Firstborn

21 — Silvanost, Year of the Ram

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—

In a flash the speaker’s heir had a sudden, clear impression of his twin brother. Great rage, great anguish, heartache, a mortal blow—

A loud crack smote his ears, and the sword ceased vibrating. Slightly dazed, Sithas, drew the blade out. It was broken cleanly, about five inches above the hilt.

Fear seized him. Fear for Kith-Kanan. He had no idea how he knew, but as he held the stump of the sword, Sithas knew without a doubt that Kith was in grave danger, perhaps even near death. He had to tell someone—his father, his mother. Sithas rushed to the dark oaken door of his old room and flung it open. He was startled to find someone standing just outside, shadowed by the massive overhang of the stone arch over the door.

“Who are you?” Sithas demanded, presenting the foreshortened sword. The figure seemed ominous somehow.

“Your sword is broken,” said the stranger soothingly. “Be at peace, noble prince. I mean you no harm.”

The stranger stepped forward into the pale light emanating from Sithas’s candle, still burning on the table. He wore a nondescript gray robe. A hood covered his head. The air around him throbbed with an aura of power. Sithas felt it, like heat on his face from a nearby fire.

“Who are you?” the prince repeated with great deliberation. The oddly menacing figure reached up with slim pink fingers to throw back the hood. Beneath the soft gray material, his face was round and good-natured. He was nearly bald; only a fringe of mouse-brown hair covered the sides of his head. His ears were small and tapered.

“Do I know you?” Sithas asked. He relaxed a bit, for the stranger looked like nothing more than a beggarly cleric.

“At a royal dinner some time ago, you met an elf with long blond hair who introduced himself as Kamin Oluvai, second priest of the Blue Phoenix. That was me.” The strange elf seemed pleased with Sithas’s evident surprise.

“You’re Kamin Oluvai? You look nothing like him,” said the puzzled prince.

“A simple disguise.” He shrugged. “But in truth, Kamin Oluvai is another of my masks. My real name is Vedvedsica, and I am at Your Highness’s service.” He bowed low.

It was a northern name, such as Silvanesti used in regions near Istar. Such elves were reputed to be deeply involved in sorcery. Sithas watched Kamin Oluvai—or was it Vedvedsica?—warily.

“I’m very busy,” the prince said abruptly. “What do you want?”

“I came in answer to a call, great prince. For some years I have been of use to your noble father, helping him in certain discreet matters. The speaker is ill, is he not?”

“A seasonal chill,” said Sithas stiffly. “Speak plainly and tell me what you want, or else get out of my way.”

“The speaker requires a healer to dispel his delta fever.” Sithas could not hide his surprise at the fact that Vedvedsica knew the nature of his father’s illness. “I have treated the speaker before, banishing the fever. I can do so again.”

“You are not a priest of Quenesti Pah. Who do you serve?”

Vedvedsica smiled and stepped farther into the small room. Sithas automatically backed away, maintaining the distance between them. “Your Highness is an elf of great erudition and education. You know the unfairness of Silvanesti law, which only allows the worship of…”

“Who do you serve?” Sithas repeated sharply.

The gray-robed elf dropped his reticence. “My master is Gilean, the Gray Voyager.”

Sithas tossed the broken end of his sword on the table. His concern was eased. Gilean was a god of Neutrality, not Evil. His worship was not officially recognized in Silvanost, but it wasn’t actively suppressed either.

“My father has consulted with you?” he asked skeptically.

“Frequently.” Vedvedsica’s face took on a crafty expression, as if he were privy to things even the speaker’s heir did not know.

“If you can cure my father, why did you come to me?” wondered Sithas.

“The speaker is an old, noble prince. Today he is ill. Someday, when he is gone, you will be speaker. I wish to continue my relationship with House Royal,” he said, picking his words carefully.

Anger colored Sithas’s face. He snatched up the broken sword and held the squared-off edge to the sorcerer’s throat. His relationship with House Royal indeed! Vedvedsica held his ground, though he tilted his round head away from the blade.

“You speak treason,” Sithas said coldly. “You insult me and my family. I will see you in chains in the lowest reaches of the palace dungeons, gray cleric!”

Vedvedsica’s pale gray eyes bored into Sithas’s furious face. “You wish to have your twin brother home, do you not?” the cleric asked insinuatingly.

The broken sword remained at Vedvedsica’s throat, but Sithas’s interest was piqued. He frowned.

The sorcerer sensed his hesitation. “I can find him, great prince.” Stated Vedvedsica firmly. “I can help you.”

Sithas remembered the terrible feelings that had swept over him when he’d first grasped the vibrating sword. So much pain and rage. Wherever Kith was, he was in definite trouble.

“How would you do it?” asked the prince, almost too faintly to be heard.

“A simple act,” noted the cleric. His gaze flickered down to the blade.

“I’ll not break the law. No invocations to Gilean.” Said the prince harshly,

“Of course not, Highness. You yourself will do all that needs to be done.”

Sithas bade him explain, but Vedvedsica’s eyes traveled once more to the blade at his throat. “If you please, Highness—?” Sithas swung the weapon away. The sorcerer swallowed audibly, then continued. “There is in all of us who share the blood of Astarin the ability to reach out to the ones we love, across great distances, and summon them to us.”

“I know of what you speak,” said Sithas. “But the Call has been forbidden to Kith-Kanan. I cannot break the speaker’s edict.”

“Ah,” said the sorcerer with a wry smile. “But the speaker has need of my services to heal his fever. Perhaps I can strike a bargain!”

Sithas was growing weary of this fellow’s impudence. Striking bargains with the speaker indeed! But if there was the slightest hope of getting Kith back—and healing his father—

Vedvedsica remained silent, sensing his best hope lay in letting Sithas come to a decision of his own accord.

“What must I do to call Kith-Kanan home?” Sithas asked finally.

“If you have some object that is strongly identified with your brother, that will help your concentration. It can be a focus for your thoughts.”

After a long, tense silence, Sithas spoke. “I will take you to my father,” he said. He brought the broken sword up once more to the cleric’s throat. “But if anything you have told me is false, I shall turn you over to the Clerical Court Council for trial as a charlatan. You know what they do to illicit sorcerers?” Vedvedsica waved a hand casually. “Very well. Come!”

As Sithas opened the door, Vedvedsica caught his arm. The prince stared furiously at the cleric’s hand until Vedvedsica deigned to remove it. “I cannot walk the halls of the palace in plain sight, great prince,” the cleric said mysteriously. “Discretion is necessary for someone like myself.” He took a small bottle from his sash and pulled the cork. An acrid smell flooded the small room. “If you will allow me to use this unguent. When warmed by the skin, it creates a fog of uncertainty around those who wear it. No one we pass will be certain they see or hear us.”

Sithas felt he had no choice. Vedvedsica applied the reddish oil to his fingers and traced a magic sigil on Sithas’s forehead. He did the same to himself. The unguent left a burning sensation on Sithas’s skin. He had an intense desire to wipe the poisonous-smelling stuff off, but as the gray-clad cleric displayed no discomfort, the prince mastered the impulse.

“Follow me,” advised Vedvedsica. At least that’s what Sithas thought he said. The words came to his ear distantly, waveringly, as if the cleric spoke from the bottom of a well.

They ascended the steps, passing a trio of handmaids on the way. The elf girls’ forms were indistinct to Sithas, though the background of stair and wall was solid and clear. The maids’ eyes flickered over the prince and his companion, but no recognition showed on their faces. They continued on down the stair. The “fog of uncertainty” was working just as the cleric had claimed.

On the penultimate floor of the tower, they paused before the doors to the speaker’s private rooms. Servants stood outside, idle. They paid no heed to the prince or the cleric.

“Strange,” mused Sithas, words falling from his lips like drops of cold water. His own voice sounded muffled. “Why are they not inside with the speaker?”

He opened the door and hurried in. “Father?” he called. Sithas passed through the antechamber, with Vedvedsica close behind. After a glance around the room, he saw his father’s crumpled form lying on the stone floor by the window. He shouted for assistance.

“They cannot hear you.” Vedvedsica said, wafting into Sithas’s line of sight. Desperately the prince knelt and lifted his father. How light he felt, the great elf who ruled the elven nation! As Sithas placed his father on the bed, Sithel’s eyes fluttered open. His face was dazed.

“Kith? Is that you?” he asked in a strange, faraway voice.

“No, Father, it’s Sithas,” said the elf prince, stricken with anguish.

“You’re a good boy, Kith…but a willful fool. Why did you bare a weapon in the tower? You know it’s a sacred place.”

Sithas turned to the waiting Vedvedsica. “Take the spell off us!” he demanded fiercely. The cleric bowed and dampened a cloth at a wash basin, then wiped the prince’s forehead clean. Immediately, it seemed, the fog vanished from his senses. Just seconds later the cleric materialized, seemingly out of nowhere.

Swiftly Vedvedsica took some dried herbs from his shoulder pouch and crushed them into a pewter goblet that stood on a table near the speaker’s bed. Concerned, Sithas watched him work. The cleric next soaked the crushed dry leaves in crimson nectar, swirled the goblet to mix the ingredients, and held out the goblet to the prince.

“Let him drink this,” he said with confidence. “It will clear his head.”

Sithas held the goblet to his father’s lips. No sooner had the first red drops passed Sithel’s mouth, than his eyes lost their rheumy haze. Tightly he gripped Sithas’s wrist.

“Son, what is this?” He looked beyond Sithas and espied the sorcerer. Sharply he said, “Why are you here? I did not send for you!”

“But you did, great speaker.” Vedvedsica bowed deeply from the waist. “Your fevered mind called to me for help some hours ago. I came.”

“Do you know him, Father?” Sithas asked.

“All too well.” Sithel sank back on his pillows, so the prince set the goblet aside. “I’m sorry you had to meet him under such circumstances, son. I might have warned you.”

Sithas looked at Vedvedsica, his face mixed with gratitude and distrust. “Is he cured?”

“Not yet, my prince. There are other potions I must prepare. They will cure the speaker.”

“Get on with it, then,” Sithas commanded.

Vedvedsica flinched. “There is the matter of our bargain.”

Sithel coughed. “What bargain have you made with this old spider?” the speaker demanded.

“He will cure your fever if you allow me to call Kith-Kanan home,” Sithas said honestly. Sithel arched his white brows in surprise, and the prince averted his eyes from his father’s intense gaze.

“Call Kith?” he asked skeptically. “Vedvedsica, you’re no altruist. What do you want for yourself out of this?”

The cleric bowed again. “I ask only that the speaker’s heir pay me such an amount as he thinks appropriate.”

Sithel shook his head. “I don’t see why Kith-Kanan should interest you, but I don’t object,” he said with a heavy sigh, then turned to his heir. “What will you pay him, Sithas?”

The prince thought once more of the broken sword and the terrible feeling of suffering he’d felt from his twin. “Fifty gold pieces,” he said decisively.

Vedvedsica’s eyes widened. “A most handsome amount, great prince.”

Father and son watched in silence as the cleric compounded his healing potion. When at last it was done, he filled a tall silver beaker with the muddy green fluid. To Sithas’s surprise, Vedvedsica took a healthy swig of the mixture himself first and seemed satisfied. Then he held it out to the prostrate speaker.

“You must drink it all,” he insisted. Sithas handed the beaker to his father. Sithel raised himself on his elbows and downed the brew in three swallows. He looked expectantly at his son. In turn, Sithas turned to Vedvedsica.

“Well?”

“The effect is a subtle one, great prince, but rest assured, the speaker will shortly be cured of his fever.”

Indeed, Sithel’s forehead had become cooler to the touch. The speaker exhaled gustily, and sat up straighter. A tinge of color was returning to his pale cheeks. Vedvedsica nodded grandly.

“Leave us, sorcerer,” Sithel said tersely. “You may collect your payment later.”

Another deep bow. “As the speaker commands.” Vedvedsica produced the small bottle of unguent and began to apply it as before.

Holding up a hand, the prince said acidly, “Out the door first, cleric.”

Vedvedsica’s smile was wide as he departed.

Sithas left his father looking more fit than he had in a month, then proceded to make his way through the palace to spread word of his recovery. Vedvedsica wasn’t mentioned. The speaker’s recovery was reported as natural, a sign of the gods’ favor.

Finally, Sithas went down the tower steps to Kith-Kanan’s old room. No one was around. Dust lay thickly over everything for nothing had disturbed it since his brother had left in disgrace. How long ago had it been? Two years?

The room held all sorts of Kith’s personal items. His silver comb. His second favorite bow, now warped and cracked from the room’s dry air. All his courtly clothes hung in the wardrobe. Sithas touched each item of clothing, trying to concentrate his thoughts on his lost brother. All he felt were old memories. Some pleasant, many sad.

A strange sensation came over the prince. He felt as if he were moving up and away, though his body hadn’t stirred an inch. Smoke from a campfire teased his nose. The sound of wind in a forest filled his ears. Sithas looked down at his hands. They were browned by the sun and hardened by work and combat. These were not his hands; they were Kith-Kanan’s. The prince knew then that he must try to communicate with his twin, but when he opened his mouth to speak, his throat was tight. It was hard to form words. He concentrated instead on forming them in his mind.

Come home, he willed. Come home, Kith. Come home.

Sithas forced his lips to work. “Kith!” he cried.

Speaking his twin’s name ended the experience abruptly. Sithas staggered backward, disoriented, and sat down on his twin’s old bed. Dust rose around him. Streaks of sunlight, which had reached across the room when he came in, now had retreated to just under the window sill. Several hours had passed.

Sithas shook the queer disorientation out of his head and went to the door. He had definitely made contact with Kith, but whether he had made the fabled Call, he didn’t know. It was late now, and he needed to see how his father was doing.

Sithas left the room so hastily he didn’t pull the door completely closed behind him. And as he mounted the steps to the upper floor of the palace tower, the prince didn’t notice the door to Kith-Kanan’s room slowly swing open and remain that way.