Chapter 15

If Keritanima would have filled the Hall of the Sun with gunpowder and thrown in a torch, she could not have produced a more disruptive effect on court.

Keritanima was only nineteen years old, but she had a keen understanding of her own people's basic motivations and patterns. She knew that though most of them didn't know a great deal about the Firestaff, their inherent curiosity about the chaos going on in Sennadar would have motivated most of them to look into it. Wikuni were sailors, but they were also a race of merchants, and one couldn't make a profit unless one had an ear to the current events of the marketplace. That inquiry would generate some excitement--after all, who wouldn't get excited about the idea of some mystical artifact with the power to turn someone into a god?--and that excitement would provoke more study. And just like the humans, many of the noble houses had worked up rudimentary plans to find the Firestaff, or track down the person who finally did and take it from him before the appointed day. That first day of eavesdropping on court had told her just how much of a topic the Firestaff was among the noble circles, taking a very close second seat to the intrigue surrounding the throne. Her idea to use the Firestaff as a pot-stirrer seemed to her to be the simplest, easiest, and most logical way to go about whipping everyone up into a frenzy. It was so simple, she had kicked herself repeatedly for quite a while for not thinking of it sooner.

As she expected, her written message had been intercepted, spies had spied on the spies who intercepted it, and the meeting between Lizelle and Keritanima had become common knowledge. As she expected, more than one set of unfriendly ears was present in the Dancing Swan when Keritanima and Lizelle had their meeting.

And as she expected, the only thing anyone could talk about now was just what Keritanima knew.

This in itself wasn't the lit match to blow up the gunpowder. That came exactly ten days later, in the form of twenty- nine identical letters. Each one went out to the heads of the other twenty-nine noble houses, and all twenty nine said the very same thing. That she was afraid that her father would force her to divulge that information, and if he did, then he would be both king and god. She made no overt mention that the house should strike against her father. She made no requests or demands. She simply noted her fears to the others.

During those ten days waiting for the right time to send out the letters, Keritanima wandered absently around court, talking to nobody, but seeing the eyes following her and the murmurs that shifted to furious whispering when she approached or as she left. When not in court, she spent her time in the Royal Library, looking through some of the antique books her father had collected over the years. Two of them were Sha'Kar tomes, and she played again at cracking the Sha'Kar written language half- heartedly. She knew she was being watched, and her interest in deadlanguage books only fueled the firestorm she had created. Both of those books disappeared out of the library the day after she looked through them, but she couldn't really say who had stolen them. Half of Wikuna had their eyes on her at any given time.

The other thing that had occupied her mind during that time, crept in on her during lulls of eavesdropping or study, was Rallix. The badger had known! That simple fact kept creeping back into her mind over and over again, not allowing her to forget it or put it aside. He had known her secret, known it for four years, and had done nothing to give her away. Just like Miranda, he had worked with her to perpetrate the game, but she hadn't known it at the time. She had never really thought much about Rallix. He was someone who seemed always in the background, going about his job with a quiet efficiency that kept Lizelle's life simple and easy to manage. And yet he had known who she really was, and done nothing to give her away. Why? Why, for the gods' sake? He had no personal motivation to keep her secret and work with her to continue it, but he had. To be honest, it would have been better for him to turn her in, because Wikuni law would have passed the trading company to him, being her legal partner in the venture. All he'd had to do was open his mouth, and he would have been one very rich Wikuni. But he didn't.

It drove her crazy every time she thought about it. He had no personal feelings for her aside from their business relationship. She had never treated him as anything more than an employee. There was no logical or illogical reasoning for his loyalty to her, and yet he had demonstrated just as much loyalty to her as Miranda or Binter or Sisska did. In his own ways, Rallix had been just as indespensible to her as Ulfan was, and just like Ulfan, he was always there when she needed her, and he never let her down. And there was no reason for him to have that much loyalty! It was maddening! The more she thought about it, the more agitated she got. Personally, she rather liked Rallix. He was calm, measured, sharp as a tack, and had an almost unnatural nose for turning a profit. Those very properties that made her hire him had allowed him to discover the truth about his employer, most likely. Very little got past Rallix. But her feelings for him had no bearing on how Lizelle treated him, and they certainly didn't explain his irritatingly strong loyalty to her and her cause.

There just was no real answer to that. She forced herself to put it aside to deal with more important matters, but it always managed to just peek in her when her mind wasn't engaged on something else.

The stress of the situation showed plainly on her father's face in court after the letters were delivered. He just couldn't stop staring at her. She knew he knew that she sent those letters out, so he was probably the only one that realized that her information was probably a red herring, meant only to cause him problems. But he had no proof. And he absolutely couldn't risk the chance that she really did know the location of the Firestaff. Like so many others, her father wanted it, and he wanted it badly. He hadn't been in a position to send sages or searchers to find it because her earlier round of assassinations had created such a mess that he had to devote all his attention to keeping his throne. But now the possibility that Keritanima held the most vital information in the world at that moment hung over him like a pall, and every time he looked at her, she just turned to the side and patted her back gingerly. A sign, that because he had her flogged, she wasn't going to so much as give him the time of day. Because he had dug his own grave with her, he hadn't attempted to speak to her since the meeting, since that first day in court. That was part reservation, and part good healthy fear. Damon Eram was terrified of being in a position where she could kill him with a minimum of witnesses to eliminate, and that kept her safe from any kind of personal audiences where he would grill her for what she knew. He was probably debating just how to approach her to force her to tell him one way or the other if she really did know, and do it without getting himself killed. And if she did know anything, to drag that information out of her. But his problem was that he couldn't devote enough attention to that problem and keep a grip on his own throne. He was being pressed from all sides at once, and it took all his devotion to stave off being removed before he could find anything out.

The only way to get that information was holed up in her apartment. Miranda, Binter, and Azakar had all but barricaded themselves in her apartment, and she personally delivered all food and drink to them. She had ten Royal Guards in place at that door at all times to protect her friends, and feeling that a little magical assurance was needed with the number of priests who sold their services in Wikuna, she placed a powerful Ward on the door that would kill anyone who touched it other than her and her other companions. She wouldn't allow them to put themselves in a position where someone would kidnap one of them. Miranda, actually, since Azakar or Binter could eradicate anything but an army of kidnappers. Anytime Miranda went out, she had both of them with her to protect her. Binter argued about that for nearly two days, until Keritanima promised not to leave her room any time Miranda went out, and to have the guards on her door doubled. The move placed her inside the capable protection afforded by the Royal Guard, and also gave her the added protection of the Ward of her own Sorcery. Binter trusted the Royal Guard, because they guarded the throne, not the monarch. Keritanima, as heir, would be defended by them as fanatically as they would defend the King himself.

There was only one attempt to abduct Miranda, and it ended in disaster for the attackers. They sent twenty men to overpower her towering bodyguards and kidnap her, but Binter and Azakar showed the ruffians why their race and order were honored and respected the world over as some of the most effective, efficient, and best fighting men in the world. Binter and his huge Mahuut companion had absolutely annihilated the attackers to the last man. Miranda had not even been touched. They didn't get within five feet of her. The only way to really get to her was by killing Binter and Azakar with guns or crossbows, but the tensions in the Palace had caused the King to decree that only the Royal Guard could carry firearms. That limited everyone else to small starwheel pistols, which simply didn't have enough power to kill either the monstrous Vendari or the heavily armored Mahuut.

The game had had its intended effect. After the letters went out, there were three assassinations of her father's staff, and her father's spies had unravelled one attempt on him, but couldn't pin the plot on anyone of importance. The numbers of spies on her tail diminished, but not enough to suit her. Her father now had a lot to worry about, but the fact that she had played the Firestaff card made him find men to keep on her. She knew that was going to happen, and felt that the increased pressure on her father was worth the extra eyes following her. Her father looked haggard after five days, and the glares and hot looks flew around court like daggers. Everyone was starting to plot against everyone else even more than usual, but they all wanted to get Damon Eram out of the way first, for he was in the best position to get that vital information out of his daughter first. After he was out of the way, they would worry about how to make Keritanima tell them what they wanted to know, but first things first. Damon Eram represented an immediate threat, where Keritanima's knowledge was something they could extract at a more leisurely pace. If worse came to worse, they could simply put tails on the Knights she had summoned from Sulasia.

