And after that, Why?
The word echoed aimlessly in his head, finding no answer, only the great, fathomless emptiness, swirling like a wind across a barren, rocky field.
Somehow he fell asleep, rousing to foggy daylight, a clatter of chain, and a deep bellowing. He lay curled on the hard bench, his ear aching where it pressed against the wood. Iron anklets pulled painfully against his feet.
He sat upright.
To the right, crates and barrels were stacked to the ceiling, a central island that blocked his view of the offside oarsmen. Ahead, more cargo jammed the stern, framing the ladderlike companionway that led to the upper deck. Light checkered through a grate at the top. More filtered through the long oar slot on his left, washing over the hunched form of his bench mate, collapsed now over the oar. Its handle end was anchored beneath a ledge directly in front of Abramm’s feet, the massive blade now up, out of the water.
Glancing back, he found himself sitting the second bench in a rank of fifteen-thirty men in all. Like his own bench mate, a few of them were slumped over oar handles, but most lounged easily, regarding him with unveiled curiosity.
Abramm’s gaze returned to the man at his side, then out the slot beyond. Silver water, lined with gentle ripples, swept away from the ship to meet a dark runner of foliage-cloaked land. The boat was not moving, the air breathlessly still.
Somewhere a fire crackled-its smoke scent tickled his nostrils alongside the aroma of roasting meat. Laughter sounded above, mingled with thumping footfalls. Behind him someone rustled and a liquid trickle was chased by the reek of urine.
Finally he forced himself to look at his left arm. It still throbbed, the flesh swollen and angry around a palm-sized, dark red scab shaped vaguely like a rampant dragon.
Branded like a common ox.
His stomach turned. His hair would grow out and his dignity could be restored, but this he would have with him always.
And then he laughed aloud, the sound high-pitched with incipient hysteria. He was chained to the deck of a galley, a Kiriathan in the hands of an Esurhite Gamer. The brand was the least of his troubles.
The bench creaked as his companion shifted, and a hoarse voice spoke. “So you are alive.”
The man still hunched over the oar, but now his head was turned to face Abramm, curly hair backlit by the fading light.
Abramm gaped. “Meridon?”
The other smiled wryly, closing his eyes. Weariness carved his freckled face, his eyes sunken and shadowed, his features gaunt beneath the mat of his beard. His arm muscles twitched and quivered as they rested on the oar handle, and his left hand, dangling loosely against the oar’s smooth grip, showed a bloodied palm. Scarlet and brown smears on the wooden handle spoke eloquently of how the injury had been acquired.
He had been rowing recently. Which meant they were no longer in Qarkeshan.
So long did Meridon sit without moving that Abramm wondered if he’d fallen unconscious. Finally, though, he spoke again, his voice rough and harsh. After they chained you here last night, you sat like one enspelled. Then you fell over and nobody could rouse you, not even when we were called to oars. I thought I shared the bench with a dead man.”
“Not yet.”
Meridon’s dark eyes opened, and he stared at Abramm blankly. Then his eyes glazed and the lids dropped over them. “Guess they figured out who you are. Can’t find a much bigger name than yours.” Meridon sighed deeply. “I’m sorry, my lord. You deserved none of this.”
“I am not your lord,” Abramm said bitterly. “Not anymore.”
The dark eyes opened again, regarding him dully. “No,” the man slurred, “I suppose you aren’t.”
Again his eyelids drooped, and in moments his breathing deepened into sleep.
A little later the hatch shrieked open, and four dark-clad guards thundered down the companion bearing two steaming pots and some wooden bowls. Two disappeared on the far side of the central cargo wall as the rich scent of roasted goat and onions set Abramm’s stomach into instant ravenous reaction.
He shook Meridon awake and shoved the bowl into his bloody hands barely in time to catch his own as the guards moved on to the next row.
The stew’s heat warmed both bowl and hands, and his mouth watered ferociously. He did not think he had ever known such hunger. Eagerly he thrust his fingers into the thick brown gravy, plucked out a hunk of steaming meat … and halted.
