2 - Name Me Heir

The funeral procession for His in Resplendence, Tyriu Paghemar stretched along the entire length of the Avenue of Prayers, coiling through the whole city, stretching outside the gate onto the causeway and out over the chasm, with every noble Lainz house determined to show their grief over the death of the Immutable’s last Heir. The other side of the Avenue was empty, lined along the whole way with the Rasheem, the Bodyguard, to keep the cobbles clear under a sun that bit deep into uncovered skin.

In the formal silence the roar of the river in the canyon echoed up to the highest balcony, almost drowning out the bass vibration of the pumps that moved water from a thousand feet below below. Even the dry Basin and the streets were still, honoring the dead. No sound from the closed market, the street birds in their cages covered to ensure their silence. Strung along under the causeway like a huge string of beads, even the Exposure cages had been emptied and silenced, swaying slightly in the constant wind.

The body at the head of the waiting procession, gilded and standing in the chariot of honor, swayed slightly, giving it an odd semblance of life. Two charioteers stood on the stone, waiting his Resplendence’s signal, one leading four white horses that would be sacrificed to the Light at the White Mound, the second leading the black team that drew the chariot. For the last time, Tyriu would leave the Sunrise Loggia and make his way all the way through the city that would have been his, had he lived longer than his Great Grandfather.

Above, in the Sunrise Loggia’s only public balcony, weighed down by years as much as the heavy red gold and white robes, the Immutable sat, leaning forward on his staff of office. Every wrinkled, bony, finger winked with two rings, one above and one below the arthritic central knuckle. Gold painted his long nails and gold powder dusted his sunken eyelids. It gave him a blind, golden stare when he closed his eyes, as they were now, his breath gusting to belly out the fine woven white veil over his nose, mouth and chin.

He looks like a snapping turtle in a golden shell, Nadian Basserus thought, not letting his slight smile climb over the top edge of his own face covering. He didn’t want the old man to get the idea that he was anything but grief-stricken at Tyriu’s -- his own distant cousin -- untimely demise. It was ironic that the Lainz nobles below were displaying all their finest horses and battle banners in honor of his Resplendence’s life, given that Tyriu had only been five years old.

“The river has risen.” It was a dry croak from the old man, talking emptiness.

“Of course your Resplendence. The rains are coming.” As if you needed me to tell you that, he thought, leaning forward slightly to hear the almost whispered word. You’ve seen more seasons turn than I and my father and my grandfather combined.

The shriveled golden figure nodded absently, his eyes on the funeral chariot below, then his eyelids closed again, giving the golden look to the world.

What the Dark is he thinking? He can’t have cared for the little brute. Nadian turned away to cough, smothering his urge to laugh at the fuss. He’ll name another Heir and everything will go back to normal. The thing that bothered him was that the Immutable was starting to become more unpredictable. Why, he’d even held a hero’s funeral for his granddaughter, what’s her name, Tyriu’s mother, when she’d died in childbirth a few months ago. I wouldn’t have stooped to killing a mere female except he was starting to look at her, at women of his line, as Heirs, rather than where he should look. Me.

The horses were getting restless in the heat and down in the city there was a minor commotion, quickly suppressed as a lesser family’s moas tried to start a fight, or perhaps eat someone. Only the great nobles had both horses of honor and moas as draft animals, and the number of trainers necessary to keep them apart in such processions.

Nadian was dressed, head to foot in black properly reflecting the Immutable as his shadow, everyone in the court was.   The only concession to mourning was the gold lace along the bottom edge of the veil, that scratched a bit of dry skin on his bottom lip. If only the old fart would open his eyes and give the word for the stupid procession to start, winding down the empty side of the Avenue, out to the private burial mounds where every Immutable or his family had been laid to rest under a blindingly white dome.

It was a pity the boy had died. Nadian hadn’t meant the ‘cline - the spell of diminishment - to work quite that way. He had actually been aiming at the old man, hoping to be the boy’s Regent. After all, wasn’t that what all villains aspired to? Not that he considered himself a villain, just the next best Immutable, even if the old man didn’t see it yet. He wondered again what had gone wrong with the ‘cline.

His father had taught him some mandery, the old, forbidden ways of the Brotherhood of Independent Ones.   

But he was thinking he was probably a cliner.  Both rare.  Both anathema.  Only a hundred years ago he could have been a Dee-mander or a Dee-cliner, one of the great mages of legend, but the Lainz hadn’t had a full-fledged and acknowledged Dee, in all that time. Perhaps the old man had his official mages, not that anyone ever saw them... Nadian had resented the lack of teacher almost as much as he resented not having been Heir. He shrugged to himself, long reconciled to the lack. He’d just have to go back to his solitary studies. It had startled him that the cline had made his own nose bleed, even as it killed the boy.

He raised his eyes to that distant speck of white in the desert. The old man’s burial space was a gap in the white shimmer, with all the relatives that had been buried in an ever-expanding spiral around where he would rest. He’s old. Why doesn’t he just give up and die and let someone young and competent take the High Seat? Like me.

“Nadian.” The Immutable’s voice was a harsh croak as he addressed the man standing opposite Nadian, his younger brother.

“Yes, your Resplendence.”

“I must let him go, mustn’t I.”

Yes, you greedy old man. Nadian addressed him in his head, words locked behind his veil.  Name me Heir and I can afford to quit killing everyone around you. I’ll be able to wait till you die of old age. “Give him to the Gods, your Resplendence. Let the Darkness give him peace.” He leaned over to pour a golden cup full of water, lifting that damnable lace off his lip to taste a sip before offering it to the Immutable. 

Over his Resplendence’s back, Nadian could see his brother’s glare.  Rivals all, every one of the Hive Lords, for the Old Queen Bee’s favor. He was used to their harsh looks.

His posture gave nothing way except, perhaps, to his brother who knew him. He stood plank stiff watching Nadian whisper in the old man’s ear. The Immutable’s eyes, trained for almost a century of reading his court, even with their faces covered, opened, shifted to one side, taking in the by-play before coming back to settle on the young man offering him water.

Far from being rheumed with age, his bright blue eyes gleamed bright in his dark face, sharp and clear as the eyes of a predator. “Basserus, your grief does you credit.” There was no trace of irony in his voice but Nadian could see it in his look. He drained the cup and handed it back, his touch dry as a serpent’s belly.

The hive lord couldn’t let the opportunity to gently fence with the old man slip away. The Immutable liked to think people dared stand up to him. He let a faint touch of irony color his answer. “You see everything, your Resplendence.”

“No. I’m not so far gone in my own legend that I believe in my own infallibility. I just know you.”  turned away, his grip tightening on the staff, even though it caused him pain. There was no sign of weakness when he raised it so that the cruel sunlight winked off the mirrored top, signaling the end of his great grandson’s stay on earth.

The lead charioteer stepped forward with his magnificent, doomed charges. With a groan the funeral procession creaked into slow motion, down the spiraling road to the gate and the white man-made hills beyond. Nadian, straightening up from the Emperor, watching the door to the Throne itself open before him, missed the single tear in the old man’s eye that evaporated unobserved in the thirsty air as he watched the body of his great grandson into the distance.