Firstborn

by Paul B. Thompson

  Sithas remembered the terrible feelings that had swept over him when he’d first grasped the vibrating sword. So much pain and rage. Wherever Kith was, he was in definite trouble.

  “How would you do it?” asked the prince, almost too faintly to be heard.

  “A simple act,” noted the cleric. His gaze flickered down to the blade.

  “I’ll not break the law. No invocations to Gilean.” Said the prince harshly, “Of course not, Highness. You yourself will do all that needs to be done.”

  Sithas bade him explain, but Vedvedsica’s eyes traveled once more to the blade at his throat. “If you please, Highness-?” Sithas swung the weapon away. The sorcerer swallowed audibly, then continued. “There is in all of us who share the blood of Astarin the ability to reach out to the ones we love, across great distances, and summon them to us.”

  “I know of what you speak,” said Sithas. “But the Call has been forbidden to Kith-Kanan. I cannot break the speaker’s edict.”

  “Ah,” said the sorcerer with a wry smile. “But the speaker has need of my services to heal his fever. Perhaps I can strike a bargain!”

  Sithas was growing weary of this fellow’s impudence. Striking bargains with the speaker indeed! But if there was the slightest hope of getting Kith back-and healing his father-

  Vedvedsica remained silent, sensing his best hope lay in letting Sithas come to a decision of his own accord.

  “What must I do to call Kith-Kanan home?” Sithas asked finally.

  “If you have some object that is strongly identified with your brother, that will help your concentration. It can be a focus for your thoughts.”

  After a long, tense silence, Sithas spoke. “I will take you to my father,” he said. He brought the broken sword up once more to the cleric’s throat. “But if anything you have told me is false, I shall turn you over to the Clerical Court Council for trial as a charlatan. You know what they do to illicit sorcerers?” Vedvedsica waved a hand casually. “Very well. Come!”

  As Sithas opened the door, Vedvedsica caught his arm. The prince stared furiously at the cleric’s hand until Vedvedsica deigned to remove it. “I cannot walk the halls of the palace in plain sight, great prince,” the cleric said mysteriously. “Discretion is necessary for someone like myself.” He took a small bottle from his sash and pulled the cork. An acrid smell flooded the small room. “If you will allow me to use this unguent. When warmed by the skin, it creates a fog of uncertainty around those who wear it. No one we pass will be certain they see or hear us.”

  Sithas felt he had no choice. Vedvedsica applied the reddish oil to his fingers and traced a magic sigil on Sithas’s forehead. He did the same to himself. The unguent left a burning sensation on Sithas’s skin. He had an intense desire to wipe the poisonous-smelling stuff off, but as the gray-clad cleric displayed no discomfort, the prince mastered the impulse.

  “Follow me,” advised Vedvedsica. At least that’s what Sithas thought he said. The words came to his ear distantly, waveringly, as if the cleric spoke from the bottom of a well.

  They ascended the steps, passing a trio of handmaids on the way. The elf girls’ forms were indistinct to Sithas, though the background of stair and wall was solid and clear. The maids’ eyes flickered over the prince and his companion, but no recognition showed on their faces. They continued on down the stair. The “fog of uncertainty” was working just as the cleric had claimed.

  On the penultimate floor of the tower, they paused before the doors to the speaker’s private rooms. Servants stood outside, idle. They paid no heed to the prince or the cleric.

  “Strange,” mused Sithas, words falling from his lips like drops of cold water. His own voice sounded muffled. “Why are they not inside with the speaker?”

  He opened the door and hurried in. “Father?” he called. Sithas passed through the antechamber, with Vedvedsica close behind. After a glance around the room, he saw his father’s crumpled form lying on the stone floor by the window. He shouted for assistance.

  “They cannot hear you.” Vedvedsica said, wafting into Sithas’s line of sight. Desperately the prince knelt and lifted his father. How light he felt, the great elf who ruled the elven nation! As Sithas placed his father on the bed, Sithel’s eyes fluttered open. His face was dazed.

  “Kith? Is that you?” he asked in a strange, faraway voice.

  “No, Father, it’s Sithas,” said the elf prince, stricken with anguish.

  “You’re a good boy, Kith... but a willful fool. Why did you bare a weapon in the tower? You know it’s a sacred place.”

