* * *
Kirin had to yank the sword free of the Duke’s throat and use it to parry another wildly slashing soldier. He managed to trip the man and then kicked him in the head hard enough to make his helmet fly off. One more spearman had gotten to his feet and stood slashing his spear in a big circle through the Darkness encompassing him. He missed Kirin but gashed two of his own compatriots when they tried to rise. Kirin timed his swing, dashed in and cut the man’s throat.
He stood panting for a moment, looking around and listening. No man in his Shadow still stood save him. The cries and groans of wounded Gwythlos echoed off the courtyard walls. Where was Terrell?
Kirin found the prince kneeling scant feet outside the Shadow while the knight with the flaming sword knocked arrows out of the air. One arrow stood up straight out of the top of Terrell’s skull.
Kirin’s gut churned. His shadow swirled behind him as he knelt facing his twin. “Terrell?”
Terrell’s eyes opened. “Arrow hit the spider. Didn’t quite break it. I can still hear the golem and Chisaad. He’s casting something. I feel sick; poison?” He swayed.
Kirin caught Terrell in his arms as he sagged forward. He gently rested the prince’s chin on his shoulder and held him with one arm while Light torrented out of Terrell into his chest. With the other hand he explored the shattered mess of wire and gems on his brother’s head. “The spell is breaking down, I don’t know what it’ll do to you when it goes. Should I kill it?”
“Yes,” Terrell sighed, hugged him, and closed his eyes again. *Now.*
Kirin grasped arrow shaft and spider both, sent Shadow through his palm into the wreckage, and slaughtered the animating magic. A spell on the arrow died too. The spike came loose, the arrow also, and he flung bloody arrow and spider both to the pavement. He slapped his palm over the leaking wound in his brother’s head. “It’s out!”
*Thank The One.* Terrell voice sounded drowsy. *If I die—be a good king.*
Terrell’s voice faded out of Kirin’s mind.
“You’re not going to die!” Kirin told him, struggling to his feet. Terrell had become a limp weight in his arms but still breathed. “I’ll find you a Healer. Sir Penghar, we’ve gotta find him a Healer!”
“Looks like the Ilvar already thought of that,” Pen answered, lowering Irreneetha as Silbari soldiers poured into the courtyard and ended the fight. Darnaud’s bowmen and his mage surrendered rather than be slaughtered. Pen pointed at the approaching carpet where a Priestess’ yellow robes fluttered.
Kirin carried Terrell to meet the healer as it landed, not even noticing that his billowing Shadow shrank and drained into his back, or that men scrambled away from him. He dropped to his knees before the priestess, holding Terrell across his lap, and begged, “Dona! Please save him!”
The middle-aged priestess opened her tight-shut eyes and pried her shaking hands from the Ilvar’s belt. Without a question or word she sent her aura into the prince. “I’ve got him. Lay him on the carpet but hold his head up so it doesn’t leak.”
Kirin followed her orders, heartsick. I didn’t want this! Father Haroun help me, help him. You gave me a brother I didn’t know I had, don’t take him away so soon.
Time crawled like a snail, though the Suns had barely moved, until the priestess sat back and sighed. “There, that will hold him. I’ll check him again later.”
Kirin had sensed Terrell’s mind shift from unconsciousness to simple sleep. He rubbed one eye and said, “Thank you, Dona,” as the depth of his own gratitude surprised him.
The Priestess answered briskly, “My duty. Now hold still while I fix your arm.”
Kirin found her aura invading his arm before he knew it. His Shadow, sated by the warm flow of Light from Terrell, remained blessedly quiescent under his heart. Kirin looked at the top of Terrell’s head while she worked. The ugly gash in the prince’s brown scalp had closed to leave a small pink bald spot. The Priestess finished with his arm and went to help others, and still Kirin sat there holding Terrell’s sleeping head in his lap and staring at that scar.
He only had that wound because of me. We’re only here because of me. If I hadn’t fallen for Chisaad’s lies, Terrell would be at the head of the line tomorrow to see if the Throne will make him king.
Kirin gulped a sudden lump in his throat. Instead, he’ll wait for me to go first. Oh God Above, do I want to do that? I’m a traitor, I should be hung for kidnapping him! Instead I get to maybe take the Crown myself?
