Fire Sea by Margaret Weis Read Free Book Online

runes on the walls that could guide travelers, but—if so— their magic is now beyond our comprehension and use.
    We are in desperate straits. Food rations have been cut in half. The flesh has melted from our bones. Children no longer cry from weariness; they cry from hunger. The carts have fallen by the wayside. Beloved possessions became burdens to arms grown weak from starvation and exhaustion. Only the carts needed to bear the elderly and the infirm remain in use and these carts, too, tragically, are beginning to litter the tunnels. The weak among us are starting to die now. My fellow necromancers have taken up their grim tasks.
    The burden of the people's suffering has fallen, as I knew it would, on the shoulders of their prince. Edmund watches his father fail before his eyes.
    The king was, admittedly, an old man, by the standards of our people. His son was born to him late in life. But, when we left the palace, he was hale, hearty, strong as men half his age. I had a dream in which I saw the king's life as a thread tied back to the golden throne that now stands in the cold darkness of Kairn Telest. As he walked away from the throne, the thread remained tied to it. Slowly, cycle by cycle, the thread is coming unraveled, stretching thinner and thinnerthe farther he moves from his homeland, until now I fear a harsh or clumsy touch will cause it to snap.
    The king takes no interest in anything anymore: what we do, what we say, where we are going. Most of the time, I wonder if he even notices the ground beneath his feet. Edmund walks constantly at his father's side, guiding him like one who has lost the power of sight. No, that is not quite a correct description. The king acts more like a man walking backward, who does not see what lies ahead, only what he is leaving behind.
    On the occasions when the prince is called away by his numberless responsibilities, and he must leave his father, Edmund makes certain that two soldiers are on hand to take over his task. The king is tractable, he goes where he is led without question. He moves when he is told to move, he stops when he is told to stop. He eats whatever is put into his hand, never seeming to taste it. I think he would eat a rock, if it were given to him. I also think he would stop eating altogether, if no one brought him food.
    For long cycles, at the journey's start, the king said nothing to anyone, not even to his son. Now, he talks almost constantly, but only to himself, never to anyone around him. Anyone that can be counted, that is. He spends a great deal of time talking to his wife—not as she is, among the dead, but as she was, when she was among the living. Our king has forsaken the present, returned to the past.
    Matters grew so bad that the council begged the prince to declare himself king. Edmund rebuffed them, in one of the few times I have ever seen him lose his temper. The council members slunk away before his wrath like whipped children. Edmund is right. According to our law, the king is king until his death. But, then, the law never considered the possibility that a king might go insane. Such a thing doesn't happen among our people.
    The council members were actually reduced to coming to me (I must say that I relished the moment) and begging me to intervene with Edmund on behalf of the people. I promised to do what I could.
    “Edmund, we must talk,” I said to him during one of our enforced stops, waiting while the soldiers cleared away a huge mound of rubble that blocked the path.
    His face darkened, turned rebellious. I had often seen such a look when he was a youth and I had forced upon him the study of mathematics, a subject to which he never took. The look he cast me brought back such fond memories that I had to pause and recover myself before I could continue.
    “Edmund,” I said, deliberately keeping my tone practical, brisk, making this a matter of common sense, “your father is ill. You must take over the leadership of the people—if