by David Pauly
Then Creon felt the strength of the shape's mind pushing and pulsating against his spirit, hungering for his very soul even as it devoured the souls of the men who were closer at hand. Few men were left alive when Creon, awakening as if from a dream, and angrier than he had ever been in his life, so that what fear he might have felt was utterly annihilated in the fires of his rage, strode forward. His guards pulled at his robes, begging him to remain where he was. But Creon ignored them, his gaze fixed upon the midnight blue form. He could hear it calling to him voicelessly, wordlessly, mocking him and offering to contest the mastery of Nostraterra with him, if only he had enough courage.
For answer, Creon drew his ancient sword, Caelestus, forged by the Dwarves of Nerea and given to one of his ancestors long ago. Another bolt of lightning flashed toward him, but Creon parried it with the sword, feeling only a vague tingle as the eldritch energies were dissipated by the timeless edge of his blade. Again ignoring the pleas of his guards, he strode toward the maelstrom, determined to settle the mastery of Nostraterra once and for all. Greater and greater bolts of lightning flickered around the King, and his guards were horrified to see his form disappear into the blue-black cloud of cold and mist.
CHAPTER THREE: FAMILY
Fourth Age: Year 199-Spring
King Creon looked around his Council table, noting that his twin sons, Alfrahil and Daerahil, were sitting upon opposite sides, directly across from each other. The meeting room was nearly fifty feet long and thirty feet wide, located in the citadel of Titania—capital city of Eldora. A dark wooden table ran down its center, its corners rounded in an attempt to soften its clear functionality. White marble veneers covered the dark granite under stones of the walls, and bright, ancient tapestries were hung from a ceiling over thirty feet high. Hundreds of oil lamps hung in clusters from silk ropes suspended from the ceiling, giving the impression of a single bright light. Deep-set windows on either side of the hall let in the mid-morning light.
The only sounds in the room besides the voices of the men gathered were the faint scratching of quill pens on parchment from the small group of scribes seated at a discrete distance behind the table. Servants were quietly setting down glasses of coffee and fruit juice on coasters to protect the surface of the table. The strong odor of coffee, with undercurrents of breakfast pastries and fruit, wafted through the room, competing with the sharp smoky smell of charcoal braziers glowing against the chill of a cold spring morning.
Creon knew that he cast an imposing figure upon the members of his Council, with the possible exception of his son, Daerahil, and for this there was good reason. Tall Creon was, tall as the ancient Kings from the earliest days of the realm, and as yet unbent from age. His hair was black and full, though streaked with silver these past fifteen years. His pale face still had that fair Elven countenance he had inherited from his mother, and the glow from his finely formed features was unworldly in its beauty. He had his father's eyes, however, and like polished chips of frozen sapphire they had the warmth of a shadow penetrating and piercing from beneath a craggy brow. His eyebrows had become a bit wild with age, and it was a look that served him well in these times. Strength of purpose was in his every fiber, and he carried his authority well.
Creon, nearing his two hundredth birthday, ruled from his throne in Titania, one of only two surviving Eldoran cities, the other being the northern city of Amadeus. The other main Eldoran cities had been destroyed in the Great War. Estrellius yet lay in ruins, its remnants bridging and spanning the river Aphon, an empty shell occupied only by its reconstructors. The fate of Hiberius had been even worse. Occupied during the Great War by Dark Elves and other creatures of Magnar, Hiberius had been transformed from a paradise of lush waterways and waterfalls into a dank, polluted ruin. The waters pouring from the city walls and surrounding valley were no longer crystal clear but ran foul and dark, toxic to most life, a breeding ground of deadly plagues that would occasionally spread into the rest of Nostraterra. Creon's only hope for reclaiming Hiberius in his lifetime lay with the Lesser Elves. Possessing magic still secret to the other races of Nostraterra, the Lesser Elves were slowly able to transform the most polluted of waters into clear streams and wells, and since the end of the Great War, two hundred some years before, they had made slow, steady progress in healing the accursed city.