The visions of what he might do as king returned, meting out justice and putting a stop to evil and cruelty. I’d make some of those bastards pay, I would! For a moment he filled with righteous indignation. Then the sobering thought followed. I never would have discovered my kinship if I hadn’t—no, wait, the flash and the sound of trumpets. I would have thought I’d gone mad without Terrell to explain, and I’d have run to Dona Zella about it. Would she have known what it meant?
He could picture the consternation on her face if she did. Wait, since I heard the call too, that means the Throne knows I’m one of the Twenty. It must have always known. Whoever thought they were last, number twenty, didn’t get called. He’ll probably tell the priestesses, and they’ll look for the missing candidate. God help me! Can I even get out of this if I want to? And do I want to? Grigor could grow up to be a prince. What’s best for him?
Pen cleared his throat and broke his introspection. For the first time Kirin noticed that the knight had been standing there behind him throughout Terrell’s healing.
The knight’s voice came out flat and hard as he said, “If you’ll release His Highness’ head, stranger, I’ll arrange to get him to a bed.”
The young Ilvar mage smiled. “Allow me to float him, Sir Penghar, and he will have the gentlest possible ride.”
Kirin touched Terrell’s face once, then slid out from under him and tenderly set his head down on the carpet. The Ilvar mage bowed to Kirin and the knight as if they were equals and then his carpet rose smoothly. It floated toward the palace doors as a soldier led the way. Kirin’s Shadow stirred when Terrell’s light stopped feeding it; he squeezed the monster back under his heart. It had devoured the spells and stripped the cast magics from every man he’d swathed in its darkness, but stayed as hungry as ever.
“Who are you?” Penghar demanded harshly, his sword still unsheathed and glowing. The knight stood several fingerwidths taller than Terrell, which made him loom over Kirin.
Kirin didn’t like the sensation. Taken aback by the challenge in Pen’s voice, he snapped back. “I’m Kirin Sule DiUmbra.”
The name obviously meant nothing to Pen, who immediately demanded, “And what are you?”
The knight’s gaze bored into him as if he wanted to squeeze out all his secrets. It put Kirin’s back up worse. “I’m the man who rescued Prince Terrell from Ap Marn and Chisaad,” he answered levelly, staring right back without a bit of the deference a peasant owed a knight. But his shadow flinched away from the soulsword and he couldn’t help flicking a fast glance at the uncomfortably close blade.
Sir Penghar’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “Explain.” He didn’t lower his sword.
Kirin growled back, “What do you need to know? Chisaad and Ap Marn had him kidnapped and replaced him with a golem. It’s been pretending to be him for a tenday and a half now. I went where they had chained him and freed him. In return he promised to free my father from the sulfur mines where those lying bastards put him.” He scowled up at the knight. “I kept my part of the deal. Since he’s out cold, will you keep Terrell’s word for him?”
Pen’s eyes had been growing wider with every word, until he looked like a dried fish in a market stall. “That’s not an explanation! That’s the most ridiculous pile of—”
“Think so?” Kirin interrupted, his temper fraying. “Here’s more. I saved him from the Duermu fanatics that tried to kill both of us. I freed him from that thrice-damned slave-spider that Chisaad spiked into his head, the pieces are lying r
ight there.” He jabbed a finger at the wreckage. “And I killed Darnaud and five of his men while defending Terrell’s back, and yours! Your ass would be deader than a mouse in a snake pit if not for me! Least you could do is take me to my father.”
Pen’s face had been darkening toward mahogany and his eyes narrowing to slits through this speech, but at the ending his gaze widened. “DiUmbra. You’re that murder’s son? You expect me to believe that you—”
“My father’s no murderer!” Kirin stormed. “Darnaud framed him! And I expect you to be a prick, that’s what I expect!”
He turned his back on a spluttering Penghar and stalked away across the courtyard, flinging back over his shoulder, “I’ll find the sulfur pit without your damn help!”
He was so angry that he didn’t notice how quickly everybody in the courtyard got out of his way.
