by Jack Conner
He asked no more about it. “I want to see Lunir,” he said.
She took him through high white halls, down to the large roosting warrens known as the Golden Halls because of the color of walls and floor and columns, and he made sure Lunir was well cared for. When they left the Golden Halls, there was a flurry of activity in the tower, people rushing to and fro, excitement in their faces.
“What’s going on?” Baleron said.
One breathless girl said, “It’s Lord Felias! He’s arrived!”
Baleron and Shelir glanced at each other, and she seemed as excited as he felt. They were just about to walk on when a tall figure approached. Instantly Baleron recognized Logran Belefard, the Archmage of Glorifel, on leave these past few years. He was an old, silver-haired man whom Baleron had known his entire life. For the past five years, he had been under the tutelage of Elethris, an honor all Light-wielders coveted, but Elethris only took on a few pupils at time, and these must be very worthy.
“There you are, lad,” Logran said. “Follow me. Lord Felias wishes to see you.”
He strode off, and Baleron and Shelir fell into step behind him.
“This is all a bit sudden,” Baleron said.
“So it is, so it is,” Logran agreed. “Why, he did not even announce himself. He just showed up riding a swan, and now he’s in the library!”
They arrived at the library, where many elves had gathered to pay their respects to their lord, and Logran parted the throng for Baleron and Shelir. Standing tall and regal in the midst of the excitement was King Felias—it could be no other—the fabled Lord of the Larenth, holding up Baleron’s maps of Oksilith and scowling. Elethris stood beside him. Felias was tall and black of hair, with bright lime-green eyes and a face given to much gravity. His crown, a band of shimmering silvery gold carved as a ring of interwoven leaves, rested lightly on his head. A green cape fluttered behind him and a platinum breastplate sparkled subtly. A pretty but very real sword hung in a scabbard at his waist.
The Elf Lord’s eyes rose from the maps and fixed on the prince. Baleron felt as though a vice had clamped him. “Il lat u-fasen wenthir en i-honna,” Felias said. This must be the man I’ve come so far to see.
“Et Salin, reneth ib es,” Elethris said. Indeed he is, my lord.
Felias looked Baleron up and down. Still in Larenthin, he said, “The one Gilgaroth would have us believe is il Enundian.”
“The very same.”
“And you’re sure he is not?”
“Quite sure, my lord. Otherwise I would not have invited you here.” Elethris smiled patiently. “He is the one who is going to help rid us of Ungier and all his brood.”
Baleron offered his hand out of instinct, forgetting his royal training. By the time he remembered that elf kings did not shake hands, King Felias had already shaken it and Baleron was left looking dumbly down at his waggling fingers.
“Tan balour es rin,” he said vaguely. It’s an honor. He hoped he’d gotten the accent right.
The King’s manner was curt, but not unfriendly. “Let’s have a look at these maps, good prince. Then we’ll see how much of an honor it is.”
Minutes later, the elf lord glanced up again, seeming pleased. “Now, Prince Baleron,” he said, “I can see that it is an honor. These maps look genuine. In your renderings of Gulrothrog, I can see hatred of the place etched in every shaky line.”
He clapped Baleron unexpectedly on the shoulder. “Not for ages has Man and Elf united for such a cause. Gulrothrog has plagued our borders for thousands of years, and now, thanks to you, we shall see it broken and smoking under the light of day. The Vampire King shall live no more!”
* * *
And so the wheels of war began to turn. King Felias spent three days at Celievsti, conferring with Elethris and making preparations for the coming campaign. Baleron saw him little, and all too soon he left for Clevaris to ready his host for war. After that, Baleron had only to await his father’s coming. It could not come soon enough, and yet part of him hoped it never would. When he returned to the tower one day after taking Lunir for a ride, activity filled the tower. His father’s host had been seen approaching and a reception was being prepared. Suddenly nervous, Baleron retired to his suite and dressed in the finest clothes the elves had provided him. He was still winded and sweaty from his ride, but that couldn’t be helped.