  Sithas turned to the waiting Vedvedsica. “Take the spell off us!” he demanded fiercely. The cleric bowed and dampened a cloth at a wash basin, then wiped the prince’s forehead clean. Immediately, it seemed, the fog vanished from his senses. Just seconds later the cleric materialized, seemingly out of nowhere.

  Swiftly Vedvedsica took some dried herbs from his shoulder pouch and crushed them into a pewter goblet that stood on a table near the speaker’s bed. Concerned, Sithas watched him work. The cleric next soaked the crushed dry leaves in crimson nectar, swirled the goblet to mix the ingredients, and held out the goblet to the prince.

  “Let him drink this,” he said with confidence. “It will clear his head.”

  Sithas held the goblet to his father’s lips. No sooner had the first red drops passed Sithel’s mouth, than his eyes lost their rheumy haze. Tightly he gripped Sithas’s wrist.

  “Son, what is this?” He looked beyond Sithas and espied the sorcerer. Sharply he said, “Why are you here? I did not send for you!”

  “But you did, great speaker.” Vedvedsica bowed deeply from the waist. “Your fevered mind called to me for help some hours ago. I came.”

  “Do you know him, Father?” Sithas asked.

  “All too well.” Sithel sank back on his pillows, so the prince set the goblet aside. “I’m sorry you had to meet him under such circumstances, son. I might have warned you.”

  Sithas looked at Vedvedsica, his face mixed with gratitude and distrust. “Is he cured?”

  “Not yet, my prince. There are other potions I must prepare. They will cure the speaker.”

  “Get on with it, then,” Sithas commanded.

  Vedvedsica flinched. “There is the matter of our bargain.”

  Sithel coughed. “What bargain have you made with this old spider?” the speaker demanded.

  “He will cure your fever if you allow me to call Kith-Kanan home,” Sithas said honestly. Sithel arched his white brows in surprise, and the prince averted his eyes from his father’s intense gaze.

  “Call Kith?” he asked skeptically. “Vedvedsica, you’re no altruist. What do you want for yourself out of this?”

  The cleric bowed again. “I ask only that the speaker’s heir pay me such an amount as he thinks appropriate.”

  Sithel shook his head. “I don’t see why Kith-Kanan should interest you, but I don’t object,” he said with a heavy sigh, then turned to his heir. “What will you pay him, Sithas?”

  The prince thought once more of the broken sword and the terrible feeling of suffering he’d felt from his twin. “Fifty gold pieces,” he said decisively.

  Vedvedsica’s eyes widened. “A most handsome amount, great prince.”

  Father and son watched in silence as the cleric compounded his healing potion. When at last it was done, he filled a tall silver beaker with the muddy green fluid. To Sithas’s surprise, Vedvedsica took a healthy swig of the mixture himself first and seemed satisfied. Then he held it out to the prostrate speaker.

  “You must drink it all,” he insisted. Sithas handed the beaker to his father. Sithel raised himself on his elbows and downed the brew in three swallows. He looked expectantly at his son. In turn, Sithas turned to Vedvedsica.

  “Well?”

  “The effect is a subtle one, great prince, but rest assured, the speaker will shortly be cured of his fever.”

  Indeed, Sithel’s forehead had become cooler to the touch
. The speaker exhaled gustily, and sat up straighter. A tinge of color was returning to his pale cheeks. Vedvedsica nodded grandly.

  “Leave us, sorcerer,” Sithel said tersely. “You may collect your payment later.”

  Another deep bow. “As the speaker commands.” Vedvedsica produced the small bottle of unguent and began to apply it as before.

  Holding up a hand, the prince said acidly, “Out the door first, cleric.”

  Vedvedsica’s smile was wide as he departed.

  *

  Sithas left his father looking more fit than he had in a month, then proceded to make his way through the palace to spread word of his recovery. Vedvedsica wasn’t mentioned. The speaker’s recovery was reported as natural, a sign of the gods’ favor.

  Finally, Sithas went down the tower steps to Kith-Kanan’s old room. No one was around. Dust lay thickly over everything for nothing had disturbed it since his brother had left in disgrace. How long ago had it been? Two years?

