Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1)

by Karen Hancock

  “He’s a Terstan, Eldrin. A fanatic, subject to madness. You have no idea what he’s capable of. And his loyalty to the king is well-known.”

  “You’re saying Raynen is behind this?”

  “Lad, he cannot help but see you as a threat. And they say he’s been distraught of late-unbalanced.” He shook his head. “I cannot believe all the problems this Initiation has had. I’m beginning to think it will take a miracle to pull it off. In any case, Saeral does not believe your brother will try anything else-it would be political suicide. You can relax.” He smiled, sat back, opened the big book lying on the table before him, and suggested Eldrin might want to review the last batch of codices.

  Two hours later, Eldrin returned to his cell for afternoon meditation and found that while the surface of his mind had been engaged in the repetition of the codices, the old doubts had been busy underneath it, kindling themselves to new life.

  No matter how facilely Belmir might blame it all on Terstan madness, Eldrin could not believe Meridon had murdered that initiate. Not because of any delusions that the man was above murder, but for the simple fact that Eldrin was certain if Meridon had come after him, Eldrin would now be dead. Besides, he carried no trace of the sarotis that always accompanied Terstan madness and had exhibited, in all Eldrin’s dealings with him, not the least hint of insanity.

  But if Meridon hadn’t done it, who had? And why? And how had Meridon’s dagger ended up in the body?

  For that matter, why was Damon walking in the garden before dawn? He should have been asleep. Or at least on his way to Sunpraise.

  None of it made any sense.

  He thought again of Brother Rhiad raving last night in the coach about what a dangerous heretic Meridon was and how he needed to be stopped.

  Well, he’d been stopped.

  And the king had been deprived of his most loyal supporter, was suspected of having orchestrated an assassination attempt, and was now exquisitely vulnerable to censure, perhaps even to forced abdication should his religious views be made public. It certainly made a convenient route for Eldrin to take the throne.

  He sat very still, staring blindly at the open Book of Rule on the desk before him. His chest had grown so tight he could hardly breathe, and his heart thumped a frantic tattoo against his rib cage.

  “How can you even think this?” he murmured. “It’s heresy.” And if it was hard to believe in Meridon’s guilt, how much harder was it to believe the theory now presenting itself for his consideration? He dashed the gathering pattern apart, unwilling to consider it further. There had to be another explanation.

  Maybe someone who hated the Guardians had jumped over the wall in a drunken fit and murdered Damon.

  With Meridon’s dagger? Stealing that was a feat not likely pulled off by just anyone. Certainly not a drunken hater of Guardians.

  Maybe Gillard did it, trying to derail his chief competitor in the upcoming Festival of Arms.

  But the image of Gillard leaping over the wall to murder the unsuspecting Initiate was even less credible than the one of Meridon. Besides, Gillard’s feet were too big for the prints.

  One of Gillard’s retainers, then, or maybe one of Beltha’adi’s, a southlander spy seeking to create turmoil in the city?

  Each suggestion seemed to grow more fantastic, more improbable. There was no answer. Or rather, the one that fit the most pieces was totally unacceptable.

  He clenched his hands atop the open, musty pages, dropped his head onto them, and squeezed his eyes shut. “Oh, Eidon, my Lord. Forgive me, forgive these awful suspicions. I know they are untrue and shamefully disloyal. Please, drive them from my mind.”

  He repeated his plea several times and finally opened his eyes to focus upon the words beneath his hands, determined to concentrate upon them and nothing else. But he had only read a few lines before another memory assailed him.

  “Do you really believe revulsion and terror would be your strongest feelings if you were truly meeting him?”

  He closed his eyes, moaning slightly as his thoughts tangled all over again. Finally he closed the book, shrugged on his mantle, and left. He did not know where he intended to go until he ended up in the garden, edging up to the place where the body had been found.

