Well of Darkness

by Margaret Weis

  Evaristo, who had been living off the crumbs of magic, was shown a grand feast, given a taste of wondrous power he had never even imagined. He was quick to join, one of five who traveled back to Vinnengael with the church’s recruiter.

  One might have imagined that after a chancy life of scrapping and scrabbling in the streets of Dalon’Ren, Evaristo would have entered into the ranks of the war magi. He thought so himself, at first, but his soul discovered the library, with its shelves of books, its hushed, timeless atmosphere. His soul wanted to remain there, and Evaristo granted his soul’s wish. He was admitted into the Order of Knowledge and did so well that he rose rapidly through the ranks and was now spoken of as perhaps one day being made Librarian, Head of the Order.

  When the opportunity arose to become the young prince’s tutor it seemed that he had stepped on the turnpike leading directly to this goal. After three years spent enduring the prince’s insults and bad behavior, Evaristo realized that he must have missed a signpost somewhere along the way.

  “Dagnarus is an intelligent child. It’s not like he can’t do the work. A waste! A waste!” Evaristo said to his wife in frustration, as they ate their midday meal.

  “Poor lad, it’s not his fault. I’ve known stray cats to have a better upbringing,” his wife returned, settling down to dish out the lamb en casserole. She was particular about the cooking, never leaving it to servants, as did some other housewives.

  “Half the time he doesn’t come to the sessions,” Evaristo continued. “When he does come—which is when the Queen takes it into her head to be concerned over her son’s education, a thing she does about once in every six-month, and the boy knows he cannot escape—he is rude to me. He snorts, he kicks the table, he stares out the window, he scribbles in the books. I cannot lay a finger on him, of course. Nor do I think beating him would do any good. This is excellent lamb, my dear.”

  “Not much like his brother,” observed the wife.

  “True enough.” Evaristo sighed and dunked his bread in the gravy. “Helmos is a gifted scholar, and that may be part of the problem.” Glancing out the window, which overlooked the street, to make certain that no one was in earshot, Evaristo leaned close to his wife, lowered his voice. “The one lesson Dagnarus has learned well, a lesson he learned at his mother’s knee, is to detest and despise his half brother. What Helmos is, Dagnarus is not—so the child has already determined.”

  “You’d think his father the King—may the gods bless him—would take more interest in the boy.”

  “King Tamaros wakes early and goes to bed late and still leaves the affairs of state unfinished,” said Evaristo. “He is a wise man, a great ruler; he has brought peace to the world and prosperity to Vinnengael, but only the gods are perfect, my dear. Only the gods can love that which is not worthy of love, or so we are taught. Sometimes I wonder if even the gods must find it difficult to love our Queen.”

  “Hush, dear! Not so loud,” warned his wife. Rising, she went to close the shutters. “The King’s heart may be buried with his first wife, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t love the child of his second. Dagnarus is flesh of his flesh, for mercy’s sake.”

  “Tamaros dotes on the child. He adores the child. But he doesn’t love him. And Dagnarus knows it.”

  “Poor lad,” said the wife, shaking her head. “Poor lad. More lamb, my dear?”

  Evaristo, in desperation, had come up with the idea of the whipping boy. The tutor was under no illusions. He did not think that Dagnarus would suddenly take to learning in order to spare an underling from being punished. But he might do so because, quite simply, Dagnarus could not bear to be bested at anything.

  Evaristo used Gareth to make education a competition, and although Dagnarus saw through the tutor’s plan almost immediately, the prince found it galling to know that the whipping boy was better at something than he was. Dagnarus studied grimly, hating every minute of it, and making poor Gareth so nervous in the process—for he was truly afraid the prince would come to hate him along with the books—that Gareth was relieved on those days when Dagnarus could stand the schoolroom no longer and played truant.

