Chapter Six

King Ulryk leaned on the Farsight's prow, one jutting spiral hash-marked with the semblance of scales criss-crossing to a buxom chest and whittled tresses. From narwhal gore, this mermaid had arisen, sculpted from the longest horn ever harvested. While the prow's painted eyes faced the oncoming shore, Ulryk felt he was being watched. Not any vague uneasiness, but the telltale signs of enchanted scrying tutors had schooled him to notice, from the hackles of his neck pricking, to the involuntary clench of stiffening fingers, to flickering shadows catching his eye.

As Ulryk raised a hand, and incanted The Shining Sigils of Seltira, those incandescent syllables crystallized midair, for all her spells took tangible form, lingering, drifting, and glinting. Seltira was reknowned as The Wizard of Air. Gaona's past wizard-kings were not only nicknamed, but famed for mystical quests and magical victories. Judging from saga and history, Ulryk was a late bloomer, for his ancestors made their name as teenagers or in their twenties at the latest, and, having a teenaged son of his own, Ulruk was years older than past prodigies. The incantation flickered to light, both dispelling shadows and confirming the telltale traces of scrying.

While Ulryk wasn't assiduous enough to be a master wizard, having a subpar memory and being too hedonistic by far to acquire more than twenty spells by rote, he had good instincts and a knack for the unteachable mysteries of magic. He had never learned to transform others, but could transform himself into a myriad of shapes without uttering a word; he couldn't pronounce elementals' names, but could beckon lightning at will; he couldn't scry without a pool of clear water, but he could trace a wizard's farseeing eye to its source. But in this case, the scryer might as well have been an otherworldly being, for Ulryk sensed no trace of anyone, anything, or anywhere Alsantian.

True, he was distracted. While his son was somewhere on this battlefield, Ulryk less feared Conrad's fate than his feelings. Better never to meet than that Conrad should deny his father, who had sequestered him to another world.

As Captain Druago barked orders, the sails were folded and lashed to the mast, and the Farsight drifted near shore. While dozens of Alsantian galleys clustered to the shore, they listed in the water, their masts lashed, their anchor chains lowered, and their decks clear. Here and there, a sailor manned a lookout, or crawled, insect-like, in rigging, but mainly the fleet seemed derelict, with scant soldiers to keep them safe.

A bead of sweat slid from Ulryk's brow through his beard. He was in no hurry to entertain

the monstrous teenage queen, her power-hungry brother, or their uniformed killers.

"Longship sighted, captain," a sailor barked.

"Where?"

"In the shade of that warship." Racing out on the ebbing tide, a sailed coracle fluttered on a direct line for the Farsight.

"Deploy oars! Bring us alongside."

"No!" Usually Ulryk was content to minister to his state behind closed doors, and on shipboard,

to nod along to captains' and admirals' orders, but now he vehemently denied this thought of bringing Alsantian savages anywhere near bridging to his vessel. "Bring us aground."

"Your majesty."

"You heard me."

"That I did. I'm happy to comply, but they'll only bring their business in our wake."

"Of course. But by the time they swing around, we'll be halfway to our destination."

"Which is?"

"I beg your pardon."

"Forgive me. Your majesty."

"I could care less how you address me. You've your majestied me all the way here. I only object to being questioned. It's better you don't know what we're doing or where we're going."

"So I'm to play dumb?"

"Why would it come to that? It's hardly playing dumb if you know nothing--unless you do know more than you should."

"I'm a professional, your majesty. I know how to be circumspect."

"If you're only circumspect, you're not going far enough. Better to circumnavigate the globe than be interrogated by her majesty's beasts. And I don't mean the talking animals, but the promoted monsters, her captains and generals."

"They don't follow the rules of war."

King Ulrryk sighed. "That's your upbringing speaking." He peered across shadowy waves red with sunset. "There are no rules to war, nor anything else. We make the rules, Druago."

"Kings make the rules, your majesty. And her." He jerked his thumb toward the Alsantian fleet.

"We can only hope we meet Suvani there, and not Vemulus. Suvani is a demon, but her brother being a monster who has more to prove than his smug sister, he would no doubt mount our heads on a pole quicker than you can think it, just to add a king to his conquests. Not that the heads of sea-captains are small potatoes, Druago."

"You don't say." The captain inclined his head to the approaching craft, which now bobbed on ripples eddying from their implacable advance.

"No!"

"Yes."

Ulryk sighed. When his hand streaked his sweaty brow, then rubbed his chin, his beard was sopped where he stroked it.

"Your majesty, such good luck doesn't strike twice. Certainly not the same day. Passing up such a fantastic stroke of luck is poor strategy."

"You think so? I see this ending another way, with us beheaded as co-conspirators with the Prince."

"You don't throw confederates in the brig, your majesty."

"As if only good fortune would come from that." Ulryk groaned.

"Suvani is a dishonorable villain, but too proud to take Vemulus without you taking something in return."

"Maybe a small plot of land," snorted Ulryk. "Two yards long, two yards deep."

Druago snorted back. "I stand ready for your orders, your majesty."

"Haul it in, but best not to mention it by name. And use the nets. That way we could say we took him for a narwhal."

"Aye," laughed Druago. "We could use a bigger prow. But trading our beauty for that monster could scare our next catch."

The Captain hooted as he stomped off, his boots clip-clopping nimbly like a goat, his mirth carrying and taken up by a growing chorus of ripsnorting laughter. Then the nets were cast alongside the Farsight, and their hollering catch dragged on deck, where the angry prince wrestled so boisterously

he knocked out three of his five guards he was snared with, and snarled himself so good and tight

that he nearly choked to death before they cut him free. They left Vemulus's arms tangled, and only sliced the entangling net after clapping irons on his wrists.

"That's a bit too far." As Ulryk walked around from behind his sailors, Vemulus's dour eyes tracked him, glowering through him in such a stabby way that the king would not have faced the unarmed prince, even decked head to toe in the mastercrafted and bewitched chainmail gathering dust in his armory. Ulryk hated armor. He was a wizard-king, not a wizard-knight, and no one ever said he had to fight at all. While he didn't think of himself as bad or dishonorable, he resented being forced into a fight so much, that when he had to fight, he preferred cheating, choosing magic, or, at this very moment, a shipful of sailors as his weapon of choice. It was Vemulus's fault for bareing fists in a 'shipful of sailors' duel. "Pick him up. He's learned his lesson."

"Lesson? What lesson? What have I ever done to you?" The you was scornful and caustic,

and let Ulryk know Vemulus very well knew whom he disrespected with his sour glower.

"That's your majesty to you," sneered Druago. In fact, Ulryk had handpicked Druago from many overqualified candidates to helm his flagship, solely on the strength of that scornful sneer,

from which he milked cruel sarcasm the way only drill sergeants or ship's captains can. Whether Druago sneered full blare, or at a quiet, lip-curling whisper, it sent shivers down Ulryk's spine even as it fed his indulgent smile.

"Why stand on ceremony?" Ulryk stood just out of reach of Vemulus, although it was hard to determine just how far his reach extended, as his knuckles dragged mid-thigh, and it was no simple matter of him being an apple taller, when the prince was built on a different scale than the rest of humanity, and at least nine apples taller than anyone else on board. "In fact, standing makes me nervous. Why not sit down?" His eyes darted to Druago. "Set us a table in the master galley, and bring us everything imaginable." He turned back to Vemulus. "Is that to your liking?"

"If you're insinuating that I'm not an omnivore like you, and only eat raw meat, I've heard them all before."

"I only meant, 'are you hungry?'"

"Of course I'm hungry! It's a war out there."

"Unfortunately, war knows no borders, or rather, its borders encompass this ship as well."

"If you mean I'm a prisoner, then I take it Gaona has entered the war?"

"Only literally speaking, in that we are here, with you, on the battlefield. Can we not render hospitality to our royal cousin without choosing a side?"

"I see a few problems with that statement, mostly treasonous ones," snarled Vemulus.

"I'm sure you do. Save it for dinner, or we shall have nothing to discuss. Also, I had wanted to keep my business here short."

"You're here for your son." Vemulus scowled. "He's quite the charmer." He snorted. "Snake charmer, I mean."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Only that he charmed the heart of the vilest snake I know, my sister Suvani."

A pain stabbed Ulryk's head as his brows pinched in a worry crease, for while he had never had words with his son, not, at least, since cradling him as in infant, he had looked in from time to time via the scrying of his glass-masters and the coterie of wizards that doubled as his courtiers. Given how hard it was to govern an island underfoot, he knew it was only a conceit that he could ever grow to know Conrad while a world apart. Intellectual reassurances are ghost-like, have no weight, and are full of gas and fear, just as he had voyaged asea, pinning his honor and reputation on hopes of discovery, and combed the world-ocean fruitlessly for lands his geologers, astronomers, and mathematicians guaranteed would be there. That said, it had always been his gift to project his thoughts and feelings, or perhaps only an avatar composed of wishful thinking, and these roving emotions and ideas had, ironically, kept him on the Gaonan throne, having rarely strayed from his castle since his dismal voyage, and kept an eye on those few plots cobbled together by his wizard-cabal to broaden their outreach and influence. They were invariably soon satisfied by whatever bone he threw them, for who would truly seek to govern such a minuscule island state? Privilege and wealth is what people wanted,

and Gaona had that in abundance.