  The plants were not scorched, nor was the wall, but the gravel had been disturbed, shoved up in little piles like a stormy sea. Probably the result of the king’s guardsmen who’d been out here investigating, taking up the body and all. There was blood, too, a small patch of it on the gray crumble. The footprints Belmir had mentioned lay in the soft earth in the bed of hockspur at the base of the wall, the stems and white blossoms crushed and flattened. Only two prints, and then whoever it was had leapt for the wall and climbed over it.

  He turned back to the bloodstain. It wasn’t very big, but with the heart stopped and the dirk still in the wound, the blood would remain mostly in the body. On the other hand, was it possible Damon hadn’t been killed here? Maybe someone stole Meridon’s dagger, killed this Initiate, and left his body here to frame the Terstan.

  Who? Who would do such a thing?

  “He will kill him, Abramm. Just like he killed the others.”

  “He’s using you.”

  “Go to the room, my lord. Then you’ll know for sure, one way or the other.”

  He stared at the blood, pulse pounding in his ears, sweat trickling down his chest.

  If he did this he could be ruined. He could be … He didn’t even know what the punishment was for a violation of this magnitude. Expulsion? Excommunication? He could even be killed or driven mad by the power of the Flames themselves, angry that he had violated their perfect purity with his wretched unbelief.

  But if he backed off, tried to shove this all down into his soul, his faith would always have worms at its core. Doubt would weaken his conviction, sully his purity, compromise his service. And if it could be expunged no other way…

  Oh, Eidon, if this is wrong, please, show me, stop me. Don’t let me do this!

  As always, his plea received no answer.

  Half an hour later he entered the Great Sanctum. Cloaked and cowled as was always a penitent’s right, he made his way slowly to the bottom. A handful of others knelt along the railing, deep in prayer or meditation. He walked around to the south, then joined the others-on his knees, pressing his fore head to the rail, his eyes clenched shut. His heart knocked against his chest, and his palms were slick against the brass. His stomach had curled into a tight, hard knot.

  He could hardly believe he was doing this. He who rarely violated even the smallest stricture of the codes, who was vaunted for his personal discipline and attention to detail, whom Belmir had pronounced the most obedient Novice he had ever discipled-he stood now on the verge of committing an unthinkable transgression.

  But he had to know the truth. Over and over in his Holy Word, Eidon promised his disciples that anyone who sincerely sought the truth would find it. And Eidon must know his heart, must know he meant no harm, that he sought only to prove there was no passage and no secret chamber so he could slay these awful doubts once and for all. Meridon probably did not expect him to seek the place out anyway, had only told him about it to confuse and unsettle him, to birth the very doubts that had been birthed. The sooner Eldrin proved him wrong, the better.

  Lord Eidon, forgive me, preserve me, show me your truth….

  He stood and stepped back, hands clasped beneath the folds of his robe, his head down. Covertly he scanned the Guardians and initiates in prayer around him, the dancing tumble of the Flames, hissing and moaning in the silence. No one seemed to notice him, but many faces were hidden in the shadows of a cowl, just like his. They could be watching him, and he would never know. He backed another step and let his hands fall beside him. Air stirred around the backs of his ankles, a draft from the corridor behind the curtain. His heart beat so hard he thought it might burst from his chest. Again he scanned his companions. Then he drew a breath, turned purposefully, and stepped
through the curtain.

  He had gone several strides before he knew it-so focused on the expectation of the outcry his violation would ignite, he had no eyes for his surroundings. But no outcry arose, and no one came after him. Finally he stopped to get his bearings.

  A stubby candle in a wall sconce on the curving corridor ahead provided faint illumination. The scents of oil and wood and incense filled his nostrils. Silence pressed upon him, amplifying his breathing into a loud, obtrusive rasp.

  Three doors down, Meridon had said. He stepped quietly past the first two, entered the third. The room beyond was pitch black, so he backed out and got a candle from its sconce. The light revealed a small vesting chamber with a lampstand, a bench and basin, and a tall wardrobe carved of dark wood looming against the back wall. And no other door or passageway save the one he had come in through. He searched the room twice, rubbing his fingers over the walls to be sure. There was nothing.

