Firstborn

2 — Later That Night

Sithel strode with furious energy down the corridors of the Palace of Quinari. Servants and courtiers backed away from him as he went, so fierce was the anger on his face. The assembly had ended on a triumphant note, but the Speaker of the Stars could not forget the outrage his own son had committed.

The corridor ended at the palace’s great central tower. Sithel approached the huge bronze doors that closed off the private rooms of his family from the rest of the palace. The doors were eighteen feet high, inlaid with silver runes that kept a protective spell on them. No one not of the blood of Silvanos could open the doors. Sithel hit one door with each palm. The immense portals, delicately balanced, swung inward.

“Where is he? Where is Kith-Kanan?” he demanded, setting his feet wide apart and planting his fists on his hips. “I’ll teach that boy to shame us in front of a public assembly!”

Within the chamber, Nirakina sat on a low, gilded couch. Sithas bent over her, proffering a goblet of sweet nectar. The prince straightened when his father entered, but neither he nor his mother spoke.

“Well?” demanded Sithel.

Nirakina looked up from her goblet. Her large amber eyes were full of sadness. “He is not in the palace,” she said softly. “The servants looked for him, but they did not find him.”

Sithel advanced into the room. His hard footsteps were lost in the deep carpets that covered the center of the floor, and his harsh words were muffled by the rich tapestries covering the cold stone walls.

“Servants, bah, they know nothing. Kith-Kanan has more hiding places than I’ve had years of life.”

“He is gone,” Sithas said at last.

“How do you know that?” asked his father, transferring his glare to his eldest son.

“I do not feel his presence within the palace,” Sithas said evenly. The twins’ parents knew of the close bond that existed between their sons.

Sithel poured a goblet of nectar, using this simple task to give himself time to master his anger. He took a long drink.

“There is something else,” Sithas said. His voice was very low. “The griffon, Arcuballis, is missing from the royal stable.”

Sithel drained his cup. “So, he’s run away, has he? Well, he’ll be back. He’s a clever boy, Kith is, but he’s never been out in the world on his own. He won’t last a week without servants, attendants, and guides.”

“I’m frightened,” said Nirakina. “I’ve never seen him so upset. Why didn’t we know about this girl and Kith?” She took Sithas’s hand. “How do we know she will be a good wife for you, after the way she’s behaved?”

“Perhaps she is unsuitable,” Sithas offered, looking at his father. “If she were, perhaps the marriage could be called off. Then she and Kith-Kanan…”

“I’ll not go back on my word to Shenbarrus merely because his daughter is indiscreet,” Sithel snapped, interrupting his son’s thoughts.

“Think of Hermathya, too; shall we blacken her reputation to salve Kith’s wounded ego? They’ll both forget this nonsense.”

Tears ran down Nirakina’s cheeks. “Will you forgive him? Will you let him come back?”

“It’s outside my hands,” Sithel said. His own anger was failing under fatherly concern. “But mark my words, he’ll be back.” He looked to Sithas for support, but Sithas said nothing. He wasn’t as sure of Kith-Kanan’s return as his father was.

The griffon glided in soundlessly, its mismatched feet touching down on the palace roof with only a faint clatter. Kith-Kanan slid off Arcuballis’s back. He stroked his mount’s neck and whispered encouragement in its ear.

“Be good now. Stay.” Obediently the griffon folded its legs and lay down.

Kith-Kanan stole silently along the roof. The vast black shadow of the tower fell over him and buried the stairwell in darkness. In his dark quilted tunic and heavy leggings, the prince was well hidden in the shadows. He avoided the stairs for, even at this late hour, there might be servants stirring about in the lower corridors. He did not want to be seen.

Kith-Kanan flattened himself against the base of the tower. Above his head, narrow windows shone with the soft yellow light of oil lanterns. He uncoiled a thin, silk rope from around his waist. Hanging from his belt was an iron hook. He tied the rope to the eye of the hook, stepped out from the tower wall, and began to whirl the hook in an ever-widening circle. Then, with practiced ease, he let it fly. The hook sailed up to the third level of windows and caught on the jutting stonework beneath them. After giving the rope an experimental tug, Kith-Kanan started climbing up the wall, hand over hand, his feet braced against the thick stone of the tower.

The third level of windows—actually the sixth floor above ground level—was where his private room was located. Once he’d gained the narrow ledge where his hook had wedged, Kith-Kanan stood with his back flat against the wall, pausing to catch his breath. Around him, the city of Silvanost slept. The white temple towers, the palaces of the nobles, the monumental crystal tomb of Silvanos on its hill overlooking the city all stood out in the light of Krynn’s two visible moons. The lighted windows were like jewels, yellow topaz and white diamonds.

