by Lee Carlon
“I know,” Vincent whispered, unwanted memories of Luke came back to him.
“The first time I killed I was thirteen years old,” Pete said. “Thirteen! And it wasn’t no enemy either. At least, not an enemy of Rhyne. Not an enemy of Lord Benshi. It was another boy. A boy the same age as me. A boy who was drafted at the same time as me. We were bunkmates. We looked out for each other. It was part of the training they didn’t talk about when they brought you in. You got paired with another recruit. You learn to look out for each other. One night, we were dragged from our beds and taken to Benshi’s tower and thrown in a ring together and told to fight to the death.”
Corsari said, “Oh, Pete.”
“I ain’t finished.” The anger and pain in his voice were still fresh even though the events he retold had to be twenty years past. “We refused at first, but Benshi and his men were drunk, they wanted entertainment didn’t they. So they gave us a choice, one of us would die, or both of us would die. So we fought, reluctant at first, but in the end, we fought for real, fought like animals. We knew each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and we used them against each other. I clawed my best friend’s eyes out and then choked him to death.”
Pete held up his hands, his face red with remembered rage and emotion. He looked like he was throttling his friend all over again.
“I reckon we must be about the same age, you and me. Did your crazy old man ever throw you in a ring and tell you to kill your best friend?”
Vincent closed his eyes and tried to push the memories away. It was possible he’d witnessed Pete murdering his friend. He’d seen enough of the fights as a boy, though in his memory the details had all merged into one horrific battle.
“Did he?” Pete demanded.
“Yes,” Vincent said. “It was my brother Luke.”
Vincent looked up to meet Pete’s gaze. He’d never envied the men he commanded in his father’s armies, but he’d always suspected there was a rough sort of comfort to be found with others who understood what you’d been through. Pete would have found acceptance among his peers after killing his friend, but as an officer and Lord Benshi’s only surviving son, Vincent had no peers. Company offered no comfort for a man whose circumstances dictate he stand alone.
The rasp of Pete’s sharpening stone on his sword stopped. “What did you do?”
“I put a spear through his throat while he was still trying to figure out if it was real or not.”
After a moment the sharpening stone started moving again. “Sounds to me like you’re just as crazy as your old man.”
Vincent looked away from Pete. He didn’t talk about this, so why had he answered Pete’s question? Across the room, still in the lotus position, Doran watched Vincent. Their eyes locked for a moment. The girl was even younger than Vincent had first thought. She looked a year or two older than Pete and Vincent had been when they first killed for Benshi.
Into the silence, Fahlim said, “I killed a beggar when I was a boy. He was sick and probably dying anyway, but he had this beautiful thick coat. I have no idea where he would have found it—“
“You’re a pig,” Corsari said.
Vincent looked away from Doran and back to Pete who was sharpening his sword with renewed intensity.
“We’re sharing, sweet Corsari,” Fahlim said. “Anyway, this blighted beggar was in Charoon, in the middle of winter. Have you ever been to Charoon in winter? Of course, I waited until he was asleep.”
Walden said, “If we’re all acquainted now, Lord Obdurin has made the call, and we’re going today.”
“Today?” Pete asked. “Typical. We ain’t ready. I need at least a week with Green to knock him into shape. Teach him how things are done in the trenches.”
“From what I’ve seen,” Fahlim said, “You might not survive a week of knocking him into shape.”
Walden said, “Gods, Pete! He came from the frontline. He knows how things are done. Vincent has my full confidence. We’re going—”
“I ain’t interested in your confidence,” Pete said, then turning to Fahlim he said, “Or your opinion, fat man.”
“We’re going today,” Walden repeated. “Feel free to take your objections to Lord Obdurin.”
Pete’s expression became thoughtful, but he didn’t say anything else.
Vincent thought, Today! Why am I surprised?
“We have reports that Lord Marlan has mobilized his forces and will be joining the battle,” Walden said.