  A beating, though painful to the boy, was far better than being roasted in the fiery glare of the prince’s green eyes. Gareth did not mind Evaristo’s beatings, which were halfhearted and given only because Gareth was the whipping boy, after all, and it was expected. Evaristo was careful to leave marks on the backs of Gareth’s legs and his buttocks, marks which were exhibited to Dagnarus, by way of making him feel bad. They never did have the desired effect.

  “Good to see you are earning your keep, Patch,” Dagnarus would say on his return from his day of freedom. “I’m doing you a favor,” he would add with a glint of gold in his green eyes. “If you’re not beaten regularly every three-month, the chamberlain will think you an extravagance and turn you out.”

  The chamberlain. At least Evaristo seemed sorry to have to beat the boy, and the tutor always apologized very handsomely afterward. The chamberlain did not apologize, nor was he sorry to beat Gareth. On the contrary, he seemed to enjoy it. Dagnarus hated the man and was always doing or saying something to shame him or ridicule him. The chamberlain did not dare strike the prince, but he could take out his ire and frustrations on Gareth.

  To give Dagnarus credit, when he saw that the beatings were becoming more severe—the man broke Gareth’s nose, on one occasion—the prince ceased his tormenting and began to work actively for the chamberlain’s removal. This took some time, for Queen Emillia liked the man, who came from her homeland of Dunkarga. Dagnarus had his way, however, as he always did. The hunt for a new chamberlain began and ended with an elf named Silwyth.

  Silwyth had come to the royal court of Vinnengael only a few months earlier to further his education. He was about one hundred years old, which made him the equivalent of a thirty-year-old human. Dagnarus and Gareth had heard rumors of the elf’s appointment, and neither of the boys was pleased. They had seen him around the court and knew him to be cold and reserved, polite and correct, and highly disciplined, as are all elves. He looked a hopeless bore.

  As it turned out, these very boring qualities were the reason for his selection. Silwyth was chosen by the King himself this time, not the Queen, following an unfortunate incident involving the prince.

  An important visitor had come to court, one of the monks of the Monastery of the Keepers of Times. These monks are among the most revered people in all of Loerem. They devote their lives to recording history upon their bodies, tattooing events on their skin as they occur. When they die, they leave their bodies in the monastery as a permanent record of events. Held sacred by every race in the world, the monks are always accorded the very highest honors in any kingdom they visit. King Tamaros and the monk were walking through the palace when, on rounding a corner, they came upon Dagnarus and Gareth playing stick-ball.

  An unlucky hit by Dagnarus sent the ball—a bundle of rags tied together with twine—hurtling past the monk’s ear, narrowly missing striking the monk in the head.

  Dagnarus realized that he’d gone too far. He could be charming when he chose, and he apologized to the monk most graciously.

  The monk, whose robes had embroidered on them the green body of the Earth Dragon, making him a high-ranking Keeper of the Past, was very good-natured about the incident. He said something to the effect that “boys will be boys, even if the boy is a prince.” King Tamaros added his own apology and looked very grave as he led his guest away. The next day, Silwyth was appointed Master of the Prince’s Bedchamber.

  The boys first met Silwyth when their tutoring session had ended for the day. The servants were clearing off their supper dishes when he entered, escorted by the King’s own chamberlain. Silwyth was tall and straight-backed, his face pale and impassive. He wore traditional elven clothing—silk long trousers which covered the legs (elves consider it immodest to reveal the leg, even under hose) and gathered at the ankles. Over those he wore a long silk tunic, embroidere
d with hand-screened images of birds and flowers. His almond-shaped eyes were dark brown, his hair jet-black, worn smoothed back, clubbed at the nape of the neck.

  He bowed to the prince, but his bow was not servile. It was the bow of an equal, of one gentleman to another. Dagnarus was quick to notice and quick to take offense. He cast Gareth a glance that said, “We shall make short work of this fellow.”

  Gareth sighed. The elf’s arms, though thin, were well muscled.

  The King’s chamberlain performed the introductions, which were lengthy. First he introduced the prince, with all his names and titles. Then the chamberlain named the elf, the elf’s house, his father and his grandfather and his grandfather’s father.

