Split
an excerpt

Chapter One

With a flourish, Lord Norport flipped his half-cloak aside and produced a small wooden box from his pocket. He stroked the carved lid contemplatively before flipping it open. “I have brought you some of the herb I told you about last month.” He nodded respectfully and offered the box to King Rauk over the game table.
The king took it and sniffed appreciatively. “It smells well enough, Norport. If it’s anything like you said, I ought to like it. What do I do with it again?”
Norport smiled, and this time produced an intricately carved mahogany pipe from his pocket. “You burn it and inhale the smoke.”
“Ah, yes. That sounds rather strange, you know.”
Lord Dale of Locarn, sitting to one side of King Rauk, laughed. “It certainly does sound odd, but just wait until you try it. I’ll warn you it does taste fairly awful at first, but after a while it’s quite good. Delicious, one could say.”
“Come, try it, milord,” urged Lord Fisher, who lounged at the fourth side of the table and completed their number. He offered a delicate little carven box full of matches, and King Rauk took one a bit uncertainly.
In the act of lighting the pipe, Rauk stopped and glared playfully at Lord Norport. “You know, I find myself quite jealous that you saw fit to let your friends try this herb of yours before giving any to me. You know how fond I am of all your odd new fashions, my good Norport.”
Norport bowed as far as he could while sitting at the table. “In future I will be certain to let you know sooner.” He smiled. “Although I must test my herbs before giving them to you, lest I inadvertently poison my king.”
They all laughed, although Norport did not think the comment as amusing as they did. He drew his own pipe and herb pouch from his pocket and lit it. Fisher and Dale pulled out their own supplies, and together the four began smoking. Norport found himself disturbed by how much he already enjoyed smoking, though his first crop of smoke-herbs had only been harvested last year. But there was no need to worry.
The king began coughing, dropping his pipe to the table. “That stuff tastes awful,” he wheezed. “I don’t see how you three can gulp it down like that.”
“It’s an acquired taste,” said Fisher, taking a deep pull on his pipe.
“I can see that. Let’s have some wine.” Lord Dale picked up the decanter and poured the fine red wine shipped from his own district of Locarn. Rauk took a delicate sip and sighed. “That’s better. As always, Locarn wine is the best. Dale, you are quite fortunate to govern the best vineyards in Falonth.”
Norport raised his glass slightly to Dale, but his mind wandered. The king trusted the three of them utterly. To be sure, the young sovereign trusted almost everyone. But he considered Norport, Fisher, and Dale his especial friends, and that was as Norport wanted it. It was a marvelous thing to be the friend of a king. “To friendship,” he toasted suddenly, smiling at them all. They drank, and King Rauk drank most eagerly of all.
“Almost time for the Council,” remarked Lord Fisher.
Rauk groaned theatrically. “Let’s not talk about that now. I thought we were going to play Strike. And drink this delicious wine.”
“Indeed,” said Norport with a shrug, “but the Council does not wait. You would be wise to give it some thought before your lords arrive.”
“Council meetings are utterly dull,” said Rauk. “I know they’re necessary, but I would much prefer to have nothing to do with it. The Lords are always complaining. With the exception of you three. It’s always ‘The King’s Road is breaking down’ or ‘We don’t like the new taxes’ or ‘You should do something about the awful price of this or that’ or some such nonsense. Next time they have some petty problems, they ought to sort everything out themselves. That is what semi-autonomy means. The Lords can deal with the security and upkeep of their own districts.”
“Well said, milord.” Norport raised his glass to his young king. “At the same time, the semi-autonomy of the districts cannot be allowed to go too far. If you force them to deal with all their own internal matters, the districts will virtually become independent city-states.”
“Not if they keep paying taxes and trading,” Rauk said grumpily.
“True enough.” Sensing that Rauk did not want to listen, Norport changed the topic. “We can’t seem to keep our minds on our game, now can we? We ought to start this game of Strike now if we wish to finish before the Council convenes.” He slid the marble Strike board to the center of the table and sorted the small pieces: obsidian, copper, marble, and silver. “Which pieces do you choose, majesty?”