When his viziers' pools misted up whenever they called on the sprites to show them Conrad, Ulryk knew he must track down his son, but dragged his feet, not due to lacking courage or duty, but due to the ponderous inertia of sitting overlong on his throne and feast hall table by day, and reclining on his sumptuous, silken and velvet bed by night. Comfort is not only a relief to the weary, but an enveloping serpent to the decadent and weak, sucking out strength, piercing the soul, and envenoming the will with the illusion of freedom. Had Ulryk not such a wide-ranging mind, and, more importantly,

had Druago not wrung his king from his dissolute sheets and dragged him to the Farsight, Ulryk would never have disembarked from Gaona. Which is not to say Ulryk's mind had not revolved around all possible horrors which awaited Conrad, not just in the real world, but the unreal Earth where he had embedded his son. Even the strange talking animal church where Conrad had dwelled, never guessing at his inheritance, had bothered Ulryk, for it smacked too much of fantacism for his taste. While he had hoped the noble beasts might rub off on his son, until Conrad was solid as a rock, like Jgorga, without sufficient opposition, Conrad had only mushroomed physically, while remaining an emotionally stunted bully, easily harvested by Suvani. "You mean he's under her spell."

"Tomayto, tomahto," said Vemulus sourly. "She chose him, but he settled into the enchantment.

I've seen dozens fall to her persuasions, not only those magically coercered, but those struggling under cruel leverage, and I know a troubled soul when I see one. Not your son. Prince Conrad's heart has grown around her false feelings and made them his own, like an actor playing the role of a lifetime."

"My son is a child, don't be deluded by his size."

Vemulus chortled. "So am I, which hasn't stopped me from killing my elders, among them a king five times my age." His gleeful leer insinuated he might like to encrypt another king today. "And for that matter, so is my twin, Suvani. We're both but sixteen years old. If you think your son's youth will stop his being steeped in sin, you have another thing coming...cousin."

Vemulus's return of the courtly 'cousin' suggested more than the commonly known fact

that all royal houses on the Alsantian continent shared bloodlines, due to the ancient political practice of cementing alliances with weddings. While wickedness contaminated Vemulus and Suvani, Ulryk was also tainted.

"Should I condemn him for being misled?"

"No," Vemulus shrugged. "Who am I to condemn? It doesn't feel good to condemn anyone.

It's hilarious to call him a fool, though, especially because he is one, as are you if you think Suvani will show you any gratitude in exchange for me."

"You presume I want to be paid in gratitude."

"Of course." Vemulus spread his hands in a false gesture of fellow feeling and magnanimity.

"You want your son. And presume Prince Conrad will prefer an unknown, presumptuous father

to a beloved face he has kissed. A beautiul face. My hatred won't blind me to that fact. My sister got the magic, the beauty, and an equal share of ambition, while I got everything else."

"No doubt." Ulryk stroked his beard. While there was no question of allying with this despicable murderer, what was not in doubt was that Vemulus was a coin he could cash in, either with the vile Prince himself, or with Suvani. Having ruled his island kingdom peacefully for decades, Ulryk had never had such a wicked coin to spend.

"Your table is set, your majesty." As the young sailor tipped his kerchiefed head, Ulryk's warm smile betrayed real affection, for he dearly treasured this food artist, one of a handful of artisans

Ephremia sent in exchange for mineral rights. He had let Ephremia drain Gaona's copper veins near dry, for he couldn't imagine parting with his miraculous chef, nor the engineer who sailed in this mechanical, gadget-laden wonder. Knowing he must part with these loaned craftsmen made him prize them all the more. But now he looked on the young chef with a reluctant worry. He didn't like to think his most valued servitor a spy, but he was under no illusions about where his true loyalty lay. While Gaonan scientists claimed they had learned all there was to learn about the ship, every day the chef dropped a new wonder onto his gold and porcelain plates, like the proverbial goose that laid the golden egg. One day, a delicious salad of edible flowers dressed with herbed oil that accentuated their sweetness while adding a piquant savoriness; the next, a breaded roast made from five cheeses, carved nimbly like a delicate game bird; then a helix of fruit wedges, spiralled so high the hanging lamp shadowed the table; but Ulryk's favorite had been a heap of freshly fragrant loaves, stuffed with sweetmeats of nuts, cinnamon, and candied oranges. Whether sweet or savory, all not only tasted wonderful, but made Ulryk feel wonderful as well, as if he had eaten healthy fare, not gourmet food.

"I can't wait." Ulryk brushed past the chef's outstretched arm, crooked his finger toward the stairwell, then glanced at Vemulus. "As I well know the way, unless you would dine with us, there's no need to lead."

"You are too kind, your majesty. But tonight's entree requires constant attention." The cook's face wrinkled with worry for a moment, then smoothed back to his boyish yourh. "I should be monitoring it now, but you must be seated before we proceed." His eyes widened, realizing what he had just said to the king. "If I may be so bold."

"How interesting. Am I to understand tonight's meal requires our participation?"

"Only your attention."

"He's killing it in front of us," smirked Vemulus. "Sorry to spoil the surprise. But I'm anticipating it even more. There's nothing like watching a buck slaughtered to stimulate one's appetite"

The chef dipped his head, shrugged his shoulders, and smiled. "I serve only the living, your grace."

"Check your slave, Ulryk," snarled Vemulus. "Don't you know who I am?" He roared at the young Ephremian.

"Forgive me, your eminence." The chef bowed, but refused to meet the prince's fiery eyes.

"Your highness. Is that so hard?"

The chef raised his eyes to Ulryk, and the king nodded.

"You don't need his permission!" seethed Vemulus.

"Forgive me, your highness. May my offerings please you more than my graces."

As they trundled down the hatch, Vemulus glared at Ulryk. It was easy to forget who honored who, for the Alsantian prince was a greater power physically, and, not long ago, politically.

"What was that all about? Do you really suffer your staff to sass you and your guests?"

"I think we can chalk that up to the cultural barrier."

"He speaks our tongue really well. So well, I ought to cut it out of him, as he doesn't deserve to sully our great language."

"Not a language barrier. As you say, his Alsantian is impeccable, as is his Gaonan.

I said cultural barrier. Ephremians aren't so quick to bow and scrape as our people."

"Really? I've never met one who didn't."

That was before you fell from grace. Ephremians do not honor a fallen prince. Of course, Ulryk dare not say that, no matter that he was a king and Vemulus a prince whose royal rank was now more death sentence than privilege.

As they clambered down the rungs, Vemulus's sodden cloak dripped on Ulryk's head,

and when he looked up at the slick soles of Vemulus's boots, he worried that if the prince should slip,

or worse, jump, he would tear through Ulryk like a cannonball, the musclebound prince looking himself like a cluster of cannonballs.

At the bottom, the chef waited for Ulryk, who in turn waited for Vemulus, then his guards.

Druago was right to want to secure the Alsantian prince, for Vemulus had the look of a desperate man,

and was a ruthless savage on the best of days. If Suvani sought her twin to mark her victory, whether she desired his head, his humiliation, or only his acknowledgment of her power, he should be treated as a wanted prisoner, not a feted guest of honor.

While Ulryk had no need for spies, as his scriers provided constant reports on his enemies and allies' comings, goings, and activities, from the wedding being prepared in the Ephremian palace, to the coronation hustled together by the talking animal of True Alsantia, to the perseverance of the hidden heirs returning from Earth to roam Alsantia. What, or rather, Who, they had recently pried into most was Vemulus, for the Alsantian prince and pretender to the throne had been quite busy, usurping the Alsantian armies, and traipsing all over the vast kingdom, upheaving Teriana's peace, beckoning Ephremia to war, and baiting his own sister to civil war.

To Ulryk's standards, Vemulus seemed in many ways worthy of the Alsantian throne, not only flexing his ambitions and feeding his vanity, like Suvani, but getting things done. If Suvani still ruled,

it was only because her claim was stronger. Not her claim on the throne, but her claim on The Stranger's affections. For Vemulus might have won had The Stranger not chosen that moment to return to Alsantia, enact his shadowclad desires, feed the bleak fires of his prophecies, and order the kingdoms according to his plenipotent will. Ulryk was somewhat sympathetic to this monstrous boy, for the king had always admired a good work ethic, and that Vemulus most definitely had; moreover, he only wanted what he strove for, and sneered at what was handed to him, perhaps feeling his birthright had been stolen by Suvani. For tradition said the oldest boy would inherit, and while they were born moments apart, Vemulus had the boy parts to fulfill the full requirements for primogeniture. And while many said Suvani was born moments before Vemulus, making her the elder, Ulryk had suspected their uncle, the Regent, had proclaimed it thus, giving him a choice of heirs. Ulryk had only met the Regent once, but soon learned the de facto Alsantian ruler was a practical man who always wanted options,

for in politics, options is power, and so much so, that one ought to multiply options when possible.

