B G P Hughes

          Legend tells us that when the king's second son was assassinated, the king embarked on an elaborate plan to save his last remaining heir. In great secrecy, he took his son, and five other infants of a like age and countenance, and sent them out into the world to protect them from the reach of the Black Hand. Their identities were hidden, each taking with them only a pair of guardians. On reaching their manhood, they were to return to the kingdom, when the king would declare which of them was his true heir.

            I had nothing in common with the Six Kings, as they came to be called, except that I was born at the same time in the same city, the capital Haja. And yet it was to be me that determined the fate of each of the Six Kings.