The Calling of the Three (Night-Threads 1)

I

AMONG the lands east of the Herdyun Sea, the greatest in size is Rhadaz; so vast the distances between its borders that a man astride the swiftest mare could not cross from the coastal marshes of Dro Pent to the mountain-locked dells of Fahlia in the southeast in fewer than six days. So vast and unwieldy is Rhadaz, with all its varied lands and peoples, that the great-great-great-grandfather of the present Emperor, Shesseran IX, divided Rhadaz into nine Duchies and gave control of these smaller kingdoms to his nine nearest friends, who founded the Nine Households from which the Dukedoms all descend to this day. Shesseran IX of course continued to take his taxes and such other levies of goods and men as necessary; the Dukes were accountable to him for following Rhadazi customs, for keeping the fests and holy days, for maintaining the standards set by the Emperor. But Shesseran left actual governing in the hands of his friends. He sent no special auditors, observers or spies to watch openly or in secret. He kept strict control thereafter of only his own massive estates and the surrounding game preserves composing the Duchy of Andar Perigha--and, of course, his capital city and chief port, Podhru.

Shesseran IX was widely criticized for having entrusted so much of Rhadaz to mere friends and not kindred--but he was a shrewd man and knew not only who was most loyal to him, but how to secure that loyalty: All Rhadaz prospered under the Duchy system, from the merchants of Sikkre to the Zelharri woodcrafters, even to the meanest herders and nomad tribes of outermost Dro Pent and Holmaddan and Genna.

In Shesseran XI's time, the Duchies were reconfirmed to the descendants of the original nine friends, and the inheritance confirmed bloodline. The Emperor preserved his right to interfere in the internal workings of those Duchies, but the grandson of Shesseran IX interfered even less in Duchy business than had his grandsire. He had, after all, more than enough matters to occupy his time and talents just managing his estates and preserves. And Podhru had become the richest and greatest trading port anywhere on the eastern seaboard.

Shesseran XIV--Shesseran the Golden--inherited wealth and power greater than that of all his forebears together. More importantly, he had his forefathers' shrewd understanding of trade and the increasingly complex politics inherent to the Herdyun Sea trade routes, and the patience to deal with them.

It is held that Shesseran XIV made only two serious errors in judgment during his long reign, and those were near its end, when ill health and age began to increasingly influence his decisions. He had turned recently to religion, spending increasing amounts of time and vast sums of money on festivals and galas for Podhru's motley blend of gods--perhaps hoping they could cure his ills on earth, or possibly to ensure his welcome beyond it. He left negotiations for trading pacts to his advisors so he would have more time for the artists, poets and musicians who cluttered his court; for celebrations and plays. He no longer hunted, but pursued a lifelong interest in the breeding of game and the tame herds on his estates. This left little time for anything outside Andar Perigha, but then, Shesseran the Golden cared for little outside his city, his household and his preserves, particularly so long as everything outside that world functioned quietly and well.

He maintained the trust of his many-times great-grandfather in his Dukes, but with less cause. The men who ruled the nine little kingdoms no longer held immediate gratitude to the Emperor for what had so long been theirs, and their primary concerns were their own well-being, their own households and families, their own pockets. And there was not one of them who did not know how great the cause would need to be for Shesseran to interfere in Duchy matters.

The Emperor's second error was held to be his relaxation of the five-hundred-year-old prohibition against Hell-Light and its Light-Shaping Triads. Shesseran had not intentionally permitted the return of Shapers, even though it had been so many years since the rise of Hell-Light and the resulting civil war. Somehow, Shapers had been included among other priests when the bill was presented to the Emperor, listing religions and cults that would no longer be actively persecuted.

It seemed unnecessary to fret over Hell-Light, after so many hundreds of years: Shapers were few, Triads extremely rare. But several major trading families and at least two nobles breathed relieved sighs that they would no longer need to hide household magicians who touched on Hell-Light. Certain nobles, however, kept Triads and prudently kept them still secret. One never knew, after all.

