Blood of Mystery

by Mark Anthony

  Kelephon let out a chuckle. “Shout all you want, Your Majesty. They won’t hear you.”

  “The rune of silence,” Falken said, gaining his feet and moving close to Grace. “He’s bound it here somewhere.”

  “Indeed,” the runelord said to the bard. He glanced at Grace. “Not that it was truly necessary. Even if my men could hear you, they would hardly be inclined to believe you. After all, you’re a heretic and a usurper—hardly the most trustworthy sort. Even worse, you traffic with workers of magic.”

  Grace crossed her arms, hoping to hide her trembling. “You seem to know an awful lot about me.”

  “Oh, I do, Your Majesty. You see, I’ve been watching you ever since you were an infant.”

  “So you could kill me?”

  “On the contrary, so I could take you and raise you as my own daughter.”

  Grace had been prepared for any words but these. “What?”

  Kelephon leaned close to her; his breath smelled of stones. “Yes, Ralena. Your parents were beyond hope—I would have killed them no matter what that day. But I would have taken you. I would have nurtured you as my own child.”

  “You would have poisoned her, you mean,” Falken spat. “You would have stolen Ralena, fed her lies to make her your slave, and when she was older you would have bid her retrieve Fellring. Then you would have commanded her to give up her blood for you, and she would have done so willingly.”

  Kelephon shrugged. “You have to admit, it was rather elegant. Only you ruined it all with your interference, Falken, you and that tart Melindora. Granting you immortality was yet another example of Dakarreth’s idiocy. You hid Ralena somewhere beyond my reach. Only now she’s back. And while things have been more difficult than if my initial plan had succeeded, it’s of no great matter.” He turned his cold eyes on Grace. “Whether you are my willing slave or not, Ralena, your blood—and your sword—will be mine.”

  He’s come to gloat, Grace realized. He didn’t come here to tell us anything in particular—he just wants to show us how much power he has over us. That’s why we’re out here in plain view instead of in a cell belowdecks. A hard feeling rose within Grace, and it took her a moment to understand that it was disdain.

  “How did you find us, Kelephon?” Falken said. “As far as you knew, Grace wasn’t even on Eldh anymore.”

  The bard’s voice was gruff, his posture dejected, but Grace caught a gleam in his eyes, and she was certain Falken had come to the same conclusion about Kelephon she had. This was their chance to get information out of the runelord.

  “It was a stroke of good fortune,” Kelephon said, his voice edging into a croon. “You see, I happened upon an old friend of yours and Melindora’s. What was his name? It was something about a book. Yes, that was it—his name was Tome.”

  Falken’s eyes went wide. “No!”

  “Your friend was most helpful.” Kelephon’s thin lips pulled back in a smile. “Before I met him, I had begun to despair that I would ever make Fellring my own, that I would have to find a way to work my plans without the sword. Then I came upon your friend Tome in the Winter Wood. Don’t you think it was reckless for a frail old man to be walking there alone? And do you know, I think he was looking for you, Falken? After a bit of encouragement, Tome revealed that Ralena was once again on Eldh. After that, it was trivial. The Pale King has spies everywhere, and they were given a description of what to look for. Soon, I learned that Ralena had been seen in the town of Galspeth.”

  Grace pressed a hand to her forehead; she felt feverish. “Esolda,” she said. “The tailor’s daughter. She saw my necklace. She must have reported it to a local leader of the Raven Cult. That’s how the Onyx Knights knew to pursue us.”

  “Tome,” Falken said, his voice a croak. “What did you do to him?”

  Kelephon let out a dramatic sigh. “It was foolish of him to resist my runes. What he might have given to me freely, I was forced to take from him instead. By the end, there was no more substance to him than an old rag. And even as I watched, he melted into the air, and the wind blew him away.”

  Falken bowed his head, and Beltan leaned back against the post and let out a roar. However, Vani looked puzzled; the T’gol hadn’t met the gentle, golden-eyed man. Tome had been one of the nine lesser New Gods who had forsaken their celestial homes, who had taken human guise to walk the face of Eldh and work against the Necromancers. Now he was gone, and Melia was the last of her kind. A pang of sorrow passed through Grace, but a moment later it was subsumed by anger. Who did Kelephon think he was to destroy a being so mild, so beautiful?

