King's Son, Magic's Son

by Josepha Sherman

  Dame Fortune pointed. Bremor's fashionably high heel caught on the trailing edge of the High Table's linen covering. Bremor, the linen, and a spectacular rain of gold and silver vessels went thudding down.

  I didn't play the gallant, not in a death duel: I did my best to spit him while he was still wrapped in linen. But Bremor freed an arm and slashed at my legs, keeping me at bay till he was untangled. Teeth bared in a silent snarl, the man came lunging up at me with such speed I only just parried his attack in time, feeling the shock of blade against blade shoot up my arm to the shoulder. Gritting my teeth, I braced myself, unable to get back on the offensive, catching slash after slash on my sword, blessing the strength of Faerie metal. A particularly savage blow made me stagger—Damnio! I wasn't going to let myself be driven back any further.

  Praying I wouldn't land on any more goblets, I sprang backwards to give myself some room, hastily took a deep breath, then pressed forward with all my might, sword beating and beating at him. And now, to my fierce delight, it was Bremor who was off balance and forced to give ground. The High Table was just behind him, and I drove him back and back again, trying to trap him against it. But Bremor glanced quickly over his shoulder and realized his danger just in time. He twisted like a cat and rolled right up onto the denuded table, springing to his feet again, silently mocking me.

  I should have been sensible. I should have cut at his feet, or just waited out of reach till he came down again. Instead, like some brainless hurtyn, I followed Bremor up there. In the next moment, I was wishing I hadn't been so impulsive. A bare, slippery, half-cluttered table was a stupid place for a duel.

  But Bremor wasn't giving me a chance to jump down again. As he forced me down the length of that table, somehow never slipping or stumbling, his eyes began to burn with a terrible, exquisite cruelty: he was looking forward to a slow, painful kill, cut by small cut. And in that horrifying moment, I remembered the pathetic shell that had been the Faerie woman Lalathanai, and knew that whatever Bremor once might have been— honorable king in his own hard way, honorable man—he, like she, had been corrupted beyond rescue. He had all but passed beyond the limits of humanity. If I died here, so, more terribly, would Estmere and Rosamonde and their people after them—

  Y Duwies, no! I swung my sword, two-handed, with all my strength. And, with a sound like a woman's silvery laugh, that bright Faerie blade sheared right through Bremor's sword, leaving him holding only the hilt and a jagged hand's breadth of blade.

  For a heartbeat's time, we both stood astonished. Then Bremor cried out like some great hunting cat, and hurled the hilt at me with all the power in him. I sprang aside to dodge the jagged thing—

  And I fell right off the damniol table. As I fell, my head cracked against one corner with such force there wasn't even any pain. I suspect a magickless man would have been killed outright; innate Power, refusing to dissipate, fought to hold spirit and body together. I—I was where? Crumpled in the rushes, clinging with fading strength to the shreds of my life, but I was also where? Seeing from nowhere and everywhere Bremor standing over my body in grim delight . . . feeling nothing but a dull resentment that now he was going to slay what was left of me. . . .

  "No," I heard the man mutter. "Magician that you are, I've a more fitting death for you. One to properly impress these fools."

  It didn't really seem to matter. But then I heard Bremor begin a sharp, savage chant, and horror dragged me back to awareness:

  The king of Telesse was welcoming his Patrons here to deal with me.

  No, Bremor, you hurtyn! Without binding Star or Circle, They're not going to obey you! You're giving Them freedom here—and They'll destroy us all!

  No. My thoughts couldn't have been that coherent. Desperate, I made the mistake of trying to rejoin self and body, and only then discovered how badly I'd been hurt. Such agony slashed through my injured skull I fell helplessly back to the rushes, drifting once more elsewhere, this time unable to return. . . .

  "No."

  Someone was swathing me in a cool, sheltering embrace: Lalathanai, healed now, sane now, Lalathanai come from wherever the Folk are sent after body death, Lalathanai holding me, blessing me, forcing me back towards self. . . .

  But the pain in that injured self was too great, the cool softness of elsewhere was so comforting I slid free of Lalathanai . . . she was gone, and I . . .

