Everran's Bane

by Kelso, Sylvia

  “Morran!” he said. “Well done!”

  I saw the young face under the helmet flush. I also saw he was one of the rare few who could manage, quite naturally, to hold Beryx’s eye. “Sir,” he said stiffly. Then, more easily, “I’ve left a terrible lot for you.”

  * * * * *

  For the next three weeks Beryx did it, at more than his old pace. This I can vouch for, since I had to share the task. It was, “Harran, what do you think of this? Harran, what shall we do about that? Harran, will you see so-and-so, fix something-or-other, decide such-and-such,” so in those three weeks I never touched a harp. I thought he wanted to keep out of view, I feared a loss of his inherent decisiveness, and was too busy to ponder the cause. I was finding a new Treasurer, blazoning Everran’s redemption round the Confederacy, even arranging a new audience hall and rooms for Sellithar.

  It was raining hard that morning, so we had drawn the panels at the roofed end of the old hall, lit the fire, put hangings for the drafts and buckets under the drips. There was little business. More and more often it was, “Harran, will you ask the king this? See if he wants that?” It hurt me, if I understood why. But at the very end a thin, furtive man with an Estarian face and fixed, blank eye emerged from the departing crowd. He did not speak. He merely stood before the high seat and looked up at the king.

  That disquieting aedric smile began to weave in Beryx’s eyes. He held out his hand.

  Still with a tranced stare, the man slid his own hand into his cloak, and Beryx’s palm filled with the cataracted, golden-shot white fire of Maerdrigg’s maerian.

  Beryx looked into the man’s eyes. Slowly they woke, showed bewilderment, panic; he gave a wild start. Beryx shook his head. The man stood still.

  Beryx said softly, “For the nerve, I admire you. For what you cost Everran, I should roast you alive. I won’t. But if I were you, I should be in Quarred tomorrow night.”

  The man fled like a lydyr with ulfann on its track. Beryx tilted the great maerian. Then he said without looking up, “Harran, will you ride with me, one more time?”

  * * * * *

  We wore our old traveler’s clothes and took the horses we had ridden so very far. As they led up Beryx’s big dark-brown, one of the blood horses he had so loved in earlier days, he slapped its neck lightly and clicked his tongue. And did not tighten the reins, I noticed, when he swung up.

  We rode south into the dark winter rain that would heal Everran’s scars, always cold, more often wet than dry. I wondered why Beryx did not use wryvurx to shield us, and he shook his head at me. “It’s better not to meddle,” he said, “unless you must.”

  Before we reached Saphar I had noticed how little he used a bridle to manage his horse. That night, as we sat in an upstairs room of the inn at Asleax, I watched him reach over the wine jug without moving a hand. A shamefaced grin came as he caught my eye.

  “Well,” he said, “it is easier.” And thinking it little enough compensation for all the sorrow his arts had brought, I nodded and reached for my new harp.

  Next day we struck off from the Azilien into central Tirs, traveling now as Inyx had once led us, as the morvallin fly. That night Beryx found a huge old burnt-out khanel to shelter us. Next day we were high in the hills, the Helkent looming over us, slashed white with waterfalls, dark meat-red from the rain. Beryx murmured, “It will be a good season this year.”

  I did not ask our destination. I had already guessed. We found it next day, a narrow black valley running up into the mountains’ gut, stony, deserted, pathless, oddly eerie in the unbroken rain. At the mouth Beryx reined in, narrowed his eyes, and nodded. “Ker Eygjafell,” he said. “Shadows’ Home.”

  We rode in, our horses slipping and stumbling on the stones. The valley turned, showing its true head was still some way off, a black cliff with the blind mouth of a cave at its base. Something in the very atmosphere made me half rein in, and Beryx gave me a quick, warm smile. “You’ll be with me,” he said.

  The horses would not enter the cave, even in the rain, and we did not force them. We walked through what had once been a tall double doorway, into a black, dank, echoing space whose frigid air made me gasp.

  “I suppose,” Beryx remarked absently, “he expects me to see in the dark. But I can’t. Harran, did we put any wood in those saddlebags?”

  I brought him a piece of twine and five or six sticks, and he lit the torch with one quick flash. “May as well announce ourselves,” he said. “Now. The Ilam.” It is the old Everran word for a high chamber. “It’ll be up here.”

  We climbed some broken, hollowed steps, Beryx walking steadily, me treading on his heels. The high chamber was empty and cheerless as the rest. I saw Beryx’s eye alter, and knew that at some time he had seen it differently.

  “There should have been a coffer,” he said, “but I suppose that’s gone with the rest. We’ll have to do the best we can.”

  He slid a hand into his sheepskin jacket. The maerian answered the torch with a royal crimson meteor, and on its flare, in the darkness beyond us, shone two white, glowing, phantom gems.

  My blood curdled. Beryx, unperturbed, looked at the Dead and asked simply, “Where?”

  Maerdrigg retreated, or rather receded. Beryx followed. On the far side of the chamber a niche had been delved, high in the stone. He slid the maerian in. With a last flare it vanished, and Maerdrigg vanished with it. Beryx stood a moment looking into the dark, before he murmured, in pity and sadness, “Sleep well.”