Shelir entered, smiling. “He’s arriving. I thought you would—” Then she really saw him. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” Everything.
He finished dressing, made himself smile, and offered Shelir his arm. “Come. Let us go greet the old bastard.”
“Are you sure? You seem ...”
“I’m sure.”
Though she did not look entirely convinced, she took his arm. They pushed out of his suite and through the high white halls, and he made himself hold his head high. At last they reached a certain archway, and he paused to catch his breath.
“You’ll be fine,” Shelir assured him.
He nodded tightly. Together, they stepped boldly out onto the terrace. Wind whipped them, and the smell of flowers came from the vines that twined around the decorative columns and covered the white walls. A silver fountain tinkled. All around stretched the bright and colorful crowd, as many had come to welcome the visiting king. Musicians played and elf maidens threw petals.
And in the center of all the noise and excitement was Baleron’s father, glaring down from the swan he’d flown in on; he clearly did not care for the bird. His retainers on their own serathi flanked him.
Lord Albrech Grothgar was a medium-sized man, but he held himself so imperiously and his gaze was so hard that he seemed much taller. Dark of hair (though it was salted) and bearded, with the same blue eyes as Baleron, dark and misty both, he wore a sturdy yet utilitarian crown, free of the ornamentation of Felias’s, and it gleamed dully of burnished silver. A dark blue cape billowed behind him. His clothes were thick and tough, as were his boots, not the soft fabrics and sandals of Felias. His gaze, though, was just as solemn; indeed, his eyes were hard and glaring and devoid of any softness. Felias had seemed like a kind man bearing such a great weight that he had not the time or energy for niceties; Grothgar just seemed hard and sharp, like a sword. And like a sword, he’d been forged that way.
His mere presence made Baleron flinch and take a step back, like a shock of cold water or the sting of a bee. Others on the terrace seemed to feel the same way, for when Lord Grothgar swept his gaze around the assembly those he locked eyes with looked away. Here was a hard man.
He slid off the swan and the musicians blew their horns. All fell silent and half-knelt. To kneel fully would be an insult to Lord Felias.
King Grothgar just grunted.
Master Elethris left his circle of apprentices and met the King. “Welcome to Celievsti,” said the Lord of the Tower. “My home is yours.”
The king nodded curtly. He did not seem impressed by the White Tower, though Baleron knew for a fact he had never seen it before. Probably he disdained the arts it was made with.
“Thank you for receiving me, Shieldmaster,” said the king with at least a pretense of civility. Something else was clearly on his mind; it veritably sparked from his eyes. “Now,” he said, and his voice grew commanding: “where is my son?”
“Here, Father,” said Baleron and stepped out to meet him.
While he was wondering whether to embrace his father or shake his hand, Baleron noticed the barely controlled anger in the king’s eyes and did neither. Something was not right.
His father looked him up and down. “I see you managed to make it out alive yet again.”
Baleron’s heart fell. So ... it was as he’d feared. A heavy weight slowly began to grind him into the ground, crushing the breath from him.
“Yes,” he managed.
The King’s upper lip lifted clear of his teeth, almost a snarl. “Leaving your sister behind.”
The prince averted his eyes. His voice was s
mall: “Yes.”
“Leaving her to a doomed existence as a cursed fiend preying off the blood of the innocent.”
It was true. “Yes.”
The king went on, ignoring the crowd, ignoring the fact that others were witnessing this. “Leaving a once fair and noble-hearted maiden, the brightest flower to ever grace my Court, an undead beast of the night! Forever and ever unless slain. Unless butchered like a steer and her remains charred over a fire. This is the fate to which you left her—your most-beloved sister?”
“Yes.”
“To a hellish life of laying down for the get of Gilgaroth, of violation and rape—“
“Enough!” shouted Baleron. “Enough.” His eyes burned.
The king took a breath. He leered horribly, his own eyes full of hate. Baleron had never known the depth of it before, and its venom stunned him.
