by William King
‘I hope you are wrong.’
‘So do I but I am not. Something has changed in the world, something about the winds of magic. They blow stronger than they have during my lifetime and they are strangely tainted. I am not the only mage who has noticed this. Others are as troubled as I am.’
‘This is more my brother’s field than mine.’
‘I fear it will disturb all our lives before long. I fear we must be prepared for the world taking a darker turn. That is why I want you with the Everqueen. She is young and she has much to learn and she may not have much time to get ready.’
‘Ready for what?’
‘I don’t know but whatever it is, it will be bad. We have lived too long, too peacefully. We have grown lax. The cults of luxury are growing strong again. More of our young people than ever are joining them.’
Tyrion wondered whether Malene, all appearances to the contrary, was starting to succumb to the weaknesses of old age. Perhaps soon she would be explaining to him how much better things had been in her youth. He pushed these thoughts to one side. He knew his aunt better than that. There were other things he wanted to talk about.
‘My grandfather always claimed, in private and to me at least, that he had ambitions for me,’ Tyrion said.
‘I know he did.’
‘One day he wanted me to be seated on the Phoenix Throne.’
‘That is not in the least surprising.’
‘How do you feel about that?’
‘I would be proud and happy if it happened.’
‘I do not see how it can if I am to be a servant of the Everqueen.’
‘So that is what is troubling you – I was wondering.’
‘You must admit it would be difficult for me to go from being the champion of the Everqueen to the throne itself.’
‘Difficult, yes. Impossible, no. Contrary to what you appear to think, Tyrion, you would not be her slave. Nor would your service to her be eternal.’
‘Most champions serve until they or their queen dies.’
‘Most do, it is true, but not all. You can resign the position.’
‘That is not very honourable.’
‘True but if you had duties to your family that required you to be present or if you were summoned to be a candidate for the throne…’
‘I don’t think it would be good for my reputation.’
‘And you must always keep that in mind, mustn’t you?’
‘You know I must. If your father’s dream is to be fulfilled.’
Malene laughed. ‘And yours, of course.’
Tyrion tried to voice his frustration. ‘I do not even know if I truly want to be Phoenix King but I would like to have the option open to me, if I decide in favour.’ Tyrion wondered if he should mention the prophecy that had been made about him by the Priests at the Shrine of Asuryan when he had been tested long ago. He decided not to. He had never mentioned it to anyone but his brother.
‘I understand, Tyrion. But Finubar is young and may reign for a thousand years. In the meantime, you can best serve your House by doing what I ask.’
‘What if I don’t want to?’
‘All of us have to do things we don’t want to, Tyrion. I would rather be studying the Art, or aiding Teclis with his inspection of the sword of Aenarion right now, but my father is dead, and someone must look after our interests. In a few centuries you will be better qualified to do that than I.’
‘I am not sure I want that position either.’
‘You may not have much choice if I am not here. Who else will look out for your brother’s interests or your father’s? Prince Arathion had burned through all of the money you left for him, buying materials to repair the dragon armour of Aenarion, performing more research into its history. So far I have covered his notes of hand, but I cannot keep doing so forever.’
And there was the stick, Tyrion thought. Someone was always going to have to look out for his father. Tyrion had left him enough money to keep a noble house in luxury for decades and already it was gone. He supposed he could have words with his father, but he knew how useless that was. His father would simply forget them as soon as Tyrion was out of sight.
‘And what is my reward to be, if I am successful?’
‘I should have thought that becoming the champion of the Everqueen was reward enough. But, in case that is not enough for you, my young horse trader, be assured that you will have our gratitude.’
Tyrion knew exactly what Malene meant. He was sure that the House would show its gratitude whenever he did something to its advantage. He was also beginning to become aware that the position was one that came with a measure of power attached to it. It was not the sort of power that he cared for or that he wanted to have, but he could see that it might be useful to him in the future. More to the point, it was a source of power completely independent of Malene and his kindred. It would be his and his alone.
‘When do I leave?’
His aunt nodded, gratified.
‘A ship is being prepared to take you to Avelorn. Anything that you require shall be provided for you. Clothing, gifts, horses – name it and you shall have it. We want you to make a good impression, after all.’
‘I shall do my best, since it is so important.’
‘And Tyrion…’
‘Yes?’
‘It might be best if you did not see Lady Valeria before you went.’
Tyrion grimaced. Something else was on his mind. ‘How much would it take to cover my father’s debts?’
Malene named the sum. ‘Transfer it from my account to his. And add a further thousand in gold.’
‘But Tyrion, that is almost all you have.’
‘It is only money,’ said Tyrion. ‘I can always get more.’
She looked at him, and saw at once the point he was making. His aunt was a clever woman. He was letting her know he could only be pushed so far even by threats to his father.
‘Not all elves are so lucky,’ she said.
Carrying Sunfang, Teclis entered the family home. Tyrion had already gone to the Emeraldsea mansion to talk with its mistress. Teclis was hurt that Malene had summoned Tyrion and not him.