An hour later, after wandering through the maze of workshops, overseers’ houses, and other buildings making up the pathetically small and crooked city of Sulmona, he found his way to the lip of the mine. The sheer size of the pit daunted him for a moment, but he had enough residual anger that it carried him to the ramps and the loading gate. A nearly filled cart stood waiting while an endless line of men carried hods full of sulfur rock to it. Two guards lounged at the entrance behind a low wooden gate cut into a waist-high stone wall, obviously meant more as a boundary marker than a defense.
Kirin glared at them, letting his Shadow fill him to the skin and leak out. The guards, engaged in a game of dice, didn’t look up when he spoke. “I’m looking for my father. He got here in the last tenday in a prison coffle from Aretzo.”
“No visitors,” the taller one grunted as he picked up the dice. “Be off with you.”
The smaller looked up at that moment and met Kirin’s eyes. His own went wide and he gasped as Kirin reached over the gate, grabbed the front of his tunic, and dragged him close.
“Where is my father?” he breathed into the guard’s face in his lowest voice. His Shadow billowed around him.
“I dunno!” the short one squeaked. “Gurrin!”
The taller guard shot to his feet, tried to draw his sword and instead jammed it in his poorly-cared-for sheath.
“Don’t try it,” Kirin told him, sending Shadow through the gate to wreath both men’s legs. “I don’t need to touch you to kill you. Tell me where my father is!”
“‘E’s a mage!” the short one gurgled to his partner, clutching Kirin’s hand as he was lifted onto his toes. “Don’t make him mad, Gurrin!”
Taller Gurrin gulped, let go of his hilt and raised his empty hands placatingly. “Got here in the last coffle? They all went into the mine, all’re working right now, ‘cept the ones caught in the cave-in this morning.”
Kirin’s blood chilled at the last words. “Cave-in?” He let go of the short guard and vaulted over the gate, obliterating the scratched game board when he landed. “What happened?”
Gurrin lowered his hands part way and then hastily raised them again. “Pillar fell, crushed a bunch. They’re in the hospice.” He pointed away from the pit toward a gaggle of buildings against the inside of the wall.
Kirin’s fists clenched as he demanded, “What were their names?”
Gurrin shrugged helplessly, but the smaller guard hastily said, “A young guy named Skinny, I don’t tink he got hurt too bad, but the old bald guy with a lotta scars got pretty busted up. Couple others got killed dead—”
“Bald? Scars?” Kirin interrupted, his throat tight. “No. Please God, no.”
He ran for the buildings.
A whitewashed hut did for the hospice, with the sign of a religious order next to the one rough wooden door. He hesitated, drew his Shadow fully back inside his skin, and cautiously pushed the door open. The room inside had been whitewashed too, it held a desk with a single chair and an elderly Priestess telling her prayer beads. He bowed his head when she gave him a serene smile.
“Dona,” he begged. “May I please see the men who were hurt in the cave-in today?”
She gave him a compassionate look and led him into a longer room. Six rough beds lined up against one side. Light slanted in through high windows in the opposite wall to shine on the occupants. The last two beds had blankets drawn up over the faces. The fourth bed held a skinny young man with one leg bandaged and splinted and raised on a pad; he snored like a saw cutting wood.
The third bed held Pieter.
Kirin fell on his knees next to it, reached out a trembling hand.
“I wouldn’t touch him,” the Dona said in a kindly voice. “His spine is crushed, seven ribs and his hipbone broken plus both of his legs, in multiple places. Internal damage, well, too much to describe. We’ve numbed the pain and he’s sleeping.”
“Will he—can he—” Kirin choked, seeing the answer in her sympathetic eyes. “Can’t you?”
“Only the legs or only the hip, certainly.” She sadly shook her head. “The spine too? He’s paralyzed from his armpits down and the damage is extreme. No one here has that kind of skill, not even our best Healer, who’s at the palace right now. He would never survive a trip to Lonigo or Aretzo. I doubt he’ll survive to sundown. I am very sorry, son.” She didn’t seem to notice his pointed ears and pale skin as she patted his shoulder. “Stay with him if you like, he might awake. He can’t feel most of the pain.”