The rumors, whispers, and general frenzied planning all went up in flames about two weeks after her little game. That night, everything had been normal. But the next morning, all of Wikuna was in chaos. The heads of the fifteen top noble Houses, except house Eram and house Zalan, were found dead. Every ranking member of her father's council of advisors, military officers, and top aides, except for the Chamberlain, were all dead. And finally, several shady types in the city, heads of thieves' guilds and assassins and underground societies, were also found dead. In one fell swoop, the ruling minds of about three quarters of the city's political factions had all been wiped out, leaving the new noble heads to pick up the pieces.

Ulfan's men were quiet, they were efficient, and they were punctual. She had ordered all the murders to occur on the same night, and he had come through for her in spectacular fashion. They did not miss a single name.

Court that morning was eventful. It was full of frightened yammering, fierce whispering, and glares in every direction. Her father didn't even show up, so she knew that he was very busy trying to find out what in the nine hells happened. Because not just her father's men were killed, it made Keritanima a much less likely suspect. After all, she had nothing against the heads of the noble houses, no reason to really kill them. Her fight was with her father, and almost everyone felt that she still had no real intention of taking the throne. They saw her as much smarter than they thought, true, but still the image of the Brat clung to her, making them think that she was acting out of pure emotion. That getting her father was more important than the throne that would pass to her afterwards, and which would make her much easier to get off of it than Damon Eram had been. She had never shown an interest in the crown, even after they knew that she was smarter than they thought. Indeed, they all knew that she had done everything she did to get out of taking the throne. If her father was out of the way, they all felt she'd either abdicate or end up getting the army to turn against her, which would allow some other noble house to step in and forcibly take the throne from her.

Her killings had fulfilled three key objectives. Firstly, it would put even more pressure on her father. Secondly, it softened up every noble house in a position to harm her after she had the throne, and laid the seeds that would be added to her other little plots to turn them against one another when she did have the crown. Thirdly, the murders of the higher-ranking thieves would turn the dark men whom the nobles hired to do their dirty work inside out. The effect of that wouldn't be felt until one of them tried to hire an assassin, and would find all the guilds in wars of succession. The underworld would be too busy settling who owned what street to hire out men to stick daggers into overfed milksops for the rich people. The only guild left that was large enough to handle such contracting was Ulfan's, and he had already promised her that he wouldn't hire out to anyone that had designs on her. It created an extra layer of protection for her, allowing the nobles to try to kill each other but not allowing them to try to get at her or her friends.

A day of overhearing had convinced her that the plan had been a smashing success. None of the noble houses were organized enough to do anything against her, but the plans they'd made concerning her father, made before the murders of the noble heads, were still there and still in motion. Nobody thought she was behind it, though there was enough speculation to make her consider defenses in case it was tracked back to her. It had seriously undercut her father, who was still reeling from the last round of assassinations that had killed off his best men. She had gotten everyone else this time, leaving him with very little support and very few seasoned advisors.

And because so many people from so many widely varied factions were all killed on the same night, everyone pointed their fingers at everyone else.

It was an atmosphere of truly delicious insanity. Keritanima moved through it that next morning with the calm of a sashka dancer, standing in the eye of the political hurricane she had conjured up. She saw it on all sides, from the smallest noble house to the largest, even in the wild stares from Jenawalani. They all just knew that someone very high in the chain had to have arranged it, and since so few suspected Keritanima, that turned all those accusing stares in Jenawalani's direction. Jenawalani was that high up, and she was well known to be a very good player of intrigue. She had also been there the whole time, something Keritanima had not done, been there and had her ear to the ground to know who, how, and when to strike to arrange so many consecutive killings. Something like mass murder fell in with her elemental style of doing things, taught to her by Damon Eram, so it made her a much more likely suspect than her older sister. Jenawalani spent that morning and afternoon in damage control, trying to insure that nobody thought she did it strongly enough to come after her. By nightfall, Jenawalani was doing the same thing Keritanima was doing. She had all but locked herself in her rooms and had Royal Guards protecting her door.

By the time Keritanima returned to her apartments that night, she felt greatly relieved. Now things were ripe for the next phase of the plan. The only real immediate business to take care of was Ulfan's payment. After that, the next campaign would begin, the campaign to send her father over the edge...or at least make everyone think that he did so.

No kingdom wanted an insane monarch on the throne, after all.

It was all part of the plan. She needed the nobility to think that Damon Eram had lost it during the tremendous stress of trying to keep his throne, just as so many thought she had lost it when Sabakimara had all her friends and acquaintances murdered. It was poetic justice as far as she was concerned, her father suffering the same fate that she nearly suffered herself, at least in the eyes of the noblity. The true vengeance in her plan was that Damon Eram would not be mad...only everyone would think that he was. Unable to convince them otherwise, he would scream out his frustration and feel the pain spiral through his mind, see it in the eyes of people who had once respected him, feel it in the whispers that would hush as he approached and continue as he passed.

She wanted him to hurt, and she would hurt him every way she could think of before she finally put him out of his misery.

The idea of letting him live to suffer had started feeling more and more repugnant every day. Part of her liked the idea of him spending a long life in howling fury, but a more primitive part of her wanted him to suffer, then to die. She truly did not know what she would do when the time came to decide her father's fate, and fortunately that was something that she wouldn't have to decide for quite a while. No matter what she did to him in the end, before that end she wanted him to hurt, and hurt, and hurt some more, and he had to be alive to endure that. After she couldn't possibly think of another way to hurt him, then the time would come to judge his fate.

At least in that respect, Keritanima was a pureblooded Eram. She had a vindictive streak in her about ten miles wide. She was quite willing to tear the kingdom apart if it would bring her father the agony she felt he deserved.

But to do that, she had to get close to her father, at least once. She had to see him up close, see him out of his robe. That would usually mean a private audience, but Damon Eram would not bring Keritanima into his presence without a few hundred witnesses around him. The alternative was easy enough to arrange. With her mind weaves and her powers of Illusion, there was nowhere in the Palace she couldn't go. All it took was sneaking in while he was in session with what few advisors he had left. In those more intimate surroundings, her father didn't wear the heavy Royal robe and crown. In those private surroundings, the stress was clearly showing on him. His fur was thinning, stress- induced shedding, and his eyes were milky and somewhat blurry. He sighed a great deal, and moved as if he weighed twice as much as he really did. Seeing him in that degenerated state didn't move her at all. To her, he didn't look bad enough. But she saw all of him she needed to see.

Between the Royal seal she owned, her ability to mimic her father's handwriting, and her ability to create Illusions of her father, she had everything she needed to make everyone think he was going crazy.

The morning after seeing her father was stormy. A savage line of thunderstorms had moved in from the west, dunking Wikuna under a heavy curtain of pounding rain. The skies were dark and gloomy, illuminated only by the occasional flash of lightning. It was a perfect morning to just lay in bed and listen to the thunder and the rain pattering against the glass of her window. Keritanima had always rather liked thunderstorms, finding the droning sound of the rain lulling, only to be shocked to a thrilling state of heightened awareness by the unpredictable flashes of lightning and cracks of thunder. It was a wonderful time to drift in a half-doze, where her mind could drift and ponder, then have her mind brought to reality by a flash of lightning or a peal of thunder, when her musings were bathed in the pure waters of her logical reasoning. It allowed her to think creatively, yet find the merits or flaws of those creative ideas with an ease that escaped her most of the rest of the time.

It was one of the few times she would let down her guard. Keritanima almost always existed in a wary state of tension, and only a very few things could make her completely relax. Being in the presence of her brother and sister was one. Her apartment was another at any other time, when Binter and Sisska protected her and Miranda from the world. But with the very high stakes in the current game she played and the spies looking in from time to time, she couldn't completely relax in her rooms anymore. Only times like that time, with the soothing sounds of the thunderstorm inviting her to take a brief respite from her troubles, allowed her to completely relax and indulge a bit in life's simpler pleasures.

