The Warlord and the Bard

by Eric Alan Westfall

  How is he doing this? It cannot be me, because I have no gift, upper- or lowercase, for music. And yet, no Power flows to and through him, either. I would recognize the use of Power of this magnitude. Wouldn’t I?

  My shield goes up automatically, as we share another moment out of time.

  Jerril

  No Sight, no Gift, no Power. Yet our eyes unerringly lock beneath our blindfolds. If this is not me, and I know it is not, then it must be Her...and he...he must choose.

  # Do you trust me still, my...DarkFire? #

  DarkFire

  We have made...something...of ourselves this night. Whether fools or not I do not know. I just know with absolute certainty that I can stop this by speaking, by denying him. By stopping all of this and just walking away.

  But...seven. He has said that to me seven times.

  Which has to mean that this...all this...is about the fucking prophecy.

  I wait for the Rage to rise up, for the Sword to shout, for the urge to open the cavern with the piles of my personal memory crystals, to call that one to me, and make myself relive the horror and shame of that day yet again.

  It doesn’t happen. Something holds it all at bay, although I know it’s all still there, that this is only the tiniest of respites. But for the first time in months I can breathe. I am drinking in pure, crisp air, and the mountain weight is gone from my chest.

  And perhaps, just perhaps, it isn’t a fucking prophecy after all.

  I had no choice that day. Not until...the end, when it was far too late for anything but a choice to revenge. But here, now, I have a choice.

  I can choose to drop the shield, and with a few words, deny him, destroy him. I can drop the shield and simply turn and walk away, leaving him alone and humiliated before my family, all this crowd, all those who watch by link.

  But if I do, I will never know what it is we have made of ourselves tonight. And I want to know. I need to know.

  I choose.

  # Forever. #

  Jerril

  Some of those who watch may have seen the shield go so briefly up and vanish, but they will not know why or what happened inside. To all the rest, we are just two blindfolded men who have been making a spectacle of themselves, and who now stand motionless as the Music fades into brief silence.

  I can feel them. All of them. They can no more turn away to find some other thing to do, some other thing to watch, than my...DarkFire and I can stop. Not now that he has chosen. All those here, all those who are linked across the world to the souls and eyes and ears of those here, are hushed.

  The Music begins its third cycle.

  DarkFire is again Lokar, leading i’Lyria me into the Dance, into love, but as we sway in place it is...oh, Goddess!...it is Lokar me who leads i’Lyria DarkFire, and then we change back again. The Music begins to increase in tempo, a pace at which the Tale is never danced, and we four-in-two separate, now Lokar Jerril leading, now Lokar DarkFire leading, the shifting between us speeding with the music so that all through the second movement until the moment we pause, apart on the dance floor, it is nearly impossible for anyone...for us, for me...to tell at any given moment whether it is DarkFire/Lokar/i’Lyria who Dances, leads, follows or Jerril/i’Lyria/Lokar who Dances, follows, leads.

  But when the third and final movement begins, we four are one, a single love in two bodies as Lokar/i’Lyria leads/follows/follows/leads in slow inward spiral into the dip and the rise, all to Music that seems now to be pulled down from the Goddess’ throne itself, all to Song pouring from my throat that is an impossible chorus of voices far beyond my range, beyond my abilities, beyond any human’s range or abilities. We rise in time to the final soaring notes of i’Lyria’s Dance and for just one moment, one timeless, infinite, Goddess-blessed, Goddess-granted moment, there is no DarkFire, no Jerril, no Lokar, no i’Lyria. There is only and simply O....

  DarkFire

  There is no music. No sound, other than our own harsh breathing, as our chests heave to replenish the supply of air we have so nearly exhausted. There is no pressure from the eyes of the thousands who watched us, in person, in link, even though we could not see them. No hint of Gifts or Power. Where in the Nine Hells are we?

  I lift my right hand and rip off the sleeve blindfold. We are facing each other, and he has just removed his own blindfold.