I will abstain from corrupt food … shunning the meat of animals…
As Meridon revived to gobble down his own food, Abramm stared at the meat in his hand. A small enough morsel, but if he ate it, he would, for the first time, deliberately violate a sacred vow.
And does that matter? asked a dry voice in his head. If the Mataio is a lie, your vows are meaningless.
A moment more he hesitated, then slowly, deliberately, he put the meat into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. He fished out a second chunk and instinct took over. As he scraped the last of the gravy and lentils from the bowl, the guards returned, offering more stew-which he accepted-along with loaves of dark, coarse bread and pots of brackish water.
Toward the end an audience had gathered near the companion, the guards watching him with broad amusement, though he could not imagine what was funny.
Finally, with mocking bows and raucous laughter, they departed. The hatch squealed down and banged into place, then stillness settled over the hold. He felt a little queasy now-payment for overeating. At least they were to be fed well. When the time came to escape, he wouldn’t be too weak.
He looked down at his leg irons, the chain held by a stout iron pin driven deep into the dark wood. Who are you kidding? You’re not going to escapeyou’re going to die.
He glanced at Meridon, asleep on the bench again. He’s had all he can take, and you’re not half what he is. You probably won’t last the week.
Gillard’s laughter echoed in his mind, and Abramm ground his teeth.
No. Deep within him resistance stirred. No, Gillard had not won yet. Each day that Abramm survived was a day he took from his brother and made his own.
I will not give up that easily. I will not!
The next day his determination was tested to the limit. By afternoon his back was a raging, bloody fire, the remains of his tunic hanging in ribbons around his waist, courtesy of the innumerable blows of the oar master’s rope quirt. His limbs felt like sodden wool, trembling perpetually now, and his hands had cramped into claws around the oar handles. Though Meridon was sharing the punishment for his weakness-and doing all the work-Abramm could not force another ounce of effort from his aching, failing flesh.
When at last the beat ended, he could not even help Meridon anchor the oar, could only sag back onto the bench. Every muscle in his body throbbed an aching rhythm: arms, shoulders, chest, back, legs, buttocks-even his jaw hurt. The cotton strips he had torn from his tunic to shield his hands from the friction were soaked in blood. The decking beneath his feet was likewise bloodied from blisters on the soles of his feet, formed and torn apart by the constant need to brace himself as he pulled the heavy oar toward him.
He gave no thought to escape now. If they had broken his chains and told him to walk free, he could not have done it.
The oar secure, Meridon collapsed as usual across the long grip, and shortly Abramm fell forward likewise. His muscles continued to twitch, and time and again he felt like he was still rowing. It was all he could do to choke down a few mouthfuls of stew-which had definitely not set well with him last night-before he fell back across the oar. An image of his old feather bed taunted him-a cloud of soft, clean-smelling sweetness.
He was half-conscious of someone gripping his hands, smearing something onto the ravaged palms, but he could not rouse himself enough to know if it was dream or reality.
The days that followed were an unending nightmare of straining, agonized muscles and blistered, bleeding flesh pitted against wood and water, driven on by the throbbing drumbeat and the merciless qu
irt.
After a time that quirt hovered over him of its own power, its wielder unperceived, only the knotted rope and the stinging pain. Later the hand that swung it returned, and at times that hand was Saeral’s, or Brother Cyrus’s, or his father’s. Most often, though, it was Gillard who drove him, laughing and mocking. As the days passed and the pain and exhaustion mounted, it became for Abramm a battle of wills-Gillard striving to push him beyond what he could endure, Abramm refusing to give up.
Day melded with night. Pain and Gillard and the motion of rowing became his only realities. Even in his sleep he rowed and felt the quirt and heard his brother’s laughter, the mocking high-pitched sound setting his teeth to grinding.
He wondered occasionally if he were going mad, muttering a litany of determination under his breath in time to the beat. I won’t give up. I won’t give up. It became his personal rhythm, driving him on and on and on. Survive for just another day. Endure for just another hour… .