And as Ulryk's scriers had spied on two separate documents each naming a different twin as his brother's legal heir, there was little doubt the Regent had conspired from the hour of their birth to pit them against each other, so as to breed the strongest, most vital, human monsters he could. So while he disliked Vemulus--more true to the fact, Ulryk's excessive dislike of the murderous boy was a rickety bridge over an undercurrent of loathing--he pitied Vemulus all the more, if that pity was a mere crow perched on the bridge of contempt built over the deep waters of detestation, his unangelic conscience croaking that the boy had little opportunity to be other than he was now.

So while every nerve squirmed, and every muscle roiled under his too terrified to shiver, deadpan white flesh, he forced himself to raise an arm and clap Vemulus on the back as the chef led them down the hall.

"Remove it, or I'll remove you." Vemulus hissed.

"I wouldn't," said Ulryk. "I really wouldn't. Unlike your hardbitten regulars, my men have much to prove, having bragged all the way here of what they'll do given a chance to take action. Our island is idyllic, a true eden even, but it's quite boring, and if it wasn't for our vibrant theater, not even our minds would travel. We'd just watch the tide come in. So excuse my men if they rare at the bit like foaming sea unicorns. I even heard one brag about what he'd do if Prince Vemulus happened across our valiant expedition."

"Did he?" Vemulus stopped and rounded on their followers, two of whom had forgotten themselves and stepped too near. closing not only past the boundary of respect, so that they might have crashed nose-first into Vemulus's ribs had he been less nimble, but within range of his monster hands,

which plucked a spear from each, then smashed them together, rattling their helmets between the hafts.

While King Ulryk was quick enough to think to warn Vemulus to stand down, and remind him they were armed, and he was a bare-handed guest, an eyeblink later, the words were still stuck in his throat, two were down, and the prince was not only armed, but well within range of regicide.

"Which miscreant said such a thing? Show him to me, and I'll give him a princely gift."

While Ulryk cleared his throat, still nothing came out, and he tried in vain to crease his brow in an angry scowl, but his eyes were still so wide with alarm that his arching eyebrows strained under the frown, until he could only raise one eyebrow a smidgen, in a passable semblance of sarcasm, which he dressed with as quick a dressing-down as he could muster. "Well, they've been warned about you. They know you're a sourpuss, and a lousy tipper to boot."

"I would not be so free with me if I were you."

"You can no doubt stab fester than I spin spells, but you didn't come to make enemies, did you? You're in sore need of friends."

"In sore need of fodder," growled Vemulus. "Not only real food to cram my face, but cannon fodder, to go full tilt at Suvani. Which makes your chef my best friend right now, unless your spear chuckers volunteer for my shock troops." He looked Ulryk up and down. "You're clearly unsuited. Have you ever held a blade before?"

"Three times a day," smiled King Ulryk. 'Breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I'm only too happy to show you my dining prowess, if you'll step through the galley doors."

Vemulus snickered in spite of himself, being one of those bullies that doesn't grasp self-deprecating humor, thinking it an invitation to pile on the humble wit. Moreover, the boy took it as an honest boast, a challenge that spiked his competitive streak. "With that womanly figure, I doubt you can eat as much as me."

"But can you eat as well as me? That I doubt." Ulryk chortled, feeling his chest swell with a brag, for he was prouder of his chef than his estranged and broken son who trailed evils in his wake,

while the chef delivered the goods at every meal.

"We'll see," sneered Vemulus.

As Vemulus prowled the feast hall, eyeing the chairs, table, tableware, and wait staff, he sniffed here and there until his eyes widened in respect as they bore a capacious platter covered with a shining hemisphere of such perfect craftsmanship that it seemed half a silver egg, hatched from a white metal bird. A smile flickered, then dissolved in a scowl. "You knew I was coming!"

"What makes you say that?"

"Look at the size of it!"

"Who knows what's under there. My chef is such a show-off it could be a half-dozen crackers circling a dip, or a vegetable or fruit tray."

"You let him serve such stale fare?"

Ulryk laughed good-naturedly. "No doubt Ephremia sent their most stubborn chef, for while he takes orders well enough, he follows them like a mule, barely going along with my desire to be fed, and leads me by the nose instead. I tried steering him to my tastes, but he made what he wished regardless,

and as sampling his curious fare relieved the monotony of a king's existence, I now indulge his wondrous talents."

As the wait staff brought out another heavy covered dish, this one gleaming gold and enameled with polished emerald, the chef followed close, bowed, and beamed a smile. "You are too kind."

"I am nothing of the sort, being a sour old buzzard whose manners were instilled by ferule-happy tutors forty years ago."

"At least you had tutors," growled Vemulus. "My uncle saw to my education, with the exception of horsemanship, mathematics, and economics."

"I would have been glad to have so much of my father's attention. He was a good man, and no doubt loved me, but his spirits would drift back to his heavy kingly duties even when I was halfway through a story, or he was halfway through telling me one."

"Speaking of which..." Vemulus rubbed his jaw, growled, and turned a watery-eyed glare on the king. "Will we ever dig in, Ulryk?"

When Ulryk raised his eyes and nodded, the young chef held up a hand and bowed, and the galley doors were bowled in as a third tray was rushed to the table, borne on two golden filigreed poles like an emperor's settee. Having gently set it to the foot of the table, each slid out a pole, tapped the floor with the hafts like soldiers marking march steps, then backed out the double doors. The third dish was covered not with shining metal, but glassy crystal, misty but translucent enough to tease onlookers with guesses as to what gustatory delight would hatch from the crystal egg.

"I'll say this for your mess hall cook--he's a showman. Theater is the best spice, or so says Suvani. I can't count how often dinner was preceded by a flogging or carving of some offender, while her court of sycophants droned on, affecting nonchalance, though I always knew they pretended indifference out of terror and a hopefulness they wouldn't take their turn being the appetizing entertainment next feast day. Such spectacles were a great stimulant to my appetite."

"You take pleasure in the suffering of others?"

"I take pleasure in my own delights. It's not for you to judge, being the king of a lesser kingdom."

"But our flagship, being a diplomatic vessel, is Gaonan soil."

"Gaonan wood perhaps." Vemulus grunted, stood, and was about to grip the crystalline cover when the chef rapped it with the flat of his hand. While the prince was the larger and stronger, the chef's blow was timed so precisely, it shattered into a million jagged shards, coating the sweet-smelling entree.

"You dare?" Vemulus roared, then snorted as the blasted fragments glinted like a dragon's hoard,

having covered the unknown dish in a glassy crust. "Good going, cook. You've ruined your pretentious snack."

"Look again, your highness." When the chef's eyebrow arched impudently, Ulryk feared for his life. "No sweet tooth?"

Vemulus scowled, but looked again. "That's not glass." Indeed, the glinting crumbs dusting the entree--tracing the outline of a longish loaf, either meat or bread--were too large and roundish to be glass.

"No."

"What, then? Crystal? Diamonds?"

"Crystals. Of a sort." The flash of the chef's impudent smile died in Vemulus's smoldering glower.

"That's sugar!"

"Indeed it is. Shall I do the honors, or were you..." The chef bowed his eyes and his smile dimmed, for it was entirely too impertinent to ask a prince to cut the cake, slice the roast, or what have you, and even the unvoiced suggestion was a flagrant faux pas.

Not wishing his favorite retainer slain or even cuffed off-handedly for lese majeste--for he wanted not only the chef's blood to remain bottled up where it belonged, but every drop of spirit with which he infused his delicacies--King Ulryk came to his rescue. "That won't be necessary, Jehory.

Not only am I delighted to carve the first course, but you forgot to procure the galiati mead." As King Ulryk had done no such thing, Jehory's smug face cracked, flickering with worry and gratitude before he composed a contrite and sober expression, curtsied, and turned for the galley doors.

"He doesn't show due deference," growled Vemulus.

"I am a king, and you a prince, but Jehory is a prince of his craft."

"Even if I'm impressed, plying a whip to his backside will only improve the regularity of his ingenuity."

"The illusion of freedom is a better medium for inspiration. If I took his spirit away, all I would get was his best, and he would never surpass himself, as he did today."

"There may be something to what you say," Vemulus said with a reluctant, begruding tone. "And if I steal your idea for my own castle staff, if only to encourage a favored few, I have you to thank for it."

"Everything I know is a lesson I have learned. I have only become a great man by having more opportunity to learn."

"You certainly have a higher regard for education than I do. While I'm happy to know a sword's point from its pommel, and a nag's head from its hind end, right now all I think of is your promise to cut that sweetbread."

"Is that all this is?" Ulryk sliced carefully and deliberately. The shattered sugar had melted into the butter cream coating the bread, making impromptu icing from the theatrical shattering of the sugary crystal. "With such presentation, there must be more to it than that."