Direct and revealing was Creon's stare, and few could abide his gaze if he fixed his mind upon them. There were none within the land who could lie to the King, and few who would even dare to try. Creon had been born with mental powers, unknown to Nostraterra, honed over a lifetime. Focusing his mind, he could compel all other Men, and even some Lesser Elves and Dwarves, to tell the truth. More importantly, he could read much of their thoughts, making intrigue in his court a very dangerous endeavor. Early in his reign, he had used these powers ruthlessly to expose the politics and plots of the royal court. Disloyal men had been quickly dispatched, their secrets revealed as they literally dug their own graves.
Nowadays, however, Creon rarely used his powers unless there was great need, having learned that some secrets were necessary for any government to function effectively. Yet even so, there were few in the kingdom who would dare oppose him either openly or in secret.
One of those few was present today. Daerahil, the younger of his sons, was certain to voice his opinions again on the Shardan campaign. His older brother, Alfrahil, would never contradict the King in public, and rarely did so even in private. Daerahil, unlike his brother, had inherited his father's unusual powers, and, like his father, rarely used them, preferring to rely on his intellect and problem-solving abilities.
His two sons were very different in appearance. Alfrahil was tall like his father, yet slender like his mother had been. His soft blond hair fell straight just past his shoulders; the soft blue-gray eyes of his Lesser Elven grandmother were clear and bright in his face, which was lined with the tiniest of wrinkles around his eyes, allowing the appearance of thoughtfulness to dominate his handsome, boyish face. Though he had recently celebrated his seventy-fifth birthday, he looked like a man less than half his age and could reasonably expect another century of life at least. Creon could see hints of his Creon's mother in his son, but the Elven heritage was thinner in him. Creon was glad of it as he rarely missed his mother Persephone, who, denying him her love after his father's untimely death in a hunting accident, returned to her own people, the Lesser Elves, refusing to speak with her son afterward. Seventy-one years later, when he ascended the throne, and even now, after one hundred twenty eight years, he still felt the pain of that abandonment.
Daerahil was shorter and stockier than Alfrahil. His hair was dark and his eyes brown. His face was tanned darkly and deeply from his time in the Shardan wastes.
'Yet another reason that he irks me,' thought Creon now, regarding his younger son in brooding silence. 'He looks too much like those foul rebels and upstarts that he was supposed to suppress. Everyone believes him to be so brilliant, and he himself believes it, yet if he were even half as clever as people say, Shardan would be pacified by now.'
#
After Creon called the Council to order, Lord Zarthir, foreign trade minister of Eldora, went on at length about a recent treaty that allowed some goods from a Frostfields village to pass through the interwoven territories and be subjected to a slightly lower import duty due to the distance that they traveled. Barely stifling a yawn, Daerahil glanced around the table and saw the usual crowd of ministers and their sycophants standing behind them, eagerly refilling wine glasses and placing succulent tidbits on their master's plates.
'Old, dull, and fat,' thought Daerahil. 'Only concerned with their profits and their immediate pleasures.' Daerahil did not include his best friend, Zarthir, in this mix, but even friends could drone on and on.
'Few of them care for the realm,' Daerahil continued to muse, 'except for my brother and my father. Yet my father has been seduced by limitless power and now seeks only to subject all of Shardan—no, all of N
ostraterra—to his will. If he could only see the people of Shardan objectively rather than colored by his hate and loathing, he would understand that nearly all those in Shardan will not accept a foreign overlord. There are those who fight Eldora tooth and nail, fighting with anything and everything to oppose an occupying army. The country of Shardan, however, can be made peaceful and profitable, with little loss of life. Trade and respect for their local customs would bring much of the populace around in renouncing violence. Even where violence continues, rich local merchants would gladly trade in the names of the rebels and collect a reward. Yet Father refuses to listen to my counsel.'
