Gydryn pressed palms and murmured the traditional reply, “Blessings be upon you also.”
The servant bowed yet again. “I have been called, if it so please you and you now possess the strength, to bring you to our Su’a’dal, His Imminence, Emir Zafir bin Safwan al Abdul-Basir.”
At last!
Gydryn’s muscles still shook at inadvertent times, and too long upright brought on a vengeful vertigo, yet he thought he could walk all the way to Calgaryn if it meant getting his questions answered.
He nodded to the servant to lead away.
When the king arrived in the Emir’s salon, which overlooked the city via an arcade of mosaic-covered arches, the Akkadian leader stood talking to his prime minister and a younger man who was dressed in flowing black robes. All three men were bearded, all wore grey and black-striped turbans, and all turned as the servant escorted Gydryn into the salon.
The Emir pressed palms together and bowed his head in greeting. “Peace be upon you, Your Majesty. Welcome to Raku.”
Gydryn hooked his cane on his arm, pressed palms and bowed his head in return. “Blessings upon you also.” Lifting his gaze, he scanned the three pairs of dark eyes fixed upon him. “My gratitude knows no bounds. I live by your generosity.”
“And perhaps by Jai’Gar’s grace, as well,” the Emir’s effacing smile made concession to this truth, “for we all live by His will.” He placed a hand on the arm of the man standing to his right. “Perhaps you remember my son, Farid.”
Gydryn shifted his gaze to the younger man. He recognized his lean, dark features and inscrutable gaze as the face he’d seen leaning over him in the desert, just before unconsciousness had claimed him.
“Farid is my most far-ranging scout, Your Majesty. By Jai’Gar’s blessed will, he was born a Nodefinder and rivals the Mage’s Sundragons for the distance he can cover in a day. He watches the farthest reaches of our lines, from the Dhahari Mountains in the north to the Forsaken Lands in the far south.”
Gydryn nodded soberly to the prince. “I cannot express the depth of my gratitude, Prince Farid. As grievous as my wounds were, you might’ve left me to die and known no censure for it.”
“My heart would’ve known it, sir.” Farid glanced meaningfully to his father, who nodded. Then he bowed and took his leave.
Gydryn was left gazing at the Emir.
Zafir’s was an aged countenance, ostensibly shaped through hard years and harder battles—the kind of face where every line had been purchased at the cost of conscience. In Gydryn’s years of envisioning the Akkadian Emir, he’d summoned a visage chalked of treachery and misshapen by evil deeds; instead, he found a face sketched of compassion belonging to a man who lived close to his gods.
“Kings receive each other in apartments of state,” the Emir said into Farid’s departing silence, “but men sharing confidences seek more intimate surroundings.” He motioned to a grouping of couches and chairs. “I hope you will forgive me for selecting the latter for our conversation.”
“I respect the opportunity to speak candidly.” Gydryn meant these words, yet he made no move to take a seat—verily, how dared he seat himself among truth when he’d spent so many years keeping company with lies? He felt as if his grievous misjudgment of the Emir now tainted his every breath, that sharing the space with the Emir at all befouled the many graces the good man had already bestowed upon him. How did one broach an apology for beliefs so wrongly conceived?
Yet no apology would find its way without courage. Gydryn shifted his gaze between the Emir and Prime Minister al Basreh and exhaled a slow breath. “Too long have lies separated our kingdoms.”
“Well spoken, Your Majesty,” the Emir replied. “I could not agree more.”
“Please, call me Gydryn.”
The Emir made a slight nod and pressed a jeweled hand to his chest. “And I am Zafir.”
They all chose seats.
After he settled, Zafir clasped hands in his lap and searched Gydryn’s gaze with his own. “Perhaps events have proven enough my intent, but I would say it outright: our kingdoms need not be enemies. I will share everything I know of this war with you, and I’ve asked Prime Minister al Basreh to do the same. I would there were no lies between us.”
Gydryn held Zafir’s gaze amid a welling surreality. For so long he’d known this man only as a faceless target of accusation and acrimony. So many years to have everything so backwards and wrong. “I must apologize to you, Zafir.” The king’s brow furrowed deeply. “My kingdom has held you in the greatest of contempt, and it seems undeservedly so.”
