The Tribute King

PRINCE VORAN BOUNDED up the hundred steps of the Citadel as if they were only two, barely winded and buoyed with excitement from his news. Lazlo trailed behind, laden with the weight of the three thick sand whale skin satchels he was holding.

“Come on, slowpoke!” the Prince called down to him; Lazlo, sweating profusely, paused and gazed upwards, bleary-eyed.

“Your highness …” His servant and friend wheezed as he trod foot after leaden foot up the staircase, “I don't … think … your father … will appreciate … your lack of decorum.”

“The old man has too much decorum in his diet,” Voran drawled dismissively, and reached out to hoist Lazlo and his bundles towards the landing. “Now come along!”

Lazlo kept a generous pace behind while he caught his breath. The guard at the grand entrance door to the throne room saluted and opened the door for the Prince. The court assembly made a wide path as he and his servant passed through.

“Father!” Voran crossed the distance to the dais of the ornately carved throne, made of a solid block of petrified wood from the Fire Mountains. He paused before his father, King Korian, and bowed with an uncharacteristic flourish, hearing Lazlo skid to a halt behind him and fall to his knees, the hard thump of the satchels following as they struck the polished stone floor. “If you please, I've come to announce a great victory!”

Voran had expected a reaction … any reaction at all from his father, the guards, retainers, advisors, or even the assembled courtiers after so grand an announcement, but the throne room was uncharacteristically, eerily, silent. The King had not even given him leave to rise.

“Ah … father?” Voran glanced towards the throne, fighting down the choke of embarrassment with the momentary notion that he had perhaps burst in on some critical discussion.

“So that's what became of the heads.”

The King's rich, sonorous voice pierced the silence like the ram horn at the temple calling supplicants to devotion. Voran felt his gaze upon him: those piercing gray eyes that rested beneath dark, bushy eyebrows and a circlet that held down his luxurious locks of ebony hair, with gold rings fastened to their ends. The Prince stole a glance, watching his father slump back, his red Naga silk cloak framing his gold fringed black leather tunic.

“Bring me those bags, boy,” he commanded to Lazlo, who was still huffing and puffing from his arduous journey up the stairs, and bowed over as steadily as Voran. Lazlo obeyed, and hauled his satchels to the throne's dais to place them at the King's feet, then backed away, facing the throne as protocol dictated.

Voran, still at a loss to understand what was going on, heard the shuffling of the bags' leather straps, and then whispering between the King and Aven, his chief advisor, who stood beside the throne.

“On your feet,” the King said, his voice gruff and terse, “both of you.” Voran stood upright, his sore back grateful for the reprieve, but his innards churning at the sight of his father's expression, which was as dark and menacing as any look that he was known to give when sentencing criminals.

“Tell me, my son, was it you who downed the approaching hovercraft that our tower guards spotted earlier today?”

“Yes, father,” Voran said, his voice having lost much of its prepared eagerness. “I was in the west tower and saw them approaching. It was a small hovercraft with five guards and three passengers, bearing the standard of the Plenteous Lands. I took my fastest dromedon, and with surprise on my side, wiped out the whole retinue, guards and all. It was surprisingly easy; didn't even break a sweat, and it was high noon. How our most hated enemy managed to get this far into the deep desert unspotted I'll never–”

“I invited them.”

Voran felt acutely and utterly sick. He also discovered that he had no need to swear; Lazlo had beaten him to it, and made a more profane oath than he could have ever devised.

The King's declaration stirred a ripple of gasps and alarmed chatter from the assembly. When he spoke again, his voice had lowered an even more threatening octave.

“You obviously don't remember the name, Rogan Hamer, do you?”

“Sh-should I?” Voran found that his voice had become unsteady. A slight crack broke into it, and he swallowed, tasting the faintest hint of bile.

“The correspondence I had been speaking about for the last three months?” The King growled. He slammed his fist upon the throne at the last word, and everyone present, Voran included, jumped with a start. “The correspondence with the man whose very head lies in this satchel?” He turned toward his steward at his right and shot a gloved finger towards the middle bag. “Aven, was the wreckage searched? Was the letter aboard?”

“It was in the safe in the captain's quarters, in a fire-proof strong box.” The gaunt-looking man at the King's right side, bearing the same white robes as Lazlo produced a scrolled parchment with a waxen seal and presented it to the King. Voran was too far away to see the fine details of the seal, but its distinctive pentagram shape identified it as from House Hamer, the ruling family of the Plenteous Lands in the far north, where the fertile and temperate valleys of the desert tribes' enemies, fed by the abundant waters of the polar ice caps lay beyond the impenetrable Stone Wall Mountains. “But even then, the Prince's … sport … left a smoke cloud that could be seen for miles.”

