The Unsound Prince Read online

  The Unsound Prince.

  Warwick Gibson.

  © 2018 Warwick Gibson

  Released briefly in 2015.

  Reworked, and released fully, in 2018.

  Content 84,800 words.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written consent from the author.

  DISCLAIMER.

  This novel is a work of fiction. It does not draw from actual events. The characters in this story are entirely fictitious, and do not bear any resemblance to any persons living or dead.

  ALSO by WARWICK GIBSON

  Maric’s Reprieve

  Rough Justice

  Struggle for a Small Blue Planet

  Table of Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  ONE

  Mono stirred restlessly in his sleep. An old dream had come back to haunt him. He was somewhere in the Eastern Marches, having taken up his future role as Regent of the prosperous Marchlands region. It was something his father wanted, but something Mono has sworn he would never do.

  He turned to the north, toward the Scaffold Mountains. Then his vantage point soared higher, and he could see beyond the orderly rows of mountain peaks. His heart beat faster, as he looked across the great desert beyond. Something was wrong with Xianak, the sprawling capital of the northern empire, but he couldn’t say what it was.

  A voice whispered something in his ear, and he looked to the west. He saw the Independent Kingdoms as they ran to the Trading Seas. Then he was somewhere else. He saw an old stone keep, abandoned at the foot of a mountain range. Something glowed at the base of it, something oddly familiar.

  He looked down at his body. One leg stood in the Wild Marches to the west, and one in the Eastern Marches. He straddled Middle March between them, and the great Southern Sea stretched endlessly behind him.

  A darkness drew over the city of Xianak as he watched. Some force he did not yet understand was making the ancient empire its own. One day soon it would descend upon the surrounding regions, destroying everything in its path.

  How long did the free peoples of the Karnatic League have? How long until everything changed, forever? Then he was exhausted, and subsided into a fitful sleep.

  Much later, the light of dawn filtered into the room. It came through shutters closed over rough windows devoid of glass. The gloominess of the room slowly lifted, and dark shapes became recognisable things.

  The four walls looked sturdy. They were made of logs chinked with mosses from the forest. An elaborate construction of poles rested along the top of the logs, and supported a thick reed thatch.

  There was a fireplace at one end, built out of earth sods. The sods crumbled during winter fires, sending little cascades of dirt down onto the hearth, but the fire hadn't been lit in months.

  A simple construction of poles tied to a frame stood beside a pallet bed. It took Mono’s clothes, and anything else he wanted to keep off the sawdust floor. His worldly possessions were on show for all to see, but anything like a cupboard was out of the question, far beyond the reach of a poor-mouth smallholder like himself.

  Opposite the frame was a cooking pit and a tiny kitchen area. To the left of that was a sturdy wooden door. It stood in the middle of the end wall.

  Life here was very basic, but it had taught Mono one thing. A simple life, a natural diet, and plenty of exercise had made him happier than he had ever been.

  The first bright rays of the sun had not yet appeared when a tapping sound began in one corner of the room, just under the reed layers of the roof. In the opposite corner, the figure on the pallet bed stirred slightly.

  The sound launched itself along the top of the wall, and down an adjoining section of chinked logs to the kitchen area. It increased in volume as it did so. As it passed the roughly shaped metal cooking pots they clanged loudly against each other. One fell into the wooden sink with a crash.

  Mono woke with a start, and reflexively fling out an arm in the direction of the noise. A cold, blue fire lanced from his hand. It froze the intruder in the act of spilling a container of salt into the porridge pot.

  The sprite battled the power in the thought form around it. Its changing shape appeared as a kind of negative inside the coalescing ball of pale fire. At last it succumbed, and appeared in its true form.

  Even half asleep, Mono was too powerful for it.

  The last of the dream slipped out of his mind, with his blessing. The first few times he had tried desperately to understand it, but without success. Now he finds it best to bury the memory in the activities of the day.

  “What did I tell you about bothering me before the sun shines on the turnagain?” yawned the figure on the bed. The beaten copper disc on the outside of the door sports several semi-precious gems. The power in it confuses woodland creatures that might try to gain access to the hut. That usually means the rats, mice and climbing creatures common in the forest. On a deeper level it keeps out anything unearthly, and of the night, as well.

  “Mono say Demetrius to cook breakfast,” began the gnarled sprite, before Mono crooked his fingers. The creature doubled over, making a high-pitched, keening noise.

  “Prince Monhoven the Fourteenth, Keeper-designate of the Eastern Marches,” it gasped. “Fourth in line to the Throne of Power, Order of the . . .”

  Mono cut it off.

  “Prince Monhoven will do,” he said coolly.

  The forest sprites were almost impossible to train. They were even worse in the half-dawn, before sunlight sharpened their limited intellect. Mono had often thought of adjusting the turnagain to keep them out altogether, but they were useful messengers, and they could handle some of the daily chores.

  All the sprites in this area shared a collective memory. What he told one the day before would be done, after a fashion, by another the following day. This one had disclosed its name, which was rare, but understanding why sprites did things was an impossible task.