  “Whose service were you in before you came here?” Dagnarus asked, as if he were interviewing candidates for the position of stable hand.

  The King’s chamberlain clucked his tongue reprovingly, but the prince ignored him.

  “I serve the Father and the Mother, Your Highness,” replied the elf. “After them the Divine and after him the Shield of the Divine. After him, I serve—”

  “I don’t mean that,” Dagnarus snapped. “I meant whose service. Where were you a servant before you came to Vinnengael?”

  “I am not a servant, Your Highness. I am a Lesser Guardian of the Eastern Wood, a rank that is equivalent to that of a count in Your Highness’s court.”

  “A count?” Dagnarus was surprised. He thought the elf was lying. “Then why would you want to act as my chamberlain?”

  “I have great esteem for your father, King Tamaros,” replied Silwyth, bowing as he pronounced the name. “I am pleased to serve him and his son in any capacity.”

  This wasn’t really an answer, but it was all the prince was likely to get; that much was obvious. Elves are known to be skilled at keeping their true motives secret.

  “You will call me Dagnarus,” said the prince, after a pause to digest this information. “And this is Patch.”

  “The whipping boy,” said the King’s chamberlain, with a sniff.

  Silwyth made no comment. He repeated their names with a bow for each of them.

  “You must not call him Patch,” Dagnarus continued petulantly, but only after the King’s chamberlain was well out of hearing. “I am the only one who may call him that. You must call him Gareth.”

  Dagnarus said the “you” with a sneering emphasis that was quite insulting. Gareth blushed for the prince’s bad manners. Silwyth merely bowed again and accepted the correction.

  Dagnarus turned away, his lip curled in derision. This elf offered no challenge; it was all too easy.

  The boys started to leave, for the afternoon stretched ahead of them and Dagnarus had arranged with a King’s guardsman to teach one of the prince’s dogs to hunt.

  “Where are you going, Your Highness?” asked Silwyth.

  Dagnarus tossed the bit of information to him as he might have tossed a bone to that same young dog.

  “The training of the dog must wait, Your Highness,” said Silwyth, speaking respectfully. “His Majesty is holding a levee this afternoon. You should be in attendance. I have laid out your best clothes.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Dagnarus scoffed. “You can’t expect me to waste my afternoon sitting around listening to a bunch of peasants do nothing but whine, bicker, and pass gas.”

  “Your brother, Helmos, will be there,” said Silwyth. He appeared, on second thought, to reconsider. “But perhaps I was mistaken in thinking Your Highness might want to attend. I see that you are too young to be taking an interest in the workings of the kingdom. You would probably find the talk above your level of understanding. I will put your clothes away.”

  “Wait!” Dagnarus ordered angrily, as the elf was leaving. “Why should I take an interest in the King’s business when I can do nothing to affect his policies?”

  “Can you not, Your Highness?” asked Silwyth with an arch of a black eyebrow.

  Dagnarus took his meaning immediately and was struck by the notion. It was true that Silwyth himself would not have been standing there if the prince had not worked actively for the removal of his predecessor. In those few words, Silwyth opened up an entire new play-yard for Dagnarus, the play-yard of court intrigue and politics. The prince’s cheeks flushed with pleasure and anticipation; the dog was forgotten.

  “I will attend the levee,” said Dagnarus. He hesitated a moment, then asked, “Do I need the King’s permission?”

  “I have already obtained permission for Your Highness to attend,” said Silwyth.

  Dagnarus was inclined to be angry at the elf for taking such a liberty, as well as anticipating the prince’s decision, but, with uncharacteristic self-control, he swallowed his ire.

  “Patch, run and tell Argot that I cannot come today.”

  The prince left for his bedchamber, with Silwyth in attendance.

  Gareth departed on his errand, glad to be excused from the hunting, for the boy disliked the society of the soldiers, finding them rough and crude and a little frightening. But the men had been Dagnarus’s companions practically since the day he was old enough to beg them for rides upon their warhorses, and he spent every free hour he could find with them.