She mused about Rallix. To pay off Ulfan, she had had to go see Rallix. He was all business with her, as usual, but there was something different about him now. He wasn't dealing with Lizelle, he was dealing with Keritanima, and that had a good bit to do with it, she reasoned. But there was something else, something more, something she couldn't quite put a finger on. It teased her, taunted her, nearly mocked her, but no matter how hard she thought about it, she couldn't find anything in his words or his actions to tip her to what it was. Her eidectic memory allowed her to replay the conversation over and over in her head, and she searched her memory of the conversation for any hint at what seemed to nibble at her awareness.

It could have been the setting. For the first time, Keritanima had visited him at home. His modest brownstone was a reflection of his personality, orderly, practially furnished, immaculately clean, and decorated with an understated elegance that told the viewer of the complexity of the man who lived there. Rallix lived in that four story brownstone in the more affluent part of the city alone, without even servants, keeping his house clean on his own. He had brought her back into his parlor after she knocked on the door, giving her a chance to look around as he went to get some wine for her. He had been reading a book called Multipantheonic Theology in the Technological Age. A strange book for a merchant, a book so selective and technical that he had to have a wider educational background than she first thought. Few would read it. Fewer still would understand anything in it. She had no idea what it was about, and that was why a copy of it was sitting on her nightstand the next morning. It had been an exceptionally deep book debating the role of the gods in a world where man and Wikuni both developed machines that would lessen the world's need for magic and for the aid of the gods. It was a stunningly deep book, and its conclusions were quite thought-provoking.

After he returned, she tried to be brief. She asked him to deliver up the other forty thousand in trade bars to Ulfan, through a front that would act as a go- between. She had arranged that before going to see him. But Rallix seemed reluctant to stick firmly to business, asking her about her time in Sennadar, about the Tower, and about her experiences there. She had been suspicious about his motives--Keritanima didn't trust anyone well enough to answer questions like that-but she kept realizing that it was Rallix who was asking. He already knew enough secrets to bury her.

"Why would you want to know that?" she had demanded of him after he asked.

"Because you've changed a great deal since you left, Highness," he had told her in that calm voice of his and those steady eyes. "Most of it was for the better, if you don't mind my saying so."

She had thought about it for a moment before replying. "To put it shortly, I learned about Sorcery, I found good friends, and I did my best to keep from coming back here."

"I read somewhere that the Sorcerers have a patron goddess. Is that true?" he had asked.

"Of course it is," she told him.

"Nobody knows her name," he had remarked to her.

"And nobody will," she had replied immediately. "The name of the Goddess is known only by people who learn about Sorcery, and we're not allowed to tell."

"What's to stop you?"

"We had to swear an oath," she told him bluntly. "Part of it was not to reveal the name of the Goddess."

"From what I remember of Lizelle and what I know of Keritanima, she wouldn't be very sincere about that oath," Rallix had said. "You don't hold much candle for the gods. You've told me so yourself."

And that had been what was really annoying her about the entire conversation. Why would he choose that topic? And what had possibly motivated her response? "Well, the old Keritanima didn't, but I do," she had replied to him after a moment. It had been a statement right from the heart, tumbling from her lips of its own accord.

It had been something of an epiphany for her, something that she hadn't realized until that morning.

She wasn't as agnostic as she thought she was.

She had known in her heart that the Goddess had been communicating with her, but she wouldn't admit to it to herself. It had been the Goddess that had sent her the dream, the dream that told her that Tarrin was going to be alright. She knew it was a divine visitation, but she had tried to convince herself otherwise. Always before, Keritanima had been angry at the gods--all of them-because of the horrid conditions of her own life, and the very frightening world in which she lived. She figured that they didn't care about the world if they allowed young girls to get killed over nothing more than friendship. But then things changed. She had seen evidence of a caring god when Tarrin got help from the Goddess. She had tried to discount that, but it had wormed its way into her mind and heart. And then she had the dream, a direct act by the Goddess that did nothing more than soothe her frenzied fear for her brother. She had no real reason to do that, no ulterior motives. The Goddess had calmed her worries for no reason other than to make her feel better.

For the first time, Keritanima realized that a god cared about her.

The tiny seed that had been inside her had bloomed at that simple revelation. It wasn't the undying devotion that priests held for their gods, or the gentle love and willing sense of duty that Tarrin had for the Goddess. It was more of a softening of her heart for the goddess of the Sorcerers, an invitation to be wooed into a more formal relationship. She acknowledged the Goddess now, acknowledged her as the only god that Keritanima would come close to worshipping or following. A god that Keritanima could get to know better.

Keritanima needed the drifting lull of the storm to help her sort out all her chaotic thoughts and feelings. In just a couple of days, she had set Wikuna on its ear, had been dumbfounded by Rallix, and had had a theological revelation. Intense curiosity over Rallix had started to mingle with stray thoughts about her new relationship with the Goddess, whose symbol Keritanima wore around her neck. Those thoughts were interrupted by plans for the future, plans that were dark and rather nasty, and not at all suitable to share space with the gentler thoughts of Rallix and the Goddess.

Rallix. What a mystery that thin badger was! Her thoughts of him had only grown more intense after their meeting at his house. He was so much more than she first thought him to be. Smart, clever, well educated, urbane, well-mannered, and he was also witty and had a subtle sense of humor. For the first time in her entire life, she had started entertaining slightly unwholesome thoughts about a man. And that man was Rallix. She had never allowed herself to think about things like that before, mainly because she would never allow herself to get into a position where a man could have any power over her. Her life was just too precarious to allow any weakness.

It was the mystery. He wasn't the man she thought he was, and because he had kept her secret for so long, it allowed her to develop enough trust in him to see him as something other than a potential enemy, spy, or snitch. That had to be it. She finally had found a man that had enough foundation in her mind to allow her to think about him in the ways young girls thought about men. The fact that he was cute had no bearing on that. Not one bit. Not even an inkling of a bit.

Well, maybe a little.

She found that she wanted to know more about him. He was a mystery, and her mind adored mysteries. The idea of discovering the real man beneath the shadowy image she had created of him in her mind piqued her interest. She only knew that he was about thirty, he was unmarried, and had never really talked about women or girlfriends. Then again, Lizelle didn't brook such superfluous chitchat when she was there to conduct business. The difference in their ages didn't really bother her; actually, since she was so much more mature than other women her age, an older man was more suited for her. Rallix himself was very mature for his age, possessing a business sense that was almost unnatural in one so young. They were well matched, she noticed with just a little bit of a smile. Being an intelligent woman, she wanted the same quality in a man, someone that could speak to her on her own level, challenge her mind, keep her from getting bored. Rallix seemed to be up to the task. Just the pleasure of uncovering his mystery would keep her greatly entertained.

It was all so new to her. She had Wikuna thrashing about at the end of her leash, she discovered feelings for a god, and now she found she was starting to notice a man. And not just any man, the only man in Wikuna that was the right combination of the right things to make her notice him.

The powerful attraction she had discovered for the man worried her. He was so, so distracting. She couldn't afford any distractions at the moment, because what she was doing was very delicate and very dangerous. The idea was to distract her father, not herself! But thoughts of Rallix just wouldn't go away. They just seemed to get worse. It seemed almost embarassing that someone with a mind as highly trained as hers would have trouble screening out thoughts about men!

It couldn't help but make her laugh ruefully. She was doing to herself what nobody in Wikuna could do to her. Take her attention away from her plan.

"What's got you so cheeful this morning?" Miranda asked from the other side of the bed. She too hadn't bothered to get up yet, which was normal. Court's hours were very late, starting after noon and ending around sunset, but the parties and balls that took place afterwards sometimes went until dawn. Keritanima was a late riser by some people's standards, but she was an early riser compared to the rest of the nobility.

"Nothing, Miranda," she replied, looking up at the canopy. "I guess we should get up."

"You get up," Miranda snorted, rolling over. "I'm going back to sleep."

"I'll brook no impertinence from my maid," Keritanima said playfully.

