The Children of Telm - The Complete Epic Fantasy Trilogy

by Dean F. Wilson

  * * *

  Herr’Don refused to lie in bed for any longer than necessary, and so Edgaron often found him standing by the window of his room, staring out at the hustle of Madenahan. He was still wearing his old clothes, refusing to don the peasant rags that Olbar offered him, but now his tattered cloak hung over his left shoulder, disguising the missing limb.

  “Your appetite has returned,” Edgaron said as he entered the room. “That’s a good thing.”

  “Is it?” Herr’Don asked without turning.

  “Food is life.”

  Herr’Don glanced at Belnavar, who stood beside him with no appetite that could be whetted. The Prince had eaten a little each day, mostly at Edgaron’s insistence, but he had smoked more often of the laracof leaf, which dulled his senses and numbed the pain. At times he refused the leaf, because he wanted to feel the ache, wanted to know that he was still alive.

  “I will see the King today,” Herr’Don said, but he did not sound enthused.

  “I don’t recommend it,” Edgaron said.

  “Nor I,” Belnavar added quietly.

  “Perhaps I don’t either,” Herr’Don admitted.

  “You should rest more,” Edgaron suggested. “Your father will still be here.”

  Herr’Don did not say anything for a time. “But perhaps I won’t be.”

  * * *

  The King had servants who hurried the corridors to bring him news and announce the arrival of guests. Alrah needed no announcement, however, for she stormed down the corridors, spoon in hand, and the paintings on the wall shook as she passed.

  “Granny Grin is on the rampage,” the castle’s few children whispered to one another, and perhaps the people in the paintings would have whispered it too were they brave enough to speak, and were their painted mouths not crumbling from the quake.

  Alrah banged upon the great wooden door of the throne room, first with her fist and then with the wooden spoon. The door creaked open, as if it could no longer bear any more thumping, and Alrah thundered through.

  Herr’Gal sat in repose, dangling his right leg over the arm of his seat, a seat that could barely contain the rest of him. He wore royal red, and while Herr’Don’s clothes bulged because they were too small for him, having been the clothes of youth, Herr’Gal’s clothes almost burst at the seams because he was too large for them, and because any time the Court Tailor measured him, he since grew too big for the new clothes while they were being made. His crown hid a bald spot, and no one knew he was balding, for he never removed the crown.

  “Now listen here,” Alrah said, her words echoing down the halls after her echoing footfalls.

  Herr’Gal offered his ear and simpered. “What do I owe this pleasure?” he asked. “Have you come to serve me dinner directly? How gracious of you!”

  “There’ll be no dinner tonight if you don’t listen,” Alrah said, and she approached the steps that led up to the throne. She stopped there, panting, and refused to climb the steps. She tapped the spoon upon her hand.

  “What is this about?” the King asked.

  “Herr’Don,” she replied.

  The King’s smile vanished instantly, as if it were lost in the folds of his body.

  “Do me and you and all of us a favour, and be nice to him,” Alrah said.

  “Come on, Alrah,” Herr’Gal replied. “He’s useless.”

  Alrah scoffed, sending ripples through her body. “And what are you?”

  Herr’Gal bellowed in laughter. “You’ve got a right cheek for a cook.”

  “And you’ve got a right face for eating,” she replied.

  “Oh, I do love a feast,” Herr’Gal said, tracing her figure with his eyes. “I like my chickens plump, and my women plumper.”

  “Do you want to go hungry?” she threatened.

  “A king cannot rule without a full belly,” Herr’Gal said.

  “Then you should be set to rule for the next hundred years,” Alrah replied.

  Herr’Gal broke into another monstrous roar of laughter. The chandeliers shook.

  “You’ve always been cruel to him, you know,” she said. “Do you not think that might have driven him further away, that it might have made him that little bit stranger?”

  “I drove him away because he was strange,” Herr’Gal said. “He was strange before I said a word to him.”

  “So he was strange from the womb?” she asked.

