This story is a work of fiction. It contains references to violent behavior between adults, and expressions of physical affection between consenting adult males. If you find this type of story offensive, or if you are underage and it is illegal for you to read it, please exit now. All characters are fictional and in no way related to any persons living or deceased. Any such similarity is purely coincidental.
This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be reproduced in any form without the specific written consent of the author. It is assigned to the Nifty Archives under the provisions of their submission guidelines but it may not be copied or archived on any other site without the consent of the author.
I can be contacted at Bookwyrm6@yahoo.com
Copyright 2003 Kristopher R. Gibbons All rights reserved by the author.
3 Miching Mallecho
Ophelia: What means this, my lord?
Hamlet: Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.
Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2, Line 142
The Heir of Osedys fled the palace, pacing west to the beaches for open spaces and heart's ease. The skies crept bundled in a wintry haze, and the air broadcast an appropriate chill. One solid cumulus loomed over the ocean horizon, a great gray rock, defying the fashion of those around it by not shifting shape. Awareness of the palace behind compounded a feeling of vacancy in Evendal's heart, and the seascape before him alleviated none of the terrifying emptiness. Not for the first time, m'Alismogh considered the inexplicable 'death-song' he had experienced seemingly ages ago in the wilds. His naming himself 'm'Alismogh' without hesitation or provocation. The utter absence of nine years of living from his memory. The looks on the faces in the crowd at the Causeway, the awe and starvation, and the looks of his companions, the tears and surprise. The spellbound obedience of a desperate conspirator, a man acclimated to authority and primacy, not to submission. Ostensibly the elements suggested no pattern. And after consideration of each and all, they still made no sense.
Like a white cat of ill-omen in his path, Evendal's rage haunted.
'I did not return for happiness. I doubt I would know it, nevermind knowing how to pursue it. I wanted my home. It no longer exists. I want justice. But there is no such creature. Only my childish gestures, impelled by bitterness and disgust. My mother wants a corpse or a child, and I am neither. Am I even here, returned from.... who knows what! Am I even here for what I want, or what others might want of me?'
The sea, in narcissistic aseity, had no wisdom and no solace. The great gray rock had thinned; dust and vapour. From these indifferent witnesses Evendal turned, and sought the still thrilling familiarity of the anonymous avenues that had welcomed him home. The eleventh bell arrived, and the Heir made no retreat for his palatial sanctuary. Faces and forms, remarkable and not, commonplace pleasantries and annoyances; all inched Evendal away from a dread abyss of self-consciousness.
m'Alismogh found an exciting freedom in granting others freedom to see him how they chose: prospective custom, alien, familiar acquaintance, vagrant. No chill sense of destiny seemed even to touch the thoughts or actions of those he met and saw, only habit and emotion. He wondered which proved more cruel.
His musings halted abruptly when, on turning a corner, Evendal walked into someone poised at the other side. The Lord of Osedys found he had to look up to speak to the fellow, but even as he did so the words of apology died in his throat. A lean form and broad shoulders supported a head of wavy brown hair, cropped short in an old, almost obsolete fashion of the city. A dark brown beard and moustache framed an elegantly sinister face centered by an aquiline nose that in no way overwhelmed its owner's features. The posture and expression bespoke ferocious anger, the smile on the man's lips one of mirthless determination. Evendal swore afterwards that his heart froze rather than beat, as he gazed into the living semblance of Abduram the traitor.
"You will not run," the tenor commanded. Hearing the words, Evendal felt angry warmth suffuse his limbs. "We fight. Or I slay you as you run."
m'Alismogh took a step back and noted the two swords his enemy held, unfamiliar in detail but plainly well tended. "You would grant me a fight again? I might win."
His adversary shrugged. "I would do the same for any, even a violent thief. Better death than ignominy as a coward. No?" He proffered a hilt toward Evendal.
m'Alismogh accepted the offered blade, testing its grip and balance with a relaxed, but sure, hand. The blades being long and just over a thumb in width put Evendal's tall opponent to a disadvantage. These were swords of skill meant for intricate, courtly fighting, between duelists of like height and reach. They crossed. Evendal swept into a low cut that the other man smoothly parried. After a few introductory side feints and intercepted chest cuts, m'Alismogh kept to his guard and watched for a pattern in his opponent's fighting. The questionable height advantage aside, his adversary proved a strong fighter, and made up in sheer ferocity and endurance what little he lacked in capability or foresight. When Evendal saw a marked tendency on high cuts and feints, fatal in a person so tall, he took up an offensive. As if drawn into his opponent's comfort zone, he copied his adversary and struck high, toward the head, almost consistently. The energy this required made his own head swim. Once he felt he had established a believable habit, Evendal sliced across the man's stomach. A thin ribbon of blood emerged along the fellow's chest and he stepped back. Evendal ceased.
"Do you yield on first blood?" he asked his attacker, with eyes dripping gold. The man took a deep breath and shook his head.