"Are you really this willing to please? So quick with smiles? Should I be nauseated or impressed? Usually, those who do me honor are balanced on the knife's edge of my violent whims, but you please me entirely of your own accord. Is this a prelude to a negotiation?"

"But there is nothing you have that I want," said King Ulryk.

"There must be something. You're buttering me up."

"You can't call this butter any more. This is icing." Having spread the icing to a feathered fineness, Ulryk served Vemulus a slice of the sweet loaf.

"Desert first." When Vemulus smiled, his anger and rage seemed to slough off him, making him look his age for the merest glimmer of a moment, more boy than man. "Is this Gaonan custom?"

"No. Neither is it Ephremian, although the idea of serving sweets as appetizers is, I am told, an Ephremian standard. Technically, I believe this is a pre-appetizer appetizer, which they name a relnesz."

"You say I have nothing you want, Ulryk"

"Even so."

"If you do not help me for your own advantage, I find that hard to believe."

"You are only a few years older than my son."

"I am right. You would trade me for your son."

"Suvani has made Conrad her prince consort. She would lose face by trading him to me, and would be loath to do that. As I say, you have nothing I want. If you had a shred of remaining influence with Suvani, you might have been an asset. As it stands, hearing you out might slake her perverted sense of humor, but she will no doubt do the opposite of whatever you suggest."

"I know my sister, and you're not wrong, Ulryk. But I'm surprised to hear you know her so well."

"We have become acquainted at state functions." And I have my scryers to thank for more intimate knowledge of your highness and her majesty. Ultyk decided not to share that information.

"What does it taste like," Vemulus wrinkled his nose, looking more like a stubborn boy turning his nose up at carrots than a prince offered a sweet delicacy.

"I don't know. He's never served this before. I wouldn't doubt that it's completely original."

"So we are his experiments?" Vemulus pawed at his fork and spoon. "You've given me no knife, Ulryk. How am I supposed to eat?"

"It's no oversight, your highness."

"It's not like you've disarmed me," spat Vemulus. "I could stab my food with my sword if I wished."

"We don't use a knife at table. Having descended from a long line of fishermen, Gaonans have never needed more than the edge of our forks, which you'll find slightly serrated compared to your Alsantian flatware, Vemulus."

"That it is." When Vemulus sliced the sweet bread, he scraped his plate so harshly that Ulryk shivered and ground his teeth. Vemulus did not smile, but his eyes brightened, and he rapidly sliced another bite, eating the sweet treat in finely cut chunks not unlike a steak.

When Ulryk fell to his meal, his eyes rolled back, delight blew from his nostrils, and he tried to present a show of decorum, but failed resolutely, tearing into the iced bread with relish. "What do I call it, Vemulus?"

"I thought your chefs were free men, Ulryk. Ask your chef. Maybe he'll look with favor on you and outdo himself with the second course." Vemulus's snappy answer was belied by the sugary mustache and beard pasted to his lips and chin.

"Well, yes. But kings name foods in Gaona."

"All foods? Really?"

"It's a decadent entitlement and a holdover from barbarism, but I take such pleasure in it,

I can't find it in my heart to give it up." As cinnamon sugar seared his tongue, the aftertaste clashed in,

lacing the raisin and apple embedded bread with orange and lime citrus, fresh mint and nutmeg.

"It sounds like work to me."

"Why would you say that? While Gaona has its native cuisine, few new dishes are invented." A frown slipped and his lip trembled before Ulryk flashed a blander smile. "And when a rare original dish is named by its creator, in flagrant contradiction of law and custom, I must let it slide, or be thought a loathsome and deplorable tyrant, so I all too seldom get to indulge my privilege. While I can step in when new foods are dreamed up by the palace kitchen, before Jehory, this was only twice a year, at feast days, but my Ephremian is such a fertile genius that I may gratify myself with naming cuisine nearly every day. It's not only pleasant, but rewarding, for what dishes catch on, I leave to posterity.

Why not name this one?"

"You're not serious? Why would I leave behind a dish for Gaonans to inherit?"

"Give it a try. Suvani may kill you tomorrow, and me for harboring you, so why not take our pleasures where they're found?"

"Now that's what I don't understand."

"That I take my pleasures?"

"That you'd risk not just yourself, but your son." Vemulus growled. "Having never known my father, my ideas of fatherhood are wholly conjecture, but it seems a father should do anything to save his son."

"Indeed. It is as you say."

"Then why tarry here with your enemy, your majesty?" Despite his wry smile and sarcastic tone, Vemulus at last deigned to honor Ulryk with his title. But Ulryk was far from satisfied. For if the Prince of Alsantia was rattled, his look was not humble and downcast, but a brooding stare, full of blood and insolence, a bloodshot hole into the raging depths of the colossal boy himself.

"Gaona remains neutral in this conflict, your highness, and we are beholden by duty to Alsantia.

I did not know we are enemies, Prince Vemulus."

"How do you think Suvani will see it? And regardless of her diabolical opinions, how will she play it? I think she would love an excuse to raid your legendary troves, King Ulryk."

"I think your sister has enough enemies for now."

"But she isn't built like you, Ulryk. She courts disapproval and covets resentment, which she treats as glittering enticements to conquest. Even those as obstinate and obdurate as diamond are collected for her hoard of slave nations. I am not unlike her in this, having trodden on skulls to get where I am, although Suvani is luckier and greedier, and I should have followed her example, for had I walked on diamonds and slaves, and not skulls, I might have seized the throne. But I think it is safe to say I have more enemies than Suvani."

The boy was bragging about it. Ulryk arched an eyebrow and sighed. One more than you expect, your highness. "Do not worry yourself, Vemulus. I will not trade you, body or soul, to Suvani.

I she her settling for something smaller, certainly no bigger than a sack of gold. Enjoy your meal."

"You're ransoming me?"

"I'm ransoming my son. Your part in this, as I said, is small. Not that anything about you is small, my prince. You are a big man, with much to spare."

It was in then that Ulryk realized he should not bait the Prince of Alsantia, who had his own history of insinuating vague threats himself. "No bigger than a sack of gold, you say." When Vemulus stood, and lay his hand on the pommel of his knife, the warriors lining the wall folded in and leveled their spears, but Vemulus had already laid the blade at Ulryk's neck. As Ulryk felt the skin sting and leak, dripping into the neck of his robe, he wished he had been less open-minded, and more closed-mouthed. While he found he had the dark resolve for loathsome deeds, he had not the heart to poison a man and take his head without a glimmer of warning. Now he might lose his own head, and before the royal sculptor, whom he had long put off, could take his measurements for his stone bust in the ancestral hall.

"She may not even open the sack, Ulryk." Vemulus smirked. "Having never liked my face, she's scarcely favored me with a glance since birth. At least once, when I clouted her on our fourth birthday, and the Regent laid into me with a whip, deeming no one else worthy to hold the handle that struck a prince. Since then, her eyes have rolled in overacted exhaustion or sarcasm, but they never spin in my direction."

"Vemulus."

"Your highness. In fact, your majesty, as I was this close to King of Alsantia, and it would warm my heart to hear our puppet king say the words."

"Your majesty." Ulryk's smile broadened. While not afraid for his life, Vemulus was surrounded no matter how deranged, and the king had become skilled at patronizing his inferiors, the better to entrust the unpleasant tasks he delegated to his staff. While his father had played to the aristocracy,

fostering a culture of entitlement that fanned the fires of resentment in commoners, Ulryk had paid his lords and ladies with the strictest economy of respect, while lavishing honors on servants and staff.

Having brought recalcitrant heels in line, and coaxed stubborn heads to bow by this flattery, and having found that he gratified himself as well, he had little problem in being polite and kind to Vemulus, who, after all, was his strongest asset in bringing Prince Conrad home to Gaona. Even though he meant his headsman to hew that asset down to a more manageable ten pounds or so, treating his unfortunate victim with niceness was only like giving the sheep a gentle pat before it became veal. Ulryk had scads of this gentle cruelty, and enjoyed plying it. "You're right, Vemulus. You have the makings of a much better monarch than Suvani."

Vemulus's voice soured. "That's not saying much, Ulryk."

"And I'm in full agreement. A chamberpot would do a better job at ruling than the queen."

"Save your breath, Ulryk. Order your men to prepare your coracle."

"It's being refinished." When Vemulus pricked his neck harder, Ulryk raised his hands and widened his eyes, emulating all the honest, abject peasants that had beseeched the throne. "I'm not lying. I can have it prepared, but it won't voyage far."

"A rowboat, then." Vemulus pinched Ulryk's bicep. "And a good, beefy servant. Not a soldier, but one of your brawny water carriers."

"I'll comply, of course, but such a one will make a poor hostage, as all who serve are sworn unto death." Ulryk gestured to his chief guard, whose eyebrows arched, while the rest of his face stayed mask-like and impassive as he pounded the butt of his spear, bowed, turned, and hastened to fulfill the king's will.