Then one morning he noticed the pain had lessened. That Gillard no longer held the whip, nor did he command the drummer. His hands and feet were healing, calluses thickening where blisters had been. His breath no longer ravaged his throat with each exertion.
Best of all, he received only four blows of the quirt that day. There came a time soon after when he received none at all. Each new day brought a significant reduction of the pain, and in its absence his thoughts returned to rationality. Eventually he realized he would survive, and the knowing filled him with wonder.
One evening he sat with his back against the deck walk, chewing the last of a piece of bread with an almost giddy sense of success. Meridon faced forward, eating as well. Since the first day they had spoken not a word and hardly even glanced at one another, each occupied with his own private torments. Even so, Abramm felt a powerful bond with the man, forged of shared misery and the need of working together in constant synchronous rhythm. More than that, Meridon represented the only link with his past. Abramm could speak to him in his own language, and the Terstan would understand him.
Suddenly that was important. Suddenly he wanted very much to hear Kiriathan. To be understood and answered, as if in doing so he could lay hold of that which he had lost.
“What were you doing there that night?” he asked abruptly. “In the Keep, I mean-how’d you know where to find me?”
Meridon’s beard bristled slightly, as if he were clenching his teeth, and Abramm realized he had asked the wrong thing.
The Terstan sipped deliberately from his water cup, then said, still facing forward, “I knew where they were likely to be holding you, though not the exact cell, so I was searching, hoping to find you before it was too late.”
He fell silent, a hardness settling around his eyes.
Abramm studied him, surprised by the depth of his own compassion. “Ray was your friend.”
Meridon looked down at the wooden cup in his callused hands. “Or so I thought.”
“You know he probably wasn’t involved in this. Gillard lies as easily as he speaks.”
“He was involved,” Meridon said flatly. “It was likely his idea.”
Abramm frowned, watching an orange cat slink down the companionway and disappear around the bottom rail post into the darkness. He glanced at Meridon again. “Granted, I didn’t know my brothers well, but Raynen was always an upright sort. It was important to him to do the right thing. I can’t believe that-“
“He was afraid,” Meridon said bitterly. “And I was a threat. To him it would have seemed the only thing he could do.”
`Afraid?” Abram’s voice rose with incredulity.
For the first time Meridon looked at him, pain, and now anger, in his eyes. “Do not judge him too harshly. He was under pressures you know nothing about.”
Abramm held the man’s gaze evenly, but somehow he felt reproved.
The Terstan looked away. After a moment he sighed, drained his cup, and passed both it and his bowl to Abramm, who set them with his own on the central walkway.
Above, the men laughed and jeered at one another.
Presently Meridon spoke again. “He had the potential to be one of Kiriath’s finest kings. But he never got over watching your father die.”
“You speak of him as if he’s the one dead.”
Meridon snorted and bent to pull the canvas flap across the oar slot, blocking the flow of chill night air. “He may be. In any case, the man I knew most certainly is. You’re right. He did have a fine sense of duty. Now he has only the fear.”
“Of Saeral?”
And Prince Gillard.”
“Gillard?”
Meridon met his gaze again, the hard light back in his eyes. “Gillard wants the throne and always has. Raynen wears a Terstan shield and suffers from the sarotis. By now that fact has certainly become apparent-to Gillard, at least, if not to the realm at large. With you out of the way, he is the undisputed heir. It is only a matter of time before he convinces Raynen to abdicate-or the Table of Lords to remove him.” He sighed. “The worst of it is, Gillard’s more vulnerable to Saeral than Raynen.”
Abramm remembered the spell Saeral had cast over him-the trusted face, the quiet lake, the sense of utter security. And into that, the promise of the fulfillment of his most cherished dream….
Yes, Gillard would be vulnerable.
But Kiriath was a long way away now. A lifetime away. And odds were heavy he’d never see it again.
Weeks passed. Abramm’s beard grew long and thick, even as his stomach grew tight and hard; cablelike muscles bulged through the skin on his legs and arms. In time he found a curious pleasure in hauling on the oar and feeling the power of his own strength go down its length to press against the water and move the ship forward.
