Erosan's Tears

by Jason Scott Gleason

  “I started to think it could be Fethan, that he could be orchestrating this with Rennard. But everyone knows how much you hate Rennard—you wouldn’t even deal with him in business, in even the smallest ways. When I found out Rennard was snapping up land that you were selling, I thought Fethan was going behind your back. For a while I even wondered if he was the assassin, but I doubt he has had the training he’d need.

  “But when I found out that the land that Rennard had so cleverly wrested from your control was going to be reclaimed by the city, I realized that that Fethan was doing exactly what you instructed him to do. Rennard is going to lose a lot of money, and a lot of land—maybe enough to lose his status as one of the high lords of the city. But you couldn’t have the city reclaim the docks without something terrible happening. You had to have something so bad happen that the treasury would be threatened with bankruptcy, and the Council of Lords would be asked to pay the difference. They would never have agreed, otherwise. That’s when the killings started.”

  Raelyn took a breath, his shoulder throbbing in complaint. He felt sweat beading up on his forehead, and his stomach was wracked with regular spasms.

  “It took me a while to figure all of this out,” he continued. “When it all started, I didn’t understand the Slovani concept of houses. Ironically, if we hadn’t been working so hard to find Gray, I never would have found him—or found out that House Katest is one of the houses known for their assassins. Once I heard that, all of the pieces started falling into place. You had the perfect assassin, one that nobody would suspect. And you also had the perfect person to frame.”

  “Yes,” Lord Elotarn said with a smile. “Although I can’t claim credit for that. Lord Rennard started suggesting that the killer might be the rogue known as Gray, and that gave me the perfect distraction.”

  “And the perfect way out,” Raelyn added. “As soon as Gray was captured or killed, you could stop the assassinations. Everyone would think that it was Gray all along, and nobody would ever suspect your demure consort from Mitigol, especially since she is pregnant with your child. And after you cracked down on the extreme voices in the Coscan community and had them killed in operations by the First, you could extend an olive branch to whatever leadership was left among the Coscans. The Coscans would be crippled politically for a long time, but they wouldn’t have any choice but to ally themselves with you, which wouldn’t be hard since you’ve always been a friend of the Coscans in the city. And the Oervan community would praise you for bringing peace to the city, and leading the city through such a difficult time.

  “It would have been the perfect crime,” Raelyn added, “except that you tried to have me killed in the process.”

  “It was not crime,” Lord Elotarn said dryly. “It was politics. This is the way the city is run, something you will never understand. Although I must take exception with one point. I did not try to have you killed. That was Lord Rennard’s doing.”

  Raelyn bowed his head slightly. “That I believe, my lord,” he said. “And that is the only reason why I came to talk to you.”

  Lord Elotarn raised his eyebrows quizzically. “Yes, I have been wondering about that,” he said. “Why, after everything you have discovered, did you choose to come to me with all of this? I’m sure that if you had gone to Lord Harin or Lord Gardwyn with this they would have been very interested in hearing what you had to say.”

  “Not likely,” Raelyn scoffed. “Harin would have been too afraid to confront you, and Gardwyn wouldn’t know what to do with the information. No, I would have taken the story to a handful of others, men on the Council powerful enough to vie for a position among the High Lords and hungry enough to do what they had to do in order to topple your household. And I would have taken it to Corlwyn, who I have no doubt that I’d be able to convince of the truth. With the right group of people working together, they’d have you hanging in Travelers’ Square within a fortnight, if they didn’t decide to just hire an assassin to take care of you, quickly and quietly.”

  Elotarn glared at Raelyn. “And yet, you did not do that. You chose to come to me instead. Why?”

  “I want to help you,” Raelyn said. Elotarn’s expression turned to mild surprise. “I can help you pull this off, and I can ensure that nobody else discovers what I’ve found out. I can make sure you get Gray, have him executed to cover up Illia’s part in this. It’s not too late for this to be the perfect conspiracy.”

  “You want to help me?” Elotarn asked. He seemed amused. “I suppose I should not be too surprised. After all, this is not the first time you have betrayed the city. What would you want in return?”

  Raelyn licked his lips, biting back the pain. It was getting worse, as was the dizziness. This is my chance, he thought.

  “I want Callais,” he said, surprised at how much it hurt for him to admit it. “I want you to make sure she never wants to leave me, whatever that takes. And there’s no place for me anymore in Lord Perinor’s household. I want a place in yours, as a second to Chadin. He’ll retire at some point anyway, and I’m thirty years his younger. I need protection from Perinor, and I won’t get it anywhere but here.”

