close enough for a soft kiss.
“Smile for me,” he whispered, drawing away fractionally.
“Why? What good news could you possibly have to make me smile?”
Still keeping her hand locked in his, Maximilian drew back enough so he could study her face. StarWeb was an Icarii, one of the race of bird people who had once ruled over the land of Tencendor to the west. StarWeb had also been one of the elite among the Icarii, a powerful Enchanter who could manipulate the magic of the Star Dance. But then Tencendor had descended into chaos, the ruling SunSoar family had imploded into tragedy; the Star Gate, through which the Icarii Enchanters drew the power of the Star Dance, had been destroyed. Tencendor itself vanished into the waters of the Widowmaker Sea, taking all its peoples into doom.
But not quite all its peoples. Caelum SunSoar, who had ruled the land in its final years, had maintained strong diplomatic ties with both Coroleas and the continent over the Widowmaker Sea. During the final wars that had destroyed Tencendor, almost five thousand Icarii had been scattered about Coroleas and the eastern continent. More had joined them before the final cataclysm. Currently, StarWeb had told Maximilian, there was an expatriate community of almost six thousand Icarii scattered about the lands surrounding the Widowmaker Sea, as well as the Central Kingdoms. There were at least six hundred living in Escator alone.
The Icarii may have kept their lives, but the Enchanters among them had lost all their power, and Maximilian well knew from his relationship with StarWeb what that had cost them. It wasn’t so much the power they resented losing, but the constant touch of the Star Dance, without which, StarWeb had once confided to him, their lives were but pale reflections of what had once been.
Maximilian pulled StarWeb closer again, and kissed her a little more lingeringly. They had been lovers for some months now, their relationship based almost entirely on a sexual bond rather than an emotional one, which suited Maximilian well, although he often wondered about StarWeb. He knew she disliked the fact he kept their trysts secret.
StarWeb pulled away. “What do you want, Maxel?”
He sighed. “To talk, to share some companionship. To make love, if you want. I don’t want to be alone tonight.”
She shrugged, moving deeper into the chamber, running a hand lightly over a table, then the back of a chair, folding her wings close in against her body — a sure sign that she remained annoyed with him.
“Is it only kings who want companionship completely on their terms, Maxel?”
“You’re in a bad mood tonight.”
She swung about to look at him. “That’s because I hate it, Maxel, that I always come whenever you deign to open that window.”
“I’m sorry, StarWeb. I am not what you need.”
She studied that statement for any hint of sarcasm, and then decided the apology was genuine. “So what’s up, Maxel? You’re tense. Worried about something.”
“I’ve been offered a bride.”
StarWeb burst into laughter, her expression relaxing back into that of a delighted girl. “Well done, then! Are you going to take this one?”
“She’s been offered to me by the Coil.”
All StarWeb’s amusement vanished. “I’ve heard of them.”
“And not liked what you have heard, most apparently.”
“You are truly considering taking a priestess of the Coil to your bed? As a wife?”
“She’s not a priestess, merely a ward taken in after a plague wiped out her family and half the population of the Outlands. And she comes with wealth that Escator could well use.”
“Oh, well. That makes it all right then.”
“I don’t need that sarcasm, StarWeb. If I was merely Maximilian Persimius, I would have winced and torn up the offer into a thousand pieces. But I am King of Escator as well, and with that comes a responsibility to my people. Escator needs that wealth.”
“So shall you meet with her?”
He hesitated, then gave a nod. “Eventually, but —”
“But you want something from me first.”
“I trust you, StarWeb. I trust your perception. I need someone to act as an emissary between me and the Coil. I need someone to meet her, and tell me what they think. Will we suit each other? Is she good enough for me to forget her association with the Coil?” He gave a shame-faced grin. “And I need someone who can do all this relatively quickly. This is not a decision I wish to linger over.”
“Would you like me also to take her to bed, and see if she suits your needs?”
Maximilian smiled. “Would you?”
StarWeb laughed then, and the mood between them relaxed. The Icarii Enchanter walked over to Maximilian, running her hands slowly over his naked upper body, her fingers tracing the outlines of the scars left from his time in the Veins, kissing his neck slowly as she spoke. “How fortunate you are that I am not a jealous woman.”
He took her face between gentle hands. “I am well aware how fortunate I am in you, StarWeb, and also well aware that I use you unmercifully. Whatever you want from me, you have it.”
Your love? she wondered, and then discarded the thought. There had never been any expectation of love on either of their parts.
“Just you,” she whispered. “For an hour or two tonight, so I can forget all I have lost.”
While Maximilian lay with StarWeb, Vorstus sat at a table in his locked chamber in a distant part of the palace. On the table before him sat a small glass pyramid, about the height of a man’s hand. It pulsated gently with soft rosy light, and its depths showed a man of ascetic appearance in late middle age who revealed, as he reached up a hand to rub thoughtfully at his nose, a serpent tattoo writhing up his forearm.
“Has Maximilian looked at the map yet?” said the man whose image showed within the pyramid.
“No, my Lord Lister,” said Vorstus. “If he had I am sure I would have heard the screech from here.”
Lister smiled. “Will he be ready, do you think?”
“He had seventeen years battling the darkness in the Veins, my lord,” said Vorstus. “He won’t like it, but when he is needed, then, yes, I believe he will step forward. How goes the Lady Ishbel?”
“Resigning herself to marriage. She, also, will step forward when needed.”
“If only she knew who had caused that plague to strike her family home in Margalit, my lord. Then perhaps she might not be so ready to ‘step forward’.”
“Don’t threaten me,” Lister said. “Besides, what will Maximilian say, eh, when he learns who it was whispered to Cavor the plan to imprison him in the gloam mines for such a mighty length of time?”
“We have all done what was needed.”
“Ah,