Daerahil had proved that this tactic worked in the Shardan provinces directly under his command, reducing the violence against coalition soldiers by nearly ninety percent. This, however, was regarded as placating the rebels, and his father demanded all violence stop before trade began. 'How incredibly foolish,' thought Daerahil. 'It is difficult to be peaceful and happy when you are starving and faced with the physical oppression of foreign soldiers day after day. Still, if it were not for my father's counselor, Mergin, I might have enjoyed better success here in the Council.'
Shorter than most men, barely reaching five and a half feet, but lean and wiry, Mergin sat silently regarding everyone at the table with a calm but predatory gaze. His dark eyes glittered from beneath gray shaggy curls that were receding rapidly now in his middle age. A large hooked nose dominated a face that generally frowned and bore latent marks of terrible cruelty. A sallow complexion belied a Shardan grandmother, a fact that Mergin had buried early in his career, as nothing would be allowed to stand in his way as the King's First Minister. Anyone foolish enough to ask about his antecedents was swiftly and completely discouraged. His cunning mind constantly churned plots and ideas—thoughts he revealed only to a carefully chosen few. Despite his low-born status and lack of formal education, he had proved his worth in a low-level administrative post, and promotion had followed promotion until now he had the King's ear at all times. His ideas and recommendations were taken very seriously by the King and his other Ministers, leading them to be carried out swiftly.
Early on, Mergin and Daerahil had taken an immediate dislike to each other, which had rapidly escalated into a quiet hatred that soon spilled out publicly. Unfortunately for Daerahil, Mergin had first taken over the position of junior minister to the King by extorting and then exposing the larcenous activities of the unfortunate junior minister above him. Within two years, another series of revelations into the personal and public lives of one of the least popular full ministers had allowed Mergin to replace that man, and there had been no stopping him after that. First, he had assumed the tedious yet important task of assistant minister to the messenger corps, allowing him access to the private messengers that flowed through the realm. Then, after exposing a plot among Shardan sympathizers, he had been rewarded with the position of Creon's First Minister. It was only a matter of time before he had the Messenger Corps report directly to him, so now he was privy to all of the secrets of the land that flowed in from the various intelligence-gathering services. Soon afterward, he was appointed commander of the Shadows, the legendary messenger assassins. This gave him yet another tool with which to gather information and a small but extremely deadly cadre of men who could and would enforce his will without question.
It was clear that he had become the second most powerful man in the kingdom behind the King himself. His undying loyalty to the King had only furthered his power, and he was able to defeat Daerahil's attempts to sabotage him. Even worse, he was able to contrive several incidents where Daerahil had been less than discreet in his actions and deeds, making them brutally public at the most inopportune moment for Daerahil.
The source of Mergin's antipathy was known to all. Early in his military career, Daerahil had commanded a company of Men, one of whom, Mergin's only son, Jasper, had died in Shardan under disputed circumstances. Mergin blamed Daerahil for the death of his son, focusing his rage against Daerahil whenever he could.
Daerahil knew that his brother, Prince Alfrahil, was the only man besides the King who could contest the will of Mergin with impunity, as the King loved his eldest son above all others and trusted him equally. Alfrahil was quieter and more thoughtful than his brother, fluent in both Elvish and Dwarvish. Having spent nearly five years with the Dwarves and two years with the Lesser Elves of the Great Forest, Alfrahil was invaluable when it came to diplomacy. His absence from Shardan except for a few months of supervised command and his compulsory military training in his early thirties had left him dangerously inexperienced when words failed and hard deeds were required. A skilled diplomat, a hopeless military commander, Alfrahil would depend utterly on Daerahil and the military commanders someday when Alfrahil ascended to the throne.
While not as intellectually talented as Daerahil, Alfrahil used his gifts to see both sides of an issue and find common ground, allowing him to see a path to compromise where others saw only conflict. Alfrahil, decisive in his mild way in most matters, could not stand family quarrels, however, or any form of political infighting, and had tried to smooth ruffled feelings and produce consensus between his father and brother. Yet when Alfrahil was actually forced to choose a side, his customary decisiveness would evaporate, and he would vacillate between two conflicting viewpoints, making the situation worse.
But though the two brothers had clear differences on how the kingdom should be run, Daerahil bore his brother no ill will. He knew that his father's attitudes were not the fault of his brother, and Daerahil had resolved to continue to support his brother, who would one day be King.
Mentally sighing, Daerahil wished, not for the first time, that the order of their birth had been reversed, with himself as the heir to the throne and his kind and thoughtful brother becoming the senior ambassador and foreign minister of Eldora. Pausing in thought, he glanced at his brother across the table and gave him a tired smile.
#
Alfrahil acknowledged his brother's smile with one of his own, but saw that there was fresh trouble brewing. Mergin was looking increasingly smug when Daerahil had the impudence to put his head down on the table once Lord Mebron, Outlier Minister of the foreign provinces of Men, began talking. Finally, when Mebron stopped speaking, there was a brief adjournment for the Council members to take care of their personal needs and bid their servants to fetch new delicacies and fresh pastries. Alfrahil, knowing what his father and Mergin planned, knew that Daerahil's legendary self-assurance was going to be tested in Council rather than on the battlefield.
While his brother, on an extended leave from his command, expected to return to Shardan shortly and placed in command of the entire army there, Alfrahil, along with Creon and Mergin, knew that this was not about to happen. In fact, Daerahil would not see active combat again for quite a while. Instead, Daerahil was to be transferred and promoted to the General staff of the Eldoran army, where he would learn how to coordinate logistics and supplies rather than plan active military campaigns. Alfrahil would be given nominal command of the Army in Shardan to gain actual experience in the command of men at a strategic rather than tactical level. Alfrahil's one brief command over a company of men early in his youth in Shardan had ended disastrously, with most of his men killed. He had barely escaped with his own life. Regarded as too valuable to risk again, Alfrahil had been withdrawn back to the capital, leaving Daerahil to become a professional soldier.
Yet he knew that the King thought Daerahil had gone native, enjoying all of the delights of the high plateau of Shardan and embracing many of its customs and traditions: most markedly the food and the women. Alfrahil shuddered when he thought of his brother's relationship with a Shardan woman, formerly a prostitute and now his mistress. Alfrahil knew that Mergin was aware of this relationship, but he suspected that the First Minister was waiting for the right moment to reveal it to the King. King Creon was renowned for adhering to strict rank and protocol where social relationships were concerned, and he w
ould refuse to allow either of his sons to marry outside the royal families of Eldora, much less a Shardan woman of ill repute.
More than once, Alfrahil had been tempted to reveal all that he knew to his brother, to warn him while there was still time. But he had held back, for his loyalty to king and kingdom was greater than his brotherly feelings for Daerahil. Now he could only watch with sorrow as Mergin and the King sprang their trap—a trap that Daerahil had not merely stumbled into but had virtually conspired in constructing.
#
When the meeting resumed, more and more details, both foreign and domestic, were reported by the various ministers. The most disturbing report came from the Outlier Minister for the Foreign Provinces, Lord Mebron.
'Sire,' said Mebron, 'I regret to inform you that the good citizens of Nexus and other villages north of the mountain spur known as the Thumb, within the Cataract River Valley, have rejected your latest claim that they, as Eldoran in origin, acknowledge your over-lordship. They also decline to pay any further taxes.'
'This is outrageous,' interjected Mergin. 'We should dispatch the Army to quell these upstarts and remind them that they owe their allegiance to Eldora.'
'Perhaps, my good Minister, you can tell me where we can spare the troops to bring these sheep back into the fold?' inquired Daerahil. 'Clearly the rebellion in Shardan and the skirmishes along the Azhar frontier are keeping all of our men, plus those of our Kozaki allies, fully engaged. Except, of course, in the two provinces of Shardan that I have recently pacified,' he added smugly.