  “Return to the forest,” he commanded, “until I call you.”

  The sprite faded from view, looking sulky and defiant. Mono would make the spirit call to bring it back when he was ready, he thought sharply, and not a moment before.

  He caught himself getting angry, and felt chastened. Why was he getting angry at a sprite? It was a force of nature, like the wind. It was incapable of deliberate annoyance. How would he ever rule the Eastern Marches – not that he wanted to – if he couldn’t even rule himself?

  His anger had been a problem from his early years, and it was a problem that wasn’t going away as he got older. Rising from the pallet he tossed aside the roughly quilted cover. He was upset now, damn it, and he might as well get up.

  He made his way to the recessed nook that served as a kitchen, and cleared away the mess the sprite had made. Then he tipped a little water into a pot at the side of the cooking pit. He would normally use the water to make his breakfast, except today was a special day, and he didn’t have time to light a fire.

  Extending his spirit senses, he swept the surrounding area for anything that might be drawn to a small flash of power. Finding nothing, he put his hands around the pot and brought the water to boiling point. Snatching h
is hands away from the sudden heat, he added a handful of grains.

  After his morning wash there would be a meal of rough but nourishing porridge waiting for him. Something to break his night’s fast.

  He moved to the stout door at the front of the cottage, raised the latch, and stepped out into the new day. The turnagain on the door jingled faintly. That was a reminder it had turned away at least one unwelcome intruder during the night. Mono thought of the small insignia on the back of it. A tiny mountain cat, the emblem of the Karnatic League.

  Thoughts of the League stirred an old emotional wound. When would he find his place in his father’s sprawling federation of kingdoms? What would his role be? He pushed a sense of confusion from his mind.

  He always enjoyed the morning. He liked the first rays of the sun on his shoulders, and the feel of cold water on his face and hands. He kept a basin of water under the thatched eaves especially for this special moment.

  Plunging his head into the basin, he rubbed his face with his hands and then lifted his head clear. He wiped his eyes with the front of his long sleeping shirt. The burnished metal plate on the wall reflected the first of the sun’s rays into his eyes. He saw his chubby features and mousy hair, and twisted his face in annoyance. How, how . . . ordinary . . . he looked. There wasn’t enough hair on his chin to shape into anything stylish, or on his cheeks to hide his baby face.

  On the positive side his time in the forest had bulked him out a little. It wasn’t exactly muscle, but he was getting some shape to his awkward frame.

  He sighed. He would never be as tall as his father, and he knew he didn’t have what it took to succeed in the intrigues of the court. That suited him fine. He was only fourth in line to the throne anyway, not that he cared one jot who ruled the kingdoms of the Karnatic League.

  The old man could lead the League forever, as far as Mono was concerned. His father had always wanted reliable, substantial, sound behaviour from him. If that was the case, he must be from the unreliable, insubstantial, and unsound branch of the family. Yes, that was who he was, the unsound prince.

  He decided he liked the idea of the unsound prince very much. He paused for a moment before plunging his face back into the cold water, in celebration of the fact.

  He thought again how lucky he was to be this far from the palace. He dried his back with a length of soft cloth. He had been sent for the gods knew what reason to a forgotten place on the edge of nowhere.

  Well, the joke was on them. He liked it here. He had friends in the village who treated him like one of themselves. That was worth more than anything to Mono. In the beginning he hadn’t given a damn where he was sent for his transition years, the time in which he was expected to undergo his ‘regency training’ away from the Golden Palace.

  Everything had gone a dull, cotton-clad grey after his mother had died. It hadn't helped that he was so young, or that her death was a pointless hunting accident. The hopelessness he had felt then had got worse when his father wouldn’t talk about it. Mono had never felt so alone.

  He had been his parents’ first, and only, child. There were any number of uncles and aunts, but they were scattered across the Karnatic League, doing their bit to hold the sprawling federation together. You could say my childhood wasn’t much fun, he thought grimly. He took some satisfaction from the sheer understatement of it.

  He plunged his head into the cold water again. At least here, in the rough country of the Wild Marches, he had begun to take an interest in life again. Shaker’s Hope was so different to the Golden Palace. Life was all foppery and pretence there, with the court meandering endlessly along. There wasn't any real competition for the throne, so the chances of change in the League any time soon were slim. It seemed nothing would break the thirty years of his father’s iron rule.

  Still, it had taken a Monhoven to consolidate the sprawling tangle of southern kingdoms into one cohesive body. Kingdoms that had wasted their time in endless disputes and bloodletting for centuries. He had to admit he took some pride in that.

  At the head of the broad valley stood a prominent hill, its slopes covered in dense forest. Two imposing ridges stretched out from it and ran down either side of the valley. One of the ridges curled round a cottage in the middle of a cleared area. Further down the valley similar clearings merged into a much larger space, and then a village. It was a farming area, centred around Shaker’s Hope.