  Finally he stood back, relief making him want to laugh aloud. Meridon was wrong? It was a trick!

  He was about to leave when it occurred to him he had not checked the wardrobe. Hadn’t Meridon said something about a secret panel? Renewed uneasiness fluttered in his middle. For a moment he tried to talk himself out of it-he’d been here too long already. Soon the men who would lead the evening worship service would be arriving to prepare. He ought to go before he was discovered.

  But he was here now, and it would make all he had done so far a waste if he did not make absolutely sure. Grimly he set the candle on the bench and opened the wardrobe.

  The panel behind the ranks of robes had no handle, but it slid aside easily under his touch, revealing a narrow stone stairway curving down into the darkness. Sick with dread, he went back for the candle, then pressed through the robes. The candlelight flickered over walls and steps hewn from solid rock-yet with a veneer as smooth and slick as ice. Dark, tentacled masses clung to the ceiling a little way down, but he did not lift the candle to inspect them. A cold draft, heavy with animal odor, pressed against his face, lifting his hair from his cheeks. His stomach twisted. Hot wax dripped onto his hand.

  The last thing he wanted to do was go down that stairway.

  Reaching back, he pulled the wardrobe doors shut, then, with a breath of resolve, started forward. Three steps later a wild, unthinking panic gripped him, paralyzing his limbs, pushing back at him with physical force. The candle guttered and the flame shrank to a mere glow at the wick’s end.

  Go back. Go back. Go back.

  The stench of evil was undeniable.

  He swallowed hard, fought to wrest his trembling legs under control, and by sheer force of will pressed onward.

  The terror eased as he descended. The stair spiraled down, the footing slick and treacherous, the walls so close they often brushed his shoulders. Before long he found himself fighting another fear as he grew ever more aware of the tons of rock over his head. Grimly he kept on until the stairway emptied into a small, low-ceilinged landing. Two doorways led off left and right. He chose right and soon came to a short stair ascending to a curtained opening.

  Warily he pushed aside the curtain. A blast of icy air roiled out at him, fogging his breath and setting the candle flame flickering.

  He ventured over the threshold, the light held out before him. Across from him stood a low couch, carved of black tegwood and cushioned with black velvet. A small silver casket rested on a tegwood table at one end, lid pushed back. Its black satin heart lay empty, but the jewel-inlaid runes on the side of the box raised the hairs on the back of his neck. They were not Mataian devices, nor Kiriathan. They most reminded him of ancient symbols of evil associated with the dark rituals practiced by the barbarians of the north.

  Shivering with the intense cold, he turned slowly, playing his light over the niche carved into the glasslike stone to the right. A portrait hung there, hidden in the shadow. He stepped closer, lifting the candle-and nearly dropped it when he recognized the face staring out at him from the gilded frame. It was his own, though very much younger, back before he’d entered the Mataio.

  And it was unfinished. He remembered this portrait-how he’d hated sitting for it, and how, adding insult to injury, the picture had disappeared just before completion. He had suspected Gillard, the prank being typical of those his brother used to play on him. Another portrait had been made, of course-another six months of having to sit-and that one had not disappeared. Eventually the incident was forgotten.

  He stared at it now, hardly able to believe his eyes, struggling to accept the implications its presence here carried. Surely Saeral had not stolen it. Perhaps he had found it, had …

  His gaze fell to the silver tray on the ledge beneath it. Three rings rested within a curl of golden hair-one sapphire, one ruby, one a pure gold band. His rings-given up along with his hair when he had entered the Mataio.

  What were they doing here?

  What was this room?

  Or rather, whose?

  But he knew the answer to that question, and it was a knowledge he did not want.

  “Saeral has been using you from the day he met you….”

  Eldrin turned abruptly from the niche, letting his feeble light play over the opposite wall. More of the arcane runes had been inscribed into the glassy surface, reflecting the candlelight in a dance of fractured golden lines. He did not know what it was, but he knew that it was evil.