  “Strange in the womb,” Herr’Gal answered. “He made his mother strange when she was plump with him, and she died because of him.”

  “You could have loved him.”

  “No one could love him.”

  Alrah sighed and shook her head. “Now, you be nice to him,” she said sternly, pointing at him with the spoon. “Do you hear me?” she added, when he did not respond.

  “I always hear you,” he said. “I’ll be my usual pleasant self.”

  Alrah shook her head and tapped her spoon. “No. Be nice, I said.”

  She ambled off, and as she left the hall she found that Herr’Don was waiting outside. She was so caught off guard that all she could do was smile, pat him on his good shoulder, and tap her spoon against his nose. She headed back to the kitchen with a long sigh, wishing the Prince was not so intent on visiting his father, and wishing that Edgaron was not so intent on pleasing the Prince.

  * * *

  Herr’Don entered the throne room quietly, halting at the door until the King spoke.

  “So you are using the cook as a shield then,” the King said.

  “I do not need a shield,” Herr’Don responded, and he began walking towards the throne. He felt like unsheathing his sword to show that this was all he needed, but he knew better. Guards lined the room like curtains.

  “You’re in need of a new arm though, it seems.” The King grinned, exposing his yellow teeth.

  Herr’Don gritted his own teeth and squinted his eyes, as if his stare were a spectral sword that he could freely unleash. The King and Prince locked their eyes in a dangerous embrace.

  The King tilted to one side on his gigantic throne. It creaked heavily beneath him, despite having been specially designed and built for him, and redesigned and rebuilt larger several times. He tapped his crown with a bulbous finger.

  “Do you want this?” he asked. “I’ll let you have it on one condition—you must take it like every king of this country has: in your left hand.”

  Herr’Don’s anger began to show. His nostrils flared and his breathing was heavy.

  “He wants you to be angry,” Belnavar whispered. “Don’t give in to him.”

  The King seemed to notice that Herr’Don was distracted and thus was no longer biting the bait. Herr’Gal’s face twitched and his body shuddered.

  “Father,” Herr’Don said, and the word seemed foreign.

  “Your majesty, you mean,” the King corrected.

  Herr’Don paused and looked to Belnavar, who did not say anything. When he returned his teary gaze to the King, he said: “Ever since a child have you bid me call you that, while some who do not share your blood call you more tender names.”

  “That is the right of a king,” Herr’Gal said. “This is my kingdom and this is my keep. I decide who says and does what. But let me tell you something else. A father is the king of his family, so I do not need a crown to tell you what to call me, and you would be wise to respect that.”

  Belnavar coughed, but the sound did not echo in the hall. “So much for the wisdom of kings,” he said. “Respect is not garnered by order, but by a mutual trade. It is impossible to respect someone who does not respect you. This is why none respect the Craven King, and why he earns such titles.”

  “And what of my own?” Herr’Don asked him.

  “Your own?” the King said, bemused.

  “Nothing.”

  “Do not tell me that you still talk to yourself like you did as a child.”

  “When in a room with you, that is all I can do,” Herr’Don replied.

  The Kin
g laughed, but it was not as mirthful as it was with Alrah. “Tell me, Herr’Don, what it is you came here for, because if you wish to have a conversation from the two sides of your mouth, then you do not need me for that, and my two ears would be the better for not hearing it.”

  Herr’Don did not know why he was there. The words of Edgaron came flooding back to him, urging him not to seek an audience with the King. He wondered why Edgaron was always there for him when he never listened to his advice.

  “I keep hoping you will finally understand that you are driving people away,” Herr’Don said at last. The words revealed his feelings, but they also buried others deep inside.

  “A hope that is wasted,” Belnavar said despondently. “It is better saved to help the hopeless, not the ones for which hope is an enemy.”

  “This city is thriving,” the King said. “So exactly who do I drive away?”

  “Me,” Herr’Don told him.

