“Come forward,” said The Guardian, his girlish voice cracking in an attempt to be deep and commanding.
Ginna didn’t know what to do. Court etiquette was wholly strange to him. He had never spoken to a guardian in public before, or even with any noble lord.
He fell on his knees, keeping his eyes to the floor.
“You may kiss my hand,” said Kaemen. “Yes, Ginna, I know who you are. They say you are magical and were sent to bewitch me when I was a child.”
“Oh no! I wouldn’t—I could never do that—Dread Lord!”
“Of course you couldn’t. But you tried and you failed. Now it amuses me to see what you will do next”
“Holy One! I would never do anything. I didn’t! Please forgive me!” Ginna desperately hoped he had said the right things. Apparently he had.
“You may kiss my hand and look upon my face. Consider yourself greatly honored.”
Hastily he made one of the few court gestures he knew, that of Blessing Received, and to be sure he repeated it twice more. Then he raised his head, and took Kaemen’s sweaty, soft hand in his own and touched it to his lips.
The Guardian was doing his best to look on impassively, to demonstrate that this inferior did not concern him one way or the other, but he could not completely hide his astonishment when he noticed that Ginna wore Tharanodeth’s ring. And Ginna could not fail to see that flash of pure hatred on his face, even though he recovered almost at once.
Kaemen’s eyes were blue voids, revealing nothing.
The whole of the day and much of the evening were filled with the coronation of the new guardian and the funeral of the old. Countless rituals had to be observed, and officials, called Masters of the Act, oversaw each with scrupulous care. Kaemen alone was able to descend into a certain vault, while his attendants sang a hymn which could never be sung on any other occasion and were accompanied by instruments which could accompany no other song. He was the only one who could bring forth a certain reliquary containing a splinter of bone of The Goddess, and of all the living he alone among them was permitted to touch the inestimably holy corpse of his predecessor, to open the mouth, place the reliquary within, and close it again. This one act, with all its prayers, pauses at preordained stations, and pantomime re-enactments of the highlights of Tharanodeth’s reign, took hours.
Ginna was relieved that The Guardian let him go on his way after that first encounter. He watched the proceedings from a tree at the back of the crowd. The whole population of Ai Hanlo was present, this being the only time when the folk of the lower city were allowed within the forbidden precincts. He had never imagined there could be so many people alive in one place.
Tharanodeth lay on his bier with his travelling cloak wrapped about him, his death-staff in his hand, and his walking shoes on his feet. And yet Ginna knew that his friend had departed the previous night and was already well along his final, perhaps endless road.
He was left behind with his only remaining friend, Amaedig, and with Kaemen, who might be ignoring him for the moment, but had certainly not forgotten him.
CHAPTER 3
The Bright Hope
As far as Kaemen was concerned, what was wrong with the world was that there were so many disgusting people in it. Vile, obnoxious, stupid, every one of them. And then there were the lesser sort—soldiers, servants, common folk. They were just beasts, animals, oafs. Oh, they could give you the time of day and blather about trivia, but they were animals nonetheless.
“Yes, my lord,” this and “Yes, my lord” that. They knew how to grovel, which was only proper, but they didn’t mean it He knew they all hated him. They were out to see him dead. He was sure of it. They had been working against him for a long time.
His earliest memories were of screaming for food or when he’d wet himself in his cradle, and the idiot nurses wouldn’t come. He’d screamed himself hoarse. It was amazing, he told himself when he was older, that he had any voice left at all.
His idea of a perfect world was one in which everybody was dead except himself, and there weren’t even any squawking crows to peck those millions of eyes out Just rotting corpses—no, just bones. He would stroll among them and kick the skulls around like balls, and then pause, and his laughter would shatter the silence.
Anything would be an improvement over what he had to live with. Once he had come back from spending an hour in the cemetery, contemplating the way things should be, when a veritable army of nurses surrounded him, fluttering like silly birds.
“Oh there you are, little one!” they said. “You shouldn’t wander off like that. You mustn’t get yourself dirty playing among those ghastly gravestones. Ugh! The slime and the mold. You’ll get them into your brain if you don’t take care of yourself. Come away now. It’s time for your bath. Scrubba-dub-dub, won’t that be fun?”
He wanted to say that perhaps there was something to be said for slime and mold after all, but didn’t. They dragged him into the palace, past sneering, snickering priests and courtiers, and they even stopped to talk to that sanctimonious asshole he had for a father. (“Oh, he’s been out in the dirt again, Holy Lord, and isn’t he a morbid child; I don’t know what to do with him, and if he were not your son I’d say—I mean it’s his nature, but—”
“You must be patient with him,” said Tharanodeth, but of course he didn’t mean it, the smiling hypocrite.) When they got him into his own chamber (That other boy, who had all the personality of a flowerpot, was across the hall babbling and juggling balls of light) they peeled off his soiled clothing, stirred the bathwater to foam up the soap, and lowered him in.
It was cold! He shrieked and kicked and bit one of the women on the hand until she screamed. They were trying to freeze him with that accursed water, then drown him under the suds. Cold!
“Now, now,” cooed one of the nurses. The water wouldn’t have gotten cold if you hadn’t run off like that. We couldn’t find you.”
“Who brought it? Who?”
“You know who. The two big, strong men who always do. Konduwaine and Tiboth.”
“Then it’s their fault Kill them!”
All the nurses stood back in surprise. He took the opportunity to leap out of the tub. His naked body was already turning blue. He was shaking all over.
“Kill them! Kill them! Kill them!” He grabbed a stool by one leg and banged it against the floor until the leg broke off. He brandished the leg like a sword. “I want them dead! Throw them in the furnace and bum them up. If I can’t be warm, they’ll be very warm.”
“Little Lord,’ said one of the women. “We can’t do that. It isn’t right.”
He remembered who he was and stood up straight, trying to cut a commanding figure. Even young as he was, he knew how ridiculous he looked. For years afterwards he played the scene over again in his mind, multiplying the indignities he had suffered.
“I shall be guardian one day,” he said. “I am only a little child now, but when I grow up, unless you do what I say, I shall flay you alive! Go!”
He waved his arms and made a face. They all
