by Hal Emerson
“Quiet now,” said the Fox, his golden eyes glowing, his half-burned face still turned toward the Prince, “or I will have to silence you.”
“He has a point brother,” the Prince said, stepping forward, putting himself between Davydd and Tiffenal and at the same time trying to get close enough that the Talismans would begin to offset. How close did he need to be? They must already be interfering with each other somewhat – he’d been able to wound Tiffenal when he’d thrown the dagger. But would it be enough to kill him?
“Ah yes,” said Tiffenal, “but here you are to kill me. Is that really moral of you? Killing your own brother? That might be the only thing you’ve done that I haven’t.”
The Prince stopped dead, suddenly unable to move.
“What is immoral?” Tiffenal asked, his golden eyes hypnotizing. “Why do you believe that killing a man is something that shouldn’t be done? They all die eventually. Not a single person outside of the Empress and her Children will live forever. Not a single person besides you of course.”
Again, that bone-chilling smile sent shivers down the Prince’s spine, and the cold comment, offbeat and shockingly, unexpectedly true made him waver.
“Don’t listen to him!” Davydd hissed.
And then Tiffenal flowed forward, making straight for Davydd. The Prince reacted as quickly as he could, and still he wasn’t fast enough. One of the short swords lanced out and caught Davydd on the wrist, knocking the Valerium blade from his hand. Tiffenal turned inward, the opposite way one would expect, and threw Davydd over his shoulder in a rolling move that sent the Eshendai flying through the air. He crashed in a heap just before the throne and immediately bars inscribed with the Bloodmage hammer-and-sickle sprang up around him, holding him in place. Another trap.
The Prince raced forward to engage his brother, but Tiffenal beat aside his thrust and spun away, putting distance between them once more.
“I know you brother,” said Tiffenal, still circling, staying just outside the Prince’s reach.
“I know you and you are not what they have made you out to be. You are not this strange, noble hero. You are the villain … you have always been the villain, since before you were born. Even now, in your Exile, you bring death to the Empire just as it was foretold. And your friend here tells me that my city is immoral … that my pet pleasures are immoral … why? Because you simply haven’t the stomach for them? Because you aren’t accustomed to the sight of blood?”
The Prince felt a sickness rising in the pit of his stomach, and a feeling of dread. He realized numbly that he had stopped moving, had stopped trying to get closer to Tiffenal, and was now just listening. Listening to words that struck him like icy daggers, digging deep into his mind and worrying away at the holes his nagging doubts had already chewed in the arguments he had so carefully crafted for himself.
“Well believe me when I tell you that as time goes on and you watch the world move around you,” said Tiffenal, no longer smiling, “you will find yourself bored as I did. You will find yourself unable to see life as anything but a continual prison, from which you wish you could escape. You will see all you have ever loved crumble and die around you, assuming Mother or the other Children don’t manage to strike at you in the night. You will spend eternity running from the shadowed dagger of an assassin. Every man, woman, and child that you come to love – yes, even that young woman who tore you away from us – will die and leave you. Blood is all you will see brother. Death, and destruction, and pain. That is all the world is – and you come to me and tell me that my city, the place where all that is true about life is worshiped, that it is I who have mistaken? That it is I who am immoral? I, who am the truest representation of this world? I am what my Mother made me, as are you, as are we all!”
Raven felt himself falling, and then a painful jolt as he cracked his knees against the marble floor. His sword lay forgotten by his side, dropped from his numb hands. It all seemed so hopeless.
“And you say I am immoral,” hissed Tiffenal, walking toward him now. “I take pleasure in the same things that life takes pleasure in. I kill, as does the world. Things die – as you know so well. What is life but a collection of memories? What is pain but a bundle of sensations? I, unlike the common masses that believe they will be rewarded for their virtues in life by the Immortal Empress, I know that this is all that will ever be. I know that I will never die! I know that life only continues for me, that I am one of the privileged few – so why can I not take joy in that which pleases me? Why is it immoral to kill? GIVE ME A REASON BROTHER!”
The Prince looked up, the world spinning around him, and realized Tiffenal was staring murderously down at him.
“This is the question you ask the people you torture,” the Prince said, suddenly understanding. “This is what no one has ever been able to tell you.”
“Well done brother,” Tiffenal said, unsheathing a dagger, a long, cruel thing, like a spike of steel that gleamed white as bone in the harsh light of the chamber. “And I mean that sincerely too, you’re the first of the Children to guess it. Not even Geofred could see it … him with all his foresight. So mindful or the future, yet so woefully inept at reading the present.”
Tiffenal took another step forward, almost within striking range.
