Paul Thompson - The Qualinesti

He crossed the receiving room at the main entrance on the ground floor and seized the first available doorknob. This was the Speaker’s trophy room. Here were displayed Kith-Kanan’s various suits of armor, his personal weapons, as well as flags and standards captured from the Ergothians during the Kinslayer War. Silveran wove his way among the stands of halberds, swords, and pikes. The glint of metal gave him an idea, a mad idea. He would kill the wretched ghost again—for good this time—and be safe. Safe and free.

But the pikes and swords were held in their racks by strong loops of chain and wire, and none came easily to hand. Silveran hurried by them and went to the rear wall, scanning the trophies mounted there. These were not, properly speaking, weapons, but rather tools the Speaker had used in his long career. The saw he had wielded to fell the first tree when Qualinost was being built. The mason’s trowel he used to lay the cornerstone of the Tower of the Sun. The hammer King Glenforth of Thorbardin had given him to carve out the first block for the fortress of peace, Pax Tharkas.

The hammer rested on a small pedestal under a crystal dome. The silver bands on its handle sparkled, and its gilded head gleamed. The dome was not sealed, and Silveran quickly sent it crashing to the floor. The hammer fit his grip as if made for him.

He exulted. The mighty dwarven hammer would smash diamonds to dust if swung smartly and struck fairly. Now he would deal with the monster Drulethen. His torment would soon be finished!

The door of the trophy room opened slowly. The elf huddled in the shadows, hammer couched on his shoulders. A pale yellow light filtered in from the open door, and a voice whispered, “Silveran? Are you in here?”

“Yes!” he shouted, leaping on the door and wrenching it fully open. He saw for a second a grinning, fleshless skull staring at him with empty white eye sockets, heard the mocking laughter in his ears. “Now I will kill you forever, Dru!” Silveran screamed and brought the hammer down in a smashing blow on Dru’s skull. Bone yielded under the awful impact, and he smelled blood. The yellow light went out.

Silveran collapsed in a limp heap on the floor. He’d done it. He’d killed Dru completely. Now he was free. His eyelids fluttered closed just as more light filled the room.

Tamanier, Ulvian, and Verhanna lifted their lamps high. Behind them, sleepy servants muttered about their interrupted rest. The lamplight fell upon the scene in the Speaker’s trophy room.

“By all the holy gods!” Tamanier cried. “He’s killed the Speaker!”

The entire Guard of the Sun was roused and turned out of their barracks while the best healers in Qualinost were summoned to the Speaker’s house. Kith-Kanan bore a terrible wound on his head where the dwarven hammer had broken his skull. But he was not dead. His heart beat, and he drew breath, but the Speaker of the Sun had not opened his eyes since the tragedy.

Strangely, Silveran was likewise insensible. His body was unmarked, yet he could not be roused, even when foul-smelling asafetida was waved under his nose. All signs of madness had left him; his face was peaceful, and the deep lines in his brow were smoothed out. He looked like a sleeping child, lying on the floor by his mortally wounded father.

Verhanna refused any help and carried her father to his bed. Tamanier explained how Kith-Kanan had heard the disturbance Silveran had caused and had gone, without summoning any guards, to investigate.

“I will never forgive myself,” the old castellan said, wringing his hands. “I should have gone in his stead!”

“Never mind,” Ulvian said unsteadily as they mounted the steps on each side of Verhanna. “No one knew this was going to happen. Silveran must have struck out at Father in a delirium.”

In truth, the prince was much shaken by this turn of events. He had never desired Kith-Kanan’s death, and he somehow realized the amulet had deliberately maneuvered father and son together for just this result. Now the evil talisman wouldn’t have to wait long for Ulvian to receive that which he’d requested. In days—perhaps hours—Ulvian would be Speaker of the Sun.

Aytara and the entire college of Quen arrived, and they were put to work trying to save Kith-Kanan’s life. Silveran merited only a passing glance. Aside from the fact that he couldn’t be awakened, he seemed in perfect health. The high priestess didn’t wish to waste a single spell or incantation on the uninjured elf; all the magic they could gather would be needed for the Speaker. Two of the guards carried the Speaker’s unconscious son to a small room on the second floor of the great house. Their orders were to chain him and stand guard at his door.

Kith-Kanan was dying.

Soon the whole house was saturated with the smell of incense and the sound of chanting. The Clerics of Quen invoked their mightiest spells, and they succeeded in slowing the creep of death through the Speaker’s limbs, but they couldn’t stop it. Aytara admitted as much to Verhanna and Ulvian in the sitting room of their father’s chambers.

“How—how long will he live?” asked Verhanna, silent tears trickling down her face.

“A day. Perhaps two. He is very strong. A normal elf would have died on the spot from such a blow. You should be prepared, my lady. The end could come at any time.”

“Is there nothing you can do?”

Aytara bowed. Her white robes were wrinkled, her sky-blue sash loosely tied. She, too, was crying. “No, Highness. I am deeply sorry.”

Verhanna nodded and the high priestess departed.

After a silent moment, Ulvian coughed. “There remains the matter of my succession,” he said.

Verhanna. Glared. “What succession?”

“When our father dies, who will be the next Speaker? Certainly not our mad half-brother.”

Snarling with outrage, Verhanna seized her brother by the front of his shirt and propelled him backward out the door and into the hallway, until he thudded against a pillar. “Don’t talk to me about crowns!” she said through clenched teeth. “Our father isn’t even dead yet, and already you crave his scepter! I tell you this, Brother, if you mention such a thing to me again before Father is gone, I’ll kill you. I’ll gut you like a wild pig! Is that clear?”

Mastering the fear that trembled through his body, Ulvian said that it was. He had no doubt she meant what she said. Though he clutched her arms, he knew he’d never break her grip.

Verhanna felt something hard under her wrist. She plucked open Ulvian’s blue shirt, sending buttons flying. There was a leather bag hanging around his neck. Her brother’s eyes were wide with fear and anger.

“What’s this?” she hissed. When he didn’t reply, she drew her dagger in her left hand and held it to his face.

For an instant, he thought Verhanna was going to slit his throat, but all she did was cut the thong holding the leather bag. Stepping back, she pried it open and found the onyx amulet.

“What are you doing with this?” she demanded.

“It’s just a lump of carved stone,” he said, his voice quavering. Ulvian prayed silently for the amulet to intervene. Nothing happened.

“This was destroyed in the fire when Drulethen was—” Verhanna stopped in midsentence. Her head snapped around in the direction of their father’s bedchamber. Slowly she turned back to Ulvian, her face suffused with blood.

“You!” she breathed.

“No, Hanna, it wasn’t—”

She seized her brother again, shoving him so hard against the pillar that his vision filled with stars. “Let me go! You’ll regret it if you hurt me!” he babbled.

“I haven’t got time for you now,” she muttered fiercely. She let him go. Ulvian’s feet dropped to the floor.