"Stick it in your tail and sit on it, Kerri," Miranda grunted, throwing the covers over her shoulders.

"Well, I'm hungry, so I'm going to get something to eat," she announced, throwing the covers aside. "You want anything?"

"To sleep," she said grumpily, pulling the covers over her head.

"What's got you so cranky? You usually wake me up."

"I had a long night."

"You were in here."

"You think I was in here."

"Miranda!" Keritanima snapped. "You being in here is for your own protection!"

"I had Binter and Zak with me," she yawned. "We left after you went to bed."

"What were you doing?"

"Following up on some leads," she replied. "I needed to talk to some servants in House Zalan."

That Miranda had managed to get out of bed without waking her up was something. Usually she woke up if Miranda so much as rolled over. Had she really been that tired? "What did they say?"

"Only that Sheba wants to keelhaul you for sticking her on the house throne," she replied. "Go eat and let me sleep, Kerri. We'll talk about it later."

Keritanima dressed in a simple robe and slippers and left the apartments. She nodded to the guards and wandered towards the kitchens, scrubbing at her unkempt hair and shaking some burrs out of her tail. The hallways were populated only with servants, going about the morning chores, and they bowed or curtsied to her as she passed them. She received another round of bowing in the kitchen, just before a fat hippo Wikuni who was one of the kitchen's better cooks set a loaf of fresh bread in front of her. "Just out of the oven, your Highness," the large, obese Wikuni smiled. He had gray skin and no fur, with that wide, cheeky face and those large tusks coming out of his mouth. Though he was big, he had a delicate touch, and he was trained by the best chefs in Shacè.

"Thank you, Kindle," she yawned. "Could I have some boiled eggs, some scrambled eggs, bacon, rolls, some oatmeal, a bottle of chilled milk, and a few slabs of meat for Binter?" Vendari preferred their meat raw, though they could eat it if it was cooked. The thought of him gnawing at raw meat never ceased to make her a bit queasy.

"A full breakfast," he smiled. "I was working on it before you got here, your Highness. It'll be ready in a minute."

"Am I getting that predictable, Kindle?"

"The menu, yes. The time you come to fetch it, no," he told her with a roguish grin as he waddled back over to the wood stove.

Keritanima cut the heel off the loaf and set it aside, then cut a slice for herself and brought it up to her nose. Though she didn't cook the meals, she personally picked them up and delivered them because her sensitive nose could detect any foul play involved in the food. She had extensively studied the myriad poisons in use by assassins, and could detect a vast majority of them by their scents. Outside of her inner circle, nobody knew she had the sense of smell of a fox as well as the looks. It was a secret she kept very close to her, because her ability to scent intruders, sniff out poisons, and find out by scent just where who had been and what they touched had been unbelievably useful to her. It was an advantage she really preferred not to lose. She ignored her sense of smell most of the time, so as not to act on what she was smelling and tip her hand. It had taken a long time to train herself to be able to smile and chat with a man who absolutely reeked to her nose and show no sign that his pungent odor was affecting her more than a normal Wikuni. Having animal senses was uncommon in Wikuni society, but not completely unheard of. Those who did were alot like Keritanima, keeping it quiet.

The bread was safe. She bit off a good chunk of it and savored its warmth, waiting for Kindle to finish the meal. But the servants around her suddenly wilted away, and that was when Sheba's scent touched her nose. She looked to the side to see her, and she nearly laughed.

Sheba was dressed in a black gown that blended with her fur well enough to make it hard to find the garment's borders. It had a string of pearl buttons up the front of the bodice, the pearls hinting that the neckline started low enough to display a goodly amount of Sheba's fur-clad cleavage. Unlike many ladies, Sheba wore a long dagger at her belt, an obvious weapon. Most ladies had small utilitarian knives or daggers, and hid their real weapons somewhere about their person. Sheba's face was screwed up in a very unpleasant expression, marring her usual beauty, and her tail writhed behind her like a dying snake. Keritanima had no real fear of Sheba, only a residual dislike for what she had done to her friends, her occupation, and her general attitude.

"You," she snorted rudely.

"That's 'you, your Highness,'" Keritanima corrected smoothly. "And did you forget where your knees are?"

Sheba glared viciously at her as she stiffly curtsied.

"That's much better," Keritanima smiled. "Almost ladylike."

"Bah," Sheba grunted. "I have you to thank for this, Kerri. Do you have any idea what they did to me?"

"They made you matriarch," Keritanima replied. "And if you want to keep your money, you have to be a good one."

"It's hell!" Sheba said in a loud voice. "How do you girls put up with these damned dresses? I want my ship back, dammit! I want my ship and my crew and the wind in my face, but now the only wind I get in my face comes out of some fat nobleman's mouth!"

"It's time to be respectable," Keritanima told her.

"Respectable stinks!" Sheba said in a furious tone. "If I wanted respectable, I'd have been a more dutiful daughter!"

Keritanima chuckled. Seeing Sheba squirm a bit was entertaining. "It's your father's fault, Sheba. He should never have plotted against me. I don't play games anymore."

"My father was such a jackass," she fumed. "Not that I really care that you killed him, Kerri, but I really hate you for sticking me on his throne."

"That's an unusual response, considering how far he went to get you back."

"He wasn't saving me, he was saving the house's reputation," Sheba growled. "You didn't see what happened after I got home. He had me chained to a wall for a week and whipped me once a day!"

"That's not very fun."

"Not at all," she grunted, leaning against a table. "Now I have to stand around and talk nice to a bunch of idiots, and sit in endless trade meetings and meet merchants. I hate it! It was alot easier when I just stole the goods instead of bought them!"

"At least until the law caught up with you."

"The law didn't catch up with me. You did. If it weren't for you, my ship wouldn't have been blown out of the water. And I think you're enjoying seeing me suffer now, aren't you?"

"A little," Keritanima admitted. "You have alot to answer for, Sheba. You stained the reputation of our entire kingdom. It's time to start cleaning the slate."

"I was happy being bad."

"Bad girls don't get very far, Sheba," Keritanima said sagely. "I think you'll find that if you apply yourself, you can find just as much satisfaction in trade as you did on your ship. Instead of trying to capture a ship, now you're trying to haggle just one more copper farthing out of some greedy trader's purse. Instead of the victory in battle, you get a victory in the trade agreement."

"It's not the same," she huffed.

"Of course not, but try to at least pretend," she replied. "It may take a while to adjust to it, and remember that it doesn't trap you on land. Arthas Zalan took a business trip here and there himself. You'll be on a ship again, you just won't be chasing innocent traders."

"Why are you helping me?" she asked suddenly.

Keritanima was brought up short. Why was she? Sheba had killed two men on the Star of Jerod and had really made a mess of their journey. But a part of her empathized a bit for the overwhelmed woman, and wanted to make things a bit easier for her. And there was absolutely no political motivations in it. It was a sincere desire to help. "I really don't know," Keritanima answered honestly. "I guess I just want to see you repent for your actions without having to suffer for them for the rest of your life."

"You're weird, Kerri."

"You're not the first person to tell me that," she replied with a slight smile.

"Bah. Anyway, let me get what I came here for, before I decide to take this dagger out and stick you with it in payment for the wonderful life you've stuck me with."

"At least that would be refreshingly direct," Keritanima chuckled as the panther Wikuni grabbed a loaf of bread, some cheese, a bottle of wine, and stalked out.

Keritanima crossed her arms and watched her walk out, then chuckled to herself. There went someone even more annoyed than she was.

Things were strangely tense when she returned to the apartment. Miranda was pacing, and Azakar was putting on his armor quickly as Binter sharpened the Knight's sword for him. The ten Royal Guards outside the apartment had made no facial or body language indications that anything untowards had happened, so the agitation of her friends was just a bit disconcerting. "What's your problem?" she asked as she pushed the tray with their breakfast into the sitting room. To keep her friends safe, she wouldn't even allow a servant to touch the tray.

"We just got visited," Miranda said immediately. "By your father himself. I'm surprised you didn't pass him in the hallway."

Keritanima raised an brow. "What did he say?"

