Carol Berg - Son of Avonar

The blue-gray frostlight of the Gate flooded the passage. As I walked into the chamber, flanked by the two Zhid, my breath was visible in the frigid air. It took me a heart-searing moment to find the one that waited. He sat by the fiery wall, his arms wrapped about his knees, his head bowed as if he were asleep. I tried to shout a warning, but my tongue would not obey, no matter how I tried. Even so, the Prince’s head came up quickly, his face awash with unhappy surprise.

It’s all right, I thought. I chose to be here. To stay with you. Gods, how I wished he could hear me. Indeed, no answering words sounded in my mind, but on his face blossomed a smile of such brilliance, one might think all the beauty and joy of the universe had been gathered into his soul. Karon’s smile. I was right. Oh, holy gods, how was it possible?

A quick movement to my left was Giano, his gaze snapping from the Prince to me and back again. The Zhid’s eyes narrowed briefly, picking at my soul before he moved on to his business. “We stand at this artifice of enslavement called D’Arnath’s Bridge,” he said, focusing sober attention on the man seated in front of him. “Who speaks for the dead despot?”

And so the challenge was opened.

“I speak for D’Arnath, the father of my fathers,” answered the Prince, remaining seated, though shifting his full attention to the Zhid. “Who intrudes on this holy place?”

“Those who deny D’Arnath and his whelps any place in the worlds that have repudiated them. We refute your claim to these objects you so pompously declare to be holy. This bridge and its devices unlawfully bind the power of your own people. And the residents of this sad world”—he swept his hand wide—“have long declared they want no part of Dar’Nethi magics.”

“I’ll take on any challenge. I’ll not lie down and die for you, Zhid.”

Giano smiled. “I never intended you should.”

The Prince sat relaxed. Waiting. “Who has appointed you champion for this world, Giano?”

“Much as I desire to be the sole bearer of this challenge, D’Natheil, and to lick the last drops of D’Arnath’s blood from my sword, this battle is properly fought by all concerned.” He snapped his fingers, and the Zhid woman left the room. “It is time for your family’s unique brand of slavery to end. Unlike your self-important ancestors, we do not assume the right to speak for these mundanes or declare what’s best for their future. We’ve only shown them how D’Arnath and J’Ettanne have contrived to keep their world in bondage to Avonar, that dying crone who sucks the lifeblood of a child to extend her life one moment longer. No. This world has provided its own proper opponent, one who carries the honor of these lands and their sovereign on his sword.”

I caught my breath. The connection I hadn’t seen. Giano did not need to name his champion, the lord who had arrived in the middle of the night, the same lord who had been sent to answer the challenge of a “rebel chieftain” in the west. The burly Zhid had pulled me to the fog-shrouded periphery of the chamber, so Tomas did not see me as he strode through the doorway behind the Zhid woman. How magnificent he looked, dressed in red silk, fine leather, and the ruby-studded tabard that was only worn by the king’s defender, carrying the ancient sword of the Champion of Leire. Perfectly balanced, exactingly forged and tempered, there was no finer blade in the Four Realms. Now, where was his companion, Maceron’s master, the sardonic snake who slithered out from under every vile stone in the Four Realms? For the moment, at least, Tomas stood alone.

My brother seemed scarcely to note his strange surroundings, but saved his attention for the Prince. He snorted when D’Natheil rose to face him. “This is my opponent, my liege’s challenger?”

Though the two were equal in stature, the Prince looked shabby in comparison: barefoot, his face bruised, wrists and ankles raw and ringed with dried blood, Rowan’s tired black cloak held about him with the sword belt. D’Natheil looked puzzled as he examined Tomas, and only after a long scrutiny of my brother’s face and red-brown hair did understanding dawn. “Is this some jest, Zhid? I’ve no dispute with this man.”

Tomas interrupted the smirking Giano before the Zhid could answer. “I am no one’s jest. I stand champion for Evard, King of Leire and Valleor, Protector of Kerotea and Iskeran. No one challenges the sovereignty of my liege without answer from me.”

“I make no challenge to your king,” said the Prince. “My argument is with this Giano and his masters who have laid waste to my own land, who have devastated my people beyond your understanding, who have murdered my father and my brothers, and whose intent is to slay me before I can remedy the wickedness they’ve done.”

“I care nothing for your personal disputes,” spat Tomas. “But sorcerers of your race have lived in Leire uninvited, defying our laws and customs. You proclaim yourself sovereign of a neighboring realm, yet you do not treat with our king as would a legitimate brother. Instead you sneak about the Four Realms, committing murder and spying out our defenses. And this strange portal—do you not claim it as your rightful property, and is it not possible for your warriors to invade our lands through some secret avenue that lurks behind it?”

Someone had tutored him very well.

“You don’t understand what you’ve been brought into,” said D’Natheil. “I’ll not fight you. I honor your house, and I acknowledge your king.”

Tomas drew his longsword—the light, flexible, perfectly edged blade of the Champion of Leire, rubies glittering in its hilt. “I understand enough. Fail to fight, and you’ll die at my hand. By our law, you should rightly burn. But because you’ve come from another land, I offer you a warrior’s death.” He stepped closer to the Prince. D’Natheil stood motionless, hands loose and relaxed at his sides, sword sheathed. I tried again to call out, to stop the wickedness that was about to happen. But Giano smiled at my struggle. His binding on my tongue was as firm as the Zhid warrior’s hold on my arm. I could not make a sound, and my brother could not see me.

With the wickedly tapered tip of his sword, Tomas ripped a long slit in D’Natheil’s collar.

The Prince did not move. “I have no dispute with you, sir.”

Another tweak at his breast left a ragged tear in the black cloak. Tomas was proud and preferred a fight, but he took his duty to Evard very seriously. If he was convinced of the danger D’Natheil posed, he would take off the Prince’s head without compunction. A third move left a bloody scratch on D’Natheil’s cheek, and with a movement so swift as to be unseen, Rowan’s sword, heavy and old-fashioned, scratched and nicked in a hundred places, appeared in the Prince’s hand. Giano licked his lips. Was he still expecting the Prince to run?

With no further hesitation, Tomas attacked. I had not seen my brother fight since he’d come into his prime. He was a master of fluid power, the flash and speed of his youth replaced by intelligence and perception. It was as if he knew to an exactitude where D’Natheil’s blade would be at any moment, and he scarcely had to shift his position to counter any move the Prince made. His king did not deserve such perfection.

D’Natheil began slowly, as if he were reluctant, or the weapon were too heavy, or he couldn’t remember the moves. But as Tomas lunged and struck, the ringing swords sending blue-white sparks flying through the icy fog, the Prince shed his hesitation. Thrust, parry, counter, attack… spinning, circling… faster, smoother, more powerful by the moment, a new level of skill demonstrated with every closure.