“Lord Marlan?” Vincent asked. He pulled a towel from a shelf to dry himself. There was still blood on his hands, and it quickly covered the towel, but he felt better, less likely to spiral out of control and lose himself. His mind grasped onto the problem. So far Rhyne and Damar were the only players in the war. “Marlan is coming in on our side?” It seemed unlikely, but unlikely as that was he couldn’t imagine any other alternatives. This could end the war.
“Gods, but you’re green,” Pete said. “Marlan might be a coward, but he ain’t stupid. He can see past the end of his own nose. He ain’t charging to our aid, Green. He’s coming in on Damar’s side in the hope that helping shove Frake’s Peak over will be enough to keep Lord Rarick from setting his sights on Turintar. Course, he’s out of his mind. I’d be surprised if Rarick doesn’t turn on Marlan’s troops the minute we’re done and then march straight to Turintar, but it ain’t no use saying so.”
Vincent wasn’t surprised. If something could go wrong, it usually did. He leaned back against the sink and thought for a moment. He’d been pulled from the frontline for a reason, no doubt connected to this news or he wouldn’t be hearing it. He glanced at the people in the room again.
Incredibly, the confrontation with Pete had calmed Vincent’s nerves and returned him to the present. Pete’s testing attacks were insignificant when compared to the struggle Vincent had just left. Pete caught Vincent looking at him, so Vincent grinned. Yes, let’s dance. We might bruise each other and even break some bones, but that is nothing compared to what is taking place on the streets below.
With a flash of insight Vincent thought, We can’t do much against an army. He asked, “Which one are we going after?”
Fahlim placed his wine glass down heavily on the table and accused, “Walden, you told him to spoil our fun?”
“I didn’t tell him.”
“Lord Rarick or Lord Marlan?” Vincent was certain he was right.
Pete said, “You ain’t worked with Obdurin afore have you?”
When Vincent didn’t answer, Pete explained, “We ain’t going after Lord Marlan or Lord Rarick.”
Vincent had been certain he was right. The more he thought about it, killing one of the lords, Gods’ Chosen both, was the only move that made any sense. Nothing else could provide the blow that would keep Lord Obdurin and Rhysin in the game. He tried to deny the sense of disappointment.
A singularity of purpose?
Pete grinned. “We’re going after both of them.”
2
The Wicked and the Unjust
Vincent climbed the stairs with Fahlim to Lord Obdurin’s audience chamber and thought, What am I doing here? I re-enlisted as a soldier. I shouldn’t be here.
He thought he’d climbed these stairs for the last time eight years ago. Then, he hadn’t expected to emerge from the audience chamber alive. Ulri’s cadre had escorted him here after Lord Benshi’s death, their loyalty transferred to Lord Obdurin in the instant he placed Rhysin’s heart on his wrist. He’d expected, he guessed Ulri and his bondsan had expected too, that as the new Lord of Frake’s Peak, Lord Obdurin would remove Vincent as a possible threat.
Vincent clenched his jaw and tried to hold back the memories. He’d spent the last eight years trying to forget his life before Lord Obdurin, but to no avail. This tower more than any other part of Frake’s Stronghold, or any other place he’d ever known, was central to his childhood and many of his adult memories.
He and Luke had played on these wide stone stairs, watched over by bu
rly bondsan. They had climbed them when summoned by their father and descended them again with scraps of paper containing messages to be run all over Frake’s Stronghold and occasionally down into Peak City below. Under their father’s protection, Vincent and Luke had been free to wander wherever their games took them, but they had always returned to the tower where they played and spied on war councils and the governing of a nation.
The memories kept coming. Vincent tried to deny them, but it was impossible.
Luke and Vincent had been called from their beds late one night and brought to this tower. A forgotten detail occurred to Vincent. It was Ulri and his cadre, children more than a decade from service as full bondsan, who had brought him here then as well.
At twelve years old Vincent had picked up the spear while Luke still gawked at their father. Vincent had known what was expected of him, and by not thinking about what he did until it was over he passed the test. When he closed his eyes, he could still feel the weight of that spear in his hand.
Cold Lord Benshi had been stunned.