"He didn't say anything," she replied. "He just asked for you. When I told him you weren't here, he left. I heard him tell the Chamberlain to find you and have you brought to his study."

"Who was with him?"

"About ten guards, the Chamberlain, about four men wearing the badges of advisors, and two or three men wearing priest's cassocks," she replied.

"Strange. His spies should have told him I wasn't here, unless he came on purpose," she said frettingly. This was an unexpected development, something that she didn't think would happen. Her father was terrified of her, and he knew that she would kill him if she had half the chance. Wiping out a room of dignitaries would be little obstruction to getting at her father, and having a good chance of getting away with it. He had to be aware of that. So why risk getting within her hand's reach, unless maybe he was getting desperate? "Finish getting dressed, Zak. I need you two to be ready for anything."

"What's your plan?"

"Saving the Chamberlain the trouble of tracking me down," she replied. "Azakar, you're staying here with Miranda. I want you to barricade yourself behind the doors in Binter's bedroom before me and Binter leave."

"Barricade? You mean stack furniture in front of them?"

"I mean just that," she said bluntly. "I'm going to Ward and trap the door into my bedroom, the door into yours and Binter's room, and Ward Binter's room so nobody can break through the walls, floor, or ceiling. That way, anyone who finds a way into the apartment has to go through at least two magical traps to reach you."

"Why the safeguards?"

"Because my father has no reason to want to see me out of court," she stated analytically. "He knows that if I catch him alone or with a small group, I can kill all of them just to get rid of the witnesses when I kill him. He had no earthly reason to want to get within a hundred yards of me without a few hundred people to see it. The fact that he wants me out of my apartment only means that there's a reason he wants me out of my apartment."

"I guess that makes sense," Azakar agreed.

As Binter and Azakar pulled the apartment's furniture into the room they shared, Keritanima wove her Wards on the doors. They were lethal Wards, designed to kill anyone who touched them except for her, Binter, Miranda, or Azakar, and she wove it so tightly that the Ward would last all day. She also Warded the bars on her window, which would cause them to kill any living beings that came into contact with them. After she was done, she carried everything she wanted kept secret and safe into Binter's room, such as the satchel of papers, the crest and other secret items she owned, and a few other odds and ends she preferred not to be handled by someone else. While she waited for Binter and Azakar to stack heavy furniture up against the door leading into her bedroom, she wove together the powerful Ward onto the walls, floor, and ceiling of the room. It was a Ward mainly designed to harden the stone and prevent anything less than a Giant from breaking through them. She also wove into it certain safeguards that would only permit fresh air to pass into the room, stopping any smoke, poisonous or drugged gasses, or fire from penetrating into the chamber.

She was taking no chances.

She and Binter traded calm yet urgent farewells with Miranda and Azakar, and they left the room. They waited for a few moments, hearing Azakar pile more furniture up against the inside of the door. They had the breakfast tray in there, enough food and water to last them all day, should she be detained.

She was weary by the time she created the Ward she kept on the door to her apartment, a Ward the Royal Guard knew was there, for she had warned them never to touch her door on pain of death. After she was done, she ordered the ranking Guard to double the men protecting her apartment, and gave him explicit orders not to allow anyone to come within five feet of her door, no matter who ordered him to be there. She told him that only a personal visit from the King himself with orders from his own mouth would countermand her own orders, not to accept any written orders no matter whose seal was upon them. They weren't too happy about that, but it was their duty to serve. They had to obey her orders, because they didn't violate the tenets under which the Royal Guard operated.

She knew where her father would be. She had been in his study many times, and she knew it to be his favorite place to conduct business when not in court. It was the first chamber in his own apartments, and the place was a character study of her father's personality. It was not decorated at all. There were no tapestries, no paintings, no sculpture, not even a carpet on the stone floor. Stone and wood panelled walls contained a desk, several bookshelves, chairs and couches upon which visitors sat, and an elaborate shelf hanging on a wall held a hook attached underneath it, upon which the wooden hangar for his Royal robes hung. His crown and sceptre sat on a velvet cushion on a stand beside the shelf , and there were two Royal Guards flanking that stand and shelf at all times. It was a reflection of his personality. The place where he contrived his plots and ordered the suffering of the people around him had nothing in it to distract him from the conductance of that dark business, allowing him to focus himself on the tasks at hand. It was a stark room, and it tended to intimidate those who were called into it. There were two doors leading into the apartments from that study. One led to what many called the Harem Chamber, a lavishly decorated bedroom where Damon Eram took those women he had called to an audience to bed them. The other door led into his private residence.

The place had not changed since the last time she gazed upon it. Binter ducked to get in the door as he came up behind her, making her take a couple of steps into a room filled with hostility. They had been allowed in by the four men guarding the door, and inside were those same men who had accompanied her father when they called at her door. Nine of them, Wikuni of varying types, all of them staring at her. Not a few gazed at her with fear, a few with contempt, and a couple with a kind of morbid curiosity. Keritanima swept her gaze of them, staring at them with her amber eyes one by one until they looked away, until her gaze locked on her father's large yellow eyes and stayed there. Just the sight of him sitting at his desk was enough for her to snarl just enough to show a little fang. Seeing him this close reminded her how much she despised and detested the man.

"I see the Chamberlain found you," Damon Eram announced in a strong voice. There was no hint of fear in that voice, but she knew he was a good actor.

"Nine? That's all?" she said easily. "I'm surprised at you, father. I figured the room would be crowded with witnesses."

"Well, the issue of your magical powers doesn't concern me anymore, daughter," he said calmly. Easily. He pointed to the priests to one side. "I've been, isolated, from any kind of magical attack, thanks to the dedication of our most excellent priesthood. You may be able to kill everyone else with your magic, but you can't touch me. And I'm big enough to handle you, little girl. Binter won't obey you if you tell him to attack me. He may be your bodyguard, but I'm still his King, and he won't attack his monarch."

"How convenient for you," she said quietly, but her mind was racing in excitement. How wonderful! It was so hard to contain her elation that she had to work hard not to dance around the room. Her father had just ensured that what she was about to do next could in no way be tracked back to her! "Is that why you called me in here? To gloat?"

"I want the Firestaff," he announced with a frown. "I want to know where it is right now."

"And what makes you think I'd tell you that?" she countered.

"Because you continue to live at my suffrance," he replied. "I'm not playing games anymore, daughter. If you don't tell me where it is, I'll have you executed where you stand."

"And risk seeing your only chance to get it spill out on the floor? I don't think so," she replied calmly.

"True. But there are other ways. Binter," he said bluntly, looking at the Vendari. "Has she ever said where the Firestaff is?"

Binter stood there for a long moment. "She has not, your Majesty," he replied.

"Do you know where it is?"

"I do not, your Majesty," he answered.

"Does she know where it is, Binter?" he asked pointedly.

It hung there for a moment. "I cannot say," he replied. "She does not confide in me. If she does know, she hasn't told me."

Keritanima looked at Binter for a very long time. She absolutely could not believe what she just heard, and the implications of it rocked her to the foundation of her soul.

Binter had just lied!

Binter had just done the one thing that no Vendari could do! It was so wrapped up in their society, their culture, and the gods, that no Vendari could lie. They were absolutely, psychologically, even physically incapable of it. That universal truth was a cornerstone of the world's dealing with the Vendari. That anything a Vendari said was the truth, or at least it was truth to that Vendari. Binter had just said something that he knew wasn't true, because he knew that she didn't really know where the Firestaff was! How could he have done it?

"I see," Damon Eram said, leaning back in his chair. "So, it comes back to this, daughter. Tell me where it is, or I'll have one of your servants executed every hour. Miranda will be executed first. Then the human. Then Binter. And if you still won't say, I'll have one of my inquisitors drag that information out of you by force."