“All men die. And who is there to judge me? Who is there to judge you? To judge anyone? The Seekers spread their religious dogma about the Empress, they tell all of the Commons that she is the Immortal Goddess, and they all believe it … but in the end, she is no different from us. If she is a god, are not we too? And if we are not gods, do we not have the right to do as we please? We have the power to decide life and death. We have power – to what other purpose should it be put but to satisfy our own ends? And if I kill a man – who shall strike me down? I have killed thousands of men, as you well know. I’ve raped women by the hundreds. Men as well, though that’s less to my liking. Yet here I stand, unbowed, unbeaten. If there were another God, or any God, would I still be here? Would I be able to control fate as I do? There is no such power, you know it as well as I. You harvest the very souls of the men you kill! You are more immoral than I shall ever be … you, in full knowledge of the pain you cause, kill to serve your own ends. If I am immoral, are not you too?”
Tiffenal took one last step forward, and the Prince looked up into his brother’s face, that cruel mask of mingled hatred and pleasure; the horrible look of dark happiness that came from knowing life contained horror and reveling in his ability to take part in it.
“What is hope but the deluded denial of the hardships of this world? What is loyalty but fear called by another name? What is love but the delusion that another person’s presence will stop the pain of living?”
Leah crossed his mind then, unbidden, and then so too did Tomaz, his truest friend. The image of Autmaran was next, the vision of him standing on the ancient Forum floor, speaking about the world the Kindred would make together. And finally Elder Goldwyn, looking him in the eye, telling him to be the Prince that could change everything. He looked up.
“I can’t answer any of your questions,” he said quietly, and Tiffenal’s smile widened. The Fox was sure he had won. “But I believe in a world where those questions do have answers, a world the Kindred see in their dreams.”
Tiffenal’s smile became a disgusted snarl of contempt.
“I’m going to change the rules,” said the Prince, “and the world we make together will be better than any world the Children could have torn apart.”
And then there was a crash of sound as a metal bar fell to the ground and a blurred shape, blinding white, flew across the room to sink into Tiffenal’s side.
The Prince of Foxes screamed, a sound like claws ripping though the fabric of eternity, and the Prince of the Veil felt something inside him clang violently, a harsh cacophony that rang in counterpoint to his brother’s cry.
The trap the Fox had set to hold Davydd broke; the rest of the bars fell and the young man ran forward, ra
cing so quickly it looked as though he was barely touching the floor, his red eyes full of murder. He held out his hand and pulled, as if on an invisible chain, and in response the sword buried in the Fox’s side freed itself and flew to the young man’s hand.
Tiffenal staggered back – out of the reach of the Prince, and, the veins in his blackened, burned face glowing like burnished gold, swung wildly at Davydd just as he came in range, connecting by pure chance with the young man’s arm.
The sword he was holding hit the weak point of Davydd’s armor, and there was a sharp crack! sound as bone broke and the white Valerium blade dropped from the Eshendai’s hand and skittered toward the Prince, the sound of it drowned out by the scream of pain that issued from Davydd’s throat.
The Prince, eyes still clouded with confusion, grabbed for his sword, felt his hand grasp a wired hilt, and raised the blade to his brother’s throat. He was inside the immediate reach of the Fox Talisman – he was close enough that Tiffenal’s luck would have no effect now.
“Yes,” Tiffenal said, golden eyes hypnotizing the Prince, “kill me. Come! Slay me, take my life, see through my eyes. Maybe then you’ll understand the true meaning of life, the true meaning of power. There is no such thing as morality – there is only this, here, reality, and the terrible horrors that we commit in the name of gaining power, in the name of preventing pain.”
“Don’t listen,” Davydd hissed, startling the Prince, whose hand had begun to waver. “Think about what my father would say. Think about what this man has done – think about the people you will save by taking this one life!”
“Yes,” Tiffenal mewled, taking up where Davydd had left off, “kill me and save countless others. And soon you will kill two to save three, five to save ten, fifty to save a hundred, and then, then you will know pain as I have known it, and you will hate this life, and wish yourself dead as all of those you killed.”
“Don’t listen to him!”
“Yes,” Tiffenal mocked, “listen to the boy, he knows all the answers! He, with his many years of wisdom!”
Davydd and Tiffenal continued to shout, but silence was the only thing the Prince heard. It wrapped around him suddenly, cocooning him, and the importance of the moment seemed to die, and a simple, warm feeling came to him then, and words echoed in his mind, coming to him across the long divide of months, ringing as if newly spoken:
Be the Prince you were meant to be – the one the world needs.
He pulled back the sword, and swung.
The blade bit deeply into Tiffenal’s neck, cutting off the Fox’s words, and he watched as the golden light flickered and died in his brother’s eyes. Strength flooded into him, along with the biting, metallic smell of blood, gushing hot and dark from Tiffenal’s failing body, running down the Prince’s arm, pattering to the ground like the soft murmur of rain.
And then the memories. But this time the Prince was prepared, having gone through Ramael’s death, ready for the crystal clear memories of centuries worth of torture and cruelty. Bracing himself, he let his mind go blank, allowing his brother’s life to wash into him like a torrential flood.
Pain – and then the feeling that his mind had been split in two. There was another consciousness there, another mind, as Tiffenal’s memories came rushing in, searing him with their clarity, forcing his own mind to work twice as hard for lucidity; a drowning swimmer struggling under the weight of another’s body.
Something is wrong.