Albrech Grothgar went on: “And all this after having betrayed the wedding caravan with your ineptitude. After having cost them their lives ... and some their very souls.”
Baleron didn’t think he could take much more. “Yes, Father.”
The people of the reception party had all gone quiet and were looking down and away. Elethris wore a stricken expression.
“Including the soul of your best friend Salthrick,” King Grothgar continued relentlessly, “who likely died a nobler death than you’ll ever manage.”
Baleron said nothing.
“And including Sophia, the woman who loved you, but whom you could not even stay loyal to, so tempting were the wives of married men.”
“Yes.” His voice was very small now.
“According to the story I heard, you slew Salthrick yourself ... just as you cut down Haben.” That’s what this was really about, Baleron knew—Haben. “They died under your hand.”
“He was poss—”
Rage flashed across the king’s features and spittle sprayed from his mouth as he roared, “Answer me, boy! You slew your brother, your best friend, betrayed your sister and all those under your command.” His volume dropped, but his acidity intensified. “You failed them all. You failed me.”
Baleron’s head felt so heavy he could barely hold it upright. In little more than a whisper, he said, “Yes. To all of it, yes. I ... I am sorry, Father.”
“Oh, yes. Yes you are.”
King Grothgar actually spat at his feet. The Lord of Havensrike then lifted his hand to strike Baleron—a slap, which would be more insulting than a fisted hit—but the king thought better of it at the last moment and lowered his arm.
“I won’t waste my sweat on the likes of you.”
Shelir stepped forward. She seemed to have been on the verge of doing so the whole time, but shock had rooted her feet till now.
“Your son,” she declared, “has been through years of torment and slavery and depravations that would curdle your blood to hear, and yet he escaped those horrors and is here now helping us bring down the very ones that have wronged him, that have been a blight upon our world throughout the ages. You should be ashamed. Spitting on your son after all he’s done, after all he’s been through!”
King Grothgar’s jaw bulged.
“Enough, soldier,” snapped Elethris. “Lord Grothgar deserves better than your sharp tongue.”
“And Prince Baleron deserves better than his father’s.”
The king opened his mouth to reply, but Baleron beat him to it.
“No,” Baleron said.
They turned to him.
“My father’s heart is not a warm one,” he allowed, “but he is right. I have failed everyone I should have saved, and saved the one person I should have failed. Good day.”
With that, he turned from them and retreated into the shadows of the tower. Behind him, Lord Grothgar grunted contemptuously.
“There goes my son,” he said.
* * *
All the nests close to Lunir’s were empty, Baleron noted when he entered the Golden Halls. None of the serathi wanted to be near the fell creature. Apparently glad to see the prince, Lunir cawed and stretched his neck as though hoping for a scratch. Baleron obliged.
“Come on, old boy. We’re going for a ride.”
As he was fetching the glarum’s saddle from the wall, Shelir appeared. She said nothing as she watched him saddle up.
When he finished, she asked, “Can I come with you?”
“I won’t be good company.”
“Let me judge that.”
They left the tower and rode the warm currents of the afternoon, the Havensrike Army spread out below them, endless campfires issuing long columns of smoke into the sky. Baleron and Shelir threaded through the inky black columns and he marveled as the down-flashing sun beat on endless sparkling helms and armor. Like a sea of fire, the host stretched from the shores of the shimmering blue Larenth to the first gentle hills three miles east.
Baleron veered north and they rode over the rolling green hills and forests. At last he set down on a hilltop far from the tower, though Celievsti could still be seen in the distance, past the black columns and the ever-renewed black cloud.
Lunir drank from a cold spring, dew beading his beak, and Shelir’s swan joined him. The glarum cawed angrily and snapped at the white bird, who jumped back spraying water, and hopped upstream to drink in peace. Baleron was not surprised. Lunir was not an agreeable fellow, and the prince did not expect him to be. He was of Gulrothrog, after all. So am I.
“Now, now,” the prince chided his steed amiably. “Don’t be childish.”
“Wise words,” said Shelir.