The King took the scroll and broke the seal, glanced over its contents, then squeezed his eyes shut before he looked away. An expression that was midway between pain, shame, and fury crossed his bearded face, and he rested his brow in his hand. He tossed the parchment unceremoniously to the ground, and Voran watched as it fluttered miserably to the bottom of the dais, the thick wax of the seal making a tapping sound that seemed to echo in the throne room's dead silence. For nearly a minute, he said nothing.

“Your majesty?” The guard at his left side said, concerned.

“Out.” The King's voice was a hoarse whisper, barely audible to all but Voran.

Aven, a puzzled expression on his face, leaned closer to the King. “Excuse me?”

“Out!” The King sat bolt upright, causing Aven to stagger back, nonplussed.

The King made a broad, sweeping gesture to the entire court. “Everybody out! Now!”

Before Voran could feel even the beginnings of any kind of relief, his father immediately gestured hard and fast towards him.

“Oh, no, my son. Not you! You will remain right here. Your servant may leave and be thankful that I don’t have him beaten for being an accessory to this fool's mission, but he'll not want to be here for what I have planned.”

Voran's terror grew exponentially as one by one, the members of the court and supplicants filed out of the throne room.

“Gods be with you,” was all that Lazlo could murmur before beating a hasty retreat with the rest of the assembly. Soon, there were none left but himself and his father. The door latch fell into place as the last courtier made his exit, the sound echoing with the finality of a death's knell.

“Three months' worth of negotiation,” the King's words came hard and cold through a face composed of clenched teeth, narrowed eyes, and skin that glowed a new, menacing shade of red. “Two of those three months spent just getting the damn royal court and House Hamer to even agree to this peace effort! And you, in the time it takes to void your bowels, made it all for nothing!”

“Father, it's …” Voran's mind floundered for a proper word to use, “… unfair to blame me! If I had any inkling that that was an emissary …”

The King fired upwards from his throne to his full, imposing height, Voran's excuse seeming to break what was left of his patience.

“You have a brain, do you not?” He thundered. “Why the hell would such a small group come out this far? And bearing their standards, no less?” He then leaped from his throne and dais, and crossed the floor with a speed that nearly blinded the Prince with paralyzing fear. Before he could step back, the King whipped his arm out and grabbed him violently by his hair, pulling him closer. Defiantly, Voran bit back the reflex to cry out from the agony that fired through his follicles.

“What kind of an idiot did I raise, who would be so eager for glory and honor for his tribe that he'd take leave of all his common sense?” His father's long, narrow nose was nearly against his own, which was flat and broad as his mother's had been. “Or were you just thirsty for blood? By all the gods! Why did they curse me with such a son?”

“It … was a mistake!” Voran strained his words through his pain, but there was no mercy to be found in his father's unrelenting grasp.

“A mistake?”

His father shrieked the word in naked fury, then, as if fearing murder, appeared to restrain himself. Still, his more level voice resounded with all the scorn of his expression. “No, boy … no. Disobeying me by leading a night charge against those bandits … that was a 'mistake.’ You knew they were day sleepers, and yet you had us chasing them halfway around the planet. We were lucky the heat got to the survivors before we did! And let's not forget that spectacular embarrassment when you entered the annual dromedon race, knowing that no one would dare outpace you for fear of execution, and embarrassing me in front of the tribal council for it. That too, was merely a 'mistake.' And of course, let's not forget all the times I had you fetched from brothels when you should have been with me at court … shall we call those 'mistakes' too? You'd better thank the gods that the girls are not obligated to tell us of when the herbs they eat to make their wombs barren fail to work. Only they know how many bastards you may have sired by them. Perhaps I should go and ask them, eh? Have the priests legitimize the lineage if I find such a child, and place him under your incompetent care, so you can make even more 'mistakes’?”

Voran, cast in teary-eyed pain, tried to reply, but only managed to force a strained choking shriek from his throat.

“Be thankful I'm not so cruel,” the King continued. “Still, have I not warned you time and time again, that I would someday make you regret your idiocy?”

“F … father, please!” Voran felt trickles of thick fluid running down his forehead that he was certain were not sweat, and his pain pushed him beyond the point where his pride would have prevented him from begging. “Forgive me! It won't happen again!”