Zafir’s brown eyes crinkled with forbearance. “The sun has set upon those days, if you also will it.”
“Verily, I do.” Gydryn shifted his gaze beyond the arcade, and for a moment he saw not the pale city framed through carved arches but a kingdom soiled by treachery and a family by tragedy, and he wondered…
By all the stars in the heavens, he wondered about so many things! He had so many questions. But the question most burning in his heart won out.
Gydryn ran a hand over his beard. It was a joyless moment, confronting these men with the defamatory lies he had believed of them. “You must know that my council—indeed, my kingdom—has long blamed you for the deaths of my two oldest sons. Only recently I learned that Radov stands behind these acts. Perhaps you know nothing of what truly happened to my boys…”
—By Epiphany’s light, it felt like flaying flesh to peel the words off his tongue!—
“but if you have any information…” his burning gaze conveyed what his tongue at last refused to.
The Emir and his prime minister exchanged a long look. Then Zafir turned back to Gydryn. “Of your eldest son Sebastian, we have no knowledge.” His expression was deeply apologetic, and his tone conveyed a father’s understanding of the terrible burden Gydryn must carry in his heart. “But of Trell…”
“Permit me to tell you another story, Your Majesty.” Al Basreh settled hands in his lap and his dark-eyed gaze on the king. “Five years ago, a youth washed ashore in a fishing village named Kai’alil…”
The story proceeded in the fullness of truth across the lips of the Akkadian prime minister. With every word al Basreh spoke, Gydryn became more deeply embroiled in an internal war between horror, guilt, and hope. To think of his treasured middle son living for so many years without even the grace of his name…and all that time he’d been in the Akkad. If Gydryn had received the least hint that Trell lived, he would’ve scoured the globe in search of him.
“…the more we investigated, the more we began to see the shadows of a plot against the Eagle Throne…”
Al Basreh’s words left Gydryn feeling hollow, for he knew their truth too nearly.
“…and we felt Trell’s life remained in danger…”
As the prime minister continued his story, Gydryn clenched his jaw tightly—against grief, threatening anger, and a confluence of turbulent emotions. The faction within him that battled on the side of guilt wanted desperately to blame these men for keeping his son from him, but the greater part of his heart was rejoicing in a single truth:
Trell is alive!
A rising wind just then brought an echo of distant cheering. The prime minister paused his tale, exchanged a look with his liege and excused himself momentarily.
As al Basreh was departing, Zafir turned back to Gydryn wearing an expression of deep apology. “I understand if you cannot forgive us for keeping knowledge of your son from you, Gydryn.” He arched brows resignedly. “I’m uncertain that I should even ask your forgiveness for such an act. But I want you to know that I did everything within my power to treat Trell with the dignity deserving of his birth. I brought him into my house; I gave him responsibilities and privileges beside my own sons; I took him into my confidence. And when Trell asked to take his place in our war, I gave him a company of Converted to command, that he might earn his nobility and prove his honor.”
Zafir looked towards the day, which glowed brightl
y beyond the shadowed arcade, and his expression assumed a cast of loving regret. Outside, the cheering grew louder, closer. Glancing back to the king, Zafir offered an apologetic smile that was yet full of a father’s pride. “This, Trell did every day he spent beneath Jai’Gar’s eye.”
Gydryn clenched his jaw and looked off into the too-bright city.
How cunningly Viernan hal’Jaitar had taken the facts and twisted them to suit his aims. He’d tried to use Trell’s survival to manipulate Gydryn into maintaining his allegiance with Radov. His tawdry attempt had failed, but this was testament less to Gydryn’s intelligence than to a father’s shattered dreams.
“I hoped with time, Trell would regain his memory,” Zafir offered, “but he never did.” He gazed upon the king with deep frown lines framing his nose and mouth. “No doubt you wonder why we didn’t send word to you.”
Gydryn arched brows and slowly looked back to him. “I don’t wonder.” He held Zafir’s gaze, feeling his own grow ever darker with grief and guilt. “By then, I thought you my gravest enemy. Any missive would’ve been denied outright, a certain ruse.”