  On one of the ridges an ancient tree, its core rotted out after centuries of majestic life, quivered uncertainly. The sky darkened, and a squall came. It lashed the tops of the forest and tore at the great tree. The giant groaned as its roots slipped through the tight grip of its mother the earth. Then its centre of balance moved too far, and it toppled forward.

  At the precise moment the sound of the crash reverberated round the valley, two men appeared in the shade of a much smaller tree on the opposite ridge.

  “Always use a method of distraction, Sergeos,” murmured the older one, leaning heavily on his staff. He was restoring his energy. Transporting two of them from the Golden Palace to this obscure spot on the fringes of the Karnatic League was no mean feat. Few others could have done it.

  “Many a spirit walker lost his life because he wasn’t prepared,” he continued.

  “Or because he or she didn’t leave their anger at home,” added the one who was, apparently, Sergeos. The older man smiled, and nodded.

  “Have you picked up the boy yet,” he said, breathing more easily now. He began to straighten up.

  Sergeos had indeed been trying to locate him. “Nothing,” he said, puzzled. The boy’s spirit sense should have stood out like a beacon fire in the valley below.

  The older man chuckled. “He’s changing so fast between visits we can’t keep up. Now he’s learned how to shield himself.”

  There was a moment’s pause. “I expected nothing less,” he said quietly.

  “But he’s so young to master such a thing,” said Sergeos, astounded at the thought. “Besides, Alfas, how do you know he has made that step?”

  The Legatus had tried to discourage him from using the honorific, meaning ‘great one’, but for Sergeos it just felt right to do so sometimes.

  “Because I see him,” said his companion, and pointed to a cottage on the edge of a clearing. It was barely visible on the other side of the valley. Sergeos squinted at the clearing, and engaged his own farsight. As the clearing enlarged before his eyes he saw a young man, standing in front of a rough hut.

  Yes, the spirit master was good all right, he thought. No one would argue with that. And he should be that good. He sat on the Throne of Power. He was Legatus, ruler of the Karnatic League, and he was Combat Prime, head of the Priatic Order of Mysteries. No one in the history of all the kingdoms had ever held both those positions at once.

  Then again, no one had ever hammered the kingdoms into one tightly bound federation before. All three Marches, the tangled mountains of the Scion Kingdoms, and the nomadic tribes of the High Steppe. It was an honour for Sergeos to accompany him, and to learn what he could from such a master.

  Ultrich Monhoven opened his hand as he turned it palm up. It was an odd, fluid gesture that seemed to have no purpose. Sergeos felt his skin prickle, and knew the Combat Prime was strengthening the spirit shield that hid them from outsiders.

  “Is there anything in particular you want us to include in our report on the prince?” enquired Sergeos.

  The older man looked troubled.

  “We are only here to observe,” he said at last.

  Sergeos was surprised. He had assumed it was going to be a routine report on the prince’s progress. What could possibly merit a change of plan?

  Ultrich put up his hand, to forestall more questions.

  “This will take some time,” he said. “I think we had better make ourselves comfortable.”

  Down in the valley, the self-anointed Unsound Prince was finishing his breakfast.

  He had been famished. Preparations for the villag
e market had taken three days, and the work had been arduous. All the same, it had been good to spend time with his friends. He had put his body to work with a will.

  The empty plate went into the sink, before he called the sprite from its place in the forest. He used a gesture remarkably similar to his father’s, though he didn’t know it. A winged seed floated in through the open door, and Mono smiled. The sprite wouldn’t be far behind it.

  Or was the sprite hiding in the seed? He looked at the winged seed suspiciously, his brows coming down low over his eyes in an unusual display of forehead agility.

  There was so much he didn’t know about sprites, but he was relentless in all matters of the supranatural world. From the moment he had arrived in his new home he had been determined to learn the secrets of everything in the valley. And he was succeeding.

  His own examination of the mysteries was much more satisfying than his abortive training at the Priatic School of Mysteries, though his studies in Karnassus had helped him get out of the Golden Palace. He had been an average student. There were times he was sure the tutors had let him pass simply because he was a Monhoven.

  It was different here in the valley, and he was becoming sure of one thing. There were rules behind the tricks and incantations the spirit masters used. Something that directed the way they controlled nature, and commanded the lower orders of spirit beings. There was a pattern to the Priatic Order of Mysteries, and he was going to find it!

  For one thing their methods often seemed to take so long, and he was sure that wasn’t necessary. The trouble was he needed to be outside the system himself to see it. How could he become more not Mono?

  Something pulled on the rough fabric of his breeches, and he looked down to see the sprite. It looked up at him enquiringly. He smiled ruefully at being caught out. Winged seed it was not.

  He set the forest wisp to work, cleaning the porridge pot and the wooden ladle. Then he gave it instructions to air the lumpy mattress on the pallet, and make some attempt to block a number of thin slits in the walls. Some of the moss chinking had fallen out in the summer heat. Re-packing was needed now autumn had arrived.