  We say at the same time, or rather, shout at each other: “What did you just do?”

  My voice is inexplicable fury. His is...wonderment.

  We pause, and glare (me) and stare (him), and fury fades, leaving only my own version of wonderment. Again together: “Nothing. I didn’t do anything.”

  Which does not explain where we are, since we are certainly not in my aunt’s palace, and though everything about us is white, brilliantly so, we are not in the White Palace either.

  We are in a room. We each turn in a slow circle, wind up looking again at each other.

  On one wall there are floor-to-ceiling windows, the drapes pulled back, looking out on a forest of slender silver trees, with narrow, knife-edged silver leaves.

  On the wall opposite the windows there is a door near the corner that would lead to a bathing room if this were an inn, but we have no way of knowing what it is for at the moment. There are also two large, deep, comfortable chairs, angled slightly toward each other. Between them, a table against the wall, with chillers for wine and food below.

  Behind us there is another closed door, clearly the entrance. It is almost as if we had just rushed in here, blindfolds and all, from...whatever...wherever? is on the other side of that door. I have no desire to open it at this moment.

  And then there’s the bed. It dominates the room. It has a headboard made of white rods, spaced well for holding onto if...someone...someone with flame hair, perhaps...is on his back, or on his belly. The white cross-bar is just the right height to grab onto if he is on his knees. My cock likes this place, wherever it is. A nightstand. Two drawers, the upper one narrow, the lower deeper. The nightstand beside my own bed has only one drawer, containing a full supply of the vials of oil I use for lubrication. I wonder about the contents of the drawers, since there is a bowl of lubricant on the top.

  Before, back there, there was a verbal invitation to dance. We danced. Now there is a room that is a silent, blatant invitation to fuck. We ought to accept that invitation, too.

  He isn’t that servitor, silently offering to bend and bare. He is so very much more than that. But here we are, with a bed that practically screams “get on me and fuck!” We should listen to the sound advice of the bed.

  Except....

  Except....

  The room and the silence are unnerving. As is the light. Steady, even, no shadows. And no source. I turn my head to look at three of the walls again.

  Even without opening the doors, I know this is not an inn. This is a room, perhaps a room and a half, free-standing in an impossible forest. I know the Kingdom and Empire. We have no world like this within our borders. The Great Library has no record of a world like this anywhere in the Heart.

  I know this is a room, I know it has walls. How could it not have walls and still be a room? I can see the walls.

  Except....

  Except....

  The walls are also far away across the level floor of gleaming white, finely silver-veined wood, with scattered thick white rugs. A floor that extends in all directions so that the walls are beyond the horizon. Invisible. How the Hells is there a horizon in a room?

  And then I realize something far more important than oddly here, oddly, far-away there walls.

  “It’s all gone.”

  Jerril, beside me, is a brilliant red-gold pillar against all the white. I wonder if my darkness swallows the light when he looks at me.

  Only now he’s looking at me as if he’s wondering how and when the man with all the Goddess-damned Royal and Imperial titles, got replaced with an idiot boy.

  Jerril

  Should I gently humor him with a “Well,
yes?”

  Should I try to soothe him by reaching up and giving him a shoulder-pat and a “There, there, everything will be all right?”

  Should I perhaps just strangle myself instead of waiting for him to do it if I do either?

  I think perhaps he realizes that I’m looking at him as if he is a not terribly intelligent child who has just said something exceptionally stupid, even for a not terribly intelligent child.

  In that moment, he changes. A flicker of...something passes across his face. Not anger. Certainly not the Rage the stories tell of. His voice is shaky as he swipes a strong, rejecting hand across the air. “Not that.” The “you fool” is so clearly there.

  He goes on, “I can see. I can reason. We were there, dancing that Goddess....”

  “Blessed,” I interrupt him.

  Another negating hand slash. “...whatever, dance. And now we are here. Far from that maddening crowd. In a room. Somewhere. And...and...it’s gone.”

