by JF Smith
Gully immediately thought of the beautiful bond between Gallun and Gellen, how the two were almost one person they were so tightly bound.
“Nay, that is not my wish at all! To find I have a brother is truly a gift I never expected any of this to end with! Roald, bless him, has always been more of a brother to me than I have to him. I have felt the guilt in me at hiding from you whom I really am, and did not want you to accept me as your brother without knowing, in all truth, whom you were embracing. I have never thought of myself as more than I am, Thaybrill, and all that I am is a thief. All that I am is a common lawbreaker.”
Thaybrill did laugh this time. “If you have violated laws against the crown, my brother, as soon as you take your place there,” he said, nodding towards the far end of the hall, “you need only make recompense for such transgressions as your conscience guides you.”
Gully’s face flushed, and he looked at the sole chair where Thaybrill had pointed. He took a step back, aghast at what Thaybrill was saying.
“There?!” gasped Gully. “I cannot... be... that! I do not seek any of this! I am a thief, but not a thief of this scale! Provided Roald and the army can send the Maqarans back, Iisen will be safe, you will be crowned, and I will go away!”
It took a moment for Thaybrill to consider his brother in silence, a look of concern and tenderness on his face, as they stood there. Finally, Thaybrill took Gully gently by the elbow and said, “Come with me, Thayliss. I have something to say, but not here. There must be witnesses for what else I have to say.”
Gully was in such shock that Thaybrill was able to lead him out of the Throne Hall and into the adjacent Courtyard of the Empyrean without protest. His shock was so great that he did not even feel the tragedy that had happened there less than a day earlier.
Thaybrill led him to the very center of the courtyard and halted there, beneath the open sky. The Archbishop and a few interpreters of the church, and even a few King’s Guards began to approach when they saw both princes in the center of the courtyard, but Thaybrill held up his hand to have them keep their distance for a moment.
Thaybrill looked up into the sky one time, then spoke, loudly enough for all to hear, “Listen to me and listen well, Thayliss veLohrdan. With Colnor, our father, and Sophrienne, our mother, witnessing from the hallowed nighting above, along with our unbroken line of ancestors in the constellation Trine Range — you saved my life, my brother. You exposed horrible crimes against the people of the Iisendom. And you set into motion the one true chance we have to save our kingdom from ruin and slavery at the hands of a violent neighbor.”
Thaybrill took Gully’s hand in his own and sank to one knee before his brother. “You are my elder brother, and that you have been discovered as such only one night ago is of no consequence. The laws of our realm regarding succession are clear. You... are to be king of all of the Iisendom. And I will accept no one else on the throne other than you, Thayliss veLohrdan.” The look of adoration and joy on Thaybrill’s face could be read even in the farthest corners of the courtyard.
Gully stood frozen in the spot in front of the people gathered, unable to move, unable to react, and unable to even think.
Thaybrill returned to his feet and placed both of his hands on Gully’s shoulders. He said with a broad grin, “But I swear to you, as you are my brother and even more my good friend, you will not be alone in this!”
He pulled Gully to him and hugged him tightly. Into Gully’s ear as he embraced him, Thaybrill whispered, “And between two brothers, I never much wanted to be king. I already do you a disservice by laying at your feet something that I did not desire. I beg your forgiveness for that!”
The Archbishop joined them as they stood beneath the watchful stars. He knelt before Gully as well, a little stiffly, but with a smile on his face. “Prince Thaybrill is correct, Your Highness. You will take the throne of Iisen.”
He stood slowly and said aloud for all those witnessing from the sides of the plaza, “As a point of law, in the crisis in which we find ourselves, and with the Domo Regent wanted for treason and murder, you, Prince Thayliss, become the prince regent of the realm as of this moment. Your word is now law.”
Gully’s eyes grew very large and he did not say anything.
The Archbishop continued, “There may be trials for us all in the days ahead, but this night is a happy one. The protection of your father above has shown that even the calculated faithlessness of one as ruthless as Krayell Delavoor cannot overcome it. Blessed be the name of Colnor the Fifth, for he kept his son safe and hidden until it was time for him to take his rightful place!”