Robbed of a show, some men in the crowd had grumbled, but their complaints had been cut short by sharp looks and whispered warnings from the men with them. These boys were Lord Benshi’s sons.
Finally, Lord Benshi had nodded at his youngest son, his sole surviving son, and said, “Good, boy.” But his voice had been thick with emotion, and his expression had shown...
What? What had it shown? Vincent had never seen that expression on his father’s face before, and he couldn’t read it. What had it meant?
Countless nights Vincent had been plagued by doubts. Had Benshi planned to go through with it or was it a test? Had he put his sons in the ring to see how they reacted? Was it a lesson gone horribly wrong?
Luke!
Vincent stopped short of the top step and reached out a hand to steady himself against the wall.
Two bondsan stood guard at the entrance to the audience chamber at the top of the stairs, Vincent recognized them as members of Mattatan’s cadre. Mattatan and his cadre had been raised and trained under Lord Benshi, but they’d been too young to serve Benshi as full bondsan.
Vincent blew out a labored breath. His head spun. He squeezed his eyes shut against the memories.
Luke! I’m sorry!
Lord Obdurin had spared Vincent’s life eight years ago, and Vincent had sworn never to come back to the site of his brother’s death, but how could he deny the man who had spared him?
What am I doing here? I should turn around and leave. The Gods’ games have caused the people I love enough harm. I don’t owe the Gods or their Chosen anything.
But he did owe Lord Obdurin, and he would pay in full.
Fahlim’s voice broke through Vincent’s thoughts. “Are you ill?”
Vincent opened his eyes and looked at the immortal. He searched for words, but there weren’t any.
“Your friend,” Fahlim said. “The woman who died in the city today.”
Chen! So many deaths I can’t keep track of them all.
Hardening himself against the memories, Vincent said, “I’m fine, thank you.” He took a deep breath and continued up the stairs to the antechamber. Fahlim stepped past the two bondsan guarding the entrance to the audience chamber, Vincent suspected, without even noticing them. Vincent followed the immortal, telling himself, At least it isn’t Ulri’s cadre.
A lot had changed in eight years.
The couches and the heavy rugs and the fighting circles were all gone.
Vincent’s eyes drifted to the far side of the chamber where he’d killed Luke.
I was just a child!
He focused on the circular table in the center of the chamber instead. The table was a large ring around an empty space beneath high ceilings. There were enough seats at the table for thirty people, but most of the seats were unoccupied. Even as large as the table was, it looked small in the center of that wide room.
Lord Obdurin, Vincent recognized him though they had only met once, sat in the seat directly opposite the entrance, giving him a clear view of his visitors as they arrived. Being circular the table had no head position, but Vincent recognized the chair Obdurin sat on as Lord Benshi’s throne. Vincent resisted the memories to focus. The size of the chair marked Obdurin’s place at the circular table as the head position.
What kind of Chosen has a council? The Chosen don’t seek council. They do as they will with a God’s authority to back them.
Lord Obdurin spoke to somebody, so Vincent was able to watch him unobserved. His elbows were on the arms of his throne, his fingers entwined and his chin rested on them. The sleeves of his white robes had slid down to his elbows revealing the bracelet that covered most of his left forearm. The gently glowing amber stone set against the pulse point of Lord Obdurin’s wrist drew Vincent’s eyes.
Rhysin’s heart.
Both Luke and Vincent had been fascinated by the God’s heart when it had adorned their father’s wrist. Vincent had often sat close enough to his father to study it in detail.
A memory flashed through his mind. His father was drunk and struggling to lift a small liquor glass to his lips. “Do you want it, boy?”
Vincent’s eyes had snapped away from Rhysin’s heart.
“Take it, boy. A knife will do the trick.” Lord Benshi drew a knife from his belt and pressed it into his son’s small hand. “One quick thrust and it’s yours, boy. You’ll be the youngest ever Lord of Rhyne, younger even than the boy conqueror Frake, Rhysin’s first Chosen.” Lord Benshi’s large hand had closed around Vincent’s and brought the blade up to Benshi’s own throat. “Just one quick thrust, that’s all it will take.”
