment of his man as a spit in the face.'

'Yes,' her sister agreed. 'But what was it to send him to us in this manner?'

'He was taunting us,' Nyreni admitted.

'Yes,' Isaah replied, nodding. 'And now he will be furious, but he will not dare raise arms.'

'Will we admit this Rathish man to our presence again?'

'Absolutely not. Never,' insisted Isaah, shaking her head violently.

'He will not stop being an Undying One for that,' Nyreni observed. 'The first born in our lifetime.'

'No,' agreed her sister. 'It is an ill thing. I will not see Rath regain the influence we have fought so hard to wrestle from them.'

'Chancellor Vaczir?'

Isaah was nodding, deep in thought. 'Yes, we must strengthen our alliance with Kassua.'

Nyreni smiled to herself. You rage and plot, my sister. But what a thing it is to see a new face that I know will be forever. That will not blur to nothing like the endless stream of humanity I have seen perish and fade from even my memory.

She looked at the volume of poetry in her hands. She stroked it. Her fingers remembered the texture of the cover. And she remembered that one hundred and one years earlier she had met a young man in the palace gardens.

A past encounter

Niisi City, Eastern Realm. 1142 Years After Founding, Eighth Week of Summer.

THE YOUNG MAN WALKED slowly with his hands behind his back, squinting in the sun. It was so very hot. Only here in these gardens, in the whole of Niisi, was there a rich green colour to anything. He thought about his most recent failure with the street vendor. He had excelled in the grammar back home, but now he was in the empire it was like another tongue.

Why do the Jehari speak their own language so poorly?

The young man stopped in the shadow of a fruit tree. It was an unfamiliar kind not native to his homeland of Rath, but the shade of its boughs was welcome all the same. He sighed and turned to lean on the trunk. Only then, did he see the woman. She was standing close, little more than an arm's reach away. In surprise, he nearly missed the tree with his hand and stumbled slightly. He straightened himself up and looked down at her from his full height. The woman was standing with her arms crossed over a book. She had the dark red skin of a native of Jehar. The woman studied him, her eyes moving from his blond hair, to his violet-blushed skin and up to the pink irises of his eyes.

'You are from the south of the western lands,' she announced in Rathish. Her speech was fluent but rich with accent.

'Y-yes,' he stuttered. 'I was born by the Quiet Sea. In the Duchy of Patland.'

His mouth felt very dry suddenly. 'Although I was raised in Israth. The northern duchy.'

'How interesting,' she replied.

It was not clear that she was interested.

The woman would not have been considered a beauty in Rath. Her hips were narrow and her flesh athletic with no hint of the softness a noblewoman should have. Her long white dress was not cut to excite. It fell in a straight line from her armpits to her waist and it flattened her breasts in the Jehari fashion. These facts did not strike the young man. He felt a tightness in his throat and became painfully conscious of the act of breathing.

'Do you not know that the palace gardens are out of bounds to students?'

'I ... no,' he mumbled, 'I did not know.' After a pause he swallowed and spoke in Jehari. 'But had I known that such a beautiful Jehari flower blossomed here, I would have dared to enter just the same.'

The woman looked around at the plant beds with puzzlement for a long moment. She suddenly broke into a smile.

'Ah, I have been touched by the famous silver tongue of Rath.'

'Would that ...'

He closed his mouth.

'What is it?' she said with curiosity.

'No matter,' he replied, looking down at his feet. He saw her feet too. Hers were bare.

'Tell me what you were going to say,' she insisted.

'I was ...,' he said, looking up and catching her eyes, 'I was about to say ... would that this tongue could have that privilege.'

The young man blushed and looked down at their feet again.

She stared at him. 'You are very much out of your depth, I think.' After a long moment her face curled in a smile. 'Come. Let me show you the gardens. It shall be a small act of rapprochement between our realms.'

The woman took hold of his arm and led him out under the pummelling fist of the sun.

'You should take this opportunity to memorize the garden. If you enter again I will invoke the full penalty and have your eyes gouged out with hot pincers.'

He looked sideways at her quickly. She was not smiling.

'You are joking?'