Rauk’s hand hovered over the three piles before he settled on the little heap of silver gryphons and slid it toward him. “Fisher, you shall be our control player today.” Lord Fisher scooped the heap of marble pieces toward himself, leaving Dale and Norport to pick from the remaining two colors. In the end Norport found himself with the little copper humans, which quite pleased him. Life was a game, and in Strike he liked moving the same people who he manipulated in the reality. He bent his attention on the board.
“Today the gryphons will triumph,” declared King Rauk as he began placing his silver pieces on his section of the board.
“We shall see.” Lord Dale set most of his black Naionu along the border between his country and that of his king. “The Naionu have the advantage in most ways.”
“But the gryphs have the endurance and the numbers,” retorted Rauk.
“Numbers do not win a war.”
“Yet numbers can help, as you well know.”
Norport was silent, listening to their banter as he claimed each district of Falonth with a minute copper man and added more near the borders. Ships lined his coast and siege weapons waited in rows near Heart. Sometimes he wondered if it was good for Rauk to play Strike so often. The king seemed to think that it was all as unimportant as a game. Norport was wise enough to think of the game as a reflection of reality, and just as important as reality while he was playing. In a game one could learn strategy and politics without truly endangering oneself. But he wondered if Rauk thought that in real life there was no more danger than in Strike.
Fisher, as the control player, finally arranged a few of his pieces: resources which he scattered across the board as he wished. “Begin,” he said, and the game started.
Lord Norport was good at Strike. He was good at all the games. He knew to watch the other players; sometimes their faces betrayed as much of their strategies as did the movements of their troops. There were no turns in Strike, and so he had to watch both King Rauk and Lord Dale at the same time that he regulated his own movements. Silver gryphons and obsidian Naionu met one another on the border and fought. Norport gathered resources, and with them began to build a fleet of ships. He traded with both Dale and Rauk, and slowly the campaign proceeded. Lord Fisher placed winds, storms, and volcanic eruptions where he wished to sow more problems, and placed resources where he wished to give aid.
“Fisher seems to have a grudge against you,” Dale remarked laughingly to King Rauk, who shrugged.
“It’s just a game,” he said, and continued moving his pieces. “It does not matter whether I win or lose. There’s always another game of Strike.”
“So you would accept a loss?” asked Norport a bit more sharply than he meant, launching several ships across the bay to the shore of his king’s section of the board.
“Well, I would certainly prefer to win, but if I lose do I not always do so graciously?”
“Sometimes you should not lose graciously.”
Rauk raised his eyebrows at Lord Norport. “You would prefer me to get angry?”
“I’m merely pointing out that if you did not consider losing an option, you might win more often. You should fight to get your way rather than giving in, whether graciously or ungraciously. Whether in the game or in real life, you are a king, and for you losing should not be an option. You will win if you determine that nobody can get in your way or stop you from doing what is right.” Norport unloaded his soldiers carefully from their little ships and launched a vicious attack on some of King Rauk’s gryphons.
Even though Rauk seemed to see it all as inconsequential fun, games of Strike made perfect opportunities for Norport to tell his young sovereign things he wished him to hear. Let the king see the connection between the Council meeting and the words Norport had just spoken. Already Rauk felt angry with the lords, thought of them as bothersome and petty, except for Norport, Dale, and Fisher. Already he wanted to get away from the onerous necessity of council meetings. He listened to Norport. If he could take just one more step in the right direction, and realized that it was best to stop forever granting the onerous requests of the Council, then Norport would have to go no further. Favorite of the king as well as most wealthy of all the nobles.
“Milord, kindly draw your attention away from the northern part of your country and pay heed to the south. It would appear that you have focused so much on Dale that you have forgotten to mind me, and I have taken a large portion of your land.”

