Valko already missed his new bed, the softest upon which he had ever rested. In the years of Hiding, he had rarely slept on anything better than what he had found waiting for him in the poors.
As they rounded a corner, Valko hesitated, then said, “Nolun, wait.”
The servant turned to see his new young master gazing out of a large window overlooking the Heplan Sea. Beyond the city of Camareen and its docks the water sparkled in the night, the energy of the motion giving rise to a play of colors across its surface the boy had never seen before. His mother had taken him into the mountains for the Hiding, and he had only glimpsed the ocean on his way to the city during the day. The size of this body of water had been impressive when seen from the peaks and passes of the Snow Wardens, as the mountains were called, but nothing had prepared him for the sheer beauty of the sea at night.
“What are those small bursts of color, there, and there?” he asked, pointing.
Nolun replied, “A fish called shagra, young lord. It leaps from the depths…for no reason anyone can ascertain, perhaps simply for the joy of it, and the leap disturbs the pattern of the ocean.”
“It is…impressive.” Valko had almost said “beautiful,” but it would have been unmanly to use such a word. He realized Nolun was regarding him. Shorter than Valko by more than a foot, he was a youth with a burly build: with a barrel chest, thick neck, and short, heavy fingers on huge hands. “Do you fight?”
“When needed, young lord.”
“Are you good?”
For an instant something flashed behind the servant’s eyes, then he lowered his head and said quietly, “I still live.”
“Yes,” said Valko with a chuckle. “You do. Now, to my father’s hall.”
As they reached the great hall, two armored guards saluted the new heir to the mantle of Camareen. Valko ignored the pain in his arm, shoulder, and left thigh and strode across the hall to stand before his father. Aruke sat at the center of a long table which was placed before a huge fireplace. “I am here, Father.”
Aruke motioned to an empty chair. “This is your place, my son.”
Valko walked around the table, taking note of those already seated. Most were, by dress and badge, functionaries. To his father’s left hand sat a beautiful woman, no doubt his current favorite. Gossip he had overheard the day before led Valko to believe his father’s most recent companion before this one had vanished, almost certainly a Hiding.
Two other men Valko recognized, though he had no name for them; they were Riders of the Sadharin, Deathknights of the Order like his father. These would be trusted allies, bound by mutually beneficial alliances and trust, or they would have been gone from this hall long before the sun had set in the west.
Aruke said, “Bid welcome to our guests, Lord Valin and Lord Sand.”
Valko said, “Welcome to my father’s guests,” and passed behind them to reach his seat. That neither man turned to watch his passing was an acknowledgment of trust. A servant pulled out the large wooden chair to the right of Lord Aruke and Valko sat down.
The Lord of the Camareen said, “Sand and Valin are my closest allies. They are two of the three legs of power upon which rests the Sadharin.”
Valko nodded to acknowledge this.
Aruke waved a hand and servants hurried forward to load the table with their lord’s bounty. A whole kapek, head and hooves intact, was carried in on a spit, sizzling fat cracking through the tough hide, and the two burly servants who bore its weight looked barely up to the task. As it was deposited on a large wooden platter in front of him Aruke said, “Tonight is a good night. A weakling died and a strong man survived.”
The others at the table nodded and muttered words of agreement, but Valko said nothing. He breathed slowly and tried to keep his mind focused. His body ached, the wounds throbbed, and his head pounded. He would just as soon have slept the night through, but he knew that his actions over this night and the few days that followed would be critical. Any misstep and he might just as easily find himself tossed off the battlements as being escorted to the Heir’s Ceremony.
As the meal wore on, Valko found some of his strength returning. He partook of only a little of the fine Tribian wine, wishing to keep his wits and not fall asleep at the table. From the course of conversation it could be a long night of storytelling.
He knew little about the company of warriors. Like most young males he had endured the first seventeen years of his life in the Hiding. His mother had prepared well, so he had no doubt she had planned on bearing the son of a powerful noble. His education had also shown her to be a woman of ambition, for Valko could read, do arithmetic, and understand things most warriors left to Effectors, Attenders, Mediators, Mongers, Facilitators, and the other, lesser castes. She had made sure he was practiced in all manner of study: history, language, and even the arts. She had driven home one thing above all: beyond the power of the sword arm lay the power of the mind, and more was needed to succeed than merely obeying the instincts of the race. His nature told him to be merciless with the weak, but his mother taught him there were uses even for the weak, and that by cultivating the weakest rather than destroying them, some measure of benefit could be discovered. She had said more than once that the TeKarana was supreme ruler of the Twelve Worlds for one reason alone: his ancestors had been smarter than everyone else’s.
His mother had told him many stories of the great feats held in the great hall of Lord Bekar where she had been selected by his father to warm his bed. She had obeyed the strictures of the law, and had made clear to the visiting noble she was able to bear young, and in a cycle to conceive. She had ensured that her name was clearly given to at least three witnesses and had then joined him in his bedchamber.
Suddenly, the meal was over, and Valko realized he had fallen into a reverie. A quick glance at his father reassured him that he had not been detected. Drifting off in thought was dangerous; he might not hear something critical, and he might be thought inattentive.