Gully looked around the courtyard at the people that had gathered and realized that they, too, had dropped to one knee. He had trouble grasping onto the idea that Colnor the Fifth, ruler of the Iisendom, was his father instead of some vague monarch who had existed before his birth. He had trouble grasping that they were kneeling before him. He had trouble grasping that the “rightful” place the Archbishop spoke of was the throne, the very epitome of privilege and power at which he had so often scoffed. He felt the cold sweat that had formed on his brow, but he tried to find his voice and said to Thaybrill and the Archbishop, “I... you...”
A sudden heat rose in his face and he almost hissed at them, “Think of what you are saying! The mistake of placing me on a throne will be disastrous! You cannot place an entire kingdom in my hands! It will be the ruin of all to do so, worse than an invading army! Do you not see that? And I will be forced to watch as the well-being of the kingdom crumbles around me while I am too powerless against my ineptitude to overcome it!”
Thaybrill and the Archbishop said nothing for a moment, and Gully added, “Do you not see? Thaybrill should be king! He has been raised to take the crown since his birth. I was raised as... well, as no one! All that I have accomplished is to become a thief with a slight flutter of a conscience! For me to take the throne now would be the worst act of thievery I have ever committed — I will have stolen from a good person!”
The Archbishop looked at him curiously, then at Thaybrill, hoping for an explanation, but Thaybrill held up his hand to him to have the Archbishop hold his questions.
“Bayle... Thayliss...” said Thaybrill, “You do not see what I see. The kingdom will be in better hands that you imagine. I know this! And for the irrelevant details, the pointless protocols and pleasantries, you have me to assist, and many others!”
He shook Gully by the shoulders gently and said, “I have boundless faith in you, even if you do not!”
Gully closed his eyes and tried to think of a compelling argument. He tried to think of any logic, any immutable reason that would spare him the burden being placed upon him, but his mind failed him. His sorrow, his failure, his sleeplessness, his confusion all conspired to steal his ability to think lucidly.
Gully said feebly, “I will be an inestimable burden to you, Thaybrill! You will regret all of this!”
Thaybrill laughed and his eyes sparkled. “Any time spent with the brother only now returned to me, twenty years late, and the same man that risked his life for mine, will be no less than a sweet blessing to me.” He shook Gully playfully. “Every single moment of it!”
Gully looked at his feet, at his father’s boots. He wondered if he and Thaybrill would one day share the bond of twins that Gallun and Gellen shared. The idea of being that close to someone should have frightened him, but in reality, it pleased him.
He conceded and said, “As with me, Thaybrill, as with me.”
Gully closed his eyes and rocked sadly on his heels, partly from nervousness about what was happening, and partly from exhaustion from not having slept in almost two days. He would either be enslaved by the Maqarans in a few days, or he would become king, and both felt as much the same to his reckoning. It would either be an iron collar around his neck, or a gold one around his head. He had only too short a time to extricate himself from all the responsibility being thrust at him. And he did not have much faith that he wou
ld be very successful at it.
Chapter 28 — Arrival In Lohrdanwuld
The board used to play swords and shields was an arrangement of squares, twelve wide and twelve deep, forming an alternating grid of white and black. The colors didn’t really matter as long as they could be distinguished; most common boards used a combination of light and dark, though. The pieces, usually carved from light and dark stones or wood for the two opposing players, consisted of fourteen swords, nine shields, and one throne piece per side. The starting arrangement was consistent — the players’ pieces starting on opposite sides of the board. The one decision each player made at the outset of each game was where to place his throne, which could be placed anywhere on the outermost row, provided it was not in either corner square.
Of course, most Iisenors that played the beloved game used boards hewn from scrap wood and pieces made from random pebbles or rocks carved into the usual shapes signifying the swords, shields, and thrones.