It is also held that Shesseran the Golden suffered only three reversals of luck in his fortune-blessed reign. The first was the invasion of Podhru Harbor by Lasanach raiders and the simultaneous attack on distant, northern Dro Pent that cut its trade lines with the Gyn Hort nomads; the second, that two Lasanachi died suddenly and woundless within Dro Pent walls. The plague they carried decimated six-tenths of the townspeople. Worse still: Even after the Empiric Navy and a rough fleet of Bezjerian cargo ships routed the Lasanachi, the Gyn Hort were no longer on terms of trust with Dro Pent, a link not repaired for nearly a generation.

The third event was not as readily linked to the Emperor, not until long after. In the year 770, nineteen years before the invasion of Podhru Harbor and fifty leagues due north in the deepest forests of Zelharri, Duke Amarni's horse went suddenly wild during a hunt and threw his master. The Duke fell full into a previously undiscovered pool of Hell-Light and wasted away over the next four days. When he died the pool was visible day or night and Amarni was no longer even recognizable as a man. He was survived by his widow Lizelle and their two young children, the nera-Duke Aletto and the sin-Duchess Lialla, and mourned by all his Duchy. That number included his younger brother Jadek, who had ridden to the hunt with him, had pulled him from the Hell-Light without consideration of the personal risk. He had remained by his brother's bed most of the Duke's last days and appeared at the funeral in deepest mourning. His escort of fifty armsmen also wore mourning bands.

Once Duke Amarni was sealed in his stone cairn, however, young Lord Jadek showed no signs of returning to the lands granted the Duke's younger son, nor of sending his armsmen away. Two days after the funeral, he announced his betrothal to the Duchess Lizelle--to help her, he said earnestly, with the enormous tasks of governing the Duchy until Aletto should come of age.

Like his brother, Jadek was handsome, easygoing, comfortable with other nobles and his householdmen alike. Unlike his brother, Jadek was not greatly loved, though few people could find any reason why they did not like him. A set to his mouth, or the flat way his eyes fixed on them, perhaps.

The betrothal raised heavy suspicion of Jadek's motives and rumor was rife throughout Zelharri. But there was no specific wrong thing to point to. Lizelle herself had appeared with him: pale, quiet and clad in deep red mourning. But she made no protest at any time, then or after the wedding, which Jadek held at the beginning of Gourding-Month, a mere nine days later.

Suspicion remained high thereafter, though most common men and women had the wit to voice such suspicions in whispers, if at all. Particularly when it became clear that men who spoke louder now and again vanished. And men who had served Duke Amarni--his closest friends and highest-ranked householdmen--left Duke's Fort. Most of those left the Duchy entirely. Merchant families complained of new competition or restructured taxes and fees, and moved away--many to neighboring Sikkre with its sprawling market at the center of four trade-roads; others to coastal Bezjeriad, which increasingly rivaled the Emperor's port city for traffic.

Emperor Shesseran knew within hours of Amarni's death, and of Jadek's actions after, for Zelharri bordered the northern edge of his Andar Perighan estates. But so long as Jadek paid the Duchy's semiannual taxes and sent the proper number of arms-trained men on request, he did nothing. And Jadek, knowing the Emperor would not interfere without greater cause than a dreadful accident and a hasty marriage, was much too clever to make any overt move to supplant nera-Duke Aletto.

After all, he knew there was no need while Aletto was still a green boy and so barred from ruling. Until the nera-Duke passed his twenty-fifth birthday, Jadek was for all practical purposes Duke. Even after that date passed, there had been excuses, ways to keep wealth and power, ways that did not involve a frontal attack. Particularly if one took into account all factors, including Aletto's physical condition.

There was also Lizelle, of course; she had been still young, and she had already borne healthy children. There could have been an heir for Jadek--a boy who would not be next in the succession but would have a foot in the door. Unfortunately for Jadek, Lizelle irritatingly never quickened.

And so, Jadek waited, and planned, until the Spring of the Emperor's Blossom-Month Fest--Fifth Month, Sixth Day of the year 789. The numbers would not fall in such a pattern again for more than a hundred years and a full moon-season of secular and religious festivals were being set. While Shesseran XIV was so deeply involved in planning and rehearsing the Fest, the man who had taken his brother's wife and her right of interim rule moved to consolidate the rest of the Duchy. His Duchy.