  “Is that all?” asked Elotarn, a smile on his lips.

  “No,” Raelyn replied. “I know how big this is for you, and I know how much is riding on this. I also want a home outside of the city. Nothing big—just a small piece of land I can call my own, someplace where I can keep a wife and raise a few children. I know that you own more land than anyone else in the city. It shouldn’t be too much of a hardship to give me a cottage, as a reward for my loyalty.”

  “No, I don’t suppose it would,” Elotarn said blithely.

  “And one more thing,” Raelyn added. “I want you to help me take down Lord Rennard. He’s the one I blame for all of this. If he hadn’t gotten involved in all of this, Trevan would still be alive and I wouldn’t have been maimed. I want him broken.” He was surprised at the venom in his voice when he said it, but he realized just how much he hated Rennard for all of this.

  Lord Elotarn grinned, a wicked light in his eye. “Yes, Raelyn. You need not worry about Lord Rennard. His star is falling, and quickly. I assure you, he will reap what he has sown. That is one thing you need not even ask me for.

  “As for the rest of what you ask, it is all within my power to give you. And I would be happy to do so. But I have one problem.” Elotarn walked back over to his decanter and poured another glass. He took a slow sip, savoring the liquor, then finally turned back to Raelyn. “I don’t trust you. I don’t believe that someone who would be willing to betray the city out of lust for a common whore would keep any oath he would swear to me. Besides, you’ve come to me half dead. What makes you think you’ll survive the week, much less recover to the point where you could replace Chadin as my master of arms?”

  “I’ll survive,” Raelyn said, still trying to hide how much pain he was in. The fire in his shoulder had spread to his neck, and his ear had started ringing again. He tasted copper in his mouth, as though he was ready to vomit, but he kept his face carefully controlled. “I’ve survived worse in the Ravenspine mountains, I’ll survive this.”

  “No,” Elotarn said, a hint of sympathy in his voice. “No, you won’t.”

  Instincts honed by years of campaigns kicked alive, screaming at Raelyn as he heard the rustle of a curtain, the faint scrape of metal on stone. He lurched forward, turning, but his reflexes were dull from pain and drugs. He felt a blade pierce his side, catching him in the ribs, and he fell heavily onto his left side even as he drew his sword. The pain was so intense that bright lights flashed before his eyes, but he managed to parry a second stab, knocking away the point of the rapier and catching a quick glimpse of Illia’s cold, beautiful features, and the cruel smile on her lips.

  He wasn’t sure how it happened, but he was on his feet in an instant, and backpedaling as Illia came at him again. Elotarn shouted something, but Raelyn wasn’t paying attention to anything but the blade darting at him w
ith deadly accuracy.

  And suddenly the small study burst into chaos. Chadin rushed into the room, his sword drawn, and moved to join Illia. But the door to Lord Elotarn’s bedchamber also flew open, and Gray raced in to intercept him, his rapier flashing. A grey silk cowl hid everything but his eyes, which were fixed intently on Lord Elotarn’s swordmain. Chadin had to break away from Raelyn to defend himself from Gray’s rapier. The older swordmain was by far the better fencer, however; as soon as he engaged, Gray was on the defensive.

  Behind Gray, Lord Teoryn strode through the door, a longsword in his hand. “Stop this madness!” he screamed. His voice carried the same sense of authority that his father’s did, but the fighting was too fierce. Raelyn was parrying madly, making small circles with Tempest’s point, but the rapier was a faster weapon. Injured, with little room to maneuver, Raelyn couldn’t return any of her attacks. I have to do something, he thought. If either Gray or I get cut down, the other won’t stand a chance.

  Teoryn was yelling at Elotarn, telling him to command Chadin to stand down, but Elotarn unsheathed his sword. And in that moment, Raelyn felt something; an invisible wave of power rippled through the room. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the gleam of Lord Elotarn’s blade, as if it had a radiance all its own.

  That moment of distraction was enough for Illia to break through his guard, driving the point of her blade home into his already wounded shoulder. He was surprised to realize that it didn’t hurt as much as it should have. He wasn’t sure if it was the rush of battle, but the pain seemed far away. Then he realized: I’m dying. I’ve seen men like this before. He glanced down quickly; the wound in his side was bleeding badly. She must have hit something serious.

  She was attacking again, an expression like glee on her face. I have to do something, he thought. She’s completely mad. He tried to get a cut in, but she was on top of his blade, parrying it neatly and returning with a short stab of her own.

  ”You’re already dead,” she told him, echoing his own thoughts. Her smile was excited, almost sexual. “Lay down your sword and I’ll make it painless.”

  Raelyn smiled. And so I die, he thought. Life has been good to me. “A quick stroke, through the heart,” he heard himself say in Slovani. “But I’ll die with Tempest in my hand.”

  Illia stepped back for a moment, disengaging, a questioning look in her eyes. The left side of her mouth was turned up in a half smile. “A quick stroke, through the heart,” she replied, also speaking Slovani, and raised her sword in a salute.

  Raelyn raised Tempest, returning her salute, then lowered the sword’s point to the ground. Illia lowered the point of her sword, bringing it in line with Raelyn’s heart. “Just to think,” she said, “one of the most famed swordsmen in the city, killed in a duel by a lord’s consort. And nobody will ever know.” Her tone was mocking and triumphant at the same time. She took a deep breath, and lunged.

  Raelyn saw her breathe in and shifted to his left, driving forward. The point of the blade slipped between his ribs, but on the wrong side of his chest, and he felt it slide neatly through his back. Tempest flicked up, driving up beneath her rib cage, through her diaphragm. He knew that it had hit home.

  Blood bubbled up into his lungs. The hilt of her sword was resting on his chest, and her body was held like a hook on his blade. There was a look of shocked disbelief on her face, and she tried to gasp, making a horrible sucking sound. His eyes were mere inches from hers, and he saw the light within fade.

  “A quick stroke,” he repeated faintly. “Through the heart.”

  Illia’s body crumpled slowly, sliding off his blade. He heard a scream of shock and rage, looked up to see Lord Elotarn’s face twisted in disbelieving horror. He tried to say something, but his voice was little more than a whisper, and he was still impaled on Illia’s sword. He swayed, and so did the room. Everything hurt, but nothing hurt very much. He suddenly felt cold.

  “You will burn for this, you son of a whore!” Elotarn screamed, running to Raelyn and raising his sword over his head. Raelyn lifted Tempest to parry the blow, but when the swords connected Raelyn heard a sound like a thunderclap. Elotarn’s sword sheared through Tempest, flashing with a brilliance like a lightning strike. The force of the blow drove Raelyn to his knees, and it was only his collapse that kept the sword from cleaving through Raelyn as well.

  Raelyn raised the broken blade again, catching Elotarn’s second and third blows. Each one felt more like a hammer than a sword, and his hand was numb from the force of the strikes. “Why won’t you fucking die!” Elotarn screamed, his normally austere features contorted into a mask of rage.

  Teoryn’s sword caught the fourth blow. “Father!” he screamed, “lay down your sword! Thelorin’s bones, it’s over! She’s dead!”

  Elotarn looked up at his son, and his aura of command returned. He raised his sword, and the aura seemed almost visible. “How dare you raise a sword against your own father, the First High Lord of the city!” he cried. His voice was thunderous, like the voice of a god.

  “I will not harm you, father,” Teoryn said, his voice stern, but shaking. “I will not be a kinslayer, cursed in the eyes of the gods. But neither will I allow this to stand. Lay down your sword. Your plot is finished.”

  Elotarn laughed a cruel, mocking laugh. “You will not allow this to stand? My own son? You presume to tell me how to manage my affairs, or the affairs of the city? I have been First High Lord since you were a child! I will not tolerate this insolence!” There was a power of command in his voice, and Raelyn wanted to cower before him, but he was too gravely wounded to do anything but slump on the floor.

  Teoryn stood firm, his sword not wavering. “No, father. Your time has passed. I tell you for the last time, lay down your sword and your command of the city. If you do not, I will not harm you, but neither will I protect you from what you have wrought for yourself.”

  “Stupid child,” Elotarn snapped, his face twisting into a sneer. “If you will not harm me, then you will not be able to stop me. And I will not let you stop me. Too much has been done, too much is at stake. I will kill you if I must, my own son. I have others to replace you. I will allow neither man nor god to stay my hand.” He leveled the point of his sword at Teoryn, and started to lunge.