Kirin didn’t notice when she left. He stared at Pieter’s bruised and swollen face, at the old scars on his scalp, his shorn scalp lock, his closed eyes. The rise and fall of the blanket over Pieter’s ravaged body continued, but so painfully slow. Kirin found Pieter’s left hand tucked under the edge of the blanket, slid his own in to clasp it.
“Father,” he croaked, tears sliding down his face as he leaned his forehead against the bedframe and wept. “Father!”
He didn’t know how much time passed before he noticed his surroundings again. The bed behind him creaked. He looked up to find Penghar sitting on the end of it with his unsheathed sword resting across his knees. The soulblade gleamed calmly now, her former red glare dimmed to pale white. He squinted; did he see a face in the glow? Yes. He looked away, ashamed. What must an angel think of me?
“Did you see her?” Penghar asked curiously. “Many mages can’t. Can you?”
Kirin shrugged desolately. “Yes.”
Penghar contemplated him for a moment, almost long enough for Kirin to get angry again. Then he said “Darnaud’s men talked. He came here to kill me, part of a plot against Prince Terrell. None of them really knew any more than that, but a couple told me some interesting things about you.”
Kirin laughed, stopped himself before it became a laugh that would never end. “I’ll bet. Did they tell you he murdered my wife?”
Penghar nodded. “Also a story about you draining the life from a man without leaving a mark on his body.” The knight’s eyes bored into his.
Kirin looked away. “True.” He put his head against Pieter’s bed again, gently squeezed the old man’s still, calloused hand. He almost said, ‘I could kill you where you sit’, but he didn’t actually know what the soulsword could do, so that might not be true. He could feel it there behind him and knew that face still stared at his unprotected back. “Is Terrell going to be all right?”
“Healer says yes. He still slept when I left him. You’re mighty presumptuous to use His Highness’ first name without title. Did he give you permission?”
“In a sense,” Kirin sighed, irked but not enough to lift his head. “Yes.” Or our mother and father did, through conceiving me with him and giving us both birth. God please help me, I was born first; I’m the highest noble in all of Silbar right now. The knowledge brought pain and relief mingled, and he had no inclination to share either with the arrogant lordling at his back.
“I talked with the healer,” Pen continued. “She examined that evil device and the damage it did to his head. She said it had to have taken the most precise casting she’s ever seen to make and attach it, and the same to r
emove it without hurting him. I saw you take it out, and heard Terrell give you the order. Chisaad made it?”
“Yes.” Kirin left that hanging.
After a while Pen said, in a cautious tone, “You were his apprentice, weren’t you?”
“Right again.” Another long pause, which Kirin grimly enjoyed.
“I heard he’d taken one, but never knew, or at least connected, the names until now.” Pen paused, then said deliberately, “Did you have a falling out?”
“The biggest. He lied to me, used me, and tried to kill me.”
“Oh. Well, he is a traitor.”
Kirin sighed a long mournful sigh. “So was I. I offered Terrell my life if he would only free my father. He refused to kill me, and said he already had commuted Pieter’s sentence. But Chisaad made sure that didn’t happen. Damn him. Damn him! Damn him.”
Pen sat quiet for a while, possibly trying to figure out the target of that triple damnation. After a while he stirred as if about to speak.
Pieter gasped. His hand convulsively squeezed Kirin’s. Kirin sat up and leaned over him in hope. “Father?”
The old acrobat’s eyes had opened. “Son?” he whispered. Blood flecked his lips.
“I’m here, Father.” Tears swelled in Kirin’s eyes.
“Good,” Pieter sighed, and for a moment his eyes closed. Then they flicked open again. “I’m dying, aren’t I?”
Kirin could barely bring himself to say the words. “Healer says so.”
Pieter lay silent for a moment, then smiled sadly. “At least you’re here. So many things I thought I’d say to you, boy. No, that’s wrong, you’re not a boy any more. You’re the man I raised, one I’m proud to leave after me.” He panted for a while and more blood leaked from the corners of his mouth.
“Father, I’m so sorry . . .” Kirin fumbled for words.
“Don’t be.” Pieter’s eyes drank him in. “I had a good life. You just love your wife, love your children and your family and your people. That’s all you have to do.” Pieter smiled again, though pain clouded his gaze. “Makes living almost easy, when you do that.”
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