Chapter Two: The King of Kings
The Palace of Princes was a grand affair. Of all the palaces in the City of Fenn only four were of equal height, those being the Palace of Princesses, the Palace of Elements, the Palace of Sorrow and the Palace of Night. These five minor palaces were the loftiest and largest structures in the City of Fenn, with one exception.
There was only one which stood above them all looking down on its children. This was the Palace of Fenngaard, home of King Fenn Corul Geddon. Next to the Palace of Fenngaard they looked like children's building blocks sitting next to a mountain.
The City of Fenn was often called the shadow within a shadow, for it was said that all Avalen lived within its shade, the city contained within the shroud of Fenngaard. Prince Karmalaine knew that to be an exaggeration, but one which anyone who actually gazed on the Palace of Fenngaard could appreciate.
The Palace of Princes in which Karmalaine resided consisted of a ring of ten towers linked by bridges and battlements; within this ring was the Thorn Tower which loomed above them.
Prince Karmalaine now sat on an ornate chair shaped to resemble a raven with outstretched wings, the symbol of his house, in the Regent’s apartments of the Thorn Tower. A single stairway linked these apartments to the battlements below and it ended in a circular stairwell which wound up into the greeting chamber.
The apartments took up the entire top floor of the tower and from the central greeting chamber there were several doorways which led to the Prince’s private quarters, a guardian hall where his bodyguards resided and the audience chamber.
His Consul had informed him that the greeting chamber was already filling up with petitioners. The Prince bade him wait a few minutes before admitting them. As the Prince Regent and an heir to Fenngaard, Karmalaine was expected to hold audience with those who would seek an audience with his father. Some matters were left to the Prince to resolve; the more serious he would grant access to the higher palace, the petty he would dismiss to be dealt with by one of the city’s many arbiters. The whole point of the Arbiter-Council was to whittle down the throng of plebeians so that Karmalaine was left with only the issues of dire importance, yet he still found himself dismissing dozens of applicants every day.
The Prince was looking forward to a long day presiding over the masses with less than his usual diligence and enthusiasm. They say that dreams do not dream, yet his night had been fitful and filled with dreadful images. If they were not dreams then he supposed it must be his conscious waking mind that summoned these visions. He'd seen Fenngaard wreathed in flames, beset by a wolf of gigantic proportions. Senseless fantasies, he thought, there were no giant wolves.
Like all who descended from the Fenn, the Prince had jet black hair and a complexion as fair as Calciid marble. He ran a hand through his thick shoulder-length hair with tiredness as he walked to stare out of the window. Beyond the ten towers surrounding the Thorn were the Prince’s gardens, half a league across, containing hedge mazes, artificial lakes and flower beds.
His two brothers, Allayne and Drayen, were probably down there now, riding unicorns, swimming in the lakes and generally having much more fun than their older sibling. There'd been a time not too long ago when Karmalaine would have been with them, but then he reached his first century and was told that he must now begin to serve his father, to begin to fulfil the duties of his title.
The light had lifted in glorious fashion this morning. Beyond the gardens was the Stalwall and beyond that the city proper. Fenn was built upon the nineteen pillars, which had been revealed by the first Fenn when he pushed back the dreaming sea and founded the kingdom.
It was not known how they were forged; it was assumed that they were one of the old dreams which existed in the chaos before Fenn brought order. The pillars were cylindrical, each one several leagues across, and the city’s inhabitants had built on them all, linking each to the other by huge bridges. Wide chasms existed between each of the pillars, though from Karmalaine’s perspective the city looked like a continuous entity. He knew that if he was to fly out on one of the many sky-ships which he could see above the city he would be able to see the gaps between the pillars, the hundreds of bridges provided transit from the outer reaches of the city towards the central pillar on which sat the Palace of Fenngaard and its children.
It was said that the pillars had no end and that they went on forever down into the dream-soil of Avalen. Whether this was true or not, Karmalaine knew that the city had dug deeply. The steady influx of new dreams from beyond Avalen meant that the tops of the pillars soon ran out of room to house everyone. Homes for the people had been dug deep down into the pillars.
Some lived in places so dark that the light of Avalen never reached them. It was rumoured when you got deep enough there were miniature stars and moons, pulled down by the giants which lived beneath the ground to provide light and beauty.
Though it was true that the city extended down into the dark places of Avalen, Karmalaine thought the existence of independent stars and moons unlikely, not least because the giants did not live beneath the city. They resided in Torabane, their mountain stronghold at the far north of Avalen.
Prince Karmalaine could feel the life and energy pulsing out of the city. How he longed to leave the palace, to wander the Maze-Market of Trandoon, to visit the Gallery of Swords.
He heard Clemen gently clear his voice behind him. “My Prince”, he said softly. Clemen was a mousekarl, a race of excellent administrators, tireless and loyal. His whiskers twitched as he waited for the Prince’s permission to allow the first petitioner through.
Prince Karmalaine sighed as he sat down on the hard wooden chair. “Okay, let’s get this over with”, he said.
“My Prince sounds less than happy at the prospect of the day ahead”, replied the mousekarl, his whiskers twitching again beneath his soft brown eyes.
“The day ahead will consist of an endless throng of dreams telling me that they are low on crystal fuel, or that their neighbour has been burning buckets of Dream Sea and causing a stink”, said the Prince in a frustrated tone, “there is little that will bring me happiness.”
“If princes were destined for happiness then they would call them something else”, responded Clemen with a buck-toothed smile. He left the audience hall and brought through the first petitioner.
“Greetings”, said Karmalaine, “welcome to the Palace of Princes. Tell me of your quandary”, said Karmalaine to the portly gentlemen before him.
The man bowed before answering, “My Prince, I come before you to discuss the lack of crystal fuel in the Gammene district.”
Prince Karmalaine stared at Clemen, who refused to meet his gaze. This was going to be a long day.