  Then again, what was a single person—former god or not— to the runelord? Hadn’t he corrupted an entire nation?

  “How did you do it?” she said, knowing he would be only too happy to tell her. “How did you make the Onyx Knights believe you’re the heir to Malachor?”

  Kelephon let out a laugh of pure delight. “It was easier than I could ever have imagined. For centuries they dwelled in Eversea, pining for their precious lost kingdom, feeling sorry for themselves. They thought it was their fault Malachor fell. They thought they should have been able to save it. So they fled to Eversea, and there they spun stories and forged plans for the day when they could return to Malachor and restore the kingdom. It was all quite pathetic, really. For no matter how they schemed, there was one thing they were missing: a royal heir.”

  Falken roughtly wiped his eyes. “So you gave them one. Yourself.”

  “Precisely,” Kelephon said. “And they were all too willing to believe my tale. I told them I could show them the way back to Malachor. I gave them new armor and new purpose. And I told them it was the Runespeakers and Witches who had caused the downfall of Malachor, that they had thrown their lots in with the Pale King and betrayed the shining kingdom. So the crusade to reclaim the blessed land began. We took Eredane first, then Brelegond. Embarr will soon be ours as well, and then the rest of the Dominions will fall before us.”

  Grace couldn’t suppress a shudder. The Onyx Knights believed they were working against the Pale King, and all the while they were clearing the way for Berash to ride again.

  “But you still needed Fellring,” Falken said. “Without it, the Onyx Knights would only follow you for so long.”

  Kelephon’s gaze flicked to the cracked blade in Grace’s hands. “I tried to get it once before, three hundred years ago, and that was when I learned that only one of Ulther’s blood could touch it. A score of my knights were burned to bits trying to pry it from the throne in Ur-Torin. It was quite remarkable.”

  “I don’t understand,” Falken said, sorrow replaced by confusion. “How could you have set foot in the throne room? I don’t know what befell Toringarth in the years since, but surely three centuries ago Ur-Torin was still a living city. The king’s wolf-warriors would have stopped you.”

  A smirk crossed Kelephon’s face. “What wolf-warriors?” He made a breaking motion with his hands.

  The blood drained from Falken’s face. “No,” he whispered. “You monster. You broke the rune of life, didn’t you?”

  Grace struggled for comprehension. “What are you talking about, Falken?”

  The bard’s voice was hoarse. “It took all of the Runelords working together to bind so powerful a rune as the rune of life. Only a few such disks were ever made. Then the Runelords realized the folly of their deed, and all of the runes were undone.” He looked at Kelephon. “Only you must have kept one in secret.”

  “I don’t understand, Falken,” Vani said, her voice breathless from the tightness of her bonds. “Why does it matter if he broke this rune of life?”

  “Breaking a rune negates its power. So by breaking the rune of life...” Falken staggered.

  Amazement filled Grace, and dread. “It destroyed every living thing in the city. All of the animals, all of the people— everything alive simply vanished.”

  “And likely for ten leagues all around,” Falken said, his face ashen. “A rune so powerful would hav
e a long reach.”

  “So that’s why we didn’t see any signs of a war,” Beltan said softly.

  “But the magic was wasted,” Kelephon said, his tone annoyed. “No one could touch the shards.” He glanced at Falken. “Only then I learned from one of my spies that you and Melia had managed to preserve the royal line of Malachor in secret all these centuries. Clever bard. I honestly didn’t think you had such strength in you. I suppose you must have cut the infant from Queen Agdela’s corpse. As if preserving her child really made up for murdering her.”

  Falken opened his mouth, but only a strangled sound came out. The bard’s face was stricken.

  Beltan glowered at the runelord. “What’s he talking about, Falken?”

  “What’s this?” Kelephon pressed a gauntlet to his chest, feigning a look of surprise. “I thought you were a teller of tales, Falken. How could you neglect to tell your dear friends such an important story—you know, the one in which you kill the king and queen of Malachor with a song? Well, if you haven’t told them the tale, then I will.”

