Paul Thompson - Firstborn

Kith-Kanan held Anaya’s face between his hands and kissed her. For a moment only, her lips had the yielding quality of flesh. Then a firmness crept in. The elf prince pulled back and, even as he touched her face for the last time, Anaya’s features slowly vanished. What had been skin roughened into bark. By the time Kith-Kanan spoke her name once more, Anaya had found her destiny. At the clearing’s edge, the prince of the Silvanesti was embracing a fine young oak tree.

For a month the ambassadors met with the Speaker of the Stars, yet nothing was accomplished. Nothing, except that Speaker Sithel fell ill. His health had been deteriorating over the preceding weeks, and the strain of the conference had sapped his strength to the point that by the morning of the twenty-ninth day, he could not even rise from his bed. Sickness was so rare for the speaker that a mild panic gripped the palace. Servants dashed about, conversing in whispers. Nirakina summoned Sithas and Hermathya to the speaker’s bedside. So grave was her tone, Sithas half-expected to find his father on the verge of death.

Standing now at the foot of his father’s bed, the prince could see that Sithel was wan and dispirited. Nirakina sat beside her ailing husband, holding a damp cloth to his head. Hermathya hovered in the background, obviously uncomfortable in the presence of illness.

“Let me call a healer,” Nirakina insisted.

“It’s not necessary,” Sithel said testily. “I just need some rest.”

“You have a fever!”

“I do not! Well, if I do, do you think I want it known that the Speaker of the Stars is so feeble he needs a healer to get well? What sort of message do you suppose that sends to our people? Or to the foreign emissaries?” This short speech left him winded, and he breathed heavily, his face pale against the cream-colored pillows.

“Regarding the ambassadors, what shall I tell them?” Sithas asked. “If you cannot attend the conference today…”

“Tell them to soak their heads,” Sithel muttered. “That devious dwarf and that contentious human female.” His words subsided.

“Now, husband, that’s no way to talk,” Nirakina said agreeably. “There’s no stigma to being ill, you know. You’d get well a lot sooner if a healer treated you.”

“I’ll heal myself, thank you.”

“You may lie here for weeks, fevered, ill-tempered…”

“I am not ill-tempered!” Sithel shouted.

Nirakina rose from the bed purposefully. To Sithas she directed her questions. “Who can we get? Who is the best healer in Silvanost?”

From the far wall, Hermathya uttered one word: “Miritelisina.”

“Impossible,” the prince said quickly, looking at his wife with reproach. “She is in prison, as you well know, Lady.”

“Oh, tosh,” responded his mother. “If the speaker wants the best healer, he can order her release.” Neither father nor son spoke or showed any sign of heeding Nirakina’s counsel. “Miritelisina is high priestess of Quenesti Pah. No one else in Silvanost can come near her expertise in the healing art.” She appealed to Sithas. “She’s been in prison more than six months. Surely that’s punishment enough for a moment’s indiscretion?”

Sithel coughed, a loud, racking paroxysm that nearly doubled him over in bed. “It’s the old delta fever,” he gasped. “It’s known to recur.”

“Delta fever?” asked Sithas.

“A legacy of misspent youth,” the speaker said weakly. When he sat up in bed, Nirakina gave him a cup of cool water to sip. “I used to hunt in the marshes at the mouth of the Thon-Thalas when I was young. I caught delta fever then.”

Nirakina looked up at Sithas. “That was more than two hundred years before you were born,” she said reassuringly. “He’s had other, milder attacks.”

“Father, send for the priestess,” Sithas decided gravely. The speaker raised his brows questioningly. “The negotiations with the dwarves and humans must go ahead, and only a strong, healthy speaker can see that justice is done.”

“Sithas is right,” Nirakina agreed. She pressed her small hand to Sithel’s burning cheek. “Send for Miritelisina.” The speaker sighed, the dry, rattling sound rising from his fevered throat. “Very well,” he said softly. “Let it be done.”

Later that morning came a knock at the door. Nirakina called for the person to enter. Tamanier came in, looking downcast.

“Great speaker, I spoke with Miritelisina,” he said abjectly.

“Where is she?” asked Sithas sharply.

“She—she refuses to come, my prince.”

“What?” said Sithas.

“What?” echoed Nirakina.

“She will not come to Your Highness, nor will she accept pardon from prison,” Tamanier announced, shaking his head.

“Has she gone mad?” demanded Sithas.

“No, sire. Miritelisina believes her suffering in prison will bring the plight of the homeless ones to the attention of all.”

In spite of his weakness, the speaker began to laugh softly. “What a character!” he said. The laughter threatened to turn into coughing, so he checked himself.

“It’s extortion,” Sithas said angrily. “She means to dictate her own terms!”

“Never mind, son. Tamanier, have the door of Miritelisina’s cell left open. Tell the warders to bring her neither food nor water. When she gets hungry enough, she’ll leave.”

“What will you do if she doesn’t come?” Nirakina asked, bewildered.

“I shall survive,” he replied. “Now, all of you go. I wish to rest.”

Tamanier went on his errand. Sithas and Nirakina drifted out, looking back frequently at the speaker. Sithas marveled at how small and weak his father looked in the great bed.

Alone, Sithel sat up slowly. His head pounded, but after a moment it cleared. He put his feet on the floor, and the cool marble soothed him. He stood and moved carefully to a window. The whole of Silvanost spread out below him. How he loved it! Not the city, which was just a collection of buildings, but the people, the daily rhythm of life that made Silvanost a living place.

A rainstorm had ended the day before, leaving the air crystal clean with a bite of cold. High, lacy clouds stretched from the horizon to mid-sky, like delicate fingers reaching up to the abode of the gods.

All of a sudden Sithel gave a shudder. The white clouds and shining towers reeled before him. He clutched the curtains for support, but strength faded from his hands and he lost his grip. Knees buckling, he slid to the floor. No one was around to see him fall. Sithel lay still on the marble floor, warmed by a patch of sunshine.

Sithas walked the palace halls, looking for Hermathya. He saw that she had not stayed with the speaker, so fearful was she of catching his illness. Some sort of intuition drew him up the tower stairs to the floor where his old bachelor room was. To his surprise, the prince found his devotional candle lit and a fresh red rose, sacred to Matheri, lying on the table by his bachelor bed. He had no idea who had left it. Hermathya had no reason to come here.

The sight of the rose and candle soothed his worried mind somewhat. He knelt by the table and began to meditate. At last he prayed to Matheri for his father’s recovery and for more understanding in dealing with Hermathya.

Time passed. How much, he didn’t know. A tapping sound filled the small chamber. Sithas ignored it. It grew louder. He raised his head and looked around for the source of the intrusive noise. He saw his seldom-worn sword, the twin of Kith-Kanan’s weapon, hanging in its scabbard from a peg on the wall. The sword was vibrating inside its brass-bound sheath, causing the tapping noise.

Sithas rose and went to the weapon. He looked on in amazement as the length of iron shook itself like a trembling dog. He put out his hand, grasping the sword’s hilt to try and still the vibrations. The shivering climbed Sithas’s arm, penetrating his body and sending tingles up his arm. He took the sword hilt in both hands—