  His stomach clenched, and he nearly vomited. Unable to bear the icy, stifling atmosphere another moment, he whirled and pushed through the heavy curtain. His sandals slapped against the cold obsidian floor as he hurried back to the landing and the way out. By then he was in a full-scale panic, gasping out low, tremulous moans, his heart galloping against his ribs. He did not think of the possibility of running into someone, did not think of anything at all save the need of escape, of breaking free from this stifling, frigid world.

  He scrambled up the narrow, twisting stairway, slipping on the treacherous treads and dropping the candle in his haste. It rolled back down the stair, but he did not stop to retrieve it, climbing the stair with hands and feet in frantic ascent. His robe kept tripping him, and he hit his head on the low ceiling more than once. The walls brushed his shoulders, closing about him like the gullet of some hideous monster.

  By the time he stumbled back into the wardrobe, his breath came in great tearing rasps and his legs would hardly support him. He stumbled out into the shadowed room, which, after the tarry blackness of the stair, seemed light. His leg caught on a robe and jerked it free of its hook and out onto the floor. Pausing, he struggled to fight back from the mindless state of his panicked flight. With trembling hands he closed the back panel, hung up the robe, and secured the wardrobe’s front doors. Then he turned—

  And froze in his tracks, surprise driving the breath out of him. Rhiad stood in the doorway, watching him calmly.

  C H A P T E R

  7

  Eldrin’s first impulse was to turn and scramble back through the wardrobe, but that would only lead him to that horrid room again-or worse. Besides, Rhiad had the advantage of knowing his way around down there, while Eldrin did not.

  “The High Father requires your presence in his chambers,” Rhiad said softly. “I will take you there.” He stepped back into the hall, gesturing for Eldrin to precede him.

  Shaking inwardly, his knees so weak he could barely move, Eldrin walked from the room. Rhiad stepped immediately to his side, closing a hand on his arm to steer him down the corridor and into the Sanctum. The great bowl stood empty now, most Mataians at their evening meal. Wordlessly, Rhiad propelled him up the long stair, across the outer foyer, and up a second set of stairs to the High Father’s chambers.

  Waved through by the secretary, they stepped into a spacious chamber, paneled with oak along one side, lined with narrow, mullioned windows along the other. A wide receiving area preceded a raised dais at the room’s far end, where stood a massive desk and chair. Saeral stood with two aides in the receivi
ng area beside the dark, well-swept fireplace, watching as an Initiate Brother lit the last of the several candelabra in the room.

  As Eldrin and Rhiad entered, Saeral turned, his gaze falling upon Eldrin. Sorrow lengthened his handsome face, and Eldrin cringed automatically, beset with a sense of guilty remorse in spite of everything. Rhiad stopped him in front of the High Father, but no one spoke until the Initiate Brother and the two aides had left, the door latching quietly behind them.

  Even then for a long moment Saeral merely looked at him, the familiar, beloved face as gentle as ever, carrying that indefinable cast of saintliness. As the gray eyes looked into his own, he could feel the compassion, the goodness and light in this man. Suddenly it was impossible to believe he could have anything to do with that awful room below.

  Saeral sighed. “Eldrin, Eldrin, Eldrin. What am Ito do with you?”

  Eldrin had no answer for that.

  Saeral turned and walked to the candelabra beside the fireplace, straightening one of the candles that listed in its holder. “You know the vesting rooms are off limits. Now you will not be able to participate in the Initiation ceremony. And I was so looking forward to seeing you finally confirmed.”

  He turned back, shaking his head. “Still, I cannot lay all the blame at your feet. You are but a boy, and only an Initiate at that. I should have known better than to let you go to the palace.” He caught Eldrin’s gaze again. “I want you to know that I did not kill your father. Or your brothers. You know me, Eldrin. You know I did not do it.”

  Eldrin believed him completely. It was impossible, unthinkable not to. Yes, he knew this man, trusted him, loved him. He could never-neverhave committed such an atrocity.

  “Nor,” Saeral said, breaking eye contact and settling into the chair at his side, “do I have any intention of putting you on the throne. The idea is ludicrous. You must believe that.”