  As for Captain Argot, people asked him if he did not find it irksome to have a nine-year-old underfoot, even though he was the prince. So Argot did at first. Not only was the small child a nuisance, but Argot lived in terror that the prince might be hurt or killed and that would be the end of the captain’s career and possibly his life. Argot tried as best he could, with as much diplomacy as possible, to discourage Dagnarus from hanging around the barracks.

  Eventually Argot, who was a good commander and a good man, realized that this was one battle he was going to lose. As often as he hauled the prince—dirty and smelling of horse—back to the palace, just as often did the prince sneak out again. The soldiers were becoming accustomed to having the prince around. They were flattered by his attentions and more than willing to make a soldier of the boy, especially as his older brother had a weak stomach for warfare—or so rumor had it. Argot requested a private meeting with the King to discuss the matter. The captain approached the situation thusly: if Dagnarus was going to handle the weapons and ride the horses, he should be trained in their use.

  Queen Emillia would have taken to her bed for a month had she seen her son, stripped to his waist, riding bareback on a gigantic stallion, brandishing a small sword which the men had made ’specially for him, and screaming the war paean. The fawning courtiers, who were so busy passing on all sorts of other damaging gossip about members of the court, did not tell Her Majesty what her son was doing for recreation. The reason they did not was because Emillia had a bad habit of taking out her ire on the one who brought her information she didn’t want to hear.

  As to why Tamaros would encourage his younger son’s interest in a military life, that is easily answered. The second son—the son who is not king—must find something to do with himself. The only two career paths open to a man who will most likely be a prince all his life are that of magus and soldier.

  It was obvious to everyone—even his mother—that Dagnarus would never be a scholar. Soldiering was, therefore, the obvious choice. Tamaros planned for the day when his two sons would rule Vinnengael; one son the wise and just king, the other son the people’s trusted guardian.

  As Evaristo had told his wife, only the gods are perfect.

  Gareth knew his way around the palace fairly well, by now—the private quarters, that is. He had no business in the public part and so rarely went there. The one time he had ventured into the rooms where the King and Queen held audience, he hadn’t liked it. Courtiers like his father stood about in knots whispering and murmuring, or laughing boisterously, all of them hoping for a chance to catch the King’s eye.

  Dagnarus and Gareth were free to roam the private quarters, and the boys flattered themselves that they knew it better than anyone else, having discovered several secret passages which the
y fondly believed were known to them alone. In truth, the passages were part of the castle’s defenses, should it ever come under attack, and were well known to all the castle’s inhabitants. The boys used these narrow hallways and hidden doors to play at war themselves and to spy upon the maidservants while they were undressing.

  One of these corridors provided a shortcut from the upper levels of the palace down to the courtyard and thence to the barracks. Here Gareth found Argot, who had the prince’s dog on a lead and was scratching the animal behind the ears.

  Gareth told the captain the prince would not be able to hunt that afternoon. Argot nodded and without a word handed over the dog to another soldier, who led the animal back to the stables and turned him loose. The dog gleefully rejoined its fellows and dashed off to chase rats.

  Gareth liked Argot, who was not rough and loud and vulgar as were most of the other soldiers. He was young for a captain, being only twenty-eight, but he was well trained in his profession, well suited to command. Argot took his duties seriously, seldom smiled, and never spoke unless he had something to say. He did not ask why the prince could not come, but Gareth was bursting with his news and eager to tell.

  “His Highness has gone to attend the King’s levee,” he said, swelling with borrowed importance.

  “Hunh,” grunted another soldier, an old grizzled veteran who had so many battle scars twining his body that he looked like a gnarled old tree. “The King’ll be turning the boy into another bloody book-reading clerk, just like his brother.”

  Argot cast the man a sharp glance. “Mind what you say, Barr. Small vessels hold lots of water, and they have been known to crack and spill their contents.”