Sighing, Baleron leaned back against a boulder and let the warm sun soak into his bones.
“He gets to me, Shelir. He really does.”
She stroked his face. “So I see,” she said. “But you’ve been your own man for too long to be his now.” Her voice was soothing. “If he cannot see you for who you really are, let go.”
“But that’s just it. He’s right. I did fail them all.” He shook his head. He felt overwhelmed and agitated and lost in his own skin. Somehow he’d lost his center. Shelir was right on this, too; his father did have too much power over him.
“He twists things,” she said. “He sees things as though out of a warped mirror. Don’t trust his opinion. Trust your own.”
Not that easy, but thanks.
He embraced her suddenly, crushing her against him. He buried his face in her soft neck and kissed her, growling. She laughed and beat at him.
“What would I do without you?” he said, drawing back. A strand of her golden hair hung before her blue eyes and he swept it back tenderly. The back of his mind was still awhirl, but he tried to focus on her. “You’re a wonder to me,” he said, “a gift from the Omkar.”
“Which one?”
He smiled. She liked this game. “Sifril, I think.”
“So I’m dead, then? An ancient spirit sent back to comfort you, perhaps? I think not.”
“Didn’t we decide you were an angel?”
“You decided. I know better.”
He chuckled. “Then one of the Niertina. A stewardess of the moon.”
“Too fancy for the likes of me.”
“Fine. Then you’re a gift from Felara. My final offer.”
“Goddess of Love?”
He nodded.
“Hmmmm.”
She seemed nervous all of a sudden, too nervous to speak. He didn’t let her. His lips pressed against hers and the world fell away. There was only she, and he, and the babbling brook. He kissed her throat and breasts, and then she was shucking off her clothes, and he was shucking off his. He lay her down in the high grass and kissed her from the top of her head to her soft blond groin, and there he paused, tasting her salty wetness, and she moaned and kicked. He kissed his way back up, lingering at her breasts. At last he plunged inside her, and she let out a soft gasp.
“Yes.”
He looked down into her light blue eyes, and she looked up into his, and it seemed as if something passed b
etween them. He felt a tightness in his chest and did not trust himself to speak. Afterward, she clung to him and lay her head in the hollow of his neck. They did not talk, but the wind sighed over the hill.
When they returned to Celievsti, his spirits were light and his bond with Shelir stronger than before. As soon as they landed on a platform jutting from the tower, a messenger ran up to them, saying, “King Grothgar wishes to see you.”
Baleron took Shelir’s hand.
“Lead on,” he said.
The elf messenger led the way to Elethris’s audience chamber, a large high room oddly stark in its design, as if to reflect the personality of the elf who now sat on his throne, for throne it was: Elethris was the lord of the Wall and this tower was truly his palace in most every way that mattered. He gazed down on Albrech Grothgar, who appeared uncomfortable.
“ ... could have been kinder,” came the Shieldmaster’s voice.
They had yet to notice Baleron and Shelir, huddling in the shadows of the hall. Baleron motioned for the messenger not to betray their presence, and the messenger, loath to interrupt two such mighty persons, complied.
Eyes as hard as ever, King Grothgar said, “I will say and do with my son what I wish, Sorcerer, and I will have no one, not even you, tell me otherwise. That said, I thank you for your hospitality to him in the last weeks, as well as to myself, and I appreciate you orchestrating matters as efficiently and perceptively as you have. You have brought me here in time, perhaps, to save Rolenya, and I thank you.”
Baleron stepped forwards.
“I thank you, too,” he said, bowing formally.
Shelir followed him.
Grothgar wheeled about. “I don’t like being crept up on,” he said, then sighed heavily, apparently giving up for the moment his rage against Baleron. He held aloft a sheaf of papers, and Baleron recognized them as the maps he’d drawn. “I’ve looked these over. Your hand is shaky and at times illegible, but all and all your maps and blueprints ... may suffice. I hope so. Should we prove unable to find Gulrothrog, you will have failed your sister yet again.”