  "No, Aidan, please, no!"

  Estmere? He drew me to him by our kinship, close enough to see him fight in vain against the Spell of Holding, able only to breathe, to blink. I felt his fierce, desperate eyes on my body, felt the force of those pleading thoughts:

  "Live, brother, live and fight!"

  But of course no mind unschooled in magic could hold such an intense focus for long. And I . . . just couldn't guide him. There was a limit even to a magician's strength, and I was slipping helplessly away from light and sound and pain. . . .

  And then a second mind touched my own. A skilled, sure, so-familiar presence barred me from that final crossing. Dazed, I thought I saw a vision of Estmere— but with him, another, more vaguely sensed, a fine-boned, lovely other, with eyes of vibrant green:

  Ailanna! My sweet lady, mere in spirit with Estmere— But how could this be? I heard his silent plea:

  "Help him, lady, I pray you!"

  "I can't, not at such a range, not alone. You must help me!"

  Somehow, I knew, Ailanna must join their strengths, merge their two most dissimilar minds. But it could never happen. Estmere still doubted me. Deep within him, he blamed me for Clarissa's death. He would never be able to drop his guard. Clarissa . . .

  Ah, did it matter? I was already dead . . .

  . . . and it seemed to me the past was present. I was once more within the royal chapel, once more kneeling at Clarissa's tomb. Strange, strange, this time my emotions seemed so clear: pity for that young life ended too abruptly, and guilt—

  No. Not guilt over her death. What I felt was nothing more than a helpless, very human regret that I had never liked my brother's wife, that my last words to her had been angry ones, that I hadn't been there to help her, that I hadn't even known she was ill—

  I hadn't even known!

  The mind is such an odd, odd thing. Whether from shock or injury or the nearness of death, the missing memories were rushing back to me like water on the flood.

  But it was more than my ebbing strength could bear. The world was fading, and in the distance was Clarissa . . . and I wondered with a vague sadness, Is this finally death?

  But my brother's thoughts wouldn't let me escape. "It's true. God help me, Aidan, it's true. You didn't abandon her. Oh, my poor brother, how I've wronged you. No longer!"

  And, though it must surely have been one of the most difficult things any king has done, Estmere let fall all his ingrained defenses. Human mind and Faerie mind freely joined. That doubled strength reached out to me, that doubled love enfolded me like a blessing.

  And love, though skeptics mock, really is one of the strongest powers in the world. Surely those two most dear to me summoned more healing strength than could ever have been contained within them. Surely y Duwies Herself let them draw on the very Force of Life, because an incredible surge of Power blazed through me.

  And when I could think again, I found self and self rejoined, quite healed.

  There was no time for thanksgiving. To my astonishment all that seemingly endless time of near-death had taken only a few moments of reality, but Bremor still stood poised on the table, chanting—

  And it was already too late to stop him. No human eyes save mine could have seen the sudden Something, the not-quite mist swirling about Bremor. And . . . It knew me. It sent me a wordless, savage greeting in the form of a memory flash of a dark, featureless room and myself huddled helplessly within it.

  That was only the beginning. My newly healed mind was assailed by wave after wave of mockery, cruder than honest hate, distorting my senses as They had in Bremor's chapel, tearing me from
the fabric of reality, and I—

  —had slain Estmere. We had fought over Clarissa's death, and I had lost control of Power. Estmere lay dead before me—

  "Illusion!" I cried in silent defiance. "I will not believe it!"

  But I couldn't fight demonic strength. That cold, cold mockery was all around me and—

  —there were chains about me, an iron stake harsh at my back. I had been condemned for my brother's death, and now I saw Father Ansel staring grimly back at me as the hooded executioner lowered his torch to the wood heaped about me. Fire blazed up around me; I could feel the heat scorching my skin, feel my clothing smoldering, and the strands of my hair—

  "I will not be tricked! This is only illusion!"

  But then, most cruelly of all—

  —I was in Bremor's dungeon. The chill, foul darkness was about me and cruel chains chafed my wrists. Then . . . the escape and all that had followed had been only a desperate dream. This was reality. I would be trapped down here, alone, despairing, to be endlessly tormented. . . .

