Sulepis himself, the Master of the Great Tent, the Golden One, the God-on-Earth, stood before this assembly like the sun in the sky, clad only in a spotless white loin cloth, his arms raised as though he were about to speak. He said nothing, however, but only stood as the Slaves of the Royal Armor, under the direction of the high official known as the Master of the Armor-a position reserved for the closest thing to a friend the autarch had, a plump young man named Muziren Chah, eldest son of a middling noble family; Muziren had shared a wet nurse with the infant Sulepis but had no royal blood himself. Under Muziren's silent (but still obviously anx¬ious) direction, the Slaves of the Royal Armor clothed the autarch first in billowing pants and blouse of red silk embroidered with the Bishakh fal¬con, then pulled on the monarch's boots and belt and emblems of office,

the amulet and the great necklace, both made of gold and fire opal. Then they began to draw on his golden armor, first the breastplate and kill of del icate, tough chain, then the rest, finishing with his gauntlets. They draped his great black cape on which the spread wings of the falcon had been stitched in golden wire, and then lowered the flame-pointed Battle Crown onto his head.

When the priests had perfumed the autarch with incense it was Vash's turn. He carried up the cushion bearing the Mace of Nushash, gold-plated and shaped like a blazing sun. Sulepis looked at it for a long instant, a half-smile on his face, then winked at Pinimmon Vash and lifted the mace high in the air. For a moment the paramount minister felt certain the autarch was about to dash out his brains right here in front of all these gathered no¬tables-not that any one of them would have dared even to murmur in surprise, let alone protest-but instead he turned to face the sea of people and bellowed in his high, strong voice.

"We will not rest until the enemies of Great Xis have been subdued!"

The crowd roared its approval, a noise that started low like a moan of pain, then rose until it seemed as if it would rattle the tiled images of the gods overhead right out of their heaven and bringing them crashing down to earth.

"We will not rest until our empire spreads over the world!"

The roar grew louder, although why any of them should have cared whether Xis stretched its sway one inch, Vash couldn't imagine.

"We will not rest until Nushash is lord over all-the living God on Earth!"

And now the noise really did threaten to dislodge the tiles from the ceil¬ing and even shake the pillars that kept heaven and earth separated.

The autarch turned and said something to Vash, but it was lost in the storm of approval. He turned back and waved his hands for quiet, which came quickly.

"In our absence, the Master of the Armor, Muziren Chah, will care for you as I care for you, like a herdsman his goats, like a father his children. Obey him in all things or I will return and destroy you all."

Wide-eyed, the assembled courtiers nodded their heads and mumbled praise and in general did their best to look as if they could not even imag¬ine what disobedience meant; Vash, though, had to struggle to keep his face expressionless. Muziren? The autarch was leaving the simpleton Master of the Armor on the throne? Surely that was the role of Prusus, the crippled

scotarch, or even of Vash himself as paramount minister what could be the reason for such a bizarre choice? Was it merely that Muziren was no threat to take the throne? It was hard to believe Sulepis could feel that he would become so vulnerable simply by leaving the city, not with a quarter of a million men at his command and the blood of a hundred kings in his veins?

Muziren Chah took the circlet of regency from the autarch and then dropped to his knees to kiss Sulepis' feet. The autarch dismissed the crowd. (None of them were so foolish as to move from the spots where they stood until Sulepis himself had departed.) The autarch turned to Pinimmon Vash. "To the ships," he said, grinning. "Blood is in the air. And other things, too." Vash had no idea what he meant. "But… but what of Prusus, Golden One?" "He is going with me. Surely our beloved scotarch deserves to see a lit¬tle of the world, old friend?"

"Of course, Golden One. It is just that he has never traveled before…" "Then enough talk. I will need my most trusted minister, too. Are you ready?"

"Of course, Master of the Great Tent. Packed and ready to travel, ready to do your bidding, as always."

"Good. We shall have a most interesting adventure." The autarch stepped back into his litter-now that he was dressed in the royal armor, he could not set foot outside the throne room in the normal way, and in fact could not touch ground in Xis until he reached his ship. His brawny slaves lifted him and carried him out of the room, leaving Vash to wonder why it seemed to him as though the world had suddenly spun a little way out of its accustomed orbit.

The Players

Fearing for the safety of his new bride Suya, Nushash took her to

Moontusk, the house of his brother Xosh, a great fortress built from the

ivory of the moon (which becomes a tusk each month and then falls from

the sky.) But hear me! Argal, Xergal, and Eftyal learned from Shoshem the

Trickster where she was, and raised a great army to come against it.

— from The Revelations of Nushash, Book One

A

LONE AGAIN. Lost again. Cursed and lost and alone…

Briony wiped hard at her cheeks with the back of her hand, scrubbing away the tears. No. Get up, you stupid girl! What was she doing, weeping like a child? How long had she been sitting here alone at the edge of the forest as the sun began to set? What kind of fool would sit blubbering while the moon rose and the wolves came out?

She staggered to her feet, weak-kneed and exhausted although she hadn't moved for a long, long time. Had it all been a dream, then-the demigoddess Lisiya, the food, the stories of the gods and their battles? Only the dream of someone lost and wandering?

But wait-Lisiya had given her something, some amulet to carry. Where was it? Briony patted at the pockets in the sleeves of her ragged clothing, the long blouse of the boy she had killed, spattered with the dried brown of his blood…

Defending myself, she thought, feeling a warming glow of anger. Defend¬ing myself from kidnap and rape!

She could find no trace of any goddess-given trinket. Her heart seemed heavy and cold as a stone at the bottom of a well. She must have imagined it all.

She still had something left in her of the Briony Eddon who been a queen in all but name, however, the young woman who had woken up every morning for months with the weight of her people's well-being press¬ing down on her, the Briony who had learned to trust herself in the midst of flattering counselors and scheming enemies. That Briony possessed more than a little of her family's famously stubborn strength and was not going to give in so easily, even now. She began to retrace her own steps-although noting with another pang that hers seemed to be the only footprints- searching along the forest fringe for any trace of her hours with Lisiya, for any real evidence of what had happened.

She found the amulet at last, almost by pure chance: the white threads had caught on a hanging branch several hundred steps into the forest, where it dangled like a tiny oblong moon. Briony gently teased the bird skull free, sending a prayer of gratitude to Zoria, and then belatedly to Lisiya herself, for this proof she had not imagined it all. She held it to her nose and smelled the dried flowers whose strange, musty tang reminded her of the spice jars in the castle kitchens, then slipped it into her pocket. She would have to find a cord for it, to keep it safe.