He reached for the wine first, that began to take the chill from his belly, but he could not eat. He picked at a few bites, and ate some of the bread, and a bit of cheese.
The knife clattered from his hand and he had had enough. He shoved his chair back without Erij’s leave, withdrew to the warm hearth and lay down there while Erij finished his dinner. His senses dimmed, exhaustion taking him, and he wakened to Erij’s boot in his ribs, gently applied.
He gathered himself up, willing to stave off a return to that place by conversation, by applying himself most earnestly to Erij’s humors, but the Myya guards were there. They set hands on him to take him back to that place of darkness and rats, and he fought them and cried aloud, sobbing, clawing free of them: he found the table, snatched a knife and laid a man’s arm open with it before they wrested it away from him and pulled him down in a clatter of spilling dishes. A booted foot slammed into his head; when he went down his only thought was that they would take him back unconscious, and that the rats would have him. For that reason he fought them; and then a second blow to the stomach drove the wind from him and he ceased to know anything.
He still lay upon the floor. He knew light and heat and felt carpet with his fingers. Then he felt a cold edge prison one wrist against the floor, and opened his eyes upon Erij, who sat against the arm of the chair; upon the bright length of a longsword that rested over him.
“You have more staying power than you used to have, bastard brother,” said Erij. “A few years ago you would have seen reason two days ago. Is it so much you owe her that you will not even say why she has come?”
“I will tell you,” he said, “though I myself do not understand it. She says that she came to destroy the Witchfires. I do not know why. Perhaps it is some matter of her honor. But they never were anything but harm to Andur-Kursh; so she is no harm to Morija.”
“And you do not know what gain that would be to her.”
“No. She only says—somehow—she means to kill Thiye, and that is not... ” He moved his arm. The blade sliced skin and he decided against it. “Erij, she is not the enemy.”
Erij’s mouth twisted into a sour smile. “There have been more than Thiye that aspired to what Thiye holds. And none of those have meant us good.”
“Not to possess what he holds. To destroy it.”
The blade lifted. Vanye struggled to his knees, aching in head and belly, where he had been kicked. He met Erij’s cynicism with absolute earnestness.
“Little brother,” said Erij, “I think you actually believe the witch. And you have gone soft in the wits if that is so. Look at me. Look at me. I swear to you—and you know that I keep my word—that if you forsake that allegiance in truth, I will not collect the price you owe me.” The longsword flicked at his wrist. Vanye snatched it back, horrified. The blade instead leveled at his eyes, holding him like the eyes of a serpent.
“Bastard brother,” said Erij, “it has taken me these two years to learn some skill with my left hand. All for a careless, useless gesture. Romen’s efforts notwithstanding, I lost the fingers. They went before the hand. Need I tell you how I have sworn I would do if ever I had you in reach, bastard brother? Handrys may have deserved what he had of you; but I only tried to shield him at that moment—only to keep you from striking him again, I not even in armor. There was no honor for you in what you did, little brother. And I have not forgiven you.”
“That is a lie,” said Vanye. “You would as gladly have killed me, and I was less skilled than either of you: I always was.”
Erij laughed. “There is the Vanye I know. Handrys would have cursed me to my face and gone for my throat if I threatened him. But you know I will do it, and you are afraid. You think too much, Chya bastard. You always had too keen an imagination. It made you coward, because you never learned to put that wit of yours to good advantage. But I will own you were outmatched then. The years have put weight on you, and half a hand to your stature. I am not sure I should like to take you on now, left-handed as I am.”
“Erij.” He cast everything upon an appeal to reason, put utmost heart into his tone. “Erij, will you have this hall reputed like that of Leth? Let me pass from here. I am outlawed. I admit I deserve it, and I was mad to come here asking charity of Father. I would never have dared come if I had known I would have to ask any grace of you. That was my mistake. But Nhi will lose honor for you. You know that Nhi will have no part of it, or else you would not have to use Myya guards with me.”
“For what are you asking me?”
“To treat me as Nhi, as your brother.”
Erij smiled faintly, drew from his belt the shortsword, the Honor blade, and cast it ringing onto the stones of the hearth. Then he walked out.
Vanye stared after him, shuddered as the door slammed and the heavy bolt went across. Fear settled into him like an old friend, close and familiar. He did not even look at the sword for a moment. He had not asked for this, but for his release; and yet it honorably answered, more than honorably answered, all that he had asked of Erij.
At last he turned upon his knees and sought the hilt of the blade, picked it up and could not find it comfortable in his hand, even less could find the courage to do with it what was required of him to do.
It was, perhaps, safe refuge from Erij, and Erij’s last mercy was this offering: there were pains far worse than the honorable one of this blade.
But it required an act of will, of courage, toward which Erij challenged him—knowing, thoroughly knowing, that his Chya brother would not be able to do it.
And Vanye knew well enough that Erij, in his place, could. So might Handrys, or their father. There was the bloodiness in them; they would do it if only to spite their enemy and rob him of revenge.
He set it against the floor, at the length of his arms, shut his eyes and stayed there. All that it took from this point was one forward impulse. His arms, his whole body, shook with the strain.