“Oh, I'm absolutely certain it won't.” The King tossed him to the ground with the same careless ease with which he threw down the parchment. His tone was as menacing as his form, shrouded demon-like in his red cloak. “What's done is done with the emissaries. At least you were taught well enough to make it look like accident. The wreckage was too far from the Plenteous Lands for anyone to know. House Hamer will most likely chalk the disappearance up to some unfortunate mishap; the hovercraft had run into a megarachna, or a pack of sandtigers, or raiders; who knows.” He shook his hands as if he had just handled something vile, and Voran, vision still blurred with tears from his throbbing scalp saw the red of blood splatters hit the floor. "'Sand at night, sand at day, the desert swallows up its prey.' All neat and tidy. But with you, my very foolish son … I have been more than generous with my warnings."

The King stalked over to the long marble table beside the buttressed windows at the throne room's far end: the place where the royal council held their meetings. He then removed a sheet of parchment and pen from the supply at the table's center.

“Now is the time for the teaching of lessons.” He sat down in the chair reserved for his secretary and set pen to paper. Voran gingerly grasped his head, struggled to his feet, and staggered drunkenly over to the table. He steadied himself against its marble surface just as his father finished writing.

“Father, what are you doing?” He asked as the King rolled up the parchment, dripped a few drops of the red wax of the nearby candle onto it and stamped it with his signet. Ignoring his son's question, he rang the servant bell. A young boy with the same white robes as Aven and Lazlo entered through the nearby door and bowed. The King placed the parchment into his outstretched hands.

“Take this to the falcon heights,” he instructed the boy. “Inform the falconer to use his fastest bird. It's to be sent to Sessalgnus with all due haste, to the hands of the High King.”

“The Gray Lands?” Voran nearly shrieked with a voice that had gained strength along with his limbs. He watched with a new pall of growing fear as the servant disappeared, the pain in his scalp having somewhat subsided with his rising panic. “What would you want with the Naga?”

“The time of Tribute is in a week,” the King said, appearing to be much less angry: a state that only made things seem eerier than before. “And this year, as expected, they've invoked the Right of Flesh.”

The connection and subsequent realization that he was to be part of the Flesh Tribute, nearly caused Voran to faint. Staggering, he steadied himself against the table, gasping with new, wrenching panic. “Th-the Flesh Tribute? Father, no, please! You can't possibly … Please, you didn't!”

“Oh, I most certainly did.” The King glanced Voran's way with narrowed eyes as he placed the pen and candle back into their holders. “I told you that I would one day make you regret your antics. Those were not threats. As King, am I not obligated to make good on my promises?”

“But … the Naga? The Tribute?” Voran was in a near-panic now. “Father, you may as well have disowned me!”

“By all rights, I should!” His father pounded on the table's resonant surface as he stood, and Voran nearly lost his footing for his fear. “Your mother, may the gods rest her soul, would have still been of childbearing age, were she still alive today. And I would have, seeing your foolishness, made arrangements to sire a second heir with her long ago. And I swore to honor her memory by not looking for another companion. Even now, even though no one would question my wisdom in stripping you of your rights to the throne, I fear that would be too much. Call me sentimental, but I believe that even a damaged vessel can still be useful. And I've made a specific request for your exile to not be permanent. Three years is enough time, I believe, to teach you a little caution and humility. The Naga ought to understand, due to your position. Despite your … indiscretions, I know that somewhere beneath that foolish, stubborn body that has more muscle than brains, there hides a true future King of Fire Mountain. Perhaps they can teach you what I cannot.”

“But I'll have to wed a Naga!” Voran pleaded, his hopeless terror railed within him with the indignity of it all. “And sire Naga babies with her! By me! By my royal seed!”

“More's the pity for them!” The King's reply dripped with pitiless sarcasm. “Hopefully those children won't carry your less-than-endearing traits. Besides, the Naga will take this as a benefit. They're getting royalty to add to their bloodlines. They will be honored.”

“Father, please,” Voran persisted, despite his dismal awareness of the hopelessness of his situation, “Don't you even care?”

“That is exactly why I'm doing this.” The King’s voice softened for the first time since Voran had arrived with his grisly trophies. But there was no comfort in that softness. “I promised you that you would regret your idiocy. Well, my son, your regret has only begun. Get your affairs in order, or lose yourself in the whores at the brothel like you normally do; I care not which. But mark my words, you will be leaving with the caravan to Sessalgnus in a week's time … or you will live the rest of your life with neither home nor tribe. The choice is yours.”