"Good to know. I might terminate his contract. But he's no hostage, Ulryk. You are. I wouldn't double up if you weren't so frail. Would it kill you to lift a blade now and again? It's good recreation, even for a pansy who can't stand the sight of blood."

"You have me at a disadvantage, cousin, but I'm no stranger to fighting."

Vemulus cackled. "Is that so? These hands?" Clawing at Ulryk's hand, Vemulus raised it up roughly like a bone pushed on a dog, splaying Ulryk's fingers in his coarse, muscular hand. "With these soft, womanly hands? I doubt you've made a single callus in your soft life. Say what you will about your father, but he clearly loved you. Overmuch, I think. So much, you became a giant pillow of a man." Vemulus scowled as he peered at the splayed hand. Unconsciously, the knife pricked Ulryk's neck, drawing a drop of blood to slide down the edge, painting it red, but the king only smiled all the broader. "Perhaps I was unfair, Ulryk. You do have slender ridges here on forefinger and thumb...from a violin, I wonder? Chess pieces? Another ignoble art?" Vemulus snickered.

At the vulgar, juvenile assertion, Ulryk could barely suffer his false smile, but as his eyebrows drooped, and the corners of his mouth jiggled, he crushed the frown under a bigger, broader smile.

"Something like that, Vemulus." As he swole huge and green, his mouth bulged with grotesque fangs,

then mushroomed more, to a foul-smelling, cavernous maw studded with stalactite-sized teeth. He coiled and coiled around Vemulus until the feast table buckled aside, toppling toward the soldiers scurrying back, breastplates jarring as their backsides battered past the doors.

Wafting aromas hit serpentine nostrils so palpably, they felt solid, Ulryk's quivering sense of smell now the most alive and thoughtful part of him, as if his nose had displaced his soul. This synesthesia was utterly consuming Ulryk. The scent of his own blood was now tinged with a faint, metallic shine that seemed to glimmer as if in the corner of his eye, so eerie was the colossal snake's sense-fusion. Vemulus's knife skidded across thick scales before finding a thin chink, then following along to trace a thin slice as the Alsantian Prince leaned in cruelly, punching the slit into a gouge that sent Ulryk slithering to recoil along the wall, his beading blood bubbling with the merest whiff of copper and iron, his already elongated eyesight now cross-eyed. For having filled out this massive snake, his vision had stretched up and bulged out, until it was like peering through an enormous V,

and now the arms of the V criss-crossed, folding to a slit, a thin ribbon of the dining hall bounded by utter blackness on both sides, until this slender strip blurred nearly white, blending in with the white noise of the surrounding chaos.

As he had been sliced while the conjuration was still knitting serpent from king, the shapeshifting made his sliced flesh whole, but as his blurred eyesight cleared, it stayed widened and flattened, so that the battling soldiers seemed stitched to his wavering, banner-thin vision, like herladry come to life, an impression accented by their monotone coloring, for the flattening of his vision had made each an avatar of a different color: Vemulus solid black; his guards the primary trinity of red, yellow, and blue; and, the chef a stunned and stunning lime green. If this lopsided fracas began with his soldiers stepping in, it had swiftly turned topsy-turvy, for no matter how much his loyal rainbow outmanned and outnumbered the ink black Vemulus, they now fought for their lives--Yellow rolling again and again to avoid the stomp of Vemulus's heel, and Blue backpedalling from the slash of the dagger, webbing bloody trails in the monochrome blue face, his hands drenched with rich-smelling human blood that quickened Ulryk's healing guts, until his coils seemed to reel on their own toward the hapless soldier, whose face wrinkled with fright at the onrushing, salivating maw, the redness, then the blackness.

As Ulryk stood, the scales sloughed in one liquid pour, pudding at his naked feet. As the knife point again came to rest on his adam's apple, his chest quickened its breath.

"Brother, you had best not be playing with my toys." The imperious voice cut through the threatening air, full of the tail end of laughter, as if Suvani had just laughed her guts out, and came back to the feast of hilarity to vomit even more mirth.

Perhaps Suvani was sick not from laughter, but from too much arm candy, the tall boy whose ruddy, muscular arms and broad shoulders were buttoned and sleeved in lacy silk and clasped with a cape more befitting a courtier or a rich candymaker than a prince. He was less well dressed than iced with trim and studded with jewels, like a fanciful cupcake. His ashen face gaped, full of loathing and nausea, at Ulryk.

What had she done with his son? It was like looking in a mirror, only Suvani had distorted the image until the son was even more decadent than the father.

"Conrad!" It was the first real smile Ulryk had flashed in years, so habitual was his practiced, plastic smile, until second nature had become unnatural, and his smile felt like something he put on, like his robes and crown.

This warm, natural smile did not diminish his son's disgust, but only brought anger and revulsion clawing on top. "How could you?"

"Conrad." Ulryk shivered and swallowed as he forced a brittle smile. Why weren't his servants rushing forward with clothes? "It wasn't my intention to send you away." Even a wait staff robe was better than standing naked before his estranged son, and those flaring, scorching eyes. How could Conrad hate him so? "When your mother passed days after your birth, I was tormented and alone,

and Jgorga's plea began to make sense. How could I keep you? I had no room, not in a heart bloated with grief and lonsomeness. Safe on Earth also meant set free. Freed from your hollowed-out father..."

"Not so hollow anymore," giggled Suvani. "I should hope you feel full after that display of gluttony."

"What are you talking about? We have only just started the feast." When Ulryk shivered, it wasn't the chill air below decks, but an intimation of what he had done, slinking at the corner of his mind, not unlike the serpent's vile, vibrant sense of smell, which lingered like an aftertaste.

"Heavens no!" cackled Suvani. "Was that only the appetizer?" She eyed the Ephremian chef. "And you cater to these strange tastes?"

"It's actually quite sweet!" At Ulryk's scowling protest and imploring eyes, the chef looked down, and Suvani threw her head back and laughed.

"I'll have to take your word on that. And they call me the monster."

When Ulryk could stand it no more, he lumbered forward, light-headed with nausea himself,

and wondering just what the chef put in the sweetbread. "Son."

"You're not my father!" Conrad's nose wrinkled, and he took a step back. "You cannibal!"

"What?" When Ulryk's eyes widened with realization, Suvani's broad smile was the spitting image of the serpent's, in a face shining with monochrome, golden glee, as if the afterimage of the serpent's eyes had smeared his vision. "But you dispelled my enchantment."

"That I did. Had I arrived a few moments sooner, your only son might not have seen that."

"My only son," Ulryk's eyes drooped, as if he sought something in the blood-streaked floor. The gore-streaked floor. It was a horror to him if what she suggested was true, While he wished to raise his eyes, to defy Suvani, and assure his beloved chef that he had feasted only on what was served, that this bittersweet, metallic flavor was only the aftertaste of sweetbread, he knew what his eyes would meet, no matter how they implored for a different tale. He had jumped from history to the book of horrors.

As he gripped the sweat and tear-streaked hair at his temples, the boots of the other guard kicked away, knees scooting under his chin, and his abject, terror-stricken eyes full of flickering light like sinking, drowning candles. When Ulryk bit back his agonized scream, his teeth grit until it squealed and growled, and the guard planted his hands on the wall, pushed himself up by this backwards creep up the wall, then sidled right, toward the galley doors.

The Ephremian's eyes flashed to Suvani. "You did this!"

Suvani's eyes curdled as her wide, beaming smile contracted to a pouting scowl. "You did this!" she mocked, raised her hand high, clawed a flickering, churning ball of lightning from thin air, and added, in a condescending, venomous tone, "your majesty." As her hand turned palm-up, the tangled electricity uncoiled, sprang for the chef like a tiny beast of pure energy, twisted its corruscating spiral around him,then pinched, spattering Ulryk and the guard with a greasy puff of pink ash and the stench of smoke. There was nothing left to him but the aftershock of his pained shout.

"You murdered him!" Just like that, Ulryk's favorites were gone. His beloved chef was blasted to atoms, and--Ulryk gulped back a surge of queasy nausea--his most loyal guard was digesting inside his king.

"Murder? This is war." The queen sneered as she strutted in a half-circle to face Ulryk, pushed out her chest, and flashed eyes storming with haughty grandeur, her crown's black lace train billowing in hair still discharging residual voltage.

"Sister, I must object," grumbled Vemulus. "He was a hateful little cur, like most artists, but this was shaping up to be quite a spread."

"You always object, brother, being a hulking object yourself, ever the blockhead ready for my patient hand. Were you born a more malleable clay, I would have liked you more, but slain you long ago. Being so hard and obdurate made you ever so useful, and you will go on being useful, such an object lesson that I shall be proud to put your handsome corpse on display in our ancestral hall."

As the moment dragged on, Prince Conrad had gone from ashen gray to ashen white, then waxed so green that Ulryk feared Conrad inherited his shape-shifting knack. "My son..." When Conrad's face wracked with revulsion, Ulryk drew back his hand. "Conrad..."

"He'll always see boots kicking in a mouth a yard long when he sees you," Vemulus snorted.

