The Ruined Tower
Book Three of Rihannar Chronicles: Second Generation
Sylvia Kelso

The arithmetic of mages, before which bankers quail . . .

Inkluit Deahan heads a merchant bank, the fastest rising new House in Nervia, financial heart of imperial Assharral.

Ber’az, son of Zam, is Assharral’s unpredictable, redoubtable, far too observant mage-emperor.

If they met and fell in love the encounter might herald a marriage made in financial heaven. But some large and perilous spanners jeopardize the works. Such as Inkluit’s career path, Phaz’s formidable moral code, and a lingering family legacy of hate.

About the Author: Sylvia Kelso lives in North Queensland, Australia, and writes mostly novels, in fantasy, SF and mystery/time-travel genres, with alternate North Queensland or analogue Australian settings. Two of her novels have been finalists for best fantasy novel in the Aurealis Australian genre fiction awards.

Chapter I

In the old Nervian mythology, before the aedryx brought us Math, there are tales of winged creatures who acted as messengers, bearing down word of the creators’ will from heaven; dasseth, we called them. The first time I saw Fassefyr’s cap of shining hair, I thought heaven’s messenger had become flesh. Then I looked again.

It was my first attendance at the annual assembly in the Guild’s great feasting hall. The eight enormous crystal chandeliers hung along the dark and lofty oaken roof were all fully loaded and kindled, so the hall’s somber spaces had grown suddenly luminous with a subdued yet vigorous life. A flicker of silver-gray and suave black velvet banquet-robes was embellished with the rich crimson grace-notes of nodding hats, while the famous silver banquet service gleamed and glittered in its own wealth at the gathering’s heart. Amid all this august richness, Fassefyr struck the crowning note.

He was already seated, across the banquet-table. This was partly what drew my eye, since the rest of us had hardly begun to untangle our entrance and conversational groups. He was bare-headed, flouting convention, and the warm strong candlelight brought up the color of that hair, thick and sumptuously gold as ripened corn, just as it enhanced the splendor of the eyes beneath. Almost violet, so frequently fabled and so rarely realized, darker than wine, than the imperial purple of grape-blood or sazahhan fruit, yet without their soft matte surfaces. This was a purple that held the play of internal light you see within a great theryxend gem; faceted, amethyst, glittering.

The eyes themselves were wide and shapely in noble sockets, lashed thicker than any beauty’s, a match for the facial bones whose classic proportions subdued the covert arrogance in the thin nostrils and disdainfully aloof mouth. He leant back in the high banquet seat with such an air of patient yet incalculably superior detachment, that I thought, without animosity, So might the creators’ herald view the patch-work pageantry of men.

Then I saw the silver-headed cane propped on the seat’s arm, the pathetically stunted leg and the foot in its high-soled boot. In the same flash those eyes revealed what lay behind them, and with a twist in the stomach I amended: Fallen messenger, yes.

He, in turn, was watching me. This was no more surprising than unusual, since every soul present had their eyes on me, openly or otherwise, and it being fully expected, I had dressed for the occasion with considerable care. Sophisticated black, with pearls alone, since the Guild’s taste in fashion is, needless to say, more hidebound than conservative. I confess to a twinge of regret that black does not do full justice to my hair, but Nammal had done her best to compensate with an elegant coronet braid whose interstices shot the blue-white fire of thillians. Purchased and paid for, needless to say, by me. It did give me some pleasure, among the alarm and embarrassment, when heaven’s discard, announcing my stare was blatant, raised an empty wineglass in salute before he turned leisuredly away.

As soon as it looked natural, I maneuvered my back to him, and murmured to Dsiart, “Who is that?”

Since great Nervian bankers can decipher a goldmine or a bankruptcy from one hand-wave and an eyebrow twitch, he replied in a discreet undertone, “Fassefyr Meanejaz? Just back from the Confederacy. It’s said they’re underwriting Everran this year.”

Which cryptic trade-talk told me the messenger had been abroad to the five-nation Confederacy beyond the desert of Hethria; the ‘az’ suffix said that he was tonight the accredited representative of Meanejen Druz, the great mercantile house of the Meanej brothers, whose finances were equal to underwriting the kingdom of Everran’s entire vintage; which, as crude wits in Assharral put it, is worth the emperor’s arm and both his legs.

Familiar with Dsiart’s verbal notation, I also understood that the coup was as yet unconfirmed. He was as scrupulous about gossip as about his books; both sets, for the imperial assessors and ourselves, were immaculately kept.

“How did he …” I prodded, smiling to make it appear light talk.

“From birth. Jeham’s sister-son. Some mystery about the rest of the parentage. Jeham didn’t let it worry him. For nose he’s thought to match old Meanejim himself.”

Grandfather of Jeham and his brother, founder of the house, legendary for his market sense, his neck-risking triumphs and his unsurpassed gall. As I whistled under my breath Dsiart gave me a wintry smile.

“No call to worry, Inkluit. The youngest giant-killer is you.”

“But …”

“He’s Meanejaz,” said Dsiart patiently. “You’re Deahan.”

Which was partly what made me the banquet’s cynosure. When the great plague swept Nervia, it was ill fortune that saw my close family wiped out before my eyes, and good fortune that left me in sole possession of the ten gold ingots that made up the sum of the family wealth. It was cold calculation that led me to sow those ingots in the richest but most perilous field I knew, the money trade of Nervia. But it was native wit, the razor terror of destitution, and perhaps some long-buried banker’s heritance that had made me, at twenty-eight, a woman, the latest and brightest star in the financial firmament. Not merely the rising light of a great house, not merely the head of a promising house, but head of the first new house admitted to the Mercantile Guild in the last fifty years.

It was this Dsiart meant. The messenger bore the suffix of his dependency. I, as head of the house, took the name itself. I was, in very truth, Deahan.

“Thank you,” I said politely, lowering my lids to denote a silent friendly insult. “Why have I never seen him before?”

His eyebrow quirked. A mouth corner followed. “You want to see more of him now?”

“No,” I had answered before I knew it, and something raised goose-flesh down the back of my arms. With an effort, I recovered the duel’s tone. “Why should you imagine that?”

He smiled down at me from his great height, enhanced by the tall red hat and austerely splendid silver-gray banquet robes that matched his iron-gray hair. Dsiart’s house had been the first victim in my battle to the top; he bore so little malice he had remained to become the king post of mine.

“Meanejen and Deahan? It would be splendid match.”

“If you added it up on your counting strings,” I answered dulcetly, “yes. But when I choose a match, dear Dsiart, it won’t be to balance your books!”

His laugh was as always, a little hiccuping gulp. “If your heart tips the scales when you buy in the marriage mart, dear Inkluit,” he murmured, “it will be the first time and the last.” He turned a little. “Ah, there’s Gondamal looming. Now remember, there’s no quicker way than that eternal maerian mine, if you do want to cut your financial throat.”