Tilting his weight slightly to the side, Lord Sander angled out of the thermal and began a shallow descent toward the distant hump of the jump hill. The wind of his speed grew less violent as he slowed. Quickly the familiar sight of the bare green hill with the bare green field at its base approached, and then he swooped down. His feet touched the ground and he ran, leaning back ever so slightly to tip his glider out of its downward momentum. Sander could feel the lift decreasing as he slowed, until finally he came to rest and settled his glider to the ground at the base of the jump hill. Only a few seconds behind, his cousin Kerel touched down as well and glided smoothly to a stop.
“That was a good ride,” Sander said a bit breathlessly, patting the bamboo frame of his glider fondly. “Smooth as can be.”
Kerel grunted.
Shaking his head in amusement, Lord Sander shaded his eyes and looked up at the sky. Temmis and Aden were planning to meet him at this jump hill, and should be there any moment. Sure enough, a moment later two more gliders appeared dark against the bright sky. They dropped gracefully and their occupants ran to a halt near Sander. He ran toward them, and abruptly slowed as he realized that Temmis’ father was glaring disapprovingly at him. “Greetings, Lord Temmet,” said Sander, bowing slightly to the older man. “I trust you had a fair flight on such a glorious morning?”
“No, I most certainly did not,” growled Lord Temmet, turning his constant glare on his son for a brief moment. Sander would have given his friend a consoling glance, but did not quite dare. Lord Temmet was intimidating at the best of times. His scowl fixed itself on Lord Sander again. “How that son of mine ever convinced me to use these contraptions I’ll never know. Fine enough for spry young men like you two, but flight is murder on older joints. Temmis never saw fit to tell me that there would be a wind fit to strip the flesh from my bones.”
“The wind isn’t that bad, Father,” protested Temmis, and fell silent under the force of his father’s perpetual glare.
“At least it’s fast,” pointed out Sander. He glanced to his left in search of his cousin Kerel, who was still standing by their gliders. Just when Kerel might have come in handy; everyone seemed to like him, even Lord Temmet.
“Fast enough to make a man dizzy and weak,” snapped Temmet. “Horses are fast enough, and it doesn’t kill a man to ride one.”
“Saddle sores,” Sander returned weakly.
“Ha! You wouldn’t get saddle sores if you rode more often.”
Temmis interrupted with a glad cry of “There’s Aden!” and Sander looked up gratefully. Lord Aden of East District rushed toward them with two gliders behind him, and the three of them alighted near the four already there. Temmis and Sander sprang away to meet their friend, leaving Kerel and Lord Temmet each standing grumpily by his own glider.
“You know I’ve come out of my way to meet you here,” Aden greeted them, with a scowl on his face and a laughing gleam in his eyes. “And it was a dreadful flight, too.” He pinched his ears with his gloved hands to warm them. “It was awfully foggy in Denin when I started out this morning, and we were dreadfully wet by the time we got free of it all. I all but froze solid before I dried!”
“Who’s with you?” asked Sander, nodding toward the other two gliders. He ignored the tirade. Aden loved flying, wet and cold or not.
“My bodyguard and my betrothed.”
Temmis stared at him. “What?”
“Sir Drem. I suppose he’s not technically a bodyguard, but it sounded impressive.”
“And?” Temmis was all but wriggling with excitement to hear the news.
“Oh, my betrothed?” Aden grinned more broadly than Sander would have thought possible with that thin, serious face. “Elenie, come here!”
Temmis whooped boyishly, and Sander caught Aden in a hug. “Congratulations, Aden! You might have sent us a message. Elenie! I never expected you to marry Elenie. Why on Trigylad didn’t you send a message?”
“I had to tell you myself,” laughed Aden, struggling free of Sander’s bear hug to take Elenie’s hand. “Elenie, here are Lord Sander of Junction District and Temmis of Jen District. I think you may have met them before.”
“Nice to see you again,” said Elenie, kissing them both on the cheek in greeting. Temmis blushed, as he always did when she greeted them that way. “Aden was quite insistent that we should tell you of our betrothal ourselves, which unfortunately meant that there was no way for you to attend the ceremony. We simply could not find a way to visit with you before now. I hope you don’t mind too much?”