  And that very nearly broke me. But dimly, dimly, I was aware of a mocking Other presence—

  "Illusion!" I screamed. "Damn you, cythraul, I will not believe!" There was the heart of it: no demon can truly possess you unless you allow it, and now I fought back with every scrap of will within me, shouting, "Illusion can't hurt unless I accept it—and I do not! I reject this— and I reject you!"

  It was as simple as that. The psychic bonds slipped from me (shuddering, I felt them as chill, slimy rope dissolving at my feet). So suddenly I staggered, the reality of the Great Hall was about me.

  But in those few moments of illusion, I had run out of time. Bremor's Patron was becoming part of him—no, not like Lalathanai, worse than she—and in his sickness, the man saw that merging as the most desirable of things. Eyes blazing with power lust, Bremor was actually welcoming it. I had a sudden horrifying vision of the future as it well might be, of Bremor's armies, dead in soul, surging forth from a sterile Telesse, their very touch sapping will from any who opposed them, of true death-in-life spreading out and out, worse than any plague, and behind it, the immortal, invulnerable thing that had once been a mortal man. . . .

  What last shards of humanity lingered in Bremor died at that moment. His Patron stared out at me through Bremor's eyes, filling the handsome face with an obscene ecstasy of Power strong enough to hurl Ailanna's exhausted spirit back to her body so far away in Cymra, leaving Estmere defenseless, and me— As what had been Telesse's king shouted out the last phrases of his chant, as the final strands of Binding began to slip irrevocably into place, I was nearly crushed by the pressure of Power-saturated air. Gasping, lungs aching, I fought till I nearly burst my heart, trying in vain to raise my arms, trying to take one step, just one little step forward— Useless, I would never reach him in time. For all my magician's will, there was a limit to what a human form could do. The Bremor-thing was already calling out the final Word, and it was too late for anything except—

  Except for the last thing I would have expected: Tairyn, there in a wild roar of stormwind (och, the Power, the incredible Power of the man, to cast open a Gateway and himself through it in one wild moment). He stood behind me, risking a roomful of iron, hands on my shoulders, encircling me with his own magic, so cold and clear it shook me to the bone, so alien it was almost beyond bearing. In the next moment, the Faerie Lord was gone again; that roomful of iron must have meant agony for him. But he'd freed my arms.

  I didn't stop to think. "Y Duwies guide me!" I screamed, and hurled my Faerie sword as though it was a spear. Like lightning, that slim blade, that thing of purest magic, blazed across the hall—

  And it sheathed itself in Bremor's heart.

  Ah, what a cry he gave, human, inhuman—the sound haunts me still. Bremor crumpled across the High Table, his gaze on me, so fierce with hatred I made sign against sign to ward off evil. Duwies glân, Duwies glân, was he never going to die?

  But then the hatred faded. Bremor's Patron lost Its hold on our world, and with one last flash of impotent rage, vanished, leaving behind only what was left of Bremor's human hatred. I felt one flash of sheer, anguished frustration from that shattered mind at the failure of his dream.

  Then that, too, was gone. Bremor, King of Telesse, was dead.

  A second later, so was the Spell of Holding. The hall was plunged into turmoil as each man discovered his body was his own again, as those at the end of the hall ducked the hoofs of the two frantic horses.

  Then shocked silence fell. Bremor's men stared at the limp body before them. Maybe his people had feared and hated him, but he had, after all, been their ruler.

  And one man shouted, "Traitor! Murderer! You've killed our king!"

  He hurled himself at me. I would have died right there, but Estmere sprang to my defense, just barely catching the descending blade on his own in time. As I struggled to free my Faerie sword (not without a shudder), I heard the soldier fall. And that sparked a true battle. Back to back Estmere and I stood, ringed round with foes eager to cut us down.

  And cut down, we would have been, two swords against twenty, no matter what the stories say. Nor is it true I cast Power on our blades: by that point I was too weary to cast even the simplest of spells.

  But no one had thought to guard the Princess Rosamonde. And it was she who saved us, racing door to door of the Great Hall, casting aside all those heavy bolts with a strength born of fierce will. And that was how King Adland's own men-at-arms could rush in to our rescue. Och, that hall became a true battlefield then.