  I left the Ilam backward, and the cave the same way. Only when we were clear of the valley did Beryx’s shoulders relax and he let out a long, heartfelt, “Whew!”

  “No wonder the horses wouldn’t go in,” he said, when I looked at him. “They’re all there. Darrhan, Maersal, Maerond, Darven. The whole Maerheage clan. Worse than the Quarred Tingrith. Ugh!” Then he began to whistle, my catch for the Eskan Helken saeveryr, and we rode off thankfully through the rain.

  * * * * *

  It had broken when we came down toward Asleax, so Everran lay out beneath us with that vividness only winter sunshine can bestow, azure and pigeon’s breast purple and iridescent emerald. South of Asleax they were flying the kites for Air, specks of color that ducked and towered on the shrewd, gay wind.

  As the road appeared Beryx reined in, and took a breath. “Well, Harran,” he said, matter-of-fact as if it had long been agreed to, “this is where we say goodbye.”

  The best I could do was, “G-g-g?”

  “Goodbye, yes.” His eyes danced with that disconcerting aedric mirth. “Maerdrigg’s asleep. Hawge is dead. There’s only one ghost left to lay. And if you’re going to Maer Selloth and I’m going to—where I’m going—this is where our roads divide.”

  “M-Maer Selloth?” None of it made sense.

  “Maer Selloth.” He was still smiling, eyes green and scintillant against his damp black hair and scruffy jacket and stubbled face. “Saphar may not look much, but I think it’s fit for a queen—don’t you?”

  I thought he had lost his wits. Did he think Sellithar, who had lost him for a scar, would take an aedr back? Horrific images filled my eyes: the old life in Saphar, shameful secrecy, furtive lust, more horrific images of Tenevel when I announced that the king refused to accept a divorce, the reply I should have to relay to Beryx, agonizing images of Sellithar, lost before she was found, brought back to someone else...

  I caught for a straw, any straw. “But—but—where are you going yourself?”

  His eyes took on a distance that made them wells of emerald.

  “I... don’t know yet. Eskan Helken first. There were a lot of things I didn’t learn. Then... they say there’s another ocean beyond Hethria. I haven’t used Pharaone. Some things should be seen with eyes. But an aedr could do things in Hethria too. Dam Kemreswash. Send the water south. Fengthira might be interested. Or she might travel with me...”

  It had taken me this long to reach comprehension, let be speech. Even after aedryx, some things exceed the
compass of the mind.

  “You’re going—away?” He nodded. “Right away?” He nodded again. “Leaving Everran?” He nodded once more. I was too dazed to see that every question would hit him harder than Fengthira’s that first day. “Leaving Everran?” He nodded yet again. His face was set now, stripped of its smile. “But, but, you can’t! It’s what you fought for—what you went through all that for—it’s, it’s—it’s your whole life!”

  I must have bared nerves with every phrase. He looked steadily back at me. Fengthira was right: he never had an ounce of vice.

  “Everything I fought for,” he agreed. “But the fighting’s done.”

  “But, but, but, the rebuilding!” I yelled. “Saphar, Everran, the Confederacy, the—” Now I glimpsed a catastrophe wider than his own. “You can’t, you can’t! We have to have a king!”

  At that he grinned in genuine amusement. “Of course they do. Why do you think you’ve been schooled these last three weeks? Why do you think Fengthira told me, if I’d make her welcome in Everran, to guard my harper well?”

  That winded me altogether. I could not so much as gasp. He surveyed the shimmering lowlands and spoke as if selecting a new town governor.

  “Morran’s too young, and a soldier anyway. My uncle’s a clot. The Council needs a leader. Any lord or Resh-lord would make the others revolt. Tenevel’s only a Resh-lord too. But you know the Confederacy. And kingship. You’ve traveled with me, you’ve done things yourself. The people will accept you. It’s the only choice.”

  This time speech came without any travail.

  “No!”

  “Now, Harran,” he began reprovingly, “don’t be foolish—”

  But I was beyond considering foolishness. “No, no, no! I won’t do it! You can’t lose all—give all—suffer all you’ve done and then—not to me! I won’t!” I could not even voice the ultimate shame. If I had been his savior, I was also his betrayer. That he should gift me with Everran as well as Sellithar was such injustice as the heavens would not countenance.

  “Harran,” he said gently. He waited till I looked round. His eyes were withdrawn, the marks of old suffering clear in his face. “You know better. You’ve seen how they look at me. Do you think I could bear to rule... like that?”

  I could not speak.

  “And do you think Tenevel would stomach an aedric king?” He shook his head. “More to the point: every line has its ending. I am the end of mine.”

  “Hawge said that!” I exploded. “It’s a lie!”

  He shook his head. Very gently he said, “I already knew.”

  I could only gape.

  “When it first came,” he went on in that voice like falling water, gentle, irrecoverable, “Hawge made me suspect. After Phare, I knew.”

  It was more than I could bear to contemplate, that he should find he was himself Everran’s bane. And atop that, I had betrayed him. So long it had lain between us, and it lay there still. But it could lie no longer.