  Raelyn hadn’t seen Gray slip around the table, positioning himself behind Lord Elotarn, but suddenly there he was. Gray’s blade slid through the High Lord’s chest, the point pushing through the front of his shirt. Lord Elotarn fixed a stunned look at the tip of the blade, and Gray pulled himself close to the lord’s ear. “You should have listened to your son,” Gray said, then twisted his rapier’s hilt.

  Raelyn saw Lord Elotarn sag, then fall to the ground, Gray withdrawing the blade as he did so. The lord didn’t move, and there wasn’t much blood. Gray turned, looking at Teoryn, and then at Chadin. Raelyn had forgotten about him. He was looking at Lord Elotarn’s lifeless body, a look of anguish on his face, but the tip of his sword was touching the floor. Raelyn realized that he had stopped fighting some time ago. Teoryn must have gotten through to him while I was busy with Illia, he thought. He tried to say something, but the words didn’t come. He remembered that he was still impaled on Illia’s blade.

  Suddenly, everyone else remembered it too. Gray dropped to his side and Teoryn strode over, telling Chadin to get help. Raelyn’s skin felt cold and clammy, and he was shivering uncontrollably.

  “Hang in there, Raelyn,” he heard Gray say. “We’re going to get you help. Pretty soon you’ll be in Teldra’s hands, though she’s going to kill you as soon as you recover!” Raelyn could hear the laughter in his voice, but in Gray’s eyes he saw defeat. I’m not going to recover, he tried to say, but he couldn’t speak.

  “You had better go, before you draw suspicion,” Teoryn told Gray. “Go alert the healers that we’re coming. We’ll get him there as soon as we can.” Gray stepped away, and Teoryn knelt down beside Raelyn.

  “You did a great thing for the city,” he told Raely
n. “I want you to know that your sacrifice will not go unnoted by the council.” There was pain in his voice when he said it. We killed your father, Raelyn wanted to say. His breaths were fast and shallow.

  “I’m going to take the sword out,” Teoryn continued. “It will hurt.” He grasped the hilt and slid the blade out as carefully as he could in a smooth, single motion. Raelyn tried to gasp, but he couldn’t. Teoryn was wadding something into the wound in both the front and the back, and Raelyn closed his eyes in pain. He was exhausted.

  “I just want to sleep,” he managed to croak, his voice bubbling. Teoryn seemed very, very far away.

  “Not yet, Raelyn,” he heard Teoryn say. “You have to stay awake, but only for a few more minutes.” Raelyn heard people entering the room.

  “Get his arms and legs, get him on the litter,” Teoryn was saying. He felt strong hands grab him, felt himself floating for a moment. And then he was rocking gently, like he was laying on the deck of a ship. He felt the swell of the ocean, smelled the salt air, tasted the gentle breeze and the sunlight on his lips. Gulls were crying off in the distance and he was looking up at a bright blue sky, with puffy white clouds, and the rigging was creaking like it did when he was young and he snuck onto ships sitting in port, dreaming of far off lands that he would one day visit.

  “Come on, Raelyn, open your eyes.” A voice snapped him back, and he saw Teoryn’s face, looking over him. The high beams of the great hall were above him, and he saw sunlight when they stepped out into the courtyard. He looked up at the sky. Dark clouds loomed on the horizon, and he wondered if he was imagining them. Lady Aeltharin, he thought, grant me forgiveness for any offenses I’ve committed in the eyes of the gods. I’m coming home.

  Teoryn was talking to him, asking him questions. Raelyn tried to make out what he was saying, but his neck hurt and he wanted to sleep. He wondered for a moment why he was having trouble breathing, and then remembered. He blinked, and suddenly there were trees above him. I must have passed out for a second, he thought. They were marching quickly, up through the forest, in a long column of soldiers, up through the Ravenspine mountains. The enemy was all around them, their commanders kept telling them, but for the past few months they hadn’t seen anyone. Everyone had been in good spirits. But we’re about to be ambushed, he thought, and then remembered the arrows flying out of the trees, the yelling and confusion. But it hasn’t happened yet. And then he saw Teldra, her face distraught, and saw the buildings of King’s Square looming high above him. He tried to tell her it was okay, that it was going to be okay. I’m going home, he said, but he didn’t think his lips moved. Then he saw the bronze statue of Erosan high above him. The statue smiled at him, reaching out its hand, and Raelyn stood up. The sky brightened, and Erosan took his hand, and together they walked up the stairs, rising up towards a place where there was no pain, no fear, nothing but the light of the love of the gods.