  Not for long.

  And when the brief battle was done, we were the victors.

  CHAPTER XXXV

  DISCOVERIES

  The backlash from those . . . shall we say . . . adventures with Bremor and his Patron, and from my near death, kept me in drained sleep for a full day. But just before waking, I touched thoughts with Tairyn by accident; I had actually been reaching for Ailanna. But och, the Faerie Lord was worn, so worn I would have pitied him if I hadn't known how human pity would have insulted

  "Why?" is all I asked. "All that iron—you nearly killed yourself for me. Why?"

  His answer was slow and weary. "Lalathanai returned from elsewhere for you. Ailanna nearly drained her life for you." Then, just when I was finally expecting to hear some sign of liking for me from him, Tairyn added coolly, "I will never understand why they bothered. But after all their efforts, it would have seemed a waste to let you die. Now leave me alone, human."

  "Are you all right?"

  "Of course I am. But I have tired myself out in your behalf, and I wish to sleep."

  He broke the contact. And I—I chuckled so much over Tairyn, stubborn, obstinate, honorable Tairyn, that I woke myself up.

  What I woke to was a feeling of being thoroughly healed of any harm, and a sense that I was being watched. I opened a wary eye to find King Adland beaming down at me paternally.

  "Ah, at last! I was beginning to worry about you, Prince Aidan, though your brother—poor young man, he was almost as weary as you; I wouldn't let him watch over you but sent him to his own bed—your brother told me it was perfectly normal for a magician to sleep so long after—" He stopped short, grinning with embarrassment. "Ay me, I sound like a gossiping fool."

  I laughed. "No. Just like someone who's very, very relieved!"

  "Ah God, yes. Believe me, I am eternally in your debt, you and your royal brother both. If there is ever any favor I can render, anything at all, pray don't hesitate to ask."

  "Och, well, there is." My body was complaining it wanted new energy, and quickly. "King Adland, I will be in your debt if I can just have one thing: food!"

  While it was being brought to me and I was temporarily alone, I reached out with my consciousness again, suddenly frightened I wouldn't receive any answer. My poor Ailanna, working magic from so far away . . . but at last I felt our minds touch. And for a time we were too lost in the plain joy that we were both alive and unha
rmed for any rational conversation.

  "Cariad, I have only one question," I said, just before we were about to break contact. "How did Estmere ever know how to reach you?"

  "Your brother is a truly amazing man," Ailanna teased.

  "Yes, but how—"

  "Truly amazing."

  "But, Ailanna . . ."

  She was already gone, leaving me with only the echo of her laughter bright within my mind.

  I devoured my breakfast of fruit and hot, buttered bread with scarce concern for manners, then let a determined group of servants dress me. It wasn't easy to shake my devoted following, but at last I used my invisibility illusion to elude them and went down into the garden for some much-needed sunlight. There I found Estmere and Rosamonde together, so radiantly happy their linked auras fairly glowed. I would have left them alone, but Rosamonde waved to me and Estmere signalled me to join them. We made polite conversation for a time, but at last I couldn't keep from asking:

  "Estmere, brawd, how in the name of all the Powers did you know to call to . . ." Here I paused, waiting for Tairyn's spell to clamp down on me. But, wonder of wonders, nothing happened. Evidently the spell had finally died of exhaustion (or else, circumstances being what they were, Tairyn had finally relented), and I was free to finish, "to Ailanna?"

  He grinned at me. "I had guessed you had a lady for some time."

  I could feel myself reddening under Rosamonde's amused eyes. "How?"

  "My dear brother, I may not be able to read emotions, or whatever it is you do, but there was certainly more than mere homesickness, your . . . hiraeth, in your eyes whenever you spoke of Cymra."

  "But I never mentioned—"

  "That gave me the clue. Why would you, who've always been so—" his grin broadened "—disgustingly honest never mention that lady? Ha, it was obvious: you were bespelled."

  "What?" asked Rosamonde. "A magician?"

  "Yes," I ceded ruefully. "Even a magician."