"No, it comes back to this, father," she said, raising her hands. Lightning sizzled between those hands, and then she pushed them to her side, aiming them at the men who wore the badges of King's Advisors. A bolt of brilliant lightning blasted out from her hands, and it raked across the three men so quickly that they couldn't dodge out of the way. All three men fell to the floor, smoke wafting from their fancy clothes, and the smell of charred flesh and singed fur filled the room. The people in the room stared at her in shock, as she held up a hand and allowed electrical energy to dance around her fingers in a very impressive display of her power. "I may not be able to kill you, but I can kill everyone else. Touch my maid or my bodyguards, and I'll kill absolutely everyone that allows you to hold on to that throne. You may get rid of my servants, but you'll lose your crown in the bargain. And when you're not king anymore, your tail will be mine. Don't ever forget that."

"Rash words, daughter," Damon Eram said, not giving the dead men a single sidelong glance, standing up and putting his hands on the desk.

"Truth," she replied nonchalantly, folding her arms beneath her breasts in a slow, easy movment. "I'm not a little girl you can bully. Push me, and I'll push back even harder."

"I think you're bluffing," he said pugnaciously.

"Do you really want to take that chance?" she asked pointedly.

It hung there for a very long moment. "Consider yourself under arrest for murder," he said spitingly.

"And as soon as you hold the trial, I'll tell everyone all about your promise to murder my friends to extract information out of me," she replied. "You may be king, but you're still bound by the law. Not even you stand above that."

"I am king! I make the law!" he hissed.

"Make yourself a god, father, and you'll find out how quickly you'll lose your crown," she told him smoothly. "Then you'll be the god of the lost."

"You are very close to not having a trial, daughter," he hissed threateningly.

"And you are very close to being exposed as nothing more than a heartless monster," she replied. "I'm sure your army and the people would love to know just what kind of man they serve."

That hit a nerve. Damon Eram sat back down hard and glared at Keritanima with hot eyes. "You are confined to your room," he growled.

"No."

"What?"

"I said no," she replied. "I will not be bullied by you. If you want me to stay in my room, make me."

"How dare you!" Damon Eram screamed, jumping to his feet and hooking the claws on his hand on the corner of his desk. He heaved it aside, nearly crashing it into his priests, and advanced on Keritanima with murder in his eyes. But he came up short when Keritanima raised her hand and pointed her palm at him. His fear of her was still very tangible, whether or not he was protected from her magic, and that moment of hesitation was enough for her to step back so that Binter was closer to him than she was. He may not be afraid of her physically, but he'd be a maniac to think that he could get to her through the Vendari.

"Your Majesty, I think that--" one of his priests began, but Damon Eram cut him off.

"Silence!" he roared. "Get out of my sight, daughter, before I kill you myself!"

"Try," she said in a deadly voice, her eyes narrowing to slits.

"Your Majesty, your Highness, I think it is best if this audience were to end," one of the priests said in a reasonable voice, stepping between them. Keritanima had to admire the man's guts to so blatantly get in the path of death.

Keritanima glared at Damon Eram around the priest. "Don't push me, father," she warned. "You'll make me cranky. You don't want to see me when I'm cranky."

"Get out! Get out! Get out!!!" Damon Eram shrieked hysterically. He was nearly frothing at the mouth.

Keritanima looked at him calmly, tilting her head to the side, then she gave him the most wicked little smile. "Anything you say, father. You are the King, after all," she said with a malicious little chuckle, turning her back on him without bowing and floating out of the room.

When she was out of sight, she blew out her breath and leaned on Binter's arm heavily. She was tired, and the stress of the confrontation had worn on her. But it was deliciously convenient. Her father looked insane just then, and that image was one that would begin to be buzzed about the gossip circles...as soon as the other men in the room got out of there and started jabbering. Her campaign against her father would begin that very night.

She looked up at Binter in wonder. "I can't believe you did that, Binter," she said in awe.

"What did I do, Highness?"

"You lied for me, Binter! I can't even find the words that would tell you how honored I am that you'd do that for me."

"I did not lie, Highness," Binter said. "His Majesty asked me for my opinion. I gave it to him. He did not ask for the plain truth."

"He didn't say one way or the other."

"And in not saying, he allowed me to decide what it was that he wanted," he explained easily. "I cannot know your mind, Highness. There is no way that I would know if you do not know where the Firestaff is. You just may know where the Firestaff is, even if you do not believe that you do. So to tell him that I did not know one way or the other was the truth. From my point of view."

Keritanima looked at him a long time, then she laughed delightedly. "You're in the wrong profession, Binter. You should have been a lawyer."

"May the Gods permit it never to be so," Binter said fervently as he led her back to the apartment.

The confrontation had worn at her in more than one way.

For one, her father was starting to get inconvenient. He was getting bold, dangerous, and he was starting to get unmanagable. She had put the fear of death in him that time, but it wouldn't last. His pride would make him ignore that, and his lust for the Firestaff would strengthen his resolve. Her other activities were splitting his time, but it was apparent that keeping his throne was now not quite as important as finding out just how much Keritanima knew. Continuing to play that game was getting dangerous, and she decided that perhaps ending it would be the better idea. It may have been better if Binter had simply told her father that she didn't know where it was. It would have made things just a little less dangerous, even if it would have taken a very effective piece off the chessboard.

She thought about it all that day, hand under her muzzle as she rapped her fingers on her desk for hours on end. It was apparent that she had to destabilize her father much faster than she had planned, and just gamble that things would be sane until Sisska could return with the Vendari. Her father did have the power to have them all killed. Only the public relations disaster it could possibly create, and the possibility that he'd be killing the only person who could lead him to the Firestaff were stopping him. She'd already openly defied him, so there wasn't much doubt that she'd committed high treason.

So she had to distract him again. Going ahead with her current plan seemed to be a good way to go about that, because it was more subtle. They'd just have to hold on for a week or so. It was going to be tense. It hinged on just how badly she scared her father, how far he thought she'd go. She hoped that he realized that she'd carry out her threats. It would make things hard for her, because house Eram would lose the crown and that would mess up all her plans, but it was one means to an end.

But there were other ways to get at Damon Eram through more than his fear. She intended to assault his pride next, and undermine the loyalty which his people showed to him.

It would be easy.

Late that night, more than one servant caught sight of King Damon Eram wandering the halls of the Palace. He was mumbling to himself and wearing his crown...and absolutely nothing else. Any servant who crossed his path received a blistering lecture about showing him proper respect and adulation, even that they should fall on their knees and grovel before him. He then went into the Hall of the Sun and sat on his throne, looking out over the dark chamber with feverish eyes, commanding people that weren't there.

Then he calmly walked back to his rooms, leaving behind him a wake of spirited gossip.

The episode repeated itself every night well after midnight for three days, and servants, spies, guards, and even some of the nobility situated themselves in the hallways to see it for themselves. Damon Eram would walk out of his room naked, wearing only his crown, and wander the hallways around his rooms randomly, blistering anyone who met him in the hallways about treating him with the respect he deserved. Nobody bowed deep enough, or looked humble enough, to suit him. He threatened execution for anyone who reached out to touch him. After wandering the hallways a while, he would go to the Hall of the Sun and sit on his throne a while, occasionally calling out to command phantoms, then he would get up and go back to bed.

Court on that fourth day was eventful. Keritanima was there, and she saw all the strange looks people were giving the King as he sat on his throne and held audience. They all knew about his midnight strolls, and the strangeness of them had set them all abuzz. Her father, hearing about their chatter through his spies, seemed genuinely puzzled at why they would think he was doing such strange things.

What made it even more eventful was the rather unusual decree the King made, staring at Keritanima the entire time, that stated that the reigning monarch was no longer subject to common law, only the Royal law that governed nobility. The Royal laws made no mention of such things as murder, blackmail, kidnapping, or assault. What he didn't seem to comprehend was that it only reinforced the image of the naked King wandering the hallways pretending to be the most important thing in the world.

It also made the nobles grumble a bit. Damon Eram had just removed the one thing that made the playing field between the crown and the noble houses even. Those rules were delicate, allowing the nobles and the king to plot on one another but keep it from disrupting the flow of government. But now Damon Eram was no longer subject to common law, so that meant that he could literally do anything he pleased and not a soul could gainsay him. The suffrance of the king was through his nobles, and any king that alienated his nobles tended to lose his crown. She was certain that his decree was another hasty act designed to make her capitulate, but it also had the effect of making the nobles think that Damon Eram was getting completely power-hungry. The struggle of dominance between Damon Eram and his defiant daughter was clouding his judgement, just as she hoped that it would.