“Of course not,” said Sander, “as long as you invite us to the wedding.”
“Are you quite finished?” asked Lord Temmet suddenly, making all four of them jump. He had come up quietly beside them and now fixed them all with his glare. “I’d prefer to get to Heart today, if it’s all the same to you.”
Reluctantly, the four of them gave in to Temmet’s insistence and returned to their gliders. “Kerel, what are you doing just sitting here?” Sander asked his cousin as he pulled his gloves and hat back on for the next stage of the flight. “You should have come over and greeted Elenie, at least. It’s been a long time since we last saw her.”
Kerel sighed. “I know. I’m sorry. I suppose I’m simply in a bad mood, as I really do not want to attend the council.”
“Neither do I,” said Lord Sander. “But without you there to stop me, I’m sure to get into more trouble than I can handle.” He remembered vividly the time that Kerel had been ill at the time of the council meeting, and Sander had gone alone. Lord Dale of Locarn was probably still angry at him for the insults he had thrown around.
Again, Kerel sighed. “True enough.” He glanced over to see the others already carrying their gliders up the hill. “We should hurry or Lord Temmet will be impatient.”
“He’s always impatient,” grumbled Sander, but they began carefully transferring their gliders up the hill as well. Moments later they were all ready. Lord Temmet certainly was impatient. Sander could not quite suppress a chuckle at the sight of the old man glaring about, declaring that he would be the first to jump even though he hated flying.
“It’ll save time to keep me at the head, where you lot can’t lead us all astray,” he growled, and ran down the steep side of the hill. He vanished from view for a second, and then reappeared as his glider caught the air. One by one they dashed downward and lifted away. Sander was the last, and as the lift grew under his wings and snatched him up he wondered if this was what it was like for the gryphs and the Naionu. He was almost jealous of them.
Gaining the proper height, Sander fell in with the rest of the gliders, and the seven of them soared away on the thermals toward Heart.

The four players found snatches of time here and there to continue their game of Strike, but they were unable to finish before the Council was scheduled to convene. Young King Rauk left the game table with great reluctance, loath to exchange the board game for the dull Council. “Maybe someone will get in a fight again,” he grumbled as he strode down the hall toward the Council Hall. Norport, following to one side, smiled slightly. In many ways Rauk was still a boy, for all his twenty-four years. He was young to be a king, but that made it all the easier for Norport to win his affection and trust.
“You should not encourage your nobles to argue among themselves,” Norport advised. “Do you remember the feud between Meet and Lina Districts when your father was king?”
“Yes,” sighed Rauk reluctantly. “That was a disaster. But arguments are the only things that relieve the monotony of the Council. I’m sure you recall that time last year when Dale had that grand argument with Lord Sander of Junction. I must say Lord Sander used some splendidly … innovative insults. Poor Dale didn’t have a chance.”
Behind them, Norport noticed Lord Dale scowling. He smiled soothingly at his ruffled friend before turning his attention back to the king. “Perhaps that episode made the Council more interesting to you, but it could have been something worse. Imagine what could have happened had it come to blades. One of them could have been killed, and then where would we be? Again I tell you it is unwise to support their arguments.”
“Ah, whatever you say,” growled King Rauk.
They entered the Council room together and settled silently into their chairs around the long, polished table. Norport’s sharp eyes darted around, taking in the expressions and attitudes of the assembled Lords. Several of them frowned slightly to see the four of them together. Others looked bored already, and two in particular were shuffling papers, a sure sign that they had lengthy matters to discuss with their king.
As always, Lord Wetawk slouched boredly in his chair, his shaggy greenish coat open to reveal a stained shirt, picking under his fingernails with a dagger. Norport knew that it was all a false front disguising the razor-sharp wit underneath. He shifted his gaze idly around the room. Lord Temmet had his son with him, sitting in one of the chairs that was slightly removed from the council table. Lord Montero of Border District had a sheaf of rice paper on the table before him and a determined expression on his face. He probably had yet more petty grievances. There was Lord Sander of Junction, looking thoroughly bored. The man who sat behind him seemed to be paying far more attention. Lord Norport could not recall his name, which annoyed him. Kerry or something like that.
