Into The Darkness

He felt no humiliation. The guards were doing their duty. He would have been angry - and King Swemmel angrier - had they let him go through unchallenged. "Pass on, sir," one of them said at length.

Rathar spent another moment adjusting his tunic, then strode into the audience chamber. In the presence of the king of Unkerlant, his stern reserve crumbled. "Your Majesty!" he cried. "I rejoice to be allowed to come into your presence!" He cast himself down on his hands and knees, knocking his forehead against the strip of green carpet that led to the throne on which King Swemmel sat.

Any chair on which Swemmel sat was by definition a throne, since it contained the king's fundament. This one, while gilded, was far less spectacular than the bejeweled magnificence of the one of the Grand Hall of Kings (Rathar reckoned that one insufferably gaudy, another secret he held close).

"Rise, Marshal," Swemmel said. His voice was rather high and thin.

Rathar got to his feet and honored the king yet again, this time with a low bow. Swemmel was in his late forties, a few years younger than his marshal. For an Unkerlanter's, his features were long and lean and angular; his hairline, which retreated toward the crown of his head, accentuated that impression.

What hair he had left was dark - these days, probably dyed to stay so.

But for that, he looked more like an Algarvian than a typical Unkerlanter.

The first kings in Unkerlant, down in what was now the Duchy of Grelz, had been of Algarvic blood. Algarvic bandits, most likely, the marshal thought. But those dynasties were long extinct, often at one another's hands. And Swemmel was an Unkerlanter through and through - he just did didn't look like one. Rathar shook his head, clearing away irrelevancies. He couldn't afford them, not dealing with his sovereign. "How may I serve you, your Majesty?" he asked.

Swemmel folded his arms across his chest. His robe was gorgeous with cloth-of-gold. Pearls and emeralds and rubles caught the light and winked at Rathar one after another as the king moved. "You know we have con_ cluded a truce with Arpad of Gyongyos," Swemmel. said. The we was purely royal - the king had done it on his own.

"Aye, your Majesty, I know that," Rathar said. Swemmel had fought a savage little war with the Gongs over territory that, in the marshal's view, wasn't worth having in the first place. He'd fought it with great determination, as if the rocks and ice in the far west, land only a mountain ape could love, were stuffed to bursting with rich farms and quicksilver mines. And then, after all the lives and treasure spent, he'd thrown over the war with no gains to speak of Swemmel was a law unto himself

He said, "We have found another employment for our soldiers, one that suits us better."

"And that is, your Majesty?" Rathar asked cautiously. It might have been anything from starting another war to helping with the harvest to gathering seashells by the shore. With Swemmel, there was no way to ten beforehand.

"Gyongyos is far from the only realm that wronged us during our recent difficulties," Swemmel said, adding with a scowl, "Had the nurse maids been efficient, Kyot would have known from birth we were the one destined for greatness. His destiny would have been the headsman's axe either way, but he would have spared the kingdom much turmoil had he recognized it sooner."

"Aye, your Majesty," Rathar said. He had no way of knowing whether Swemmel or Kyot was the elder of the twins born to their mother. He'd Joined the one army rather than the other because

Swemmel's impressers passed through his village before Kyot's could get to it. He'd been an officer within months, and a colonel by the time the

Twinkings War ended.

What would he be now, had Kyot dragged him into the fight instead?

Dead, most likely, in one unpleasant way or another.

Again, he cleared might-have-beens from his mind. Dealing with what was gave him trouble aplenty. "Is it now your will, your Majesty, to turn our might against Zuwayza? The provocations along the border they have offered" - he knew perfectly well that Unkerlant had offered them, but saying so was not done - "give us every reason for punishing them, and-" Swemmel made a sharp, chopping gesture. Rathar fell silent and bowed his head. He had misread the king, always dangerous to do.

Swemmel said, "We can punish the Zuwayzin whenever we like, as we can resume the war with Gyongyos whenever we like. More efficient to strike where the opportunity will not come round again so soon. We aim to lay Forthweg low."

"Ahh," Rathar said, and nodded. No one could tell what Swemmel would come up with next. A lot of people had guessed wrong over the years. Not many of them were still breathing. Most of those who did survive were refugees. Anywhere within Unkerlant, Swemmel could - and did - reach.