After that decree, Keritanima wandered around, commenting on it to other nobles, and generally setting the mood that maybe Damon Eram was starting to think himself godly long before he got his hands on the Firestaff. And they bit at her bait. Many of the nobles she chatted with were thinking the very same thing themselves, and maybe the stress he'd been under the last couple of months was finally starting to affect him.

And being the conniving backbiters they were, they immediately redoubled their efforts to get him.

The next time Damon Eram wandered the hallways, there was an escort of Royal Guard following from a discreet distance. They had ignored his orders to stay at their post and were following him, because that afternoon they had caught a shady Wikuni trying to sneak into the palace with an assassin's pistol. They kept an eye on him as he wandered around, blocked off the Hall of the Sun when he entered and conducted his phantom court, and then followed him back to his room when he was done. More than one thought he was sleepwalking, because his eyes had a glassy quality to them that made him look not quite conscious.

The next day at court, the new head of House Tarn boldly addressed him and asked him if he was feeling well. Her name was Shareese, a willowy gazelle Wikuni with a slight frame and two polished horns on her head.

"I'm feeling fine, Duchess Tarn," he replied uncertainly.

"Well, your Majesty has been sleepwalking," she noted. "We of house Tarn was just curious if you found out why."

"I haven't consulted a physician, no," he told her. "I really don't think I've been sleepwalking, anyway. I was up well into the night last night."

"But I saw you, your Majesty."

"I'm sure you think you did, but I didn't leave my room at all last night, Shareese. It must have been some other lion."

And that started it. Keritanima left court with an evil smile on her face. Oh, what plans she had for her father.

Damon Eram came into court a few days later holding a parchment in his hands. He immediately summoned the Clerk of Law to audience. He looked very out of sorts, and he paced on the dais the entire time as he waited for the older goat Wikuni to arrive. When he finally did, all of court fell silent as Damon Eram dug into him before he could finish bowing. "Why did you put this nonsense on my desk this morning, Travers?" he demanded, shaking the parchment like a chicken about to go in the oven. "It's ridiculous!"

"You did, your Majesty," the goat said in his raspy voice. "And I agree that it is indeed ridiculous."

"I most certainly did not, Travers," he said heatedly. "I spent last night in company!"

"You delivered that to me at ten last night, your Majesty," Travers said a bit testily. "You demanded it be entered into the Volume of Law. I told you that I wouldn't do that until you had time to sleep on it. That's why I put it back on your desk."

"Ten? Travers, I was entertaining Lady Shareese last night at ten!" he objected. "I didn't have time to come to your office and give you this!"

"But you did, your Majesty. Perhaps your Majesty simply forgot about it with company waiting for him to return?"

"Travers. I was in no position to go anywhere last night at ten," he said pointedly. "Me and the Duchess were, indisposed."

"No offense, your Majesty, but I saw what I saw. You delivered that decree to me last night. I will swear by it. Perhaps we could ask the Duchess what time you left? Maybe my clock was off."

"Good idea. Summon Duchess Shareese Tarn!" he commanded to the Chamberlain.

When the Duchess arrived, she looked a bit confused. She curtsied to him gracefully. "Yes, your Majesty?"

"Duchess, when did you leave my chambers this morning?" Damon Eram asked.

"I didn't, your Majesty," she replied. "You invited me to dine last night, but I was called back to my house about seven. We had a ship fire."

"Duchess, you were with me last night," Damon Eram protested.

"I was, for about half an hour, your Majesty," she said sincerely. "I apologize for leaving early. Would you prefer to dine tonight instead?"

Damon Eram's face screwed up. "Something's going on around here!" he suddenly boomed. "Bring a priest! I want the truth divined!"

That sent a rush through court. Damon Eram got a furious look from the Duchess and a glare from Travers. That he would doubt their word enough to send for a priest to divine the truth was an insult.

When the priest arrived, he cast his spell to divine the truth, then Damon Eram stood up in front of his throne and addressed Duchess Shareese Tarn. "What time did you leave my room last night, Duchess?"

"It couldn't have been more than seven, your Majesty. I was called away due to an accident at our house docks."

Damon Eram looked at the priest. "She speaks the truth, Majesty," the portly bear Wikuni announced.

"Travers, when do you say I showed up at your door?"

"Ten, your Majesty, by my clock. You demanded I add that decree to the Volume of Law."

"He speaks truth, Majesty," the priest told him.

"That's impossible!" Damon Eram said furiously. "I was with Lady Shareese all night last night!"

"Your Majesty!" Shareese said indignantly. "I'm a married woman!"

"What's going on around here!" Damon Eram demanded heatedly. "I did not bring this to you, Travers, and I certainly did not demand you notarize it into law!" He raked his gaze across the room, and it fell on Keritanima. "Keritanima, come here right now!" he snapped. "This has your hand all over it!"

Keritanima floated up to the dais and curtsied elegantly. "What do you want, your Majesty?"

"Did you do this?" he demanded hotly.

"Do what, your Majesty?"

"Don't play games with me, daughter," he warned. "I'll have you racked! Did you set up this little game?"

"I didn't do anything, father," she said with a malicious grin. "Not a thing."

"She speaks the truth, your Majesty," the priest told him in a quavering voice. Word had gotten out that every time Keritanima and Damon Eram exchanged words, innocent bystanders tended to die. The priest didn't feel comfortable with making himself noticable.

"I don't believe you!" he shouted. "Are you using your magic to hide the truth?"

"I am forbidden to practice Sorcery in the Hall of the Sun, your Majesty. You decreed it yourself. I'm not about to commit high treason in front of a hundred witnesses."

"She is speaking the truth, your Majesty. Regardless of that, her magical powers cannot hide the truth from her words. She cannot evade the spell, because it has nothing to do with her."

Damon Eram glared at the priest, then he snorted and looked at Shareese Tarn. "You came to my room last night," he declared. "We had dinner and we talked, and we ended up in bed. We spent all night together."

"Your Majesty, I am a happily married woman!" Shareese Tarn said vociferously. "I would not commit adultery against my husband, even if you ordered me to!"

"Well, am I lying, priest?" Damon Eram demanded heatedly.

"No, your Majesty. You believe what you are saying."

"Well, you must have dallied with someone that looks like me, your Majesty," Shareese Tarn said waspishly. "It was certainly not me. I have a house full of witnesses to that fact."

Damon Eram looked at her like she was a live snake, then glared at Trevers. "This is a conspiracy!" he shouted, throwing the parchment down. "Trevers, this is not a decree from me! This is a plant!"

"Your Majesty, it is written in your hand, and it carries your seal. Nobody else could have made it."

"I didn't write this!" he screamed, picking the parchment up from the floor, balling it up, and then throwing it at the Clerk of Law like it was a spear. It landed on the floor well short of the goat, and then Damon Eram stamped off the dais and behind the throne without another word, towards the antechamber in the back that served as an office for him.

Keritanima wandered out into the empty space between the court and the dais and picked up the parchment. She unwadded it and looked at it. Shareese Tarn came over and looked over her shoulder, and she turned it so the Duchess could read it as well.

"By Kikkali!" Shareese Tarn said in astonishment. "He must be insane!"

On the parchment was a decree that all noble houses and the nobility were hereby abolished, and all lands and monies of those nobles were now property of the crown. It also went on to say that all private titled deeds of land and property were nullified, and all said properties were now property of the crown. After that, it decreed that the crown hereby annexed the entirety of all land, seas, oceans, lakes, islands, and rivers, and that the entirety of the world was now the property of the crown. It then stated that from that moment forth, the King of Wikuna would be known as Supreme Overlord of Sennadar, and would hold dominion over the world for eternity.

It was written in the King's hand, and it carried the Royal seal, a seal that nobody else could possibly have.

"This certainly doesn't look rational," Keritanima agreed.

Shareese Tarn rushed over to a circle of women, holding the rumpled parchment in her hands, and Keritanima wandered out of court. She almost couldn't contain her glee.