  Grace willed herself to turn away. She didn’t want to hear. However, she stood frozen, unable to do anything but listen to the runelord’s mocking words.

  “When I first met Falken, he was a lowly traveling bard who performed in any tavern or inn that would take him. Of course, his name wasn’t Falken then. It was Tythus Mandalor. He was the son of Madrus Mandalor, who had been banished twenty years prior for high treason. You see, Madrus Mandalor had sold himself for gold to spies of the Pale King, who even then was beginning to stir once more. However, Madrus was discovered, and only the king’s mercy saved his neck—although he met his end not long after, in the wilds south of Malachor.”

  A moan escaped Falken. Grace’s throat tightened so that she couldn’t swallow.

  Kelephon circled around the bard. “I suppose Falken never told you he was the son of a traitor. Treachery was in his blood—I could see it that day I met him, in a tavern in the city below Castle Malachor, even though he didn’t know it himself. He told me he wanted more than anything to become a royal bard, to play for King Hurthan and Queen Agdala. Since he knew I was a runelord of great power, he asked me what he should do. I told him he needed a new name—one not tainted by treason—as well as a new lute if he was going to achieve his desire.

  “The name came easily enough, and he took to calling himself Falken Fleethand. The lute was another matter. He didn’t have the gold to buy an instrument worthy of a king’s ear. So I told him a tale, one about an enchanted lute that was said to lie in a cave deep in the Winter Wood, left there by a bard of the first days of Malachor. I warned him that there was danger in magic, that there was likely a good reason the ancient bard had hidden the lute there, but I knew by the light in Falken’s eyes that he hardly heard my warnings.

  “Falken found the lute, of course, returning in triumph to Malachor. Again I warned him of the perils of magic, but he wouldn’t hear me. He made straight for the castle and begged an audience with the king and queen. He was granted it. There, in the throne room, Falken Fleethand played for their majesties, and the music that rose from the instrument in his hands was like nothing the listeners had ever heard before. It was beautiful: as fine, as bright, as quavering as strands of spider’s gossamer beaded with dew.

  “The queen, who was heavy with her first child and weary from the burden, was especially delighted with this entertainment, and she bid the bard to play on. And on. And on. As day turned to night and day again, the courtiers yawned and slumped in their chairs, and Falken’s fingers began to bleed. Still the queen begged for more songs, each request growing more urgent and demanding, her voice growing more shrill, her eyes wide and staring. The king became concerned, and at last he laid a hand on her arm and begged her to let the bard stop. However, when he did, she flew at King Hurthan, the man she loved more than life itself, in a rage. Queen Agdala plucked a long needle from her hair and—as all in the throne room looked on—she plunged it into the king’s eye, driving it deep into his brain.”

  Despite the icy air, Grace felt hot and sick. Falken stood still now, as if carved of stone. Beltan’s expression was anguished, but Vani gazed at the bard with curious gold eyes. Kelephon was grinning.

  “The queen stared at the king’s body and the needle in her hand, as if not comprehending what had happened. The courtiers stared, dumbfounded. I was the first to act. I strode forward and snatched the lute from Falken’s hands. I broke it open, then I showed all in the throne room the rune that had been inscribed, in small and secret fashion, inside the lute. It was the rune of madness. As Falken played the lute, it had worked its magic on the one who listened closest—Queen Agdala. The bard’s music had driven her mad, and in her madness she had killed the king. But once the music ceased, she returned to her senses. A terrible cry rose from her, and she ran from the castle before anyone could stop her. It wasn’t until the next day her body was found in the woods, her throat torn out by the fangs of what all supposed had been wolves.” Kelephon spread his hands. “And that’s how Falken murdered the king and queen of Malachor.”

  Silence descended, broken only by the snap of the sails and the whistle of the chill wind through the ropes. At last Falken looked up, his expression shattered. “I had examined the lute when I found it in the old cave, but I had never thought to look inside. I should...I should have...” He hung his head; the wind tangled his black-and-silver hair.

  It had all been so long ago. The horror Grace felt was hollow and distant, but it was no less terrible for it. The queen had loved the king, and she had killed him. True madness must have come when she realized what she had done. “What happened after that?” she said, but she was fairly certain she knew the rest of the story.

  Kelephon stalked around her. “Falken was thrown in the dungeon, but before his fate could be decided by the king’s Warden, an army surrounded the castle—an army of feydrim and wraithlings, led by the Necromancer Dakarreth. Without its king, Malachor was in chaos. The blessed kingdom of light, which had guarded the Rune Gate and the vale of Shadowsdeep for three centuries, fell to the invaders in a single day. Except for a few hundred who escaped to the west, all the people were slain.” The runelord’s breath was hot and moist against Grace’s neck. “So much for the glory of your kingdom, Your Majesty.”

  Beltan let out a snarl. “Get away from her.”

  Kelephon gave the blond knight a dismissive look, then returned his attention to Grace. “As for what happened next, Falken will have to tell you. All I know is that, in a rash act quite in fitting with his flawed character, Dakarreth freed Falken from the dungeon. As both punishment and reward, Dakarreth cut off Falken’s hand—the one with which he had played the cursed lute—and granted him immortality. After that I can only imagine that Falken somehow came upon the body of the queen and cut the babe from her womb before it died.”

  They looked at Falken, but the bard only shook his head, his shoulders hunched. “It was my fault. By my hand Malachor fell. It was all my fault.”

  Sorrow filled Grace’s heart. And then anger. It was time to put an end to this charade. Seven centuries was far too long to believe in such a cruel lie. She placed a hand on the bard’s shoulder.

  “No, Falken,” she said, her voice low and certain. “You didn’t cause the fall of Malachor.”

  Falken looked up, his eyes hazed with pain and confusion. “You heard the story, Grace. It’s all true. I played the cursed lute, I drove the queen mad. It was my fault.”

  Kelephon let out a snort of disgust. “Come now, Falken. Do you honestly believe the fall of Malachor was really about you? What arrogance. Has the truth never dawned on you in seven hundred years? Even Ralena can see it plainly.”

  Falken gaped as the runelord moved closer to him.

  “Did it never occur to you,” Kelephon said, words honed like knives, “how Dakarreth was ready with his army just at the moment the king and queen perished? And how do you think you found the lute in the f
irst place? Well, if you’re too dull, let me be the one to tell you. It was I who put the lute in the cave. It was I who bound it with the rune of madness. And it was I who told Dakarreth to be ready. You, Falken, were nothing more than an instrument in my hands.”

  Falken staggered. “What—?”

  The runelord jabbed a finger at the bard’s chest. “You didn’t cause the fall of Malachor, Falken. I did.”

  58.

  For a minute, Grace feared that Kelephon’s words had acted like the rune of madness upon Falken. He slumped to his knees, and his face seemed oddly slack, like that of a stroke victim.

  “It seems the bard has come undone,” Kelephon said, smirking.

  Grace knelt beside Falken and laid a hand on his brow. He was feverish.

  Beltan glared at the runelord, his green eyes filled with murder. “What have you done to him?”

  “I did nothing to him. Everything Falken did was of his own free will.”

  Grace clenched her teeth. What use was free will when everything you were told was a lie? She gripped the bard’s shoulders. “Falken, please.”

  “Let...let me try.”

  Sindar had moved close, his face lined from thought. Was he still remembering things? Before Grace could ask what he meant to do, Sindar placed his hands at both of Falken’s temples and shut his eyes. For several moments the two men were motionless, then Falken drew in a shuddering breath.

  “By the Seven,” he rasped. “What have I done, Grace?” Grace was more curious what Sindar had done to the bard, but the slender man lowered his hands and moved away without offering an explanation.

  “It’s all right, Falken.” Grace knew there was nothing to forgive, that he had been a victim along with everyone else. All the same, she knew he needed absolution, and that she was the only one in the world who could give it to him. “I forgive you. Do you understand? In the name of Malachor, if I am truly its queen, I forgive you for all of your deeds.”