“How good of you,” murmured the dynast.
Edmund heard the sarcasm. His hands closed over the back of the chair, the fingers punching holes through the strong kairn grass in the desperate need to control his raging anger. “I wasn’t going to say this. You have driven me to it.”
Haplo stirred at this juncture. It seemed he might have interrupted, but he apparently thought better of it, relapsed into his former state of impassive observer.
“You owe us this! You destroyed my people’s homes! You leeched our water, you stole our heat and used it for your own. You made our beautiful lush land a barren and frozen desert! You killed our children, our elderly, our sick and infirm! I have maintained to my people that you brought this disaster on us through ignorance, that you knew nothing of our existence in Kairn Telest. We didn’t come in retribution. We didn’t come in revenge, although we could have. We came to ask our brethren to right the wrong they inadvertently committed. I will keep on telling them this, although I know, now, that it is a lie.”
Edmund left his place behind his chair. His fingers bled, the sharp prongs of the splintered kairn grass had driven through the flesh. He didn’t seem to notice. Moving around the table, he bent gracefully to one knee and spread his hands.
“Take my people in. Your Majesty, and I give you my word of honor that I will keep my knowledge of the truth from them. Take my people in and I will work with them, side by side. Take my people in, Sire, and I will bend my knees to you, as you require.” Although in my heart, I despise you.
The last words were not spoken aloud. There was no need. They hissed in the air like the gas that lit the lamps.
“We were right, you see. Pens,” said Kleitus. “A beggar.”
The chancellor could not help but sigh. The prince, in his youth and beauty, graced by compassion for his people, had a majesty about him that lifted him in stature and in rank far above most kings, let alone beggars.
The dynast leaned forward, fingertips touching. “You’ll find no succor in Necropolis, Edmund, prince of beggars.”
The prince rose to his feet, suppressed anger leaving patches of chill white in the feverish crimson of his skin.
“Then there is nothing more to say. I will return to my people.”
Haplo stood up. “Sorry to break up the game, but I’m with him,” he said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the prince.
“Yes, you are,” said the dynast in a soft and menacing tone that only Pons heard. “I suppose this means war, Your Highness?”
The prince didn’t stop walking. He was halfway across the room, Haplo at his side. “I told you, Sire, my people do not want to fight. We will travel on, perhaps proceed farther down the shoreline. If we had ships—”
“Ships!” Kleitus sucked in a breath. “Now we come to it! The truth. That’s what you’ve been after all along! Ships, to find Death’s Gate! Fool! You will find nothing except death!”
The dynast gestured to one of the armed guards, who nodded in response. Lifting his spear, the cadaver aimed and threw.
Edmund sensed the threat, whirled around, raised his hand in an attempt to ward off the attack. Futile. He saw his death coming. The spear struck him full in the chest with such force that the point shattered the breastbone and emerged from the man’s back, pinned him to the floor. The prince died the instant the blow was struck, died without a scream. The sharp iron tore apart the heart.
By the expression of sadness on the face, his last thoughts had been, perhaps, not of regret for his own young life, cut tragically short, but of how he had failed his people.
Kleitus gestured again, motioned toward Haplo. Another cadaver raised its spear.
“Stop him,” the Patryn said, in a quick, tight voice, “or you’ll never learn anything about Death’s Gate!”
“Death’s Gate!” Kleitus repeated softly, staring at Haplo. “Halt!”
The cadaver, arrested in the act of throwing the spear, let it slip from the dead hand. It fell, clattering, to the floor, the only sound to break the tense silence.