  I turned my head away. Then I got out, “Sellithar—and I—”

  He answered softly, “I knew that too.”

  “If only,” I burst out in bitter, futile retrospect, “I had not ‘thought so loud’—”

  “No,” he replied quietly. “I knew in Saphar. Phare made me know I knew.”

  A pit yawned under me. When I came to him on the hill he had been raw with these manifold wounds, and it was I who reached him first. He had not only to confront Fengthira, but to look at me, speak to me, as if I were in truth a friend...

  His voice was not bitter, only sad. “I couldn’t blame you—or Sellithar. What did Fengthira tell you? ‘Horses’ morals are simpler than men’s.’ After Phare... I had to use them. So it didn’t come between us then. It doesn’t now.”

  There must, there had to be, some recompense. “We’ll go away,” I burst out. “Out of Everran. You can be king until—the new line can begin after you!”

  When he did not speak, I looked around. There was a kind of laughter in his face, the laughter with which some men meet the deepest hurts of all. He started to speak, and shook his head.

  Then he said, “Harran... Hawge didn’t lie, you know. Aedryx and dragons are—kin.”

  My hair rose. I choked.

  “You saw it,” he insisted softly. “When we did Letharthir, you thought I was Hawge. Fengthira warned me, ‘And dragons have green eyes.’ When you fought me, I felt it for myself.”

  He turned his eyes to Everran. “She lives in Eskan Helken, to avoid temptation. But I would be a king. It would be so easy. Lose your patience with one incompetent, coerce one balky council—” His eyes were still and steadfast and irredeemably sad. “I made myself an aedr. I can’t go back. Unless I leave it... I am still Everran’s bane.”

  I tore the reins through and through my fingers. The pity, the injustice, the sorrow of it was too much. Everran lay below us, scars masked by the falling sun, the thing he loved best in life, for which he had given his health, his manhood, his very humanity. And now was going, of his own will, to give the thing itself.

  “You mustn’t think I’m so unselfish,” he said softly. “Fengthira said once, ‘If tha walkst, t’will not be for any trumpery maerian.’ Maerdrigg taught me such a lesson. To waste your life, your inheritance, your very death, for a stone. If you must have an obsession, it should be worth the price. Like Everran. It will be easier leaving than you think. Everran’s still—my whole life. And I know Everran will be safer without me.”

  I thought of the Quarred clans, the Estar guild leaders, the lords like Vellan, the myriad small daily choices upon which Everran rested, as upon the harp’s firm arms the fragile strings. I think I howled aloud.

  “Of course you can do it.” His crispness told me the smile had revived. “You’ll have Morran. A reasonable Council. Tenevel to second you.” I tore my head away. He chuckled. “Four, man, if you can get me off Coed Wrock and bring me back this last time, you can do anything!”

  I looked round. He was grinning, those green eyes full of simple human mirth. Swinging down from his horse he said gravely, but with a twinkle, “Do you think you could bring yourself, without shrinking, to—er—give me a farewell?”

  When we embraced, I found I did not want to let him go. Not only for the injustice, the terror of the future, our broken comradeship, the loss of the man himself, but because I knew now why those he tranced had followed him. He was an aedr. If his going would free me of something fearsome, beyond nature, it would also leave life empty, robbed of a glamour, a savor, that only imminent peril can bestow.

  It was he who stood back first. “And,” he said, more gravely, “you really should call me Beryx now.”

  He clicked his tongue to summon the horse. Swung astride. Then he looked back, and there was no laughter in his eyes.

  “Harran?” he sounded tentative, almost appealing. “When everything’s healed... if I’m to be known hereafter as the king who forsook his kingdom, I’d like them to—understand why?”

  * * * * *

  Now, with Saphar rebuilt, Everran re-united, back in tune with the Confederacy, with Morran for my general, Zarrar for a hearthbard, and the queen to rescue this song from the jaws of our small but terrible son, I can say to him as truth what I said then as promise, there on the hill above Asleax before he rode away.

  “Wherever you are, lord, rest easy. I am still your harper. The songs will be sung.”

  THE END

  About the Author

  Sylvia Kelso lives in North Queensland, Australia, and has been writing or telling stories for as long as she remembers. Everran’s Bane is the first of the Chronicles of Rihannar, followed by The Moving Water and the third novel, The Red Country. Two of her novels, including The Moving Water, have been finalists for best fantasy novel in the Aurealis Australian genre fiction awards. Her latest novel is a contemporary fantasy duology, The Solitaire Ghost and The Time Seam, set in an alternate North Queensland. Sylvia Kelso lives in a house with a lot of trees, but no cats o
r dogs. She makes up for this by playing Celtic music on a penny whistle, and is now learning the fiddle as well.

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  Copyright & Credits

  Everran’s Bane

  eBook edition published by Book View Café

  www.bookviewcafe.com

  Copyright © 2005 Sylvia Kelso

  ISBN: 978-1-4523-4185-9

  All rights reserved.

  First published by FiveStar Books 2005

  Cover Art by Caroline Husher

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously.