P. Hodgell - Honor's Paradox

Another memory, another voice, this one harsh and halting: Ashe had said that, according to legend, only a Kencyr could kill one of the Three. Jame feared that she was becoming the incarnation of That-Which-Destroys, the Third Face of God. It would be ironic if the Judge were to blast his last chance at revenge by destroying her, and it would indeed be the last: once there had been many potential Knorth nemeses—now there was only her.

But time passed and the howling on the heights abated, if it had ever been there at all. Jame began to doubt what she had seen and heard, both with the Dark Judge and with Vant among the Burning Ones. How likely was the latter, after all? A trick of the firelight, a shard of free-floating guilt.

As for the blind Arrin-ken, let him mind his own business. Be damned if she was going to run scared of a phantom bully, however bloodthirsty.

Meanwhile, she continued to work with Bear, after badgering the Commandant into letting her into the randon’s cell to deal with his overgrown toenails and claws. She found that since she had last seen him, he had virtually destroyed his lodgings. Had he finally grown aware of how squalid they were, or simply succumbed to an extreme case of cabin fever? She thought that she saw improvement in him now if only in that he no longer tried to kill her during lessons and began to teach again. Once in a while, he actually spoke a word or two. Was it only wishful thinking, or had the scar on his forehead lengthened as his cleft skull finally began to close? Still, how could he really improve while tightly mewed in and isolated as he was most of the time?

Timmon continued to court her, if a bit absent-mindedly. Now that his instructors were holding him to schedule, he had less time and energy for amorous pursuits. As the easiest course, he had again taken Narsa into his bed. Jame worried about that. Surely the Kendar knew that he was only using her, but he had woven his charms so well that she probably didn’t care. Whenever Jame saw her she looked happy, though with a certain uneasy, feverish gleam in her eyes.

Gorbel grumbled through his days, making up for his clumsiness with dogged determination, often with the pook Twizzle in the corner regarding him button-eyed and panting, occasionally shifting within his skin the better to deal with one arcane itch or another.

Fash watched everyone with his wide, white smile and his cold eyes.

At last came a day when the wind changed from the north to the south. Although snow still lay thick on the ground, something hinted at stealthy growth in the dark and at awakenings. Water dripped. Snow slid from boughs in miniature avalanches, echoed by massive ones from the heights. Cadets shoved back their hoods, sniffed, and grinned at each other. They had to endure one last blizzard, but after that the sun shone bright and the snow began to creep back into the shadows. A bird sang tentatively, then another.

Soon it would be time for the High Council meeting.

Torisen slid into the dress coat that Burr held for him and ran his scarred hands down its sleek panels. His Kendar servant had talked him into ordering new clothes from Kothifir for himself as well as for his garrison—the former a luxury about which he still felt uneasy. Black satin, richly embroidered with silver thread by his own people . . . they wanted to show him off. A pity that he didn’t fill such extravagance better.

“I can still count your ribs,” muttered Burr, mirroring his thoughts.

“So? No one else can, under all of this finery. Come summer, shall I try to pork up like Lord Caineron?”

“Huh.”

Torisen’s hand slid over his pocket and the slight bulge there. Pereden’s ring and finger. How meaningless everything seemed compared to those, the dull sparks that might overthrow his entire world. If he gave them to Adric, how was he going to explain where they had come from and why they were here? He couldn’t lie without the death of honor, without which there was nothing.

If he hid them, though, Adric’s search would tear the Riverland apart.

Burn them? His study fire wasn’t hot enough, but Marc’s would be. He should have thought of that before. However, what would that do to Adric?

Damn Holly anyway—a good idea at the wrong time. What if his cousin were to confess what he knew? That, after all, wasn’t much. He shouldn’t have recognized Peri in the first place. Much less did he know how Adric’s heir had come to be on the common pyre. Would Adric recognize his innocence, though? A blood feud between the Ardeth and the Danior would destroy the latter and only benefit the Randir, who would love to take over tiny Shadow Rock so temptingly placed just across the river from them.

But Torisen couldn’t permit that either . . . could he?

Wouldn’t that be better than admitting his role in that wretched boy’s death? Because that would lead to total civil war, the probable extinction of his own house, and quite possibly the end of the Kencyrath as he knew it.

One tried and tried to do the right thing.

Damn you, Pereden. I will not let you destroy everything that I’ve worked so hard to build. I will not.

Burr produced an iron box and opened it. They both regarded the Kenthiar, that mysterious, narrow, silver collar set with a gem of shifting hue. Only the true Highlord could wear it; anyone else hazarded his neck, not to mention his head. Torisen picked it up, gingerly, wary of its inner surfaces. Was he still fit to be the leader of his people? Had he ever been? Well, the accursed thing had accepted him before. He put it around his neck and snapped shut the hinges. Both he and Burr let out their breaths, which neither had realized he was holding.

Voices drifted up the stairs from the Council Chamber below. The lords were beginning to gather.

“Now,” he said to Burr, “we go down.”

A cloth had been spread over the ebony table to protect the glass beneath and both furnace doors were shut, leaving the chamber pleasantly warm on this cool, late winter day. Only one lord had arrived so far with his retinue in attendance. He turned. It was Adric, his skin darkened by the Southern Wastes in sharp contrast to his white hair and blue eyes.

“Ganth!” he exclaimed.

A chill went down Torisen’s spine. So too the old Jaran lord, Jedrak, had greeted him out of the depths of his sudden senility before the Host had marched out for the Cataracts. He finished his own descent to the floor and crossed it to his old mentor. As he did so, a middle-aged man bent to whisper in Lord Ardeth’s ear.

Adric drew back, waving a thin, fastidious hand. “Dari, please. Your breath would stun a horse.”

So this was Adric’s grandson and would-be lordan regent. He might have been handsome if not for his prissy expression, half disapproval, half an effort to move his lips as little as possible when he spoke. His teeth, briefly glimpsed, ranged from newborn white nubs to rotting black stumps, the rest a gray all the more distressing set against red, swollen gums. Trinity, what could cause a man’s own body to turn against him so painfully? The healer’s use of soul-images suggested that the body reflected the spirit. Was Dari really so ambitious that he would even devour himself? So far in his grandfather’s absence, however, he had run his house well. Prune-faced or not, he was a competent man.

“Not Ganth. Torisen.”

He took the old man’s hand and kissed it. “How are you, Adric?”

The blue eyes blinked, then refocused. “Torisen. Of course. I am well, but will be so much better when I find Pereden. You aren’t a father. You don’t know what it’s like, to lose a son.”

Torisen almost asked, “To lose in what sense?”

How d’you think my father will react when he hears what I’ve done, and why? Pereden’s voice jeered in his memory.