And after a time he ceased to be afraid, for he knew that he was not going to do it. He let fall the blade and crept over to the fireside and lay down, shivering in every muscle, his stomach heaving, his jaws clamped against the further shame of sickness.
The daylight found him exhausted and placid in his exhaustion, though he did not truly sleep, save one time in the thickest darkness of the night. He heard steps returning now in the hall and had only one fleeting impulse toward doing belatedly what should have been done in dignity.
He did not even meditate killing Erij with the blade. It would be in the one case futile, for he would die for it, shamefully; and in the other, the act would be void of any honor or vindication for himself.
There were several of them that came in. Erij sent the other men away to wait outside, crossed the carpets and gathered up the abandoned blade, returned it to its sheath at his belt.
“I did not think you would,” he said. “But you cannot complain of me that I disgraced you.” And he set his one hand upon Vanye’s shoulder and dropped to his knee, took him by the arm and pulled at him, to have him up.
Vanye wept: he did not wish to, but like other battles with Erij, this one was futile and he recognized it. Then to his further shame he found Erij’s arm about him, offering him shelter, and it was good simply to fall against that and be nothing. His brother’s arms were about him after so long without sight of home or kin, and his about Erij, and after a time he realized that Erij also wept. His brother cuffed him to self-control and to sense with a rough blow and held him at arm’s length: there was the moisture of tears on Erij’s hard face.
“I am breaking oath,” said Erij, “because I swore that I would kill you.”
“I wish that you had,” Vanye answered him, and Erij embraced him in his hard grip and treated him like the little brother he had always felt himself to be with Erij, roughed his hair, which was boy’s length, and set him back again.
“You could never have done it,” Erij said. “Because you love life too much to die. That is a gift, brother. It makes y
ou a bad enemy.”
Like Morgaine, he thought. Had that come from her? But he had had in the beginning of his wandering the broken halves of his own Honor blade, that his father had shattered; his weakness was not Morgaine’s doing, but that he truly did not deserve the honor of an uyo of the Nhi. There were prices of such things, that sometimes had to be paid at the end of possessing them; and he would never be fit to pay such a price.
And he wept again, knowing that. Erij cuffed his ear gently, made him look at him. “You robbed me,” Erij said hoarsely, “of brother, mother, father, and a piece of myself. Do you not owe me some recompense? Do you not at least owe me something for it?”
“What do you want from me?”
“We made you an enemy. Handrys hated you and set out to be rid of you, and Father always found you inconvenient. Myself, I had a brother to be loyal to then. I owed things to him. How do you feel toward me? Hate?”
“No.”
“Will you come home? Your liyo has left you of her own choice. You are deserted. Your service is at an end if I pardon you so that you do not have to be ilin and go out to risk another Claiming. I can do that: I can pardon you. I need you, Vanye. There is only myself left of the family, and I—I have trouble even cutting meat at table. Someday I should need a brother with two good hands, a brother that I could trust, Vanye.”
It moved too quickly for him, this quicksilver mood of Erij: he was left amazed, and vaguely troubled, but there had been void so long where there should be family; and the solid pressure of his brother’s hand upon his arm and the offer of home and honor where he had none smothered other senses for the moment
Almost.
He shook his head suddenly. “So long as she lives,” he said, “and even beyond that, I have bond to her. That is why she could leave me. I am bound to kill Thiye, to destroy the Witchfires: this she has set on me.”
“She has set something else on you,” his brother pronounced after a moment, his expression greatly troubled. “Heaven defend a madman. Do you hear your own words, Vanye? Do you realize what she is asking of you? You could not lift your hand against yourself last night; and do you think that what she has set on you is any easier? She has ordered you to kill yourself, that is all.”
“It was fair Claiming,” he said, “and she was within her right.”
“She left you.”
“You sent her from me. She was hurt and had no choice.”
Erij gripped his arm painfully. “I would give you place with me. Instead of being outlaw, instead of being dead in this impossible thing, you would be in Ra-morij, honored, second to me. Vanye, listen to me. Look at me. This is human flesh. This is human. She is Witchfire herself, that woman—cold company, dangerous company for anything born of human blood. She has killed ten thousand men—all in the name of the same lie, and now you have believed the lie too. I will not see one of my house go to that end. Look at me. See me. Can you even be comfortable to look her in the eyes?”
You do not know how great an evil you are aiding. She lies, she has lied before, to the ruin of Koris. Ilin –oath says betray family, betray hearth, but not the liyo; but does it say betray your own kind?
Come with me, Chya Vanye.
Liell’s words.
“Vanye.” His brother’s hand slipped from him. “Go. I shall have them set you in your own room, your own proper room, in the tower. Sleep. Tomorrow evening you will know sense when you hear it. Tomorrow evening we will talk again, and you will know that I am right.”
He slept. He had not thought it possible for a man who had been deprived of conscience and reason at once, but his body had its own demands to satisfy and after such a time simply closed off other senses. He slept deeply, in his own bed that he had known from childhood, and awoke aching and bruised from the treatment he had had of the Myya.
And awoke to the more painful misery of realizing that he had not dreamed the night in the basement or that in Erij’s hall; that he had indeed done the things he remembered, that he had broken and wept like a child, and that the best there was left for him was to assume a face of pride and try to wear it before other men.