Aruke rose and said, “I am pleased tonight.”
This was as close as any warlord could come to giving thanks to anyone without revealing weakness. Lord Sand and Lord Valin stood and nodded to their host, and almost in unison said, “It was my pleasure to be here.”
Quickly the hall emptied until Aruke and Valko were alone, save for a handful of servants. Seeing Nolun at Valko’s elbow, the Lord of the Camareen asked, “Are you claiming this one?”
Valko said, “I claim him as my body servant.”
It was a very slight challenge, one which could serve as an excuse for a fight—and Valko knew that despite his youth his father was still powerful and had years of experience—but he was correct in assuming that his father was merely observing form; he would hardly kill a surviving son over such a trivial issue.
“Then I acknowledge the claim,” said Aruke. “Come with me, and have your thing follow. I wish to speak with you of matters between fathers and sons.”
Aruke did not wait to see if he was obeyed; he assumed Valko would be a step behind him as he turned and walked from the table to a large wooden door in the left wall. It was highly polished, and in the dim light, Valko could see that it pulsed with energy. It was an open warning: this door was magically warded and only certain people could open it without injury or death.
The lord of the castle put his hand on the door and it opened to his touch. “Wait outside,” he instructed Nolun. He removed a torch from a nearby sconce and led Valko through the door.
Once through, Valko saw they were in a short hallway, at the end of which waited another door, also warded. Aruke said, as he opened the second door, “It is foolish to hide the wards, for I am not setting traps, and the spellmongers demand ridiculous prices for such niceties.”
At the mention of spellmongers Valko felt a familiar tightening of his stomach. It was weak, he knew, to harbor fears from childhood, but stories of evil spellmongers and the mysterious sand wizards had been the common fodder for night tales before sl
eep, and his mother had ingrained in him a healthy distrust of those who could fashion things from air, by making incantations and waving their fingers in mystic patterns.
The room was simple, though beautiful, if that word could be safely used. Beauty was always something to be suspicious of, his mother had told Valko. It gulled fools into not knowing the true worth of a thing, for often beauty adorned worthless things…or people.
Aruke had furnished this room with two chairs and a chest. Even the stone floor had been left devoid of any item of comfort: no furs, woven rugs, or quilt warmed the room. But it was beautiful: every stone facet had been polished and whatever this strange stone might be, it had the property of reflecting the torchlight as if a treasury of gems had been crushed and applied to the surface; every hue at the edge of the visible spectrum raced across the surface in scintillating sheets of color. It hinted of alien energies.
As if reading the boy’s mind, Aruke said as he put the torch in a sconce, “This room has but one purpose. It is where I keep that which is most valuable to me.” He waved Valko to the chair nearest the single window. “I come here to think, and find the colors of the walls…refresh me. And sometimes I come here with a few others with whom I wish to speak plainly.”
Valko said, “I think I understand, Father.”
“It is about being your father I wish to speak.” He sat back and for a moment seemed to relax.
Valko knew it might be a ruse, a ploy to lure him into an early assault, for it was not unheard of for a newly named heir to attempt to seize power. In some ways that made sense to Valko: this man might be his father, but until a few days earlier he had been a total stranger, a shadowy figure whom he could not imagine even after asking his mother countless questions.
Valko waited.
Aruke said, “It is our custom to prize strength above all else.” He leaned forward. “We are a violent people, and we honor violence and power above everything else.”
Valko said nothing.
Aruke regarded him. After a while he said, “I remember your mother vividly.”
Again Valko remained silent.
“Have you had a woman?”
Valko appraised his father, attempting to discern if there was a correct answer. Finally he said, “No. My Hiding was in an isolated—”
“I do not need to know where,” his father interrupted. “No father should know where his surviving son was hidden and raised. It might be tempting to eradicate such a place in the next Purging.” Then softly he added, with something close to a chuckle, “And if it is a place where a strong son was raised, that might…be wasteful.”
Valko blurted, “As wasteful as killing another man’s son who was only beaten by the scantest margin?”
Aruke’s face was impassive, but there was a faint tightening around his eyes. “Such a question borders on blasphemy.”
“I mean no disrespect to His Darkness, nor His Order, Father. I just wondered: what if the youth I killed today was a better warrior than one who was victor in another match, in another keep, within the Order? Isn’t that a waste of a fine warrior to serve the Order?”
“Mysterious Are His Ways,” intoned his father. “Such long thoughts are the thoughts of the young. But it is best to keep them to yourself, or to speak of them only with those under the seal of silence: your priest, an Attender, or…” He laughed. “Or an Effector like your mother.”
Aruke stared out of the window for a moment at the roiling surface of the distant sea, and the ripple of scintillating colors that played across its surface. “I have been told that there is a realm in which the sun shines so brightly that without a spell or ward a warrior would burn up within hours from the heat of it. And that those who live there can’t see the splendors we take for granted.” He looked at his son. “They see only colors, but not high hue or low hue. They can only hear waves of sound in the air, but not the thrum of the God Speak in the heavens or the vibration of the Whole beneath their feet.”
“I saw a blind man once, serving an Attender.”