He quickly picked out a new addition to the group: a young and rather charming woman who sat behind Lord Aden and seemed far more concerned with smiling at her Lord’s back than paying attention to the assembled nobles. Unusual, that any Lord should bring his woman with him to Council. Norport watched her keenly and was startled to notice that despite her dreamy smile the woman’s eyes darted here and there under her lashes, watching everyone. Interesting. Perhaps the woman was a more competent politician than Lord Aden. Norport moved his gaze on, reflecting that most anyone could be a better politician than Lord Aden.
Finally, King Rauk rose and cleared his throat. Silence fell and everyone focused their gaze on their sovereign. Except Norport, who continued his quick glances around. He noticed with some amusement that Lord Wetawk was still paring away at his fingernails. One of his eyes seemed to be focused on the knife in his hand, while the other was turned unsettlingly to look at the king. Norport looked away.
“Well,” said King Rauk, not quite disguising the boredom in his voice, “Here we are. This Council of Lords is now convened. The legitimate ruling Lord of any District may here present the grievances, requests, offers, comments, or opinions of the District which he represents. All will be heard, witnessed, and recorded. According to the rules laid down long ago, if two Lords stand to address one another, they must stand at least two blade lengths apart. Let us begin.”
Rauk seated himself, and Lord Montero immediately stood with his stack of papers in hand. Norport heard King Rauk sigh audibly. He had to admit that Lord Montero’s constant grievances did become something of a bore. Every time the Council convened he brought old complaints that had not been rectified, as well as new ones. “My lord king,” said Montero, with a low bow, and then looked down at his top paper. “Milord, I must respectfully remark that only two of the matters I mentioned at the last Council meeting have been addressed. I shall now remind you of those grievances which have not been remedied. Firstly, the segment of the King’s Road which passes from Ta Mirn to the border of Port District is falling into great disrepair. Wagons are having difficulty travelling.”
“As I have told you the past four times you have brought this complaint,” sighed King Rauk, “the problem will be rectified. You know that the King’s Road is being paved so as to be much more enduring than the current dirt roads. Until the workers reach Ta Mirn, you will have to keep your section of the road in good enough repair to enable travel. Continue.”
Lord Montero cleared his throat and continued, crinkling the sheets of rice paper and occasionally waving them about absently. Norport knew how his tirade went, for it was virtually the same every time. First Montero repeated old complaints that he wished the king to remedy, and then he repeated old complaints against his fellow Lords. After that he brought new complaints against the king and the lords. Norport listened just carefully enough that he could react if old Montero actually said anything of interest, and scrutinized once more the lords sitting around the table. Some seemed to be listening, but other faces bore glazed expressions.
Down the table, Lord Aden rested his chin on his hand and stared longingly at a bowl of oranges that sat in the center of the table, where he could not take one without reaching or interrupting rudely. Behind him, the woman still glanced around keenly. Her eyes flickered without stopping, all hidden behind her moonstruck smile and long eyelashes. Her gaze rested briefly on Lord Montero, then flicked over to King Rauk, then to Lord Wetawk. Norport watched in interest, trying to guess what she was thinking. He was astonished to find someone so adept at the game of looking and learning and reading faces without being read, and a woman at that. As she continued to stare in fascination at Lord Wetawk, Norport began to wonder uncomfortably if she could see the man’s clever mind through his unkempt façade. When he first met Wetawk, he had been completely taken in, and taken by surprise when the lord showed his hand.
The woman suddenly flicked her eyes around to look at Norport, and he suddenly realized that she had been aware of his gaze all along. It unsettled him. He stared coldly back, and she fluttered her eyelashes at him and looked away. But her eyes kept moving, taking everything in, and as Norport also continued looking around, he thought he could feel her glance fall thoughtfully on him every now and then. The next few days might be interesting.