  “And why is that a loss?” the King replied. “You are an embarrassment, Herr’Don, and you always were, even when you came out of your mother’s womb half the size of other babes. Olbar said you were missing something, and I see he was right. You were missing your mind—and now you are missing a limb. When I cast you out of Ilokmaden Keep, I did not do what I should have done—strip you of that one thing which is of any value about you: the title of Prince. Yet you have stripped it of yourself with whatever chaotic frenzy you went into that left you in such a sorry state. The throne is no place for a cripple, and it is not just your body that makes you unfit for the crown.”

  “You do not have to listen to these vile words,” Belnavar said. “This man has no honour. Some risk their bodies for the good of the realm, while he bloats his body behind the armoured doors of the lofty. He is king only of scavengers, feasting upon meals not only hunted by others, but scavenged by others too.”

  “You are right,” Herr’Don said, his words directed to Belnavar, but the King heard them as a vindication of his cruelty.

  “A King is always right,” he said.

  At that moment there was a knock on the large wooden door to the left of the King’s throne.

  “Come in,” the King croaked. He took a swig of wine from his chalice, slurped loudly, and banged the cup down on the table beside him. The wine splashed into the air and across the white table cloth, which was already stained from the King’s lack of grace. “Come in, I said,” he barked.

  The door creaked open like almost every door in the Keep. A shadowy man stood there with a large silver tray in his hands. Upon it were many vials of liquid, some plain and some ornate. He stepped carefully into the room like a sneaking spider, and there was not a single rattle of the glass vials upon the tray, nor a single audible footfall upon the marble floor.

  Herr’Don thought he knew the man. There was a shimmer of similarity about him, something about how the shadows clung to his face that made him seem familiar. The light in the room was not strong enough to illuminate the man’s features, hiding beneath the shade.

  Silence strangled the echoes of their previous conversation as the man crept towards the throne. The King broke the silence by adjusting in his seat, which creaked even louder than all the doors in the Keep. He grabbed his chalice and shook it before the shadowed man. The man stepped up to the King, where the candles shone more brightly, and there Herr’Don could finally make out the details of his face: a cleft chin carrying a thin straggle of hair, a sharp, but broken nose, dark, sunken eyes, and thinning greasy hair that clung like spider legs to his head.

  The man opened the vials without even the slightest of clinks, though perhaps the coughs and wheezes of the King disguised them. He poured the liquid from each into the King’s chalice in turn. The King took a swig before the next was poured, sometimes shaking his many chins as the flavours invaded his mouth. There were eight mixtures consumed, until finally there were only a few drops left in the coloured vials.

  “Thank you, Daralus,” the King said. The name was like a lightning strike in Herr’Don’s head. The shadowy figure of Aralus crawled into his mind, and the figure almost smiled at him.

  “Daralus,” Herr’Don said. The man stopped mid-step as he neared the door and turned around, again with no audible sound.

  “Yes?” he asked.

  “I know you,” Herr’Don said.

  “Of course,” Daralus said. “I served you as a boy.”

  “Everyone knows Daralus,” the King said. “You don’t become the Crown Poisoner without everyone finding out.”

  Daralus smiled. His face had different features, but his grin contained the same blackened teeth his brother bore, a remnant of his malnourished youth. “Though some perhaps never find out at all,” he said.

  The King laughed boisterously. “Perhaps not!” he bellowed.

  Belnavar stepped towards Daralus. “We should consult with him,” he said. “The King is no more use to us.”

  “If I may,” Daralus said, bowing.

  “Go on, get out of here,” the King said. “And you will join him, Herr’Don, if you have any sense. Daralus might even offer you a long-deserved drink.”

  “Goodbye, your majesty,” Herr’Don said, and he feigned a bow. The King grumbled something in response. He appeared very drowsy now, on the edge of sleep, and he began to close his eyes as Daralus and Herr’Don left the room. Then he opened them suddenly as if the night had taken a swig of day, and he thought he saw something else leave the room.

  * * *

  Herr’Don and Belnavar followed Daralus out of the throne room and down a long carpeted corridor, which led into a small apothecary that was made smaller by the many shelves full of bottles, jars and vials—the poisons of a nation crammed together in one room, under the orders of one king, and in the hands of one man.