The clarity of the memory surprised Vincent, but he couldn’t remember if the events in the memory had occurred before or after Luke’s death. He and his father had looked at each other for a long time, each examining the other. A confidence beyond his years had seeped into Vincent, confidence in his body and his actions and a sudden understanding that he had the power to shape the world around him. All he had to do—
Benshi had snatched the blade from Vincent’s hand and dismissed him. Vincent had left feeling as though some alien force had temporarily taken over him.
Rhysin?
Looking at Obdurin, Vincent thought, This frail old man killed my father.
Vincent’s hand twitched of its own accord to the belt where his weapons habitually sat.
Standing at the Lord’s shoulders were two hulking dimin bodyguards. Both dimin were naked except for sarongs tied around their waists. Large muscles bunched beneath their multicolored skin. The dimin on the left was crimson shot through with splashes of white, and the other was charcoal gray with narrow yellow bands cutting through his arms.
The crimson dimin turned small black eyes on Vincent, teeth and tusks bared in a silent snarl.
Vincent moved his hand away from his weapons and pulled his eyes from the God’s Chosen, horrified by what had overcome him. He didn’t want power. He didn’t want to be a God’s Chosen. He didn’t want to avenge his father. Then why did I—
He scanned the faces in the room to see if anybody other than the dimin had seen him reach for his weapons, but Lord Obdurin held everybody’s attention.
At his side, Fahlim placed a hand on Vincent’s elbow and said, “A common enough reaction the first time you get close. Hardly surprising in your situation.”
Vincent looked at the immortal and nodded his head, taking comfort from the words. Do the Gods pull all of us then? He didn’t ask the question, but he suspected he had always known the answer.
Vincent looked away from Lord Obdurin to see who else sat at the council table. Before he registered more than a vague sense of the men and women there, a young man standing behind the High Priest of Rhysin’s Circle pointed at Fahlim and shouted, “Betrayal!”
Fahlim said, “Oh be quiet, Tysin.”
“I knew it,” the young man continued, “I warned you all this day would come, but nobody listened to�
��” He trailed off as people looked up at him with bored or irritated expressions. Gathering himself, he pointed again. “That is Vincent d’Rhyne. Lord Benshi’s son!”
Fahlim approached the table and poured himself a goblet of wine. “They all know who he is. They invited him here, you fool. Oh my, but there are times I wish Rhysin’s Circle was a silent order. Tysin, you’re a tedious little man, now be quiet.”
Tysin flushed and snapped, “How you survived the Cleansing is a mystery to me. The Gods swept away the wicked and the unjust—”
“What did you say?” Vincent’s attention had wandered again to the corner of the room where Luke had died, but those words made him forget his surroundings.
Tysin’s oversized priest robes made him look like a child playing dress-up. He squared his shoulders and met Vincent’s fury, the zealotry clear in his expression. “The Gods swept away the wicked and the unjust in their Cleansing fire. That’s why it’s called the Cleansing.”
The High Priest sat at the table in front of Tysin said, “Acolyte, that is enough.”
Vincent said, “My daughter was three years old when the Cleansing struck.”
“Rhysin has a plan. He sees all.” The trace of a vindictive smile played across Tysin’s lips.
Tysin was on the opposite side of the table from Vincent, but that didn’t mean anything. Vincent reached for the knife at his belt, but Fahlim caught his arm.
“I advise calm, friend Vincent. Tysin is a toad and squashing him underfoot would be a sweet, sweet pleasure, but this is neither the time nor the place.”
Vincent stared at Tysin. Everybody in the audience chamber watched him, but he didn’t care. Grace had been three years old, and Vincent wouldn’t abide anybody claiming she’d been anything other than an innocent victim in a senseless slaughter.
Tysin said, “I know who you are. You killed your brother. I can only imagine what any get of yours would have become. I assume your brother was even worse than you and that is why Rhysin spared you of his fire.”