Kith-Kanan forced the window of his room open with the blade of his dagger. He stepped down from the sill onto his bed. The chill moonlight made his room seem pale and unfamiliar. Like all the rooms on this floor of the tower, Kith-Kanan’s was wedge-shaped, like a slice of pie. All the miscellaneous treasures of his boyhood were in this room: hunting trophies, a collection of shiny but worthless stones, scrolls describing the heroic deeds of Silvanos and Balif. All to be left behind, perhaps never to be seen or handled again.

He went first to the oaken wardrobe, standing by an inside wall. From under his breastplate he pulled a limp cloth sack, which he’d just bought from a fisher on the river. It smelled rather strongly of fish, but he had no time to be delicate. From the wardrobe he took only a few things—a padded leather tunic, a pair of heavy horse-riding boots, and his warmest set of leggings. Next he went to the chest at the foot of his bed.

With no concern for neatness, he stuffed spare clothing into the sack. Then, at the bottom of the chest, he found something he hadn’t wanted to find. Wrapped in a scrap of linen was the starjewel he’d bought for Hermathya. Once exposed, it glittered in the dim light.

Slowly he picked it up. His first reaction was to grind the delicate gem under his heel, but Kith-Kanan couldn’t bring himself to destroy the beautiful scarlet gem. Without knowing exactly why, he slipped it into the fisher’s bag.

From the rack by the door he took three items: a short but powerful recurved bow, a full quiver of arrows, and his favorite boar spear. Kith-Kanan’s scabbard hung empty at his side. His sword, forged by the priests of Kiri Jolith, he’d left in the Tower of the Stars.

The prince put the arrows and the unstrung bow in the sack and tied it to the boar spear. The whole bundle he slung from his shoulder. Now for the door.

The latch whispered backward in its slot. Kith-Kanan pulled the door open. Directly across from his room was Sithas’s sleeping chamber. A strip of light showed under his brother’s door. Kith-Kanan lowered his bundle to the floor and reached out for the door handle.

Sithas’s door opened silently. Inside, his white-robed twin was kneeling before a small table, on which a single cut rose lay. A candle burned on the fireplace mantle.

Sithas looked up. “Come in, Kith,” he said gently, “I was expecting you.” He stood, looking hollow-eyed and gaunt in the candlelight. “I felt your presence when you returned. Please, sit down.”

“I’m not staying,” Kith-Kanan replied bitterly.

“You need not leave, Kith. Beg Father for forgiveness. He will grant it.”

Kith-Kanan spread his hands. “I can’t, Sith. It wouldn’t matter if he did forgive me, I can’t stay here any longer.”

“Because of Hermathya?” asked Sithas. His twin nodded. “I don’t love her, Kith, but she was chosen. I must marry her.”

“But what about me? Do you care at all how I feel?”

Sithas’s face showed that he did. “But what would you have me do?”

“Tell them you won’t have her. Refuse to marry Hermathya.”

Sithas sighed. “It would be a grave insult to Clan Oakleaf, to our father, and to Hermathya herself. She was chosen because she will be the best wife for the future speaker.”

Kith-Kanan passed a hand over his fevered eyes. “This is like a terrible dream. I can’t believe Thya consented to all this.”

“Then you can go upstairs and ask her. She is sleeping in the room just above yours,” Sithas said evenly. Kith-Kanan turned to go. “Wait,” Sithas said. “Where will you go from here?”

“I will go far,” Kith-Kanan replied defiantly.

Sithas leaped to his feet. “How far will you get on your own? You are throwing away your heritage, Kith! Throwing it away like a gnawed apple core!”

Kith-Kanan stood still in the open doorway. “I’m doing the only honorable thing I can. Do you think I could continue to live here with you, knowing Hermathya was your wife? Do you think I could stand to see her each day and have to call her ‘Sister?’ I know I have shamed Father and myself. I can live with shame, but I cannot live in sight of Hermathya and not love her!”

He went out in the hall and stooped to get his bundle. Sithas raised the lid of a plain, dark, oak chest sitting at the foot of his bed.

“Kith, wait.” Sithas turned around and held out his brother’s sword. “Father was going to have it broken, he was so angry with you, but I persuaded him to let me keep it.”

Kith-Kanan took the slim, graceful blade from his brother’s hands. It slid home in his scabbard like a hand into a glove. Kith-Kanan instantly felt stronger. He had a part of himself back.

“Thank you, Sith.”

On a simultaneous impulse, they came together and clasped their hands on each other’s shoulders. “May the gods go with you, Brother,” said Sithas warmly.

“They will if you ask them,” Kith-Kanan replied wryly. “They listen to you.”

He crossed the hall to his old room and prepared to go out the window. Sithas came to his door and said, “Will I ever see you again?”

Kith-Kanan looked out at the two bright moons. “As long as Solinari and Lunitari remain in the same sky, I will see you again, my brother.” Without another word, Kith-Kanan stepped out of the window and was gone. Sithas returned to his sparsely furnished room and shut the door.

As he knelt again at his small shrine to Matheri, he said softly, “Two halves of the same coin; two branches of the same tree.” He closed his eyes. “Matheri, keep him safe.”

On the ledge, Kith-Kanan gathered up his rope. The room just above his, Sithas had said. Very well then. His first cast fell short, and the hook came scraping down the stone right at his face. Kith-Kanan flinched aside, successfully dodging the hook, but he almost lost his balance on the narrow ledge. The falling hook clattered against the wall below. Kith-Kanan cursed soundlessly and hauled the rope back up.

The Tower of Quinari, like most elven spires, grew steadily narrower as it grew taller. The ledges at each level were thus correspondingly shallower. It took Kith-Kanan four tries to catch his hook on the seventh floor ledge. When he did, he swung out into the cool night air, wobbling under the burden of his sack and spear. Doggedly he climbed. The window of the room above his was dark. He carefully set the bundle against the outside wall and went to work on the window latch with his dagger.

The soft lead of the window frame yielded quickly to his blade. He pushed the crystal panes in.

Already he knew she was in the room. The spicy scent she always wore filled the room with a subtle perfume. He listened and heard short sighs of breathing. Hermathya was asleep.

He went unerringly to her bedside. Kith-Kanan put out a hand and felt the soft fire of her hair. He spoke her name once, quietly. “It is I, my love.”

“Kith! Please, don’t hurt me!”

He was taken aback. He rose off his knees. “I would never, ever hurt you, Thya.”

“But I thought—you were so angry—I thought you came here to kill me!”

“No,” he said gently. “I’ve come to take you with me.”

She sat up. Solinari peeked in the window just enough to throw a silver beam on her face and neck. From his place in the shadows, Kith-Kanan felt again the deep wound he’d suffered on her account.

“Go with you?” Hermathya said in genuine confusion. “Go where?”

“Does it matter?”

She pushed her long hair away from her face. “And what of Sithas?”

“He doesn’t love you,” Kith-Kanan said.

“Nor do I love him, but he is my betrothed now.”

Kith-Kanan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “You mean, you want to marry him?”

“Yes, I do.”

Kith-Kanan blundered backward to the window. He sat down hard on the sill. It seemed as though his legs would not work right. The cool night air washed over him, and he breathed deeply.

“You cannot mean it. What about us? I thought you loved me!”

Hermathya walked into the edge of the shaft of moonlight. “I do, Kith. But the gods have decided that I shall be the wife of the next Speaker of the Stars.” A note of pride crept into her voice.

“This is madness!” Kith-Kanan burst out. “It was my father who decided this marriage, not the gods!”

“We are all only instruments of the gods,” she said coolly. “I love you, Kith, but the time has come to lay aside pranks and secret garden passions. I have spoken with my father, with your father. You and I had an exciting time together, we dreamed beautiful dreams. But that’s all they were—dreams. It’s time to wake up now and think of the future. Of the future of all Silvanesti.”

All Kith-Kanan could think of at this moment was his own future. “I can’t live without you, Thya,” he said weakly.

“Yes, you can. You may not know it yet, but you can.” She came toward him, and the moonlight made her nightdress no more than a cobweb. Kith-Kanan squeezed his eyes shut and balled his hands into tight fists.

“Please,” Hermathya said. “Accept what will happen. We can still be close.” Her warm hand touched his cold, dry cheek.

Kith-Kanan seized her wrist and shoved her away. “I cannot accept it,” he said tersely, stepping up on the windowsill. “Farewell, Lady Hermathya. May your life be green and golden.”

The irony of his words was not lost on her. ‘May your life be green and golden’ was what elven commoners said when taking leave of their lords.

Kith-Kanan shouldered his sack and slipped over the stone ledge. Hermathya stood for several seconds, gazing at the empty window. When the tears came she did not fight them.

Faithful Arcuballis was his only companion now. Kith-Kanan tied the sack to the saddle pillion and stuck the boar spear into the lance cup by his right stirrup. He mounted Arcuballis, strapped himself to the saddle, and turned the beast’s head into the wind.

“Fly!” he cried, touching his heels into the griffon’s brawny breast. “Fly!”

Arcuballis unfolded its wings and sprang into the air. Kith-Kanan whistled, and the griffon uttered its shrill cry. The least he could do, Kith-Kanan decided, was to let them know he was going. He whistled again and once more the griffon’s trilling growl echoed between the white towers.

Kith-Kanan put the waxing red moon on his right hand and flew southwest, across the Thon-Thalas. The royal road stood out misty gray in the night, angling away north from the city and south to the seacoast. Kith-Kanan urged the griffon higher and faster. The road, the river, and the city that had been his home vanished behind them. Ahead lay only darkness and an endless sea of trees, green-black in the depths of night.