Thaybrill stared down at the board in front of him, his mind spinning over the predicament into which his pieces had been craftily maneuvered. The board he stared at was not of any warped or aged piece of wood, worn smooth through heavy use. This one was framed in gold and the squares of the field had been cut from rare violet and pale gold quartz stones mined out of the mountains to the north. The pieces of one side were carved from the same violet quartz, but the opposing side’s pieces were intricately forged of gold, and almost impossibly filigreed. The board had belonged to Thaybrill’s father, Colnor the Fifth, and while he had been the ruling monarch, custom held that he had always played the gold pieces.
Thaybrill tried to decide how, or rather if, he could extricate his own quartz pieces from the complicated formation the gold ones formed around him. Every offensive move he might make seemed to expose his throne to capture, and every defensive move seemed to only delay the inevitable.
“How is it...” he said with his eyes still darting around the board, hoping to spot a weakness in his opponent’s position, “that you arrive at such a strategy as this one, having only learned to play this game today?”
In the past, when he had played against Krayell, he had found himself well and evenly matched. Thaybrill never bothered to play against the Archbishop, who was laughably bad at the game; even his valet, Pluck, was a better match than the Archbishop. But he had only taught his brother the rules that very morning, and now he had lost two of the three games they had played so far. And Thayliss had been sorely distracted on top of that the whole time he had been across the board from Thaybrill.
Thaybrill scratched at his head and then shook it. “Thayliss, I have no choice but to yield, again. You will claim my throne in no more than three moves no matter what course of action I take.”
Normally, Thaybrill would have been embarrassed to be beaten so readily, but he would have happily suffered far worse so long as it was at Thayliss’ hands. He could barely contain his glee at the very brightest blessing with which his father and mother could have surprised him — a twin brother, alive and safe. Even the shadows of guilt that roamed the recesses of his conscience at not having to take the throne, at passing that particular responsibility on to his older brother, barely darkened his mood at all. It was no darker and far briefer than a moongloam in the middle of the sunniest summer afternoon for Thaybrill. Thayliss, who seemed capable of almost anything, except for seeing precisely how capable he was, was reluctant and quiet, but that gave Thaybrill the opportunity to be with his brother all the more, to be of value to him. He would have hugged Thayliss even now to congratulate his third win of four boards if he had not sensed his brother’s almost imperceptible hesitation at such displays.
He looked up and found Thayliss leaning against the parapet wall of the oratory tower, staring down. Thayliss wasn’t looking out over the kingdom, his kingdom, though. He stood unmoving and stared instead down into the ravine next to which the Folly’s oratory tower rose.
Thaybrill stood and walked to stand with him. He eyed his brother sadly, then looked down into the chasm and he knew what was on his brother’s mind again.
Thayliss fidgeted and said sullenly, “We play games to idle the time away when we should be tracking down that murderous vermin, Krayell. Or we should be travelling to the Maqaran Pass rather than allowing others to fight back invaders for us.”
Thaybrill could sense the frustration, the sense of impotence his brother was suffering. Thayliss had spent his whole life doing everything for himself and now he was going to need to unlearn a great deal of that if he was to be king. It would not be an easy thing for his brother.
“I’m so very sorry for the loss of Mariealle, Thayliss, but you must not dwell on it too long. It is not healthy.” Thaybrill started to put his arm around Thayliss’ shoulder, then stopped, fearing it would not be welcome, and then placed his arm there despite. Thayliss allowed it with no more complaint than a deep sigh.
“She was very beautiful, and I could tell how deeply fond of you she was,” he added.
“She was more than I could ever deserve,” whispered Thayliss.
Thaybrill wanted to smile at the comment, a wry one, and ask how the girl could deserve more than the man who was going to be king, but he fixed his face stolidly since his brother was still very uncomfortable with such ideas. Instead, he said, “I know you are anxious to be doing something, my brother. But you already have. You’ve set things in motion, and now you must let them proceed on to their best completion. The entire Iisendom is watching for Krayell to show himself, which he must do sooner or later. And our forces are gathering in the next day or so at the pass to hold back the Maqarans.”
Thaybrill pulled at Thayliss’ arm gently and said, “Come, let me show you something over here.”