  The room held all sorts of Kith’s personal items. His silver comb. His second favorite bow, now warped and cracked from the room’s dry air. All his courtly clothes hung in the wardrobe. Sithas touched each item of clothing, trying to concentrate his thoughts on his lost brother. All he felt were old memories. Some pleasant, many sad.

  A strange sensation came over the prince. He felt as if he were moving up and away, though his body hadn’t stirred an inch. Smoke from a campfire teased his nose. The sound of wind in a forest filled his ears. Sithas looked down at his hands. They were browned by the sun and hardened by work and combat. These were not his hands; they were Kith-Kanan’s. The prince knew then that he must try to communicate with his twin, but when he opened his mouth to speak, his throat was tight. It was hard to form words. He concentrated instead on forming them in his mind.

  Come home, he willed. Come home, Kith. Come home.

  Sithas forced his lips to work. “Kith!” he cried.

  Speaking his twin’s name ended the experience abruptly. Sithas staggered backward, disoriented, and sat down on his twin’s old bed. Dust rose around him. Streaks of sunlight, which had reached across the room when he came in, now had retreated to just under the window sill. Several hours had passed.

  Sithas shook the queer disorientation out of his head and went to the door. He had definitely made contact with Kith, but whether he had made the fabled Call, he didn’t know. It was late now, and he needed to see how his father was doing.

  Sithas left the room so hastily he didn’t pull the door completely closed behind him. And as he mounted the steps to the upper floor of the palace tower, the prince didn’t notice the door to Kith-Kanan’s room slowly swing open and remain that way.

  22

  SPRING, YEAR OF THE RAM

  THE DAYS SEEMED EMPTY. EACH MORNING KITH-KANAN WENT TO sit by the young oak. It was slender and tall, its twining branches reaching heavenward. Leaf buds appeared on it, as they did on all the trees in the forest. But these buds seemed a symbol, a notice that the wildwood was once again furiously and joyously alive. Even the clearing erupted in wildflowers and vibrant green growth. The path to the pool covered over in a day with new grass and nodding thistles.

  “There’s never been a spring like this.” Mackeli exclaimed. “Things are growing while you watch!”

  His spirits had recovered more quickly than Kith-Kanan’s. Mackeli easily accepted that Anaya’s change had been fated to happen, and he’d been trying to draw his friend out of his misery.

  This beautiful day he and Kith-Kanan sat on a lower limb of the oak tree. Mackeli’s gangling legs swung back and forth as he chewed a sweet grass stem and looked over the clearing, “It’s like we’re besieged,” he added. Grass had grown to waist height in little more than a week. The bare ground around the tree, scuffed down to dirt by their daily walking on it, was gradually shrinking as the plants in the clearing grew.

  “The hunting ought to be good,” Mackeli enthused. His newfound appetite for meat was enormous. He ate twice as much as Kith-Kanan and grew stronger all the time. And since the griffon had grown more skilled in bringing back game for them, they were well fed.

  With the explosion of flowering trees and plants had come the onslaught of the insects. Not the Black Crawlers of Anaya’s acquaintance, but bees and flies and butterflies. The air was always thick with them now. Kith-Kanan and Mackeli had to keep a fire burning in the hearth at all times to discourage the bees from building a hive in the tree with them.

  With Arcuballis bringing in a whole boar or deer once a day, there was little for the two elves to do. Still hoping to divert Kith-Kanan from his grief, Mackeli once more began to ask questions of Silvanost. They talked about the people, their clothing, eating habits, work routines, and more. Slowly, Kith-Kanan was persuaded to share his memories. To his surprise, he found himself feeling homesick.

  “And what about —” Mackeli chewed his lower lip. “What about girls?”

  Kith-Kanan smiled slightly. “Yes, there are girls.”

  “What are they like?”

  “The maids of Silvanost are well known for their grace and beauty,” he said, without much exaggeration. “Most of them are kindly and gentle and very intelligent, and a few have been known to take up horse and sword. Those are rare, though. They are red-haired, blond, sandy-haired, and I’ve seen some with hair as black as the nighttime sky.”

  Mackeli drew in his legs, crouching on the balls of his feet. “I would like to meet them! All of them!”

  “No doubt you would, Keli,” Kith-Kanan said solemnly. “But I cannot take you there.”

  Mackeli knew the story of Kith-Kanan’s flight from Silvanost.