  “Do you want something for the pain?” Daralus asked.

  Herr’Don had almost forgotten the nagging, pulsing, throbbing in the stump of his left shoulder. He did not like the reminder, and he communicated this with a grimace.

  “Surely accepting such from the Crown Poisoner would be unwise,” Herr’Don said.

  “It depends on the dose,” Daralus replied. “At low doses, many so-called poisons are salves and antidotes.”

  “Then why do you have your title?” Herr’Don asked.

  “Because sometimes I deal with higher doses,” Daralus stated.

  “I remember you now,” Herr’Don said, “though I did not know your name then. When I was a child you poisoned me, on the orders of the King.”

  “He was fearful for your life,” Daralus said.

  “So he sought to take it?”

  “No,” Daralus replied. “You misunderstand my role. I was appointed by the King, because he fears that he will be poisoned. Remember that his father, Herr’Lar, died by poisoning, and his father before him.”

  “It is a strange act to appoint a poisoner for fear of poison,” Belnavar said.

  “So every day I provide a sip of poison,” Daralus continued, unaware of Belnavar’s words or presence. “And the King builds a tolerance to it. So he protects himself from those who seek to end his reign.”

  “I was very sick from your poisons,” Herr’Don said. “I did not even know who you were then. If it had not been for Edgaron, I would surely have given in to the throes of death when I was still a child, a victim of venom.”

  “I apologise for that,” Daralus said. “I had no intention of killing or harming you, and I was simply fulfilling the King’s orders. Surely you must understand.”

  “I was poisoned once,” Herr’Don said. “Then you never came again. Did the King order you to stop, to spare my life, or did he not care enough that I should be able to resist the poisons of others?”

  “I do not know the answer to that,” Daralus said.

  “No,” Herr’Don said. “I guess not. But what of this: do you have a brother?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Aralus his name?”

  “Yes,” the man repli
ed. “Did you meet him here?”

  “No,” Herr’Don said. “Not here. I did not know he was ever here.”

  “He came here a few weeks back. He lives in Alimror, where they take any refugee. He asked me if I had learned where the cleric Ifferon was, as there were rumours he was on the move. Ifferon has earned the grudge of my family, but I am over it, and I bid Aralus let it go also, lest it pull him down. He would not listen, so I introduced him to the Royal Cleric, Teron, who was visiting with Belnavar the Braveheart at the time.”

  “I remember that day,” Belnavar said. “And the evil ones that followed.”

  “They counselled long into the night,” Daralus continued. “And there was some commotion, it seemed, for the guards were called and my brother was thrown out of the city. Perhaps Teron tried to make him see some sense, but I did not get to speak with him again, so I do not know what he ultimately decided to do, or where we went.”

  “He is dead,” Herr’Don revealed. “He hunted Ifferon and ended up being hunted by an Éalgarth. He was a friend to me when others turned their backs on me.”

  Daralus did not seem moved by the news. “A sorry ending, but not a surprising one,” he said. “It is said never cross a river with a grudge, and I know well the truth of those words. My brother carried his grudge to his death, or perhaps it was the grudge that carried him to the grave.”

  “You do not grieve for him,” Herr’Don noted.

  “I already did, many years ago when I realised he was lost to his hate. Yet it ails me that you have lost a friend. He was most in need of friends, though his venom ensured he never kept them for long.”

  “So says the Crown Poisoner,” Herr’Don remarked.

  Daralus chuckled. “I have no vial to calm your suspicion.”

  “And if you did, I doubt I would drink of it,” Herr’Don said. “But tell me, did you hear any of what Aralus discussed with Teron?”

  “I am an eavesdropper,” Daralus said. “I make no apologies for that fact. Oft it has been proven to me that knowledge of things gives us power over people, and there are few better places to put this to work than in the halls of a king’s keep. Yet I heard very little that I could make out from Teron’s dialogue with my brother, bar the frequent repetition of a curious phrase: spell of sway.”