James West - Crown of the Setting Sun

“You loved her … the woman you thought she was,” Adham said, speaking aloud Leitos’s thoughts.

Leitos nodded slowly. “She was human … some part of her, at least.”

Even now, hours after she had died in his arms, grief struck him anew, as if for the first time. Her presence in the world, her companionship, had given him a sense of quiet joy and the strength to overcome the entrenched mindset of a born slave.

“Any love is a blessing in a world filled with so much malice. I cannot, nor will I, condemn your love for the member of a race bent on our destruction,” Adham said. “But all love, no matter the face it wears, is bittersweet, as every present delight is tempered by the future agony of inescapable loss. Hold fast to your fond memory of her … it will keep the darkness at bay.”

Leitos almost mentioned that it was too late to avoid the darkness with which he had already become fast friends, but instead he kept his secret.

“Why does it matter if I am the last of the Valara line?” Leitos asked, wanting to turn the subject of their conversation.

Adham cast his gaze upon the nearing islands, his face contemplative. He has changed so much . Impossible though it seemed, every hour spent free of the slavemasters and the mines gave Adham back more of his youthful vigor. The day he had risen up against the Alon’mahk’lar , Adham had looked ancient, weak, his body and flesh utterly spent. Now twenty years seemed to have fallen from him.

In the continued silence, Leitos looked toward the islands and waited for his grandfather to speak. In the newborn sunlight, the islands’ naturally reddish hue was overstated, and the rocky protrusions jutted from the sea like skulls coated in blood. As the bobbing flotilla drew nearer, the islands’ namesake became obvious. Wind off the Sea of Sha’uul whipped through hollows and rocky outcrops to create a mournful wailing, a morose song to fit his mood. White birds wheeled over the scant greenery growing atop the islands’ rounded crowns. Gulls , Leitos thought. He supposed Adham must have told him of such birds.

Under the steady creak and splash of pulling oars, the boats drew nearer to the main island. It proved larger than he had first suspected. Staggered cliffs and sharp outcrops dominated the side facing the sun, while the other side had collapsed into a jumble of boulders that eventually sank beneath the frothy blue-green waters. The gulls’ cries carried well over the crashing waves. Other birds plunged into the sea like spears. They surfaced moments later, flapped vigorously, and soared aloft with tiny silver fish dangling from their beaks. Leitos had nearly forgotten what he asked before Adham finally responded.

“I can now reveal something I never told you, Leitos. I ask beforehand that you forgive me for the things I kept secret. That will be hard for you, perhaps, but understand that I did it to protect us from the eyes of the slavemasters.”

“Zera said as much, before …” Leitos’s voice faltered, seeing again the stark vision of her death, feeling again the last fitful beats of her failing heart, the heat of her blood spilling over his skin. He pawed at his eyes, angry at the wetness that burned in them. “There is nothing to forgive between us.”

Adham troubled over that awhile, then gave a brief nod. “Kian Valara, the King of the North, is my father, Leitos. In turn, I am your father. To hide that from the Faceless One, it was agreed that I leave my father’s side soon after you were born, and pose as your grandfather.”

Leitos sat in awed silence. Adham’s eyes dimmed, as he spun a tale Leitos had never heard.

“Your mother and I, with you swaddled in the back of an oxcart, departed my father’s mountain stronghold at Cordalia and made our way into Miz’Ratah, a land far north of Izutar, beyond the Sildar Mountains. My father and I believed we would be safe there from any Alon’mahk’lar attack. We were wrong.

“We had just arrived to E’ru, one of a score of secluded garrisons, when the Alon’mahk’lar raiders came out of the snowy forest. We held for near on a moon’s turn, but eventually our walls were breached. In the end, we who survived surrendered at the edge of the sword. In the dark watches of the night between then and now, I have often thought it would have been better to die with the rest … but I could not do that which would have kept you out of the hands of our enemies.”

Leitos did not need clarification. Only his death would have kept him from being taken by the Alon’mahk’lar . He thought of Sandros then, who had claimed that Alon’mahk’lar did not aimlessly roam league after league in search for future slaves, but rather used human spies to find their prey. “ All men are liars ,” so he had said often. Maybe many are , Leitos thought, but in regard to Izutarians, Sandros had been wrong.

Leitos’s mind turned. “Was my mother taken?”

“Keri?” Adham rasped. He cast his eyes on Zera, his whiskered chin trembling. “No … no, my son, she was not. After the rise of the Faceless One, it is rare thing for an Izutarian woman to allow herself to be taken. Knowing what will come should that happen, they fight alongside our men. They are often the fiercer of the two, because where men have at least the choice of surrendering to chains in hopes of taking back their freedom later, our women have only death as a choice.”

“Why is that their only choice?” Leitos asked, a sense of horror filling him.

“Do not hate me,” Adham said softly, “but those like Zera are the reason that Izutarian women would rather die by their own hands, than fall into the grasp of our enemy. Alon’mahk’lar are created by the union of Mahk’lar and human women. Never have those abominations been able to hide among humankind. Some years before your birth, we had begun hearing unbelievable rumors that the Alon’mahk’lar had begun refining their race, breeding Alon’mahk’lar to human women. In doing so, they created creatures that looked entirely human.”

“The Hunters,” Leitos said, thinking of Sandros and Pathil. That joining had worked well enough to fool Ba’Sel and his men into taking what they believed to be humans into their midst. It also struck him that Sandros’s tale about the day he was taken from his mother had been a lie, at least in part. If Sandros had not known at first, he had learned in time that his true father had been an Alon’mahk’lar .

“ Na’mihn’teghul … Hunters … changelings … no matter how they are called,” Adham said, “they are dread enemies. Fate seems to decide the manner in which they can alter their flesh. This Na’mihn’teghul -”

“Zera!” Leitos snapped, drawing a few glances from the rowing brothers. “Her name is Zera.”

“Zera,” Adham amended with grave reluctance, “is the first changeling I have known that could become a creature of both flesh and spirit. But then, I have been chained these last many years. I cannot say how much has changed in that time.”

“None of this tells me why it matters if I am the last of my line,” Leitos said “Does the Faceless One fear I will rise to take some distant throne?”

“There is no throne to claim,” Adham said bluntly. “As far as thrones go, there never really was one, nor was there ever an established kingdom. Kian Valara commanded a scattered army made up of any who wished to resist the rise of the Faceless One. Your importance to the Faceless One is the blood within our veins.”

Leitos arched an eyebrow. “Why would the Faceless One want our blood?”

“I asked the same of my father when I was about your age, and he told me of the legend of the Well of Creation-of course, to him, it was no legend, but truth.” Adham paused then, as if struggling to find a way to explain. “The Well of Creation was a receptacle, which for eons held the powers of the Three, the first children of Pa’amadin . In penance for creating the Mahk’lar , the Three foreswore their powers of creation. In doing so, they perished … but not before creating Geh’shinnom’atar , the Thousand Hells. Therein, they imprisoned their children, and also Peropis, the first of the Mahk’lar .”