It had been seamless. Shareese Tarn had spent the night with her father, probably only after he threatened her into submitting to his advances, but where Keritanima's Sorcery wouldn't work on her father, it did work on her. A Mind weave had erased the night from her mind and replaced it with memories of visiting the scene of the accident before returning to her home. That would be backed up, because she had had Ulfan burn a Tarn ship, and Keritanima had visited the scene wearing an Illusion of Shareese. Then she had rushed back to the Palace, to create the Illusion of Damon Eram leaving his rooms and going to Trevers with the decree. That too had been Keritanima, as had all the nightly wanderings of her father. Keritanima under an Illusion of her father. Wearing her father's likeness, she demanded that Trevers register the decree as law, then argued with him over its content.

Getting around the priest had been easy. They didn't know that using Sorcery created no visible signs, priests couldn't sense its use, and it required no gesturing or gesticulating as they thought magic required. Her use of gestures before had been for nothing more than show. A simple Mind weave was all it took to make him believe that his spell was telling him she was telling the truth. The spell actually said she was lying, but he didn't see that.

She looked back into the Hall of the Sun, seeing the nobles passing the crumpled parchment around and beginning to debate its meaning heatedly. They may have thought he was sleepwalking before, but now they all wouldn't be able to deny the fact that it seemed that Damon Eram was going mad.

Keritanima walked out of the Hall of the Sun, a very slight smile on her face. "Take that, Damon Eram," she mused under her breath, then walked away with her hands behind her back and her tail swishing back and forth in rythym with her easy pace. "You'll love what I do to you next."

Life for Damon Eram degenerated quickly after the incident with Shareese Tarn. Keritanima made sure of that.

The nightly episodes continued, but they changed as the days passed. Damon Eram's nightly wanderings with his crown had started to get malevolent, the monarch tending to strike anyone who crossed his path and didn't grovel and debase themselves enough to suit him. He would sit in the throne room and order executions right and left, and some of the names he shouted out were among the nobility whom Keritanima had had murdered earlier. He also ordered the murder of all his daughters every night to his spectral minions, an occurance that had brought a very frightened Veranika to Keritanima's door some days after it had started, begging for her older sister's protection, even offering to pay. The audience that observed these nightly rantings became more and more worried, a worry that intensified as Damon Eram denied doing what they saw him doing every morning afterward.

The other issue that had started really making the nobles start talking seriously about deposing Damon Eram were the visions. The first had been several days after the embarassing episode with Duchess Tarn. They were all in court as Damon Eram received an ambassador from Shen Lung, the great Empire of the Eastern Seas, a nation with whom Sennadar had no contact. They were exchanging pleasantries when Damon Eram suddenly jumped out of his throne and gaped at something in the air over the head of court. "Gods!" he had exclaimed. "What is that thing?" he demanded. Everyone looked up, and of course, they saw nothing. "Who brought that beast into court?" he demanded. "I demand it be removed!"

"What beast, your Majesty?" the captain of the Royal Guard asked curiously.

"It's right there!" he said, pointing at empty air. "It looks like some leather-winged bird with a scorpion's tail! How can you miss it?"

"I see nothing, your Majesty," Shan replied.

"Are you blind, man?" Damon Eram demanded hotly. He turned to watch the unseen thing, then he dove to the floor of his dais, his crown flying off his head and rolling on the floor. That caused the court to mutter and whisper, but Keritanima boldly stepped out of the ranks of the gowns and doublets and boldly reached down and picked up the heavy gold crown. She held onto it for just a short moment, as the Royal Guard watched her warily and the nobles stared, and then she held it out to the nearest Royal Guard to her. Still laying on the dais, Damon Eram glared murderously at her as the guard took the crown from her and started towards him, and then his eyes widened when his eyes met hers, and she gave him the slightest little wicked smile.

"You!" he burst out, jumping to his feet. "Practicing Sorcery in this hall is forbidden! I could have you executed!"

"Fetch your priest and have me questioned," she said calmly. "I did nothing."

"I know you did that, daughter! I'll have you put on the rack until you tell me the truth!"

"Then you'd best get your leather gloves, father," she said calmly. "I'll kill any man who lays a hand on me. If you want me racked, you'll have to string me up yourself."

"That law no longer protects you, daughter!"

"But all noble-born lords and ladies have the right to protect their lives from irrational orders," she said calmly, staring at him, watching his eyes burn at the word irrational. "You'd have me tortured until I said what you wanted to hear. I'll submit to magical divining, but I won't submit to being tortured into giving false statements." She looked to her sides slightly. "And since it's well known what I can do to people who try to put their hands on me, that means the only man that would dare try to put me on a rack would be you."

Damon Eram glared at her, then staggered back as if backing away from some large creature. "This audience is ended!" he announced, ripping his crown from the hands of the Guard who handed it to him, then fleeing back to his private office behind the Hall.

Keritanima sniffed loudly, then turned and stalked from the Hall. Creating an Illusion only he could see was easy enough. It was a matter of perspective. What he thought was this huge beast was actually no larger than a candle wick, but it was placed so close to his eyes, and set so only people looking at its front could see it, that only he could see it. Tiny movements of the Illusion made it look like it was streaking about the Hall, and doubling its size made it appear to rush him. Since he couldn't associate the Illusion with the rest of the Hall to determine its true size, it appeared to be much larger than it really was.

It wasn't the first such vision that Damon Eram suffered. He suffered them at random times, in court, in the hallways, at parties, in private session, at the council of his new advisors, even in his private apartments. They made his eyes look haggard as he began to doubt what was reality and what was not, but there was a burning behind them because he knew that Keritanima was somehow doing it to him. He had indeed brought in a priest the next day, mainly because of the hard looks from court when he suggested the rack, and the priest was absolutely adamant that Keritanima was not lying about somehow using magic to mess with her father. He questioned her before court for nearly three hours, direct questions about her activities and her associations, even a blunt question as to whether or not she was involved in the round of assassinations that had killed most of his advisors. And court heard the priest swear up and down that she was telling the truth, that she was not in any way entered into intrigue against her father, that she was doing nothing to him.

That seemed very hard for most of them to swallow, but the word of a priest was almost as towering as the power of the gods they served. If the priest said she wasn't lying, then no matter how impossible it seemed, she could not be lying.

Two days after the questioning, Damon Eram cancelled court until further notice. He holed himself up in his room for two whole weeks, as a long line of doctors and priests filed through and offered suggestions. Damon Eram didn't order the presence of the doctors, so he was livid at their intrusion. He was absolutely convinced that Keritanima was doing it all to him, but not even the priest's magic would back him up in his belief.

Keritanima was very pleased with the progression of things. She had her father completely disjointed, scrambling to make people believe that he wasn't losing his mind. Damon Eram's illness was all anyone could talk about in all of Wikuna, and many had started calling him the Mad King of Wikuna. Commoners and nobles alike began to quietly mutter about the king, about how Wikuna would be better served if someone else was sitting on the throne. Many even went so far as to say that the highly suspicious Keritanima would probably be better than Damon Eram, because at least she would be easier to get off the throne. That singular treasonous idea rippled through Wikuna like waves in a pond, setting the stage for very intersting events to occur.

Such an idea was easy to talk about, but hard to organize. The army was still loyal to Damon Eram, so any attempt at physical force was out of the question. It was even harder because the successors of all the larger houses, with their large armies, had not consolidated their power enough to be able to use those armies in a revolutionary coup. Such an attempt would require alliance between the larger houses, and since nobody knew who had who killed, none of them trusted one another to do something like that. With Damon Eram sequestered in his chambers, ruling by written decree, nobody could get anyone close enough to kill him. That left all of Wikuna in a tense waiting game, waiting to see what would happen next, wondering at exactly what was going to come of all the uncertainty. Keritanima rode the storm calmly, keeping things just off-balance enough that nobody could make any attempt to take the next step. Keeping things as they were.

And it remained like that until the day that ten thousand Vendari marched into the capital city.

©2000, James Galloway. All Rights Reserved.