Aruke spat and made a ritual sign. “In such a one’s care is the only way you’d see such weakness. I’m sorry you had to see such a thing at so young an age.
“The Attenders have their uses, His Darkness knows, and he also knows I would not be sitting here speaking with you had they not ministered to me after battle. But this thing they have…this caring for weakness…it disgusts me.”
Valko said nothing. Rather than feeling disgust, he was fascinated. He wanted to know why the Attenders kept such a one alive. He had asked his mother, and all she would say was “they find him useful, no doubt.” How could a blind one be useful? He realized this must be another of what his father had just called his “long thoughts,” and he had best keep his own counsel.
Aruke sat back. “A woman. We must get you one…” He pondered. “But not tonight. You held up well and made me proud, but I’ve seen enough battle cuts to know you’ve lost too much blood to do aught but sleep tonight. Perhaps in a day or two.
“Your mother was the one who…” He seemed to get lost in thought. “She spoke of things. As we lay side by side after coupling, she’d muse about…all manner of things. She had a unique mind.”
Valko nodded. “Even those other Effectors I’ve met during my Hiding were nothing like Mother. One said she saw things that weren’t there.” Aruke’s eyes widened, and Valko knew he was treading close to a disastrous mistake; even a hint that his mother was gripped by the madness could cause his father to order his immediate death. He quickly added, “Possibilities.”
Aruke laughed. “She often spoke of Possibilities.” He gazed out of the window. “Sometimes what she spoke of bordered on…well, let’s say it wouldn’t have been good for her to be heard speaking by any of the Hierophants. A Soul Priest would have cautioned her and bid her repent, praying for her darkness within to assert itself, but there were things to her moods and natures that I found…appealing.” Looking down at his hands, clasped before him, he said, “She once wondered aloud what would happen were a child to grow up at his father’s knee.”
Valko’s mouth dropped in astonishment, then he shut it. “Such thoughts are forbidden.”
“Yes.” With a sad smile Aruke added, “Yet you would know more than I of your mother’s ways. Of all those I have coupled with who have declared before witnesses to bear me an heir, it is she I recall…most often.” He stood. “I have often wondered what you would be like, whether you would share some of your mother’s nature.”
Valko also stood up. “I will confess she made me think about things at times, in odd ways, but I never strayed from His Teachings and…I ignored much of what she tried to teach me.”
Aruke laughed. “As I ignored my mother during my Hiding.” He put his hand on his son’s shoulder. Squeezing it firmly, he added, “Stay alive, son of mine. I’ve fifty-four winters behind me, and while other sons will appear in years to come, they will be fewer and fewer. And I would not be displeased if you were the one to take my head at the end, just as I took my father’s. I still remember the pride in his eyes as I swung down at his neck, while he lay on the sand of the pit.”
“I will not disappoint you,” said Valko. “Yet I hope that day is years away.”
“As do I. But first, you must stay alive.”
“Stay alive,” repeated Valko in an almost ritual tone. “As He wills it.”
“As He wills it,” repeated Aruke. “What is discussed in here is never repeated. Understood?”
“Understood, Father.”
“Now go and have your thing escort you to your quarters, and sleep. In the morning you begin your training to be the future Lord of Camareen.”
“Good night, Father.”
“Good night, Valko.”
Valko left and Aruke returned to his chair. He stared out at the sea and the stars, fascinated by what he knew of them, and curious about what he didn’t know. He saw the starlight pushing through the thick air of Kosridi. He thought of h
is third journey to the Capital to present his son to the Karana, to have him swear allegiance to the Order and the TeKarana who sat upon an ancient throne worlds away. He thought of his third day of enduring the Hierophants and their long incantations as Valko dedicated himself to His Darkness and the Way.
Then Aruke rose and removed a single, very old scroll from the chest. He opened it and read slowly, for reading had never been one of his better skills. Yet, he knew every word by heart. He read the words on this scroll twice, and put it away, wondering as he had, twice before, if this son was the one in the prophecy.
EIGHT
NEW DIRECTIONS
Pug waited.
After a pause, the merchant said, “No, sir, but you are not far from the truth.” He waved Pug over to a small table and two chairs of sufficient proportion to provide comfortable seating for humans as well as himself. When he was seated, Vordam went on. “An understandable misapprehension; we of the Ipiliac are related to the Dasati.”
Pug was not sure he could read the alien merchant’s expressions, but he thought he saw something akin to surprise on his face. “I must confess I never expected to find anyone here at the Inn who would ever have heard of the Dasati let alone be able to recognize one on sight.”
“I heard a vivid description,” said Pug, choosing to hide his ability to sense the differences between the vibrations in this room and the rest of Honest John’s. “For reasons I’m reluctant to discuss at the moment I would rather not go into why I need information, just that I need information.”
“Information is always among the most prized commodities.” The merchant clasped his hands before him and leaned forward on the table, a very human gesture. “As to the reasons for your inquiry, they remain your business, but I feel compelled to inform you that I am bound by several oaths of privilege regarding the business I do with my clients here in the Hall.” He nodded once. “It is, you understand, essential for staying in business.”