Ulryk glared incredulously. "Have you no understanding of your situation, Vemulus?"

"Let's see," Vemulus said testily. "A gluttonous monster on either side, and a woefully neglected feast in front of me. Forgive me if I fall on that, and leave you to your battle of words." But a glimmer of fear sparked in the hulking prince's eyes, flickered toward Suvani, then Ulryk himself, then back again, as if waiting for a sporting match to commence.

Wait. Ulryk had a stunned thought. Did Vemulus think their banter a prelude to a duel? To a wizard's duel? Fear quickened Ulryk also, but when his eyes flickered from Vemulus to Suvani, they stayed pasted to the evil queen's cream-white face, which now flexed a serpentine grin, all the more monstrous for having not fangs, but perfect white teeth.

No doubt Suvani was the stronger sorcerer, being a witch born, and her black heart spoiled rotten by the Regent then corrupted by whatever black magic and arcane lore could be bought. Moreover, Ulryk had given wary attention to his scryers' reports that The Stranger favored Suvani, tolerated her insolence, and boosted her power to unfathomable levels on the Terianan battlefield. While the vile core of the Alsantian Queen was pure evil, the Regent and the Stranger's bale influences had distilled it further, until she had risen to a draconian, plenipotent power. But if she was never guided in wickedness, no doubt she would have sought it herself, and bent Ulryk to her will by the battering force of her black heartbeats. He was not so deluded to think that he ever stood a chance in this battle. Maybe a battle of wills. But this was a battle of powers.

Facing a near-limitless witch of legendary power, all Ulryk could do was shape shift. While he had learned much magic and retained a respectable repertoire, his mind had blanked and his throat had dried, as his heart raced, his hands shook, and his legs swayed on shaky ground, having eaten a loyal retainer while under the influence of his own enchantment, fueled by rage Vemulus had worked up in him--yes, it was all the Alsantian Prince's fault he growled to himself. His heart and lips trembled, for the growl was not truly his, but some beast brewing in the maelstrom of his darkened soul. Even if he was too weary to fight for his life, these churning shapes roared as they raced for the surface, and Ulryk truly did not know which beast would break through. His skin creeped, crawled, and warmed as it readied for the change.

"Am I truly that exhausting?"

His eyes riveted to Suvani, who stood, hands on her hips. Thankfully, she had not plucked another black spell from the galley's reeking air, foul with gore and blood. As Vemulus feasted on a ash-smeared hunk of the spattered sweetbread, nausea squirmed in Ulryk's guts, but his eyes gelled in stern anger.

How did that fire spell go? Chalakay ardini eurafora tini or thalaka ardini eurafora chani? If he was wrong, it was only a fart spell he had learned as a prank. He tittered mournfully in spite of himself, until it bellowed out, a full belly-laugh.

"Is he laughing?" Aghast, Conrad took a few steps back.

"I'm glad he sees the humor in it," snickered Suvani. "Be a sport, and see how we're getting along, Conrad. Don't let them kill everyone, and send someone to salvage this feast."

"I'm not hungry." Conrad fanned one hand before his eyes. "He is my father, you know."

"As if you would know without my telling you! As if that's something to be proud of! I should worry that our children will have tails or forked tongues." Suvani snickered.

"I'm not a snake, Conrad," stammered Ulryk. "I'm an enchanter. It's only magic."

"On the contrary. Having once let the snake in, you'll never get it out of you. Who's to say what you are now? It's not like magic changes reality--oh wait, it does. That's what magic is: rewriting reality to your taste. And my, have your tastes changed. Even if you hadn't tasted human flesh, once a snake, always a snake, I say. Once a blockhead, always a blockhead." She sneered at Vemulus. "This is why I change the shape of others, but not myself." She snorted. "Never myself. Speaking of which, are we doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"Fighting, of course. You didn't really think I would pay you? While trading for my brother was fun, I'm not going to buy my husband, not even from his father. And now that Conrad's seen you for the monster you are, any question of his origins will be put to rest." When she laced and cracked her fingers, their ripping echoed in the feast hall, banging tinily in the echo tubes by which the Ephremians communicated between decks. "Speaking to one who knows, it's better to make yourself."

In their last war for independence, the Ephremian navy had fought five years longer than the Ephremian nation. Ephremia's fleet had outmatched the Alsantian ships not only due to superior naval architecture and weapons technology, but these expedient message tubes, by which commands could be shouted to all corners instantly, keeping a ship tight knit. By means of message tubes, scrying, and cognivoir communicators, the Ephremian fleet circled Alsantia like a living thing, its boats acting in a unity unmatched by the Alsantians. The Ephremian navy might have never capitulated, and made a career out of piracy, or even a new pirate nation, had the Regent not started catapulting Ephremian heads at the indomitable fleet.

When Suvani's screech of hilarity echoed back from those message tubes so canned and modulated that it sounded like a monotone heckler mocking the Alsantian queen, Ulryk saw his chance.

Unfortunately, Suvani's eyes flashed where his had flickered, and she smiled and sashayed over--an excruciatingly long, sarcastic strut, as if daring him to slink away right in front of her--to block the flue of the message tube.

"What were you thinking? A mouse or a wren? Surely not another serpent, not after what just happened?"

"You cast such a large shadow, your majesty." Ulryk's heart had calmed, and his voice no longer stammered. If she forced him to fight for his life, he must find his peace with it. "Why are your thoughts so small?"

Suvani's leering grin shrank, and she raised upturned hands, clutching jagged shards of blue light. "You have a very fine son, Ulryk. No thanks to you. Still, I ought to spare him your wretched sight and blast you entirely out of existence."

The first flung bolt grazed his left arm, numbing that limb, so that as he spat forth into doeskin,

one hoof clubbed the floor, but the others clattered firm as his snub horns caught her in the ribs. Outrage flared as dumbstruck astonishment surged, having not only changed skins, but sex as well--Suvani had unmanned him entirely, so that he could not raise a stag's rack of horns, even as her wriggling blue darts, hot for his life, flashed through the hull, leaking sea water, and creaking the walls so alarmingly, that even the cringing guard found his courage, bowed his head, squeezed his eyes shut,

and barreled into Suvani, hurling her onto the doe's snub horns and scrambling her enchanted bolts across the floorboards. Where the spilled magic scattered, the wood singed, spiraling blueish fumes which, a doe's heartbeat later, had choked the room.

"I've cast aside a gaauuu---" Suvani hacked and coughed, less from her lungful of acrid blue smoke than from having the wind knocked out twice by body blows which pinned her between the doe and the guard. When she hacked more and more, Ulryk stumbled, choked by shock and self-loathing,

having just attacked a child two years older than his son, regardless of her plenipotent power. Her hacking continued, guttural syllables that stirred the fog of memory until his eyes widened, and he lunged for the guard, thinking to drag him away from the dark queen. As the guard shoved at the doe,

fear and revulsion writ large in his wracked grimace and bloodshot stare, Suvani swept her hands high,

this time golden claws, sharp and brutal, that gored jaw, ribs, and guts, one swipe making a bloody, gurgling hash of his loyal man. As he fell, her other claw grazed the doe's numb foreleg, which shivered to life as Ulryk skittered back, colliding into Conrad, who had stumbled up behind him, grasped him around the neck, and leaned back hard with all the strength of his legs, forcing the doe in a sidestep to the wall.

"You'll kill him!" shouted Conrad.

"Conrad, be a dear." Suvani's face was spattered with gore and blood. When she licked her lips, her tongue was red. "Stand aside."

"He can't die!" shouted Conrad. "Not like this!" He averted his eyes from her bloody glare. "Not yet," he muttered.

"He's a shapeshifter, Conrad. What is there to know? Take it from one who knows. My army has thousands of werewolves and other skin-changers, neither this nor that. It's like never being completely here, for how can you ever be 'in the flesh' when that flesh is constantly changing? No doubt your father and the king of Gaona are in that jumble somwhere, but you can never know them for certain.

Not anymore.Shapeshifters cross a perilous line, like hopping from life to death."

He scowled. "He's not the only shape shifter here."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"If you want to be that strict with him, you're not the woman I rescued either. She gave me an entirely different name."

"Those were half-truths, Conrad. Anyone with a little intelligence plays human chameleon from time to time. Should I declare myself to my enemies on the battlefield? Can't you forgive me a little subterfuge when I've been gutted and in a bloody faint. Just look at him," she smirked, jerking her thumb toward the clawed corpse of the guard."As you were in Ephremian armor, it's a miracle I didn't dissolve my rescuer with a death spell. But then, I've always had good instincts, being true to my skin, a hero to my self. Not so your father: a traitor to his skin and a villain to his own."

Strutting to Conrad, she tapped a golden claw to his chin, while another nestled his adam's apple, a subtle stroke that raised alarm in Ulryk more than Vemulus's blade had on his own neck, and he jostled free and glared at the dark queen, his shadow molten and gushing before him as his rack grew high and hard, the points grazing the ceiling. No matter how wide and capacious the king's flagship, Ulryk was now a full-grown stag in a ship's mess hall. At the last possible moment, he arrested his caroming antlers just before they gored the queen, so that he only snatched her up and pitched her on her side. As he put one hoof forward, then another, Vemulus strode forward from the table, his mouth dusted with sugar, and one hand clutching the gigantic golden dish cover like a shield.