Evendal swung, feinting a shoulder cut that went wide. His opponent failed his counterstroke, and Evendal came back immediately with the flat of the narrow blade against the man's head. His enemy took several steps backward and would not fall. Two twists of his sword around the other man's, and Evendal had disarmed him. The fellow paid little attention, merely held his head.
As his heart pounded wildly, Evendal rested the point of his sword upon the man's chest. Any thought of mercy he utterly forgot. No image of rabbits or snatch of pain-gifting melodies emerged to warn him of a price he might pay. His only lucid thought whispered how this moment for redress had arrived, and would pass, too quickly.
"Better death than ignominy as a coward?" he mimicked, with a smile.
His vanquished adversary heard the tone of teasing deliberation and dropped hands from a pale, bloodied, face. Evendal's smile disappeared as some inconsistency nagged for attention in his mind.
"I will not beg for death or life," the young man declared, and glared down at his vanquisher. "So do not further dishonour me."
With the fellow's plea, the incongruity emerged. Age. The pallid face he stared at held no creases or strains save those of fear. If Abduram indeed now stood before him, nine years had made him taller but no older. Abduram trembling? Not likely. And what was this talk of honour? No, the supplicant nobly entreating mercy was a man preparing himself, with all the ineptitude of a virgin, for an unknown: Death.
And Death had been an intimate of the man Evendal had shadowed at Mausna. "Who are you?" The point of Evendal's blade shook with his own trembling.
"Kin to the man you wounded yesterday."
The answer did not fit the question. "I wounded no one yesterday. This is my first day home in nine years. What are you called?"
"Luom agdh Lukaad."
Evendal groaned, uttered a choice curse, and shoved his sword into the ground. That accomplished, he abruptly sat in the dust of the avenue, woefully tired and headache-ridden, overwhelmed at this latest surprise. "I will not kill you. Nor, to the extent it is in my powers, dishonour you. I nearly dishonoured myself, perceiving you as Abduram." His hands continued to tremble.
Luom looked from the earthbound blade to its wielder with tension still high. "I do not understand. You say this is your first day here, yet you know my brother well enough to want him dead. And he knew you. You mock a defenseless man?"
m'Alismogh did not respond. "He sent you on this attack. How?"
"This afternoon my brother came to me with his arm heavily bandaged. He told me of how he had been attacked, robbed, and humiliated by some churl. He said that to bring you to Court would let the wrong people see him vulnerable. Unable to trust the Guard, whom he called 'Polgern's pawns', he was reduced to finding and entreating me. But he harped at me not to bother if I intended merely to lesson or wound. If I could not satisfy honour with death, he himself would have to challenge you, handicapped. He called on me to fulfill a promise of aid that I had offered when our mother had died. He pointed you out to me, then promised to meet me at the palace."
Momentarily satisfied, Evendal spoke. "To answer the question you asked. No, I do not mock you. If I fought your brother yesterday, well.... The yesterday in which I fought him occurred nine years ago. Do you not know who I am? Or why I found the thought of his lingering death so pleasant?"
The lesser son of Lukaad shook his head, and took another deep breath, clearly struggling to resume thinking again. "I would guess, as you spoke of nine years ago, that he had provoked you somehow at Mausna. And how can I know who you are?"
"By doing what I had failed to do with you.... Take a good look at me."
Luom flicked a glance into the dusk-shadowed golden sclera. Evendal granted them both a moment. For Luom's sake, to voice his understanding. For his own sake, as a respite to restore his wits and composure. The moment dragged. The Heir of Osedys peered into a drawn face glistening with tear-tracks.
"For what do you cry, Luom?"
The man did not answer right away. "I weep over the brief moment in which I had hoped my brother had truly turned to me." He heaved in a sodden breath. "I weep over myself, seeking to harm the royal person. Who in Osedys, at some time in their lives, has not heard, or has not himself shouted, 'm'elumna ekha nis-ureg Evendalh'(10)?"
The Songmaster nodded, and rolled his eyes. "Look on me again. Do you not also cry for fear of your own life? Fear of my caprice? There is the knife, the blade is your's. Take it. Here I am, recumbent, unarmed. It is dusk, with no one to witness. Ensure your safety."
Luom glared, appalled. "At the expense of my name! My honour! That is too high a price. I loved my mother, my father, all they sought to make me. I will not soil that! It is who I am."
Evendal nodded. Voicing a groan of weariness and pain, the Heir shifted about and, eventually, stood. "Should it prove to be as you have described, Luom, then you shall continue to live and prosper, without royal reprisal. But come with me to the palace. Someone there can see to that wound and the bruise on your head." He pulled the blade out of the ground and started northward, only to halt when Luom hurried to precede him.
When Luom heard no echoing steps, he stopped and turned.
m'Alismogh indicated the fallen sword which Luom had wielded. "Never forget a weapon like that. You had best retrieve it." he advised, then continued walking.
If