  “Whenever Ny would get mad at me, I would wait a few days, then go and say I was sorry,” he suggested. “Can’t you tell your father you’re sorry?”

  “It’s not that easy,” Kith-Kanan replied defensively.

  “Why?”

  The prince opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. Why, indeed? Surely in the time that had gone by his father’s anger would have cooled. The gods knew his own anger at losing Hermathya had withered and died as if it had never been. Even now, as he spoke her name in his mind, no remembered passion stirred inside him. His heart would always belong to Anaya. Now that she was gone, why should he not return home?

  In the end, though, Kith-Kanan always decided that he could not. “My father is Speaker of the Stars. He is bound by traditions he cannot flout. If he were only my father and angry with me, perhaps I could return and beg his forgiveness. But there are many others around him who wouldn’t want me back.”

  Mackeli nodded knowingly. “Enemies.”

  “Not personal enemies, just those priests and guild masters who have a vested interest in keeping things as they’ve always been. My father needs their support, which is why he married Hermathya to Sithas in the first place. I’m sure my return would cause much unrest in the city.”

  Mackeli dropped out of his crouch. He swung his legs back and forth in the air. “Seems complicated,” he said. “I think the forest is better.” Even with the ache of Anaya’s loss in his heart, Kith-Kanan had to agree as he looked over the sunny clearing carpeted with flowers.

  *

  The Call struck him like a blow.

  It was evening, four days after the prince’s discussion of Silvanost with Mackeli, and they were skinning a mountain elk. Neither Kith-Kanan nor the boy could explain why the griffon had flown two hundred miles to the Khalkist Mountains to catch the elk, but that was the nearest source of such animals. They were nearly finished with the skinning when the Call came.

  Kith-Kanan dropped his flint skinning knife in the dirt. He jumped to his feet, hands outstretched as if he’d been stricken blind.

  “Kith! Kith, what’s wrong?” Mackeli cried.

  Kith-Kanan could no longer see the forest. Instead, he saw vague impressions of walls, floor, and ceiling made of white marble. It was as if he’d been lifted up out of his body and set down in Silvan
ost. He held a hand to his face and in place of his leather tunic and callused palm, he saw a smooth hand and a white silk robe. The ring on his finger he recognized as belonging to Sithas.

  A jumble of sensations assaulted his mind: worry, sadness, loneliness. Sithas was calling his name. There was trouble in the city. Arguments and fighting. Humans at court. Kith-Kanan reeled as it came at him in a rush.

  “Sithas!” he cried. When he spoke, the Call ended abruptly.

  Mackeli was shaking him by his tunic. Kith-Kanan broke the boy’s grip and shoved him back. “What is it?” Mackeli asked, frightened.

  “My brother. It was my brother, back in Silvanost... “

  “You saw him? Did he speak?”

  “Not in words. The nation is in peril —” Kith-Kanan pressed his hands to his face. His heart was pounding. “I must go back. I must go to Silvanost.” He turned and walked into the hollow tree.

  “Wait! Do you have to go now?”

  “I have to go. I have to leave now,” Kith-Kanan insisted tensely.

  “Then take me with you!”

  Kith-Kanan appeared in the doorway. “What did you say?”

  “Take me with you,” Mackeli repeated in a hopeful tone. “I’ll be your servant. I’ll do anything. Clean your boots, cook your food-anything. I don’t want to stay here alone, Kith. I want to see the city of my people!”

  Kith-Kanan went to where Mackeli stood, still holding his skinning knife. With the muddle of feelings clearing from his brain, he realized he was glad Mackeli wanted to go with him. He felt closer to him than he had to anyone except Anaya-and Sithas. If he was going back to face who knows what in Silvanost, he didn’t want to lose that friendship and support now.

  Clapping a hand to the boy’s shoulder, Kith-Kanan declared, “You shall go with me, but never as my servant. You can be my squire and train to be a warrior. How does that sound?”

  Mackeli was too overcome to speak. He threw his arms around Kith-Kanan and hugged him fiercely.

  “When shall we leave?” the boy asked.

  Kith-Kanan felt the powerful tug of the Call. Now, now, now. It coursed through his body like a second heartbeat. He steeled himself against the insatiable pull. It was late and there were preparations which must be made before they departed. “Tomorrow morning,” he decided.