  He looks away from me, around the room. He raises his hand to run it through his hair, realizes the crown is still on, despite everything. He yanks it off and tosses it away. I cringe inside as it hits the floor with the kind of noise that suggests something has just bent, and I am sure that when...if...no, when we return, I will be blamed for it. I start to wonder how much it will cost to repair, or Goddess forbid, replace a Royal and Imperial crown. With my luck, it will be a nine-thousand-year-old heirloom, worn by the first King-Emperor.

  Both hands push through his hair, and then he shakes his head and the mane falls past his shoulders in front and back, the center parting keeping it away from his face. When he looks back at me, he looks so very lost.

  “It isn’t the people, the palace. I’ll figure that out. But...the Rage...it’s gone.”

  He is looking inward now, not really seeing me, but still...talking to me, not just to himself. He touches a finger to the center of his chest.

  This is a solemn moment. An important one. I absolutely will not think about what it would be like to have my tongue just there on that bare flesh, tasting the salt and sweat of our dancing, starting.... I force my attention back. As I listen I know my brief fantasy will be much more pleasurable than what he says.

  He is looking at me, but does not see me.

  “It has always been there, well, not always, just since...since...a day some years ago, forty years, one month and twelve days if anyone is interested in precision. It’s buried, you see. Down in here.”

  He does a little spiral gesture downward with that finger, pointing not to his navel but to something inside himself.

  “So far down in the deep dark that light has never been heard of. Buried inside a steel box with a sturdy lock, chained to the floor, with dozens of locks to keep it there. In a room with a door made of spelled berinwood, chained and locked and warded with spells. All of this below another floor that is chained and locked and warded, and another above that, and another and another. Shut away, locked away, still it is always there.

  “I can call it, you know. You must. Everyone has heard about the crippled prince who...acquired...though no one knows how, a Goddess-damned Gift, Goddess-damned curse, of Rage. A call, just a call, and the locks are open, the chains slide to the floors, the doors part and in an instant the Rage comes roaring up, to my command. A powerful weapon for a battle mage to have. An exceedingly dangerous weapon, for both the user and those on whom it is used.

  “But then it began...escaping. At first, it was just an unlocked lock on the box in which it is caged. Unlocked from the inside. Easily re-locked. Then the rest of the locks. Which were re-locked, and more added. Then those were opened, and the chains fell off and the wards went out, and the room in the deepest dark was open. I pushed it back and locked it in.

  “It was not enough. Is never enough. Without my will, without my call, the Rage unlocks itself, rising from floor to floor, up the winding staircase, fighting to get to the surface, to get to me, to take me. And I battle it back, again and again and again, more often this past year than ever before.

  “It was close tonight. Closer than it has ever been. And I am afraid....

  He stops. He is seeing me now. And he is utterly appalled by what he is revealing. The Crown Prince and all those other titles that crush him, admitting fear?

  I have heard the stories, the stories parents use to frighten young children into behaving, spinning warped tales of other men who were cursed with the prince’s Rage, monsters who were consumed by it. Tales of the costs and lives spent in capturing and destroying them. Of the costs and lives lost before that capture. I have no idea what to say.

  My mother taught me that if you cannot think of anything intelligent to say, it is better to say nothing at all.

  I follow my mother’s advice.

  He visibly, at least to my sight, begins to gather himself, to pull back the guts, to shove the ugly, bloody entrails of all that started to spill from him, back inside himself, to wall himself off once more. I ignore my mother’s advice.

  “Tell me.”

  There are...many things I can do with my bardic Gift. Things beyond merely singing, though nothing remotely like what was happening tonight until this...whatever this is...happened. As with all young men, there are things your tutors, your mentors, your teachers at the Guild Hall do not know about. Or at least you believe and pray they do not. Some shameful. Some beyond the bounds of the merely shameful, and more of a descent into depravity.