Planting his feet between before Suvani, Vemulus scowled at the stag.

Ulryk was incredulous. Vemulus knew his sister wanted his head, so why protect Suvani? Even if Ulryk had conspired against him, so had she, so why would Vemulus not simply watch and laugh,

vanquish the winner, and usurp the throne?

Vemulus snorted. "He's not only a traitor to his own skin, he's got a proper taste for humanities now. A real hunger."

"Look at him, Conrad," snickered Suvani. "The spell so cannibalized your father, he's more on the outside of his skin looking in. More consumed than changed. More knowing than living. More dead than alive."

"Stop it!" Conrad's eyes went wild. "Why do you talk this way! You say you're no shapeshifter, but you are! You shape hearts and minds! Your words change everything! Even now, on the other side of those words you just so off-handedly said, I'm no longer the same person! And after a touch of your hand, I'm not even me anymore. Of course you're a shapechanger! You changed me! I want to go home, back to Earth!" As he shouted, he melted from man-child to boy-child, his words bobbing in sobs, then hiccups, until she enfolded him in gentle claws.

Over his son's shoulder, Suvani's bale glare bored into Ulryk, and he melted again, the horns pouring back to a doe, then puddling down drop by doe drop, brown muddied to green, a squat toad squirming through the message tube. When her blue tendril streaked alongside, sparking and pinging in the iron pipe, the blue flicker illuminated the tube, then snuffed out, leaving him worming through the hollow dark. In the constricting metal, the steel closed in less around his body than his mind, where the scope of his thoughts shrank and shrank, constricting to a pea-green tadpole thought of nothing but freedom.

What dragged him back to himself were Conrad's snuffling cries, then raw, angry shouts.

"Come back! Bring him back!" While Suvani's sarcastic quips and barbed retorts couldn't pipe this far,

his son's outraged sobs and imperious cries rang clear as a bell. "Dad! Don't leave!" Anguish so wrung the frog inside out that he stopped mid-hop, one leg sidling around a bend in the pipe. As he heaved a froggy sigh, he brought his other leg over and shimmied further, until clashing steel drowned out Conrad's rising screech.

As the din of parries and profanities drowned out his own froggy heartbeat, Ulryk stopped dead in the pipe. When long-squashed feelings surfaced, the king swelled inside, but it was only the bulging memory of his humanity, for he no longer felt human at all, but a wrung-out, cowardly wretch in frog's skin scrabbling through a pipe. Lacking this human element, Ulryk teetered on the cusp of frog and king, a kind of royal amphibian blending the worst of both worlds. In that fragmented, bloated moment,

he nearly swole back to himself in the pipe, and might have been crushed that very instant had he not been touched by this gentle kiss of remembrance: For there, in the thick darkness of the thin pipe, Ulryk reflected on Conrad's mother, the beautiful Jolanna.

Being five years older, his queen would be more grizzled than he had she survived their hopes for a family, but he remembered her as the young maiden she was, courted by every lord in Gaona.

Although he was the crown prince, it had been harrowing to press his suit alongside rich, decrepit codgers and strapping, bearded coxswains when he was yet sixteen. Suvani's age. But just as Suvani had stolen Conrad for her own, Jolanna had also robbed Ulryk from the cradle, choosing him for her prize from the dying petty nobles and virile captains. While far from pure, Jolanna was honest and good. In lieu of accepting his pledge, she exchanged one of her own, admitting she craved the power of a queen, and promised to make a worthy queen. A fire had crept into her voice as she swore their children would rule not only Gaona, but all of Alsantia. Feeling himself not only a frog choking this iron pipe, but a speck dwindling down the tunnel of memory, Ulryk was flooded by the grief of past days, and knowing Conrad, her last bequeath, was now in Suvani's claws, regret swelled up until he croaked. Not that he died--he literally croaked, a gigantic, froggy sob that plumbed the message tube,

so loud that the clashing blades stopped, giving rise to snickers, the battling solders unified in heckling this pathetic, unseen sobber, until the tube flap below creaked open, carrying Suvani's mocking whisper: "frog off, petty half-man king."

Not that her taunt got his goat. Being an idle king most of his life, and a frog in a pipe at present, a goat's steady gait on uneven footing was beyond his understanding. But at the root of his being, a part of himself had fallen off, like a tadpole tail. This emptiness quivered in his shallow self,

for while still waters run deep, loneliness is a vast sea one can easily run aground in, and he lingered in the bend, wrecked at heart. While her words had punched through like a cannonball, they had only found the hole left by his son's scorn. nausea, and gaping disbelief, that his father had consumed his loyal man.

While Frog Ulryk had dwindled to a mere scrap of himself, that was nothing compared to fading away from the villainous snakeskin, which had altered him not only bodily, but in his soul,

so vibrant was the shivering, serpentine memory. While as a king he had idled on his throne lifelong,

in five minutes as a snake, he had eaten the flesh of man, so who is to say which is the figment, and which the reality? Ulryk was now just a fleck flaking from this inevitable serpent, which had wormed in alongside the enchantments until his shriveling skin sloughed from the cold-blooded beast.

Having sent the last shred of Jolanna to another world, he had long felt his kingship mere rags to toss in the fire. He must now peel the beast away to burn in the fires of self-loathing, so that no matter what shape he took now, he would prove himself a man. Utterly bereft, and masking his anguish with a forlorn smile, he had lived long enough. He would prove himself as wicked a fiend as Suvani if he did not put it right.

So the toad turned. Ulryk hopped back down the pipe, each hop taking him nearer certain doom, but possible redemption in the eyes of his son. For his own eyes were already tainted, a taint thad spread to his memories, leaving him nowhere to turn from his sinful inaction. Having been too sluggish to be good, perhaps now he might be good enough. He might die unloved, but not unpitied and infamous, the king who succumbed to his own spell, ate the flesh of man with his son for an audience,

and was stamped out by Suvani. As he hopped, Ulryk racked his brain for shapes that might stand against the monstrous twins, the witch queen and the hulking prince. While he knew the shapes of lions and tigers, only by meditation could he hold them long, and if his concentration broke, he would flicker back to his own shape. He was practiced with the shapes of birds, snakes, frogs and dogs, but none large or mean enough for a fight to the death.

"Little frog king..." Suvani's sybillant gloating resonated in the message tube. "Frog-legged king. Known far and wide for good taste. Do you taste good as well? I have not had frog's legs for a spell, as eating scraps of talking animals had begun to pale. But eating frog's legs off a coward king? Now there's a low-hanging fruit I haven't tasted before." Her voice clicked and clacked, and hissed between the clicks and clacks, as if Suvani was now a mechanical thing. But there was no doubt that whatever she was now, it was creeping up the pipes.

As Ulryk's resolve melted, he tried to cower back around the bend, but only crouched lower,

for his splayed frog-legs would not go backwards, being too ungainly for rearward hops. By the time he had rounded on himself and scampered full force for top deck, the scorpion lashed just over his head,

its tail ringing on the pipe.

As the scorpion inched nearer the fleeing frog, fright flared through Ulryk until Ulryk the frog started blacking out, Ulryk the man started upwelling, right there in the pipe, and Ulryk hiked up the ungainly frog legs in a very un-froglike, flatfooted sprint, gaining the last few yards faster than the rigid pace of the scorpion, which nonetheless clicked and clacked relentlessly, spilling out topside a moment behind Ulryk.

Ulryk exhaled and expanded, bursting forth into a naked king bedraggled with an ichorous mixture of frog's sweat and king's tears, his long hair a ragged. sopping mop. His sailors stepped back, then pitched forward to steady him when his bare feet slipped and slid in something wet and slick. As he gained his bearings, he saw blood streaming in the wood, and the bodies of his soldiers. Suvani's men had swords drawn and spears levelled, those not busy dumping corpses into the shallow sea.

As the scorpion faced the soldiers scornfully, they sprang to attention. While fearful, they were far from surprised. No doubt they had seen her in this form before, but if they hadn't, none that lived could play the part of Suvani so well as that scorpion, which chittered closer, its tail flicking forward, then cocking back, in a menacing cycle of pretended stinging.

As it came near, the leftmost sailor snuffled a choked, drawn-out sob, while the one on the right shook, shivering Ulryk's right hand.

"Your majesty," he whispered. As birds of a feather flock together, Ulryk found his cowardice oddly comforting, and couldn't supress a warm feeling of camraderie, even as his death clicked near in its confident advance.

"Not now."

"Save us, my king."

Ulryk sighed and said nothing, but could not suppress his indignant glare.

As the cowardly sailor flinched, his shivering fingers shook fiercer, and the scorpion tapped its stinger impatiently on his shadow. "Turn us to fish, so we might dive overboard and save our skins."

