Forcing his attention back to the emperor, Tol saw that Amaltar leaned hard on the right arm of his golden chair. His face was startlingly pale; against the scarlet of his robes, his skin had the pallor of marble. By tradition, he did not yet wear the imperial circlet on his brow, but his prince’s crown, a simple ring of gold set with two large rubies. His black eyes were shadowed by dark circles and his shoulders hunched. He looked as though he hadn’t slept in many nights.

When Tol and Draymon were six steps from the throne, a quartet of burly guardsmen stepped out, barring the way. The guardsmen were weaponless, of course, but had been carefully chosen for their imposing height and muscle. Draymon and Tol stopped.

“Here I leave you,” said the commander with a nod. “May fortune continue to favor you, my lord.”

Draymon withdrew. A chamberlain-it was Valdid, Valaran’s father-bade the guards stand aside, and gestured for Tol to come forward.

Tol slowly advanced. Lacking a dagger, he struck his heels together and raised an empty hand in salute to his liege. Chamberlain Valdid’s brow furrowed.

“Kneel,” he hissed, tapping his gold-capped staff agitatedly on the floor.

“What?”

“Kneelbefore the emperor!”

Tol was taken aback. Kneel like a slave? He’d never been asked to do such a thing before, not before Amaltar, nor even before his mighty father.

The four burly guardsmen regarded him coldly. Perplexed, Tol sank to one knee. Pressing his sword hand to his breast, he said, “Forgive me, Majesty. I’ve been away so long I don’t know proper manners.”

“Rise, Lord Tolandruth. Approach.”

Amaltar’s voice sounded dry and hoarse and much older than his actual age. Tol stood and came forward.

“Great Majesty, I have come as you bid.”

So intent was he on keeping his eyes away from the emperor’s left, where Valaran stood, that his gaze shifted to those on Amaltar’s right, and he spotted a familiar face.

Mandes!

The threadbare rogue wizard Tol had rescued from a band of wild bakali had certainly come up in the world. Looking sleek and well-groomed in his mourning robes, Mandes radiated success. A heavy silver chain lay around his neck, and a second silver band encircled a waist trimmer now than when Tol had last seen him. Although the top of his head was bald, his brown hair was long on the sides, pulled back and braided into a queue.

Hands tucked into his sleeves, Mandes regarded Tol with serene indifference. Tol forced himself not to stare at Mandes’s left sleeve; that was the arm he had lost in the battle with the monster XimXim. He must have contrived some artifice to give himself the appearance of having two good limbs.

It was not lost on Tol that Mandes stood within reach of the emperor, while Oropash, head of the White Robe wizards, was nearer the back. The positioning was a clear indication of who had Amaltar’s ear and who did not.

“Valiant general,” Amaltar rasped, “you’ve been away too long.”

“That was not by my choosing, sire.” Tol threw a stern glance at Mandes. “Enemies kept me away.”

Assuming he meant the Tarsans, the emperor nodded. “But you overcame them. You are the great sword of our empire, and we rejoice to have you at our side again.”

Tol found it difficult to hide his surprise at Amaltar’s condition. It was plain he was an unhealthy man. His Ackal face, with its strong chin and aquiline nose, had gone round and soft, while the rest of him seemed whittled to bone and sinew. Was it the burden of rule that wore a man down like this?

“I would hear of your final battle before the gates of Tarsis, and your journey here,” Amaltar said. “I’m told you arrived by boat, sailing an oceangoing ship up the Dalti Canal.”

“It was a pirate galleot, Majesty.” Tol explained that a sizable portion of the Blood Fleet had pledged loyalty to Ergoth.

“Pirates?” said the officer nearest the throne. “The emperor’s name cannot be stained by an alliance with bandits!”

Tol did not know the man. He was not one of Pakin III’s old lions, but a youngish fellow, clad in glittering court armor and bearing a scar across his upper lip.

“I speak not of alliance, but submission,” Tol replied tartly. “Sixty-six ships have pledged loyalty to the empire.”

The sneer deepened. “And what is a pirate’s oath worth?”

“More than the word of nameless palace heroes.”

The officer’s hand went to his hip, but of course he wore no sword in Amaltar’s presence. Gilded armor clattered as he drew himself up.

“I have a name-an old and respected one,” he said haughtily. “I am Pelladrom, son of Enkian Tumult.”

Lord Enkian, Tol’s old commander at Juramona, had been a remote, calculating man. His son was more of a hothead.

Pelladrom would have continued the exchange of insults, but Amaltar interrupted.

“Be still, young Tumult,” he said hoarsely. “This is the time for my noble father’s funeral, not yours.”

Amaltar’s advisors fell to debating the merits of the empire’s new navy. The notion was raised of an expedition to Kharland, to colonize the hinterlands and exterminate the pirates who remained there. Kharland was lawless territory, claimed by a hundred petty local lords and chieftains. Ergoth would have seized it much earlier had not Tarsis insisted Kharland remain a neutral buffer between them. With the victory over Tarsis, Tarsan wishes were no longer relevant.

While the councilors wrangled, the royal consorts stood patiently, each with her respective offspring ranged behind her. For a man with eight wives, Amaltar had relatively few children. Pakin III, his father, had sired two dozen. The new emperor had only seven, and Tol noted with guilty relief that none stood behind Valaran.

She met Tol’s eyes for the first time and he thought he would shout for joy. In ten years she had indeed changed-she had grown more beautiful. The slender, tomboyish girl he’d known had given way to a woman’s figure and face, her cheekbones high and chin finely molded. Her gown was cut lower than those worn by the other wives and revealed a breathtaking view of creamy skin. However, her most arresting feature was still her eyes. Where once they had sparkled with youthful wit, like sunlight on new spring leaves, they now seemed cold and hard as emeralds. Her icy expression reduced him to the level of an insect crawling across a scroll she was reading.

It didn’t matter. Just to see Valaran again was worth any amount of anger she might feel for his long absence.

The emperor stood slowly, his shoulders bowed down as though by an invisible burden, and put an end to the wrangling among his advisors.

“These discussions are better vented in council, not in court,” he said.

The men bowed obediently. Tol caught a glimpse of Mandes’s hands as the wizard made his obeisance. Alone among all the hundreds of people in the room, Mandes wore gloves. The thin white gloves were just visible at the ends of his long, flowing sleeves.

Chamberlain Valdid announced that other warlords returning from Tarsis were expected in five days, and upon their arrival, Pakin III’s funeral would be held, followed by Amaltar’s coronation. Only then, when he was officially crowned, would Tol’s patron be fully master of Ergoth.

“Majesty, by what name will you reign?”

The chamberlain was shocked by Tol’s direct question, but Amaltar showed no anger. In fact, the prince’s former shrewd self briefly emerged from the prematurely aged man before them as he replied, “I shall be Ackal IV.”

The news set the court humming. The last emperor by that name, Ackal III, had reigned one hundred sixty years earlier. A cruel tyrant, he had desecrated the temples of Daltigoth and massacred many guiltless priests he believed were plotting against him. For this he had been deposed by his cousin Mordirin and later was found mysteriously murdered inside a sealed room. Since then it had been considered bad luck to take the tainted name of Ackal.