'In Jehar,' she replied, 'it is considered rude to ask if someone is joking.'

He swallowed and followed her lead, his skin tingling with the heat and the closeness of her.

'Tell me,' she asked, 'have you had the opportunity to travel widely in Jehar?'

'No, my lady,' he replied. 'I arrived at the University but days ago.'

'You must,' she insisted warmly. 'Do see Laahi and the Living Lake. And visit the provincial capitals of Psahas and Josrat.'

'If you recommend them I shall,' he replied earnestly, before hesitating. 'If ... if it is safe for one of my race?'

The woman sighed. 'I cannot vouch for that.'

The young man raised his chin as they walked. 'I am excellent with a blade. I shall risk it nonetheless.'

'I am sure,' she replied, swallowing a smile.

They fell into a brief silence. The young man racked his thoughts for something to say.

'In Psahas,' he ventured, 'I hear that they do not call themselves Jehari.'

He felt her tense. A glance risked at her face showed her jaw set firmly.

'We are an empire,' she replied. 'An empire cannot please everybody. I am sure it is much the same in the Rath lands.'

'No, my lady,' he replied. 'In Rath, nobody is pleased with the government.'

Her eyes smiled first and it spread to her mouth. 'Is that so?'

'But at least we are free,' he added.

The woman's smile faded. 'How sweet of you to think so. Freedom is such a quaint fiction of you people.'

After a circuit of the inner garden, they arrived at a large fountain. The stone was white and flecked with quartz. A jet of water spurted out from the centre, rising above the height of their heads.

'Come,' said the woman.

She sat at a bench made of the same stone as the fountain and motioned for him to sit beside her. The woman observed him staring at the plume of water rising in the centre and cascading down into the basin.

'It is Kassuan wrought,' she explained. 'A reservoir in the hills supplies the water in pipes beneath the soil. The spill over the edge of the fountain,'–she indicated where the water was overflowing–'is caught in a trough which irrigates the whole garden.'

'It is remarkable,' he said with admiration.

'Without it this garden could not exist. Not in this place, not in Niisi City.'

He turned his head and dared to look at her closely. 'I am glad that it does.'

The woman raised a condescending eyebrow. 'Is this to be some attempt at flattery again?'

'No,' he replied frowning. 'It just reminds me of home.'

'Ah,' she said. 'I have never seen the Rath lands. I was invited once, but ... well, I did not go.'

'You declined?'

'Yes,' she replied. 'I could not leave my family.'

'That is a loss for Rath.'

She leaned slightly towards him. 'You think so?'

'Indeed,' he said ardently.

She sighed. 'You are too young for me, boy.'

He flushed. 'I meant no offence, my lady.'

A spark of anger lit him. 'But I am twenty-two,' he insisted, 'and you can be but a handful of years older.'

She laughed with genuine amusement, but behind that there was something almost crazed. 'But a handful of years,' she replied, shaking her head. 'But a handful.'

He stood up from the bench and turned to face her. 'You mock me. I think it unfair.'

He bowed stiffly. 'I bid you farewell, my lady.'

The woman sighed and raised a palm to stay him. She then put her hands under her thighs, sitting on her fingers.

'I have offended you,' she said regretfully, grasping the grass of the lawn with her bare toes. 'It was not my intention. It is only that I am your senior by not a handful of years, but a handful of centuries.'

The young man's mouth opened and he stumbled back against the fountain. He regained his balance and his face took on a stricken look.

'Y-Your E-Excellency,' he managed to stutter, 'I humbly beg your pardon. Hot pincers would be too good for me.'

She laughed. 'Quite right. What is your name? We will need it for the torturer.'

'Yerik.'

'I am Nyreni.'

He blinked at the name, the weight it carried with it almost crushing him. How can this be?

'It has been a pleasure meeting you, Yerik,' she said rising to her feet. 'But you would do well to leave quickly and avoid my sister. If the guards challenge you as you depart, tell them that I order them not to kill you.'

Is she joking once more?

'I will, Your Excellency,' he replied hesitantly.

She began to walk away.

'Wait,' the young man called out.

She turned back, her face hard. 'Do not command me,