"I could." Ulryk nodded. "But I cannot."

"Your majesty? Why do nothing when you have the power to save us?"

"That's how I got here. Why stop now. As a king's pelt is spoiled by cowardice and laziness,

my skin is not worth saving."

As if in retort, the scorpion jerked in its tracks, then sprawled, a sparse, spidery flowering

like shriveling in reverse, each unwinding of its carpace into Suvani's flesh and black long-trained gown somehow cutting away more than it added, as if the frightful, potent queen slashed a hole in reality wherever she stood. She certainly was too bright a black to look at, her gown resplendent and shimmering, his eyesight at once absorbed and reflected in the fabrics' harsh glint. As she sashayed near, the hem scraped like the click-clack of scorpion shell, and her train flicked left and right, a swaying sting biding its time. Seeing this vile queen was a scorpion made large, Ulryk shuddered,

then cast the sailors' nerveless hands aside.

"Where is my son?"

"Is this the frog or the doe?" As she strutted in a half-circle, her soldiers gave her a wide berth,

and she widened the arc in an even more exaggerated strut as she played to the crowd. "If it's the frog,

why would I dally with your tadpole? If you're the doe, there's no game in battling other women.

I might roast you and pick you apart, though--leg for a leg, rib for a rib. You can't imagine being hit by a deer, even with those itty, bitty horns."

"Neither."

"Pardon me?" Her lips pursed in a puffed-up pout.

"You're speaking to the king."

"Oh. It's Ulryk." She sounded bored. Then she smiled. "The one that lost his grip on a spell and ate his bodyguard?" She snickered. "Now more snake than king."

"You act like you've already won."

"She has." Vemulus clambered up the hatch just ahead of Conrad. "She always wins. Why not, being god's favorite."

"Shut your mouth," snapped Suvani.

"Or what?" Vemulus swaggered from the hips, threw his arms wide, and tossed his head back as he cackled loudly. "There's no point telling you to do your worst, Suvani. You've never done your best a day in your life. I could do so much better."

"As if. You don't even know what you want."

"King. Obviously." Vemulus rolled his eyes and licked sugar off his lips.

"You would only get bored. We could only hope."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Only that you've killed everything you've loved, Vemulus."

"That's not true." Vemulus growled. "I've never loved anyone or anything."

"You loved your horses. Then ran them into the ground. The only one that didn't die of a broken leg died from a ruptured heart. You ran it to death." She paused and tossed her head back, as if mulling over the facts. "And you loved your dog. Two dogs, in fact, both named Wulfing. Both shaggy gray wolf hounds."

"I remember." Vemulus passed a hand over his eyes, as if fanning them from the light.

"I killed Wulfing when he talked back, and when his namesake didn't, I hounded it around the halls,

dogging it day in and day out, baiting it to talk, too. But it was just a poor, dumb animal."

Suvani's bored, monotonous eyes swiveled to Ulryk. "Speaking of which, why are you still here? You must be a pretty poor shapeshifter, to be stuck on a sailing ship, facing the sea and the sky. If you can't grow horns, grow gills, or a pair of wings. A pair of something, anyway." She cackled. "If you insist that I kill you, at least oblige poor, hungry Vemulus and turn into a lamb. Truth to tell, I'd rather spare your white hide, given your tadpole and his goggling tadpole eyes, which always seem surprised by everything I do."

"Then spare him too. Take my kingdom, Suvani, and I'll take him far from here."

"The heck you will," muttered Conrad, brushing away Ulryk's weakly grasping hand.

"Take my fiance? My boy prince, whom they adore more than they will ever love me?"

Suvani sneered scornfully at Conrad's questioning look. "Where would that leave me? To the poor, I'm less a person than a narrative. They follow my story avidly, having little love for their own drab little lives. I care not if they think me faithless," sighed Suvani, "so long as I'm not thought fickle, which is much worse than being believed the slave of god or fate. I'd much rather have them think everything I do is significant than that nothing I do has purpose."

"In the long run," said Vemulus, "it matters little what you believe. It matters what you do. Like so." Vemulus was fast, but Suvani was faster, and prepared for his betrayal, having contained her envious, resentful brother in the corner of her eye her entire life. Knowing he would rise against her,

she gave him his freedom, a blade, and the pleasure of her company a mere arm's length away, making the fact of his violence so certain, she must only bide her time. But she had not anticipated how ardent his loathing was, for even as his blade flowered on her side--the metal blossoming into red and orange filaments that mushroomed against her harmlessly--his other hand swung in, clutched her throat, and dangled her over the deck. While Suvani was a tall, well-built, young woman, Vemulus was immense, and he held her there effortlessly, her face reddening before his, as her eyes bulged, less from strangulation than rage, until the blue sparks made a jagged ring around not only her hands but her eyes, her hair swaying up in staticky strands, and her feet spreading in a fighting stance, as if she had somehow found her footing midair, then her hand slashed up, sending Vemulus scooting in a shower of sparks until he boomed on the deck, a rolling boom crashing on the starboard hull.

As Suvani staggered, clutching her throat in one hand, and arranging the train of her gown with the other, the sailors clutched Ulryk and sidled nearer the sea. The king's head bobbed helplessly, drawn to Suvani, then Conrad, then the heap of Vemulus. As she lazily turned toward Ulryk, Suvani brought a hand to her chin, but only chuckled.

Conrad's eyes had widened in disbelief and horror, then narrowed as Ulryk was half-dragged toward the deep, anchored side of the flagship. When Conrad scowled and came nearer, the leftmost sailor dropped Ulryk's forearm, turned, sprinted, and dove off, shrieking the whole way down until the smack of the waves, then the silence shuddering with the gently rocking ship.

When Vemulus had struck the wall of the ship, the mast had pitched left, creaking as it gathered wind, and swinging just overhead until the rightmost sailor now leaped upon it and let it carry him over the waves, where he jumped, his arms and legs milling until he too cracked into sunset-reddened water. This left Ulryk standing alone and naked. Seeing Suvani's fists still ablaze with a blue crackle, his anger melted into fear, and when he smiled weakly, she laughed back, then joined her blue-haloed fists to stream their darkling light at Ulryk.

The king's wings flicked a hair past the blasting blue tendrils, his antennae twirling in the rushing, crackling air. Now a dragonfly spiralling in tandem with her electrical bolts, Ulryk clove to the lightning, and its sparking arcs enwrapped him and nearly kindled his wings. As fear and anger crisped his cowardly mind, his shivering wings flowered into a falcon, whose yellow eyes bathed everything in monochrome gold, deadening Suvani, Vemulus, the creaking ship, the captured sailors, and the bloodied soldiers to a gilded, deadened calm, before his wings furled, then punched forward, dragging his claws along her neck, which sprayed a golden ichor,

the blood also brightened by the golden-eyed falcon.

Having staggered to one knee, Suvani melted to a puddle of scales and shadows, crackling and coruscating with eldritch energy no longer wizard blue, but dark coils curving around snaky rolls, hoops and fangs, and the fumes billowing from the spout of fire that chased Ulryk now.

Dragon. Ulryk had never been so calmed by the whisper of his inner voice. The falcon's mind was a pure realm purged of weakness and fear, its vast farsight an unending golden serenity. The falcon believed itself less a full-fledged bird of prey than a tremendous colossus, its giant soul measured not by wingspan, beak, and tailfeathers, but by the scope of its farseeing sight, clasping wide and far. Its enormous self-image had swallowed Ulryk as easily as a mouse, as if the falcon, from a mile high,

had seized his flesh, not the other way around. Ulryk had never felt so bewitched. While he had taken the shape of a king for nigh on forty years, he had never known true being, when one's form meets the measure of one's soul. While the falcon had mastered him, his heart had swelled to meet it, so that he was no longer shape-shifted, but truly transformed. Ulryk was now a falcon. With a flick of his wings,

he spiraled out of reach, and Suvani's thorny blast took a firework path, batting and sparkling in madcap pursuit, as the ponderous scoops of her leathery wings drove her near, each stroke billowing wind and dust that jetted through his wings and across his eyes. Then that creaking, hoary gasp, and the belch of flame that seared the cold air he had just flitted through, scorching so near that Suvani's golden blood on his talons bubbled and blackened.

To a falcon, life is a nonstop dive from birth to death, only swerving on the hunt, but never from one's fate. As the flame tucked nearer and nearer, Ulryk spun, a hairpin dive that grazed the streaming fire, so blindingly fast it snuffed all but one lick of flame, which etched a grey path through down and feathers, scarring gold falcon with black scars like runes, his dizzying death flight wound to a tigher nausea by his own sickening, gamy scent, just as his claw traced as quick and jagged a line in the dragon's eye.

For a moment, both falcon and dragon eye were near immaculate, traced with the mere path of violence, but as the instant collapsed, Suvani's eye splashed to gore, the falcon's colossal horizons blurred to smoke, and what was left of Ulryk clove to Conrad's hollow sobs as the king faded to a smoldering shadow.