Zafir exhaled a slow breath. “So we believed as well.”
The irony of the moment hit Gydryn as painfully acute, twisting his expression into a grimace. “Once, I thought you my enemy…yet as daylight reveals truths overlooked in the night, I find my son and I both owing you our lives.”
Zafir opened palms to the heavens and gave him an effacing smile. “The gods work in mysterious ways. I am but their servant.” With this, he rose and walked to a table holding a pitcher of chilled wine. He returned with two goblets in hand.
Gydryn accepted the wine with a look of sincerest gratitude, respecting the symbolism inherent in the act of one king serving another.
As he was retaking his seat, Zafir offered, “The last chapter of this story brings us to Radov’s request for parley.”
Surprise made Gydryn straighten in his chair. “Radov’s request? Do you mean to say Radov invited you to parley?”
The Emir looked him over carefully. “Indeed, Gydryn.”
The king stared at him. “Were you aware that my Duke of Marion, Loran val Whitney, received a letter requesting parley—a letter signed by you—and that Radov claimed to have received the same letter?”
“That is curious.” Zafir’s frown deepened as he considered this news. Then he lifted his gaze back to the king. “Let us table the matter of the mysterious invitation for now and look instead to what it precipitated; for whatever its source, the letter of parley forced my hand regarding Trell. I knew he would’ve wanted to attend the parley, and I would’ve had no cause to deny him, but I dared not allow it, Gydryn. To bring Trell near Radov, knowing what we knew?”
The Emir shook his head, and his expression became wrenched. “I used Trell’s pain to manipulate him into leaving. To my shame, Gydryn, but I saw no other path. The mystery of his name haunted Trell. It cleaved my own heart to keep the truth from him, but I believed with my whole soul that anonymity was the only thing protecting him beneath our gods, and…” he gave Gydryn a look of grave and tragic candor, “by this point, I had come to love your son as my own.”
Silence flooded the room as a sudden breeze. Gydryn gazed into his wine and considered all that he’d been told. Beyond the windows, the cheering had quieted. Finally, the king drew a hand roughly down his beard. Hope hovered within his grasp, but he couldn’t yet give it purchase in his heart. “And now?” He lifted a troubled gaze back to Zafir. “Where is my son now?”
***
Trell recognized the road to Raku long before the oasis walls came into view. How odd it felt to him to be riding towards the city again, alone but for an immortal’s laconic companionship. When last he’d approached those walls, he’d been riding amid the jesting laughter of his men. Yet he’d felt alone then, lost without an identity to hang his hat upon.
As they rounded a rise and the oasis’ crenellated walls came into view with guards manning the high ramparts and archers upon the towers, Trell exhaled a measured breath to soften his rising anticipation. Though he didn’t know exactly what to expect, he thought it likely that he would see the Emir. How much he wanted to say to his adoptive father; how deep the waters of his appreciation! He was just wondering if anyone would recognize him when a call rang out.
“It’s the Lord Rhakar!” The iron-studded gates groaned and began opening to admit them.
Trell cast an inquiring look at the drachwyr.
Rhakar shrugged. “There are times when it behooves us to be known simply as men, Trell of the Tides.”
Oddly, Trell felt relieved that the drachwyr had been the one the men had recognized. The uncomplicated man named Trell of the Tides had worn but one allegiance: to the Emir and his holy war. Yet Trell val Lorian, Prince of Dannym, necessarily wore many allegiances, some of which Trell had yet to reconcile for himself. With his name, he’d also donned a mantle heavily embroidered with the responsibilities of royalty, the duties of a prince, and the alliances of kings. These things, too, he would have to address with the Emir.
Rhakar nodded to the soldiers manning the gates, and then he and Trell were reining their mounts through the long tunnel beneath Raku’s wall. The tunnel opened upon a yard where soldiers were tending weapons, sparring, or otherwise at their leisure. Outbuildings framed the wide space.
Trell had barely emerged from the tunnel’s shadow into the bright daylight, when—
“Trell?” a deep voice rang out across the yard. Then a shout: “It’s Trell of the Tides!”