They walked to the side of the oratory tower facing out over Lohrdanwuld and the lands west. Thaybrill pointed out past the city. “The day is very clear today. If you look past the city and the farmlands beyond, you can see the Trine Runnel. You can even see the faint shimmer of the water from the sunlight overhead.” His finger drifted to the south, following the meandering line of the river off in the distance. “And if you follow it to the south, on rare days like today, you can even see Kindern yonder, where the Trine Runnel flows into the mighty River Tib. In your wanderings, have you ever been as far west as the River Tib? It is a beautiful and majestic river to see.”
“No,” said Thayliss rather emptily. “I kept my attentions to the woods, and sometimes East End.”
Thayliss stood up a little straighter and his voice took on more of a presence. “Have you noticed that bird there in the distance?” he said as he pointed at a large bird soaring over the city.
“No, I have not noticed. It looks like one of the harriers that nest upon the face of Kitemount,” said Thaybrill.
Thayliss shook his head and said, “No, not a harrier. That is what I find curious. It’s a pilcher owl. It’s unusual to see one in the daytime, but this is the third time I’ve seen him flying about in the last few minutes.”
Thaybrill wasn’t sure what was so special about an owl flying about, but he decided to try a different tactic to distract his brother from his melancholy mood.
“Tell me another memory you have of your father, Ollon. Please, Thayliss.”
They both turned and leaned against the wall as they looked up the face of Kitemount and the far taller peak of Thayhold to the left of it.
To Thaybrill’s relief, Thayliss laughed a little and said, “To what lengths shall I need to go to get you to call me Gully, Thaybrill? Or even Bayle? At least when it’s just the two of us. I suppose there are to be all sorts of vexing protocols for referring to one another in front of others, ones that I doubt I shall ever manage to learn. But in private, allow me the name of Gully.”
Thaybrill said, “I like the idea of both of us almost sharing the same name, but I understand your reluctance to accept Thayliss just yet. But as ill-fitting as Thayliss feels to you, so does Gully to me.
However, for you, I shall most certainly try. Gully. Now, please, tell me something else of Ollon.”
There was a long pause while Thayliss stared vacantly at Kitemount. The moment stretched and Thaybrill wondered if his brother was going to refuse, or if his request was having an effect counter to what he desired.
But Thayliss stubbed his boot toe absently on the stone of the tower and then spent the next few minutes relating how Ollon taught him to read, starting with recognizing the letters of the alphabet drawn in the dirt outside their cabin, followed by simple words. Once he mastered the words his father wrote in the dirt, Ollon had bought some paper and wrote down a simple child’s tale about a conversation between a mouse and a fox, and then used that to teach him until he could read it for himself.
Thaybrill listened with deep interest, turning a little sad, even a mite envious, at not having the benefit of someone such as Ollon in his own life. But he reminded himself not to be selfish, and to be grateful for the brother whom he did have.
Thayliss grew very quiet, and his eyes became distant, and his words trailed off. Thaybrill waited a moment, and was about to ask if anything was wrong.
Thayliss suddenly cleared his throat and looked at Thaybrill as if he just realized he was standing there. He said to Thaybrill, “That story of the fox and the pip mouse... I used to not like it very much. Because of our fox, or my father in reality, Pe’taro, I always thought the fox should be the hero of the story. My father would laugh and laugh at me and tell me that Pe’taro was a very good fox, not like the one in the story. But the moral of that child’s tale was the one he would tell me often — that whom a man chose to be was more important than whom he was born.”
Thayliss stared at the mountains a moment more and repeated the words, “We are all born somebody, but whom you choose to become is all that matters.”
The remarkable relationship that Thayliss, or Gully, shared with his adoptive father set off a deep, smoldering longing inside of Thaybrill once again. The whole idea that his father was a man and a fox at the same time was unbelievable, and he would have dismissed the idea except for the fact that he had seen two men turn to wolves and back in front of his own eyes — fierce men that would put fear into others, even without such abilities. Thaybrill had his own misgivings over the gypsy clan from the woods, and would never have trusted a people with powers such as these, were it not for Thayliss’ absolute faith in them. In a way, Thaybrill felt like his brother belonged everywhere, while he had never belonged anywhere.