He had always felt that she preferred him to Tyrion but since she had become the head of the House she had spent more time with his brother than with him. Of course, Tyrion showed a great deal more interest in the business of the House and spent a lot more time in Lothern than he did.
‘Greetings, Prince Teclis,’ said Rose. She curtseyed respectfully, as any retainer to a noble elven household was expected to. She was a human, an indentured servant, a slave by any other name. It was all the fashion in Lothern these days although still illegal in the rest of Ulthuan. She was pretty too… for a human. She looked at him in a way that no elf maid ever had. ‘It is good to have you home.’
‘It is good to be home,’ Teclis lied. He was not glad to be back in Lothern, even after a week at sea. He was certainly not glad to be back in this place.
The walls of the old family house hemmed Teclis in. Childhood memories of sickness and pain came surging back. He had never liked this place and yet it was part of the fabric of his being. With the wealth Tyrion had acquired raiding and trading, they could afford to re-open it. They could afford to have retainers and indentured servants. Their father had moved in and shipped all of his research material back from the wild mountains of Cothique.
‘Can I get you anything?’ Rose asked.
‘See that a fire is lit in my bedchamber and please notify Prince Arathion that I am home.’
‘Your father is out, visiting Korhien Ironglaive I believe, sir.’
‘Thank you. Perhaps you could have a light supper prepared and sent to the first floor living room.’
‘At once, sir.’ Teclis made his way into a richly appointed waiting room, laid Sunfang down on the table, poured some m
ildly narcotic wine into a golden goblet and stretched out in a comfortable leather-bound chair beside the fire.
It was all very different from the grinding poverty he remembered from early childhood. Here in Lothern he found all sorts of thoughts and resentments came crowding in.
It was funny that his brother had the gift of managing money so easily and so well. He and his father had always seen Tyrion as the least intelligent one of them, but the truth of the matter was that his brother was much cleverer than they were about many things. As with everything he set his mind to, he did it well. He had mastered the making of money as easily as he had mastered the use of weapons, perhaps because in this day and age, the two were so closely connected.
Tyrion had made a small fortune during the raids on Naggaroth and he had invested the proceeds in some spectacularly successful trading voyages and the purchase of land which had been leased at high rents to the new breed of human trader down in the port.
Tyrion was now part owner of a number of trading ships and shared the profits of all their voyages. Having re-established the foundations of prosperity for their branch of the family he seemed to have lost all interest in the subject, delegating the management to competent retainers recruited from House Emeraldsea.
Teclis liked to think that he could have done the same, but he found the process too dull to bother with. His interests were magic and scholarship. He was grateful that his brother was generous enough to share his wealth but he resented it. It was just one more way in which he was beholden to his twin. He sometimes felt there would be no end to his obligations. His brother was an expert in using his generosity to bind people to him. Even his kindness came with invisible strings attached.
By Isha, he was in a sour mood tonight. He took another sip of the wine. It tingled on his tongue. He knew he was simply a little depressed. The great Lustrian adventure was over and he was back in Lothern with work to do and all the tiny, encroaching obligations that entailed. He should start inspecting Sunfang but at this moment he struggled to find the energy.
It was a mental thing not a physical one. Drugs, diet, sorcery and a regime of exercise had done much to compensate for the weakness and physical handicaps the diseases of his youth had caused. None of these things could rid him of the mental lassitude he now felt, nor make him any less of an outsider in society. All of them still looked at him sidelong, with secret contempt. He was sure of it. They had done ever since he was young, and would do so until the day he died.
In Lustria, with Tyrion and the humans, he had felt at ease. His brother had never held him in contempt and to the humans he was just another elf, a blessed immortal. If anything, his magical talents had made him seem even more god-like than Tyrion to them.
Perhaps that was why his initial reaction on his return was to come back to this house and lock himself in. He wanted to keep himself from view. To be out of sight of other elves. He let out a long breath. He was back and he had work to do.
A sound in the doorway alerted him. He looked up to see his father standing there. Prince Arathion looked older and even more decrepit than Teclis remembered him. His cheeks were sunken and hollow and his eyes had a bright mad gleam to them.
‘I heard you had returned, my son,’ he said. The voice at least was the same as Teclis remembered it. Light, aristocratic, a little sad, with something of the fussy air of the life-long scholar. ‘I came back as soon as the news reached me.’
‘It is good to see you, father,’ said Teclis. It was too. He had always been fond of his father, who was one of the few elves who never seemed to judge him, who, if anything, judged in his favour.
‘Do you have it?’ his father asked. The excitement was unmistakable in his voice. There was no need to ask what it was. Teclis nodded. He gestured to the table on which the blade rested.
His father crossed the distance in two strides and lifted Sunfang. He was getting weak in his old age, and needed the use of both hands to do so until the magic of the sword took over. He unsheathed the blade, and flames danced along its length. The brilliance of the illumination sent shadows skittering away to the far corner of the room. His father smiled and in that moment, Teclis found that all of the hardships of his long quest were repaid. A look of combined awe, wonder and pure unalloyed happiness passed across his father’s face.