Meridon changed, too-muscles and tendons and veins rippled beneath skin that held not an ounce of fat. A thick beard camouflaged the boyish look of his features, and his curly red hair now flopped over his forehead and ears and down the nape of his neck.
The gauntness left his face, and though at first his brown eyes were haunted with a pain not physical, after a time he came to terms with it. Eventually he spoke freely, even animatedly, of his past and his family.
Born of common stock, the first of six children, Trap Meridon had four sisters and one brother. His youth was spent divided between summers afield, looking after his mother’s herd of prize goats, and winters in town, working at and then attending the School of Fence his famous father ran in Sterlen.
His first mention of the school had jolted Abramm, for he had forgotten the old swordsman was the man’s father.
Taught by a master from birth, and being an apt pupil, Meridon was accepted at the school a good two years before most boys even tested. By the time he was fourteen he was already winning competitions.
He met Raynen at a Fairday in Sterlen that same year. They were finalists, not in sword but in archery. Both lost out to age and experience, but they struck up a friendship, being of an age.
“In those days,” Meridon explained, “Ray never thought he’d be king, with four brothers ahead of him and Aarol’s wife already expecting. And he was never particularly concerned with titles and status. We took an instant liking to each other and spent the rest of the fair together.
“Then some older boys thought it would be fun to pick on a Terstan- me. There was a fight, and Ray stood back to back with me, two against five. We were winning, too, and then one of them pulled a blade.” He paused, and when next he spoke, his voice was low. “He was the first man I ever killed. Turned out he was a duke’s son. There was trouble, and even though Ray supported me, I was a commoner and a Terstan. It was decided I should leave Sterlen. Ray was going on progress to the borderlands and asked for me to be his squire. I’ve been in his service ever since.”
Of Abramm’s past they spoke little, though not for lack of interest on Meridon’s part. He attempted to draw Abramm out more than once, curious as to how he’d come to join the Mataio. Abramm always changed
the subject. The past held shame and failure and betrayal, and thinking of it only made him more aware of the emptiness that now dwelt within him. Thankfully, Trap never pushed, and it was for that, more than anything, that Abramm appreciated him.
One day, after the oars master had halted them unexpectedly at midmorning, a group of guards trooped into the hold, brandishing crowbars. In astonished disbelief Abramm watched as the pin that chained him to the deck was levered free. Then he was reeling on the deck walk, disoriented at standing upright for the first time in he didn’t know when.
The five galleys had anchored in a quiet, mist-hung cove surrounded by steep, rocky hills sparingly dotted with strange, fleshy gray-green plants. Shaped like leafless stumps, crowned by myriad groping arms, they looked like something spawned of Moroq’s Veil, malformed and hostile.
Wavelets kissed a tan, pebbly beach and lapped the base of the cliff on the left. At its midpoint, apparently built into the rock as much as on the shelves that notched its face, hung a massive complex of white-walled buildings with multitudes of balconies and tall, arched windows and latticed breezeways. A waterfall trickled between them, running down the cliff face to the sea, its margins crowded with lush vegetation.
Ten of them were ferried ashore in the galley’s dinghy under the direction of the Gamer’s son. While they waited for the other boats to discharge a similar cargo, Abramm studied the villa above, intrigued by the dark birdlike statues standing guard in the crags above it. Or at least he thought they were statues-until one unfolded great, dark wings and flapped away.
“Veren,” Trap said softly at his side, seeing the direction of his gaze.
“Rhu’ema spawn?”
The Terstan nodded grimly, his golden mark gleaming in the gray light. All the guards a man could need. I expect we’ll get a demonstration.”
As soon as all the men had gathered ashore, one of them-a tall, stringy, pale-skinned Chesedhan-made the break for freedom. The Esurhites had seemed unconscionably lax in this regard, laughing and talking with hardly a glance at the prisoners they were allegedly guarding. So inattentive were they, even Abramm gave thought to attempting flight, but Trap’s grim prediction-and his own conviction that it was intentional-stayed the impulse.