Even that seemed useless. He knew that it was a lie. So would everyone else in Morij-keep, most especially Erij, with whom it mattered most. He lay abed until servants brought in water for washing, and this time there was a razor for shaving; he made use of it, gratefully, and put off the clothing he had slept in, and washed his minor hurts before he dressed again in the clean clothing the servants provided him. In a morbid turn of mind he considered doing to himself again what Nhi Rijan had done, cutting off what growth of hair had come in the two years of his exile; and suddenly he gathered it back in his hand and did so, under the shocked eyes of the servants, who did not move to stop him. This a warrior decided, and whether it would please their lord, it was a matter among warriors and the uyin. In four uneven handfuls he severed the locks, and cast the razor on the table, for the servants to bear away.
In that attitude he went to his nightly meeting with his brother.
Erij did not appreciate the bitter humor of it.
“What nonsense is this?” Erij snapped at him. “Vanye, yon disgrace the house.”
“I have already done that,” Vanye said quietly. Erij stared at him then, displeased, but he had the sense to let him alone upon the matter. Vanye set himself at table and ate without looking up from his plate or saying many words, and Erij ate also, but pushed away his own plate half-eaten.
“Brother,” said Erij, “you are trying to shame me.”
Vanye left the table and went over to stand by the hearth, the only truly warm place in all the room. After a moment Erij followed him and set his hand on his shoulder, making him look at him.
“Am I free to go?” Vanye asked, and Erij swore.
“No, you are not free to go. You are family and you have an obligation here.”
“To what? To you, after this?” Vanye looked up at him and found it impossible to be angry: there was truly misery on Erij’s face at the moment, and he had never known prolonged repentence in his brother. He did not know how to judge it. He walked back to the table and cast himself down there. Erij followed him back and sat down again.
“If I gave you weapons and a horse,” Erij asked him, “what would you? Follow her?”
“I am bound by an oath,” be said, “still.” And then, to see if he could wring it from Erij: “Where is she?”
“Camped near Baien-ei.”
“Will you give me the weapons and the horse?”
“No, I will not. Brother, you are Nhi. I pardon your other offenses. I hold nothing against you.”
“I thank you for that,” said Vanye quietly. “So do I yours against me.”
Erij bit his lip; almost the old temper flared in him, but he restrained it. He bowed his head and nodded. “They have been considerable,” he acknowledged, “of which this latest has been one of the lesser. But I swear to you, you will be my brother, heir next my own children. And it would be a greater Morija than either I or our father ruled, if you came to your senses.”
Vanye reached for the wine cup. Something of the words jarred within him. He set it down again. “What is it you want of me?”
“You know the witch. You are intimate with her. You know what she seeks and I would wager that you know how it is to be had: that is implicit in the commission she gave you. I will warrant you have seen her use whatever powers she holds in those weapons of hers; you have passed together through Koriswood. I would even suspect that you know how they are used. I am not a man that believes in magic, Vanye, and neither, I suspect, are you, for all your Chya heritage. Things happen through the hands of men, not by wishes upon wands and out of thin air. Is that not so?”
“What has this to do with me and you?”
“Show me how these things are done. Keep your oath to kill Thiye if you will: but with my help. Remember that you are of human blood; and remember what loyalties you owe to your own kind. Listen to me! L
isten. Not since Irien has there been a power in Andur-Kursh save that of Hjemur, and this was of her making, out of her lies and her leading. Our father’s kingdom once ranked high in the Middle Realms. The old High Kings are gone now and so is that power we once held, thanks to her. And it is within our hands to win it back again, yours and mine. Look at me, little brother! I swear to you—I swear to you that you will be second only to me.”
“I am still ilin,” he protested, “and I am safe from all your promises. Morgaine’s power is in what she wields, and unless you are a liar, she still holds it. Do not challenge her, Erij, or she will be the death of you: she will kill. And I do not want to see that happen.”
“Listen to me. Whatever she means to do with the Witchfires, whatever she means to do with Thiye’s power once she has possessed it—she is no friend of ours. We exchange one Thiye for another, she holding what he held, and she more unhuman than ever he was. Look at what Thiye has done with it, and he is at least in some part man. But she... the use of such powers is like the breath of air to her, the element in which she moves; and she is ambitious, for revenge, for power, for what else we do not know. What were you to her against the ambition that moves her? Think on that, brother.”
“You said that she is camped near Baien-ei,” Vanye answered. “That does not sound to me like what she would do if she had utterly deserted me. She is waiting. She expects me to come if I can.”
Erij laughed, and the grin slowly died in Vanye’s cold, unhappy stare. “You are naive,” said Erij then. “What she is waiting for is not you, not so small a thing as that to her.”
“What, then, would that be?”
“Will you show me the manner of the power she uses?” Erij asked him. “I do not ask you to break oath. If she seeks the death of Thiye and the fall of Hjemur, I have no quarrel with that; but if she seeks power for herself, then has she not used you shamefully, Vanye? Is that the oath you swore to her, that you would help set her in power over your own people? If that were so, it was a shameful oath.”
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