He twisted the blade back and forth in front of him, inspecting it from every angle. ‘Astonishing,’ he said, at last. ‘Absolutely astonishing. I would not have thought it possible after all these years but you did it. You found it!’
‘Indeed we did, father. There were times when I did not believe we could.’
Prince Arathion looked as if he wanted to jump for joy. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other as if he wanted to dance. ‘It still functions,’ he said, as if he could not quite believe it. ‘The fires of Vaul’s Anvil are still bound within it.’
There was something about his excitement that was contagious. Teclis found himself nodding enthusiastically. His father sheathed the blade and placed it reverentially back on the table. He looked at the glass of wine in Teclis’s hand, nodded and poured himself one. He drank it down in one long gulp, and the poured another glass which he just held in one trembling hand, as if he had suddenly forgotten all about it.
‘I can’t believe it,’ he said again. He sounded as if he wanted to cry. He placed the glass down, walked across the room and ruffled Teclis’s hair. Teclis recoiled, surprised and embarrassed by the physical contact. His father had never been the most demonstrative of elves and they were not the most demonstrative of families. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘Well, it’s done and now the real work begins,’ said Teclis.
His father did not seem to be paying him much attention. He walked back over to the table, put down the glass, picked up the sword, partially unsheathed it and then slammed it back. ‘Just think, my son, once Aenarion held this blade in his hand. Aenarion! The first Phoenix King carried this sword through most of his early battles with the forces of Chaos.’
‘I know, father,’ said Teclis gently, now starting to get slightly worried by his father’s excitement.
‘I am holding in my hand the sword that Aenarion once held.’
‘I am sure he probably held it a lot better,’ said Teclis.
His father gave a small start and put the sword down once again as if he was frightened of breaking it. Silence filled the room for long moments until Rose brought in Teclis’s meal. She put it down on the table beside the blade. It seemed somehow sacrilege to place something so banal beside something so sacred, but it restored a feeling of sanity to the proceedings.
Both Teclis and his father laughed, much to Rose’s incomprehension. She had no idea of the significance of the sword, Teclis realised. Prince Arathion apologised for his rudeness. Teclis said nothing until the retainer had retired from the chamber.
‘You have inspected it, of course,’ said Prince Arathion.
‘I have looked at it,’ said Teclis ‘but I needed to bring it here, to have the tools I need to analyse it in depth.’
‘How long do we have it?’
‘Until Tyrion departs. It will be going with him to Avelorn. It is his.’
‘He claimed it, of course.’ There was some resentment in Prince Arathion’s voice. Teclis told him how Tyrion had taken up the blade. As he did so, it struck him that his father had never asked how it was found and was showing very little interest now. He was only half-listening, his eyes constantly drawn from Teclis’s face to where the sword lay on the table. When Teclis finished he said, ‘Very good. Just think. We have the only surviving functioning artefact of the Archmage Caledor here in our home.’
‘There is the Vortex, father,’ said Teclis, surprised to find that he was somewhat annoyed by his father’s lack of interest in the hardships that he and Tyrion had endured.
‘Of course, of course,’ said
Prince Arathion. ‘I meant things created by his own hand, like this weapon, like the armour, like the amulets he is said to have made for the Everqueen’s children.’
He paused for a moment and went over and picked up the sword again. He unsheathed the blade slowly, so that the flames gradually underlit his face with ever more brilliant radiance. It made him look somehow daemonic. ‘It still works, even after all these millennia.’ He was repeating himself but did not seem to care.
‘Yes,’ said Teclis. ‘And now our task is to find out how!’
‘We had better adjourn to the laboratory,’ said his father.
‘Indeed,’ said Teclis. ‘Let me mix myself another potion. It’s going to be a long night.’
Tyrion strode into the living room and smiled at his father and Teclis. In spite of his cordiality, Teclis could sense his twin was troubled and angry.
‘Things went well with Lady Malene,’ Teclis said, knowing full well that they most likely had not.
‘Yes,’ said Tyrion with his customary smoothness.
‘That is good,’ said their father, taking things, as always, at face value.
‘You are going to Avelorn?’ Teclis said.
‘Indeed,’ said Tyrion. He looked long and hard at their father, as if he wanted to say something. Their father never even noticed.
‘Then your brother and I had better get started on Sunfang. You’ll be wanting to take it with you, of course.’ Father sounded hopeful that Tyrion would say no. Teclis already knew the answer.
‘Of course,’ said Tyrion. ‘I wish you good luck with your researches. I am going to change and then I am going to visit the taverns.’
He swept out of the room. Their father smiled. ‘Always the carefree one,’ he said, almost fondly.
You just don’t understand, Teclis thought. He said, ‘Let us get down to the laboratory. We need to map the spells on the sword and get the notes down in record time.’
‘Let’s get started then,’ his father said enthusiastically.
With his twin’s departure, Teclis set to the serious business of really examining the ancient blade. He and his father went down to the laboratory in the basement. He made sure that there was a plentiful supply of parchment and ink and then began.