  I am sure I blush as a quick memory flashes of Irik, a handsome young man, a fellow bard in training whom I wanted so very much, and who didn’t want me at all. So I sang a love song in his room one summer’s night, catching him up in melody and magic, telling myself I was merely singing, only that and nothing more. Telling myself that a man who had never wanted a man before but who was on his knees with my cock in his mouth was not compelled, but there of his own free will. Telling myself all that, until the moment I told him to look up at me, for no reason other than that I wanted to enjoy the sight of my cock sawing in and out of his mouth, enjoy the sight of myself spilling and him swallowing my seed. As I would then do for him.

  And saw to my horror that he was not there at all.

  I pulled away, my cock shriveling and quickly sang it all away, the compulsion, the memory of what he had almost done, what I had almost done to him, all away. And when he was once more back inside his head, behind his eyes, when my cock was back where it belonged, I made what appeared to be a drunken effort to seduce him, giving him a reason to be so offended by me that any memories that might trickle back could be felt as vomit-inducing images of what I might have done to him had my seduction been successful. We never spoke again.

  He had no reason to report me to the Guild Master. I was not so stupid as to report myself. I briefly thanked the Goddess for bringing me to my senses, for letting me escape the consequences of my greed and stupidity and lust.

  It was only my imagination that put a small voice in my head at just that moment of thankful prayer, an ineffably loud Voice that said, I may not pay attention to every spaarit that falls, but I do when My Gifts are abused.

  I spent the next month racked with a bout of jirka that no one could explain, since the disease had been eradicated from Kythil fifty years earlier. It also stubbornly resisted every Healer’s efforts to drive it out of me, and they could do nothing but keep me warm when the body-shaking chills hit, and cool me when the fever sent my temperature soaring into sun-like levels, and simply let it run its natural course. A natural course for jirka either kills you or leaves you weakened for life. The Goddess gives...and the Goddess takes. She had mercy, though, and let me recover fully.

  I received Her message. Loudly. Clearly. Summed up in two words.

  Never. Again.

  So my two words are only words, with no compulsion backed by music and magic.

  I hold them out to him, a verbal hand he can take or reject, verbal arms to hold and comfort or stay still and away. Two words that have
only me behind them, words that quietly ask him to trust me, when all my requests for trust before...this room...had been really requests to trust in Her. Or had they?

  He pauses in the reconstruction of his walls. No, not merely reconstruction of what was originally there. He is building walls that will be thicker, higher, stronger, more warded than ever before, and I know that if he goes on, if he finishes them, then all that he and I might have will never be. He’ll never let anyone in again.

  He looks at my hands. Looks at me.

  “Please.” My word is not quite begging, but nearly so. I want so desperately to babble, to come up with some clever words, even without the aid of the Gift, to convince him. But I keep my mouth firmly shut now.

  He has all that he needs to make a decision, to make the right decision.

  She gave him free will, as She has always given Hers both free will and the will to be free, and She will let him choose with nothing to tip the scales either way.

  I will let him choose.

  There is no trumpet. The partly rebuilt walls do not come tumbling down. But the building stops.

  He takes my left hand in his right, Warlord and bard, DarkFire and Jerril. He looks even more lost for a moment and I tug his hand. We walk to the bed, though with only an intent to sit in more closeness than the chairs would allow. I lower myself to the edge. For some reason, he folds himself to the floor, cross-legged in front of me. He takes both my hands in his.

  And then he tells me of the horror when he was fourteen.

  DarkFire

  I have no reason to trust this man I have only met tonight. But I do. So I throw open the door to my cavern of memory crystals, step inside, and squint in the blinding light. There is something nearly frantic about the crystals, as if they have acquired voices, each calling to me the way the Voices of the Sword do. I hold out my hand, palm up. The trembling I could not achieve with the drinking is easily accomplished now. I don’t want to do this, but I must.

  I call the crystal for that day to me. Curl my fingers about it, carry it out of the cavern and into the white bedroom that is nowhere at all. He cannot see the crystal, of course. And I will not link with him, will not let him directly experience what I experience as I relive it.