Джефф Мариотт - City Under the Sand

“Aric,” Rieve said, leaning toward him. “What are you going on about?”

“My father was a human, as I’m sure you know. Mother said that looking upon his face always reminded her of the rising sun. The same could be said of you.”

“I suppose,” Myklan said uneasily. “But …”

“Her name was Keyasune.”

“A lovely name,” Myklan said. “I’ve never heard it before. I’m sure she was a fine woman.”

“She was. Strong and courageous. She raised me alone, of course, because my father abandoned her the moment he learned she would bear him a child. The child of a human and a half-elf. She said he seemed drawn to her, but hated elves, and that being with her made him turn his hatred on himself.”

“Your father had a problem,” Rieve said. “But it’s nothing to do with mine, Aric, so stop.”

“I’m sorry, Rieve,” Aric said, meeting her gaze at last. He held up a hand toward her, as if he could calm her with it. “I need to say this.”

“My daughter has a point, young man,” Myklan said. “Any problems you had with your parents don’t concern us now. We’ve problems of our own.”

“So I’ve heard. Poor Pietrus, accused of murdering all those people.”

“What?” Rieve said. She was about to explode with anger. Aric hoped she didn’t attack him, because it was hard enough to get through this without also holding her off.

“But it wasn’t Pietrus, was it?”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” Myklan said.

“I think you do, sir. I think you’re not just Pietrus and Rieve’s father, but mine as well.”

“Aric, stop it!” Rieve cried. “That’s an awful thing to say!”

Myklan took his feet, clenching his fists. “That’s utter nonsense, and I won’t hear it.”

But Solyara rose as well, stepping between her husband and Aric. “Let him speak,” she said. Her tone was resigned, her manner firm.

“You’ve always been drawn to elf women, haven’t you?” Aric asked. “It was an urge you couldn’t resist. You met one—Keyasune, my mother—and for a while you tried to pretend you could really be with one. But you were ashamed of that urge, ashamed of yourself for giving in to it, and when she told you that I was on the way, that was more than you could take. You hated elves, hated them and wanted them at the same time, and to learn you would be the father of someone— something —who was even partly elf … that was worst of all. So you left her and never let her see you again. She spent her life believing you had died. I’m glad she did, because it would have been worse to know that you lived but were so ashamed you couldn’t bear to be near her.”

“Solyara, this is nonsense,” Myklan said.

“I think we should all hear it,” she replied. “He’s right, you know. Myklan’s head turns whenever he sees an attractive elf woman, even to this day. He has always been attracted to them. You try to pretend you’re not, but there’s no denying it, my husband.”

“But, Solyara—”

“Don’t,” she said. “Please, Myklan, respect me. I knew about the one, all along. So did others among our friends; you weren’t half as clever as you thought. Once, years later, I even went to the market. I’d found out who she was by then. I went, bought a scrap of something from her, I don’t even remember what now. I do recall how excited she was to get an actual metal coin, as if it was something she’d never seen. I felt sorry for her—spending all that time with a wealthy nobleman, and yet so poor that a simple coin could thrill her so. It was more than I owed, but I let her keep it all. She showed it to her child, and—oh. Oh, no. Aric. I never knew about you—that her child was his.”

Aric’s hand had gone to his medallion, hanging around his neck for most of his life. Her coin, Solyara’s. His father’s wife’s. He had a vague memory of the incident, though he’d been young, and no memory at all of what the woman in his vision had looked like. It could have been Solyara. In those days most human women looked the same to him. “This is that coin,” he said. “She never spent it.”

“Oh, Aric, I’m so sorry.”

Myklan had stopped protesting, and Aric wanted to change the subject. He swallowed back a bitter taste. “I don’t know how long it’s been going on,” he continued. “But the urge you felt, the urge you couldn’t deny, has stayed with you. Worse, perhaps, since I was born. You might not have known me, but you knew of me, you knew somewhere in Nibenay you had a child, born of a half-elf. That must have driven you mad. Yet still you couldn’t stop wanting elves, or hating yourself for wanting them.”

“Aric,” Corlan said. “I think Rieve is right, you’re saying things you can’t prove, things that once said there’ll be no turning back from.”

“I know, Corlan. And believe me, I wish I didn’t have to. But now Pietrus has been accused of Myklan’s crimes, and Myklan is letting his entire family suffer for what he’s done.”

“What?” Rieve asked. She jumped to her feet, turned way from the circle, toward the second fire. Her shoulders shook with sobs. Corlan tried to comfort her, but she writhed away from his touch, burying her face in her hands.

“Your desire for elf women turned into violence, didn’t it? You couldn’t be with them, and you couldn’t stop wanting to. So there came a day when you killed a human man who dared take what you wanted so badly. And you killed her. Because she saw you? Or just because of who she was? It probably doesn’t matter.”

Myklan was shaking with rage. His face had gone white, except for that mark, and he was biting his lower lip so hard Aric expected him to draw blood. But he had stopped protesting.

“And that made you feel better, at least for a time. But then the urge came again. Was is stronger this time? You satisfied it in the same way. In time, perhaps, the urge changed. You no longer burned with desire for those elf women, but for the desire to kill them, and the men with them.

“Finally, you were seen, chased. But the people who chased you home couldn’t believe that Myklan of Thrace, esteemed member of the nobility, could have done such things. No, it must have been Myklan’s addled boy, Pietrus.”

Pietrus was sitting across from Aric. His hands were over his ears, and he made a low-pitched, keening sound. Tears dribbled down his cheeks. Sheridia knelt by him, stroking his shoulders, but he didn’t seem to know she was there. He was the one Aric felt worst about in all this, and he was sorry he had started it while Pietrus was present. There had been no choice, though. Having come to the realization, Aric had to say something.

“You were happy to let them think it. Happy to let your own family believe you had to flee Nibenay because Pietrus was accused. Perhaps you even let them think that maybe the mob was right, that Pietrus was guilty of those murders. Getting away from the city was the only solution, the only way to protect your son. But it wasn’t Pietrus you were worried about, was it? You were worried that someone would realize it was you all along.”

“You were out that night,” Solyara remembered. “I didn’t see you come home, and you told me you’d been there for more than an hour when the mob started screaming outside. But you were winded, your cheeks flushed with effort. You had just come home, hadn’t you?”

Myklan didn’t answer. He shook, and stared into the fire, and chewed his lip.

“If our guard Bryldun were here, instead of killed in the desert by those awful raiders, we could ask him,” Solyara went on. “But he’s not. Another death on your conscience, Myklan? How many is that?”

“All right!” Myklan sank to his knees, folded over, pounded the earth with his fists. “Yes, yes, yes!” He loosed a great, anguished wail. “Yes, all of it, it’s true!”