The sensation of pain increased, as if hooks had been sunk into both sides of his mind and were being pulled viciously in opposite directions. But the memories continued to play: growing up under the painful tutelage of Rikard, the only solace his stoic twin sister Dysuna; the realization that he took pleasure in the same kind of pain that had been inflicted on him; the long years spent neglecting the wider world, focused only on his own city and the perfection of his art …
And then the Prince heard screams echoing in his head and he sobbed under the sound of their pain; the screams of thousands of men and women subjected to Tiffenal’s affections.
Screams echoed by Davydd Goldwyn, who was doubled over in agony as his hands clutched the skin of his face – skin that was burning, blackening, sloughing off from the heat of a bright, gold fire.
The Prince cried out, fighting through his brother’s memories –
He tripped over something as he moved toward the Eshendai, something white and long, that skittered away across the floor with the clatter of metal …
Aemon’s Blade.
Numb with shock and confusion, the Prince looked down at the blade he was still holding in his hand, the blade coated with Tiffenal’s blood, and realized it wasn’t his. Wider and heavier, with a thick crossguard and a heavy pommel shaped like a long, curved fang …
Davydd’s sword.
“AHHHHH! MAKE IT STOP! PLEASE!!! OH GOD!”
As if bidden to return by the Eshendai’s screaming, the memories attacked him with terrible power, and the Prince dropped the sword, sickened by the intensity of the images, harsh and brilliant in their clarity; images of men and women killed and tortured in terrible ways that left him shaking and teetering on the verge of insanity. A young boy disemboweled and artistically hung up as a decoration. A man whose head had been replaced by a pig’s. A woman forced to endure rape after rape until she died. The Prince turned and vomited onto the spotlessly clean audience chamber floor.
But he’d known what he was up against. He’d known what his brother was capable of, he’d known he would see this. He knew he’d experience his brother’s pleasure at seeing such things as if it was his own, feel the duality in his mind, the split between himself and his brother. Davydd, however, had not. And now he was being forced to endure nearly two centuries of a life lived in deep and dark depravity, all while being burned alive by the Talisman of the Fox.
For that was what was crawling along his neck, up his burned and blackened chin, as if molten gold had been injected into his veins, burning him from the inside, cursing him.
The Prince rushed to Aemon’s Blade. His hand grasped the wire hilt, cold against his skin, at direct odds with the heat of the memories rushing through his mind. Turning, he stumbled and limped his way over to Davydd, his limps jerking as if pulled by invisible marionette strings, as if some vestigial part of Tiffenal was still with him, trying to gain control over his body.
He placed a hand on Davydd, and reached through the Raven Talisman, cradling Aemon’s Blade, trying to force the pain from the other man as he had done to Tym in Vale.
Immediately, the pain in the Prince’s own body doubled, and he was nearly sick again. A cold, draining weakness fell over him, but the flesh on Davydd’s face continued to smoke, and the young man continued to weep. The Prince, sobbing now as well, reached deeper, pushing life into Davydd – and as he did, he felt his own face begin to prickle and burn, as if it had been sunburned, and then harsher, as if he were inches away from a heated piece of metal.
But the effort was too much, and his vision began to darken, and he was only just able to hang on to consciousness. The Prince took a deep breath, one that shook and quivered like a house in a heavy storm, and kept pulling anyway, focusing now on the Fox Talisman, trying to pull it out of the Eshendai.
“It was supposed to go to me,” he said under his breath, through gasping, panting convulsions of effort. “It’s my burden, not his!”
But the golden lines wouldn’t retreat. They didn’t even slow, but continued their inexorable creep across his face.
“DAMN!!” Roared the Prince, as he fell backward, stumbling to his feet. The cold left him, and so did the burning sensation on his face. He spun and cursed again, Kindred and Imperial slurs mixing together, as the memories continued to pound inside his head.
- Well darling, how do you feel after the irons? Please be specific now, this record will be kept for my own pleasure after you’ve expired –
- How many men have had their turn? Very well, I suppose
we shall end it, she won’t be good for any more. Would you like to do the honors Jalyn, or shall I? I so enjoy the sight of spoiled blood –
- “Geofred came to pay me a visit,” Tiffenal said. Dysuna, Prince of Wolves, walked toward him, her slow, steady, loping pace both dangerous and highly efficient, not wasting a single step.
“Did he now?” She growled at him. “He came to see me as well, I’m to be the lid that keeps them sealed in Banelyn. I’m supposed to pretend I don’t know they’re going to try to get past me.”
“Are you seeing this?” Davydd rasped through clenched teeth.
The Prince of the Veil turned and saw that the Eshendai was sitting up, peering at the Prince through a haze of what must have been indescribable pain.
“The Prince of Eagles is waiting in Banelyn. It’s a trap.”
“You can see it?” The Prince asked in amazed horror.
“They’ll all be killed,” Davydd gasped out, only managing to remain seated upright with a supreme effort of will. Raven went to him then, and grasped his hand, helping to support him. “It’s a trap, the Eagle anticipated it all.”