A volley of gazes struck his way. Time took a breath in pause.
Then men came bolting towards him from all directions.
His name shot from tongue to tongue like a stone skipping across a pond. More stones joined the first, until the skipping pebbles formed a torrent of his rippling name. Soldiers mobbed Trell with clapping hands and shouted words of welcome that echoed off the looming wall.
Hands lifted him from his horse onto strong shoulders. Nameless faces led Gendaia away, while others offered him drink and refreshment, but Trell’s surprise so choked him that he couldn’t have managed even a swallow.
Borne on the shoulders of proud men, Trell reached Raku’s main thoroughfare and its promenade of tall palms, whereupon a collective hail rose up from a mass of soldiers jamming the road.
Trell of the Tides! Trell of the Tides!
Friendly hands jostled him every which way. Shouted words of praise bombarded his ears. A sea of faces grinned in welcome.
Ever a shadowy presence at his side, Rhakar kept them moving through the ocean of men until they reached the Sultan’s palace. The men carrying Trell lowered him onto the steps as though a true hero, with the crowd maintaining its cheering all the while.
Rhakar led Trell up a long flight of steps.
Feeling heady by the time he reached the top, Trell turned and offered a wave of gratitude. Then Rhakar was ushering him inside the shaded entrance and leaving the whirlwind stirred by his arrival to disperse on its own.
As the doors were being closed, Trell paused in the cool, dim interior and pushed a hand through his hair. He looked bemusedly to Rhakar. “That was…unexpected.”
It might’ve been amusement that glinted in Rhakar’s yellow eyes, but he only nodded to acknowledge Trell’s comment and motioned him on again.
As Trell headed through the Atrium, he observed the arabesque designs in the tiled floor and saw himself walking upon a spiraling path; oddly, he couldn’t tell if the circle was beginning or ending. Had he been brought to Raku to see the Emir, his adopted father, and finally convey his thanks for all that great man had done for him, closing the circle on the last five years? Or had the Mage sent him to Raku—as Vaile had intimated—to take a new role, the vital first steps of another spiral in the pattern of the Mage’s vast game?
Most surprising to Trell was his own ambivalence. Whether he faced a beginning or an ending, or was merely joining a course already in moti
on—whatever the Mage needed of him, he would do without hesitation. How different he’d become from the man who’d stood outside the River Goddess Naiadithine’s shrine with suspicion as his most trusted guide!
They passed through an archway clogged with the Emir’s personal guards and were walking a vaulted corridor when voices floated to Trell’s ears as if upon a passing breeze. Yet this breeze permeated clothing and flesh into the depths of his chest, where it lodged needles of recognition.
His feet stopped with abrupt defiance.
“…dared not allow it,” the Emir was saying, “…to bring Trell near Radov, knowing what we knew?”
Trell stood anchored to the tiles just beyond an archway while the Emir’s voice and words evoked a haunting memory: their last conversation of parting, a sleepless night upon the walls of Raku, and then the visit to Naiadithine’s shrine and the beginning of a new circle.
Since learning his name, he’d come to suspect the truth the Emir was now confessing to someone, the reason he’d relieved Trell of his command and sent him away in the middle of the war: because Trell would’ve gone to the parley, only to have Radov potentially recognize him—Viernan hal’Jaitar certainly would have—and Trell knew already what end he would’ve met then.
Only, had it happened upon the course of that earlier path, no immortals would’ve come to rescue him at Darroyhan.
“…used Trell’s pain to manipulate him. To my shame…but I saw no other path…”
Trell swallowed. He heard contrition threading through the Emir’s voice; his words were saturated with it, yet Trell knew only gratitude to him.
As he stood there, keenly aware of eavesdropping, yet even more aware of the man standing beside him—Şrivas’rhakárakek, the Shadow of the Light, his personal guide into the next spiral of his future—Trell thought of all that had happened upon his path…and realized that he wouldn’t change a single thing.
The Saldarian mercenary Raliax had roped him to a trunk and put him into the Fire Sea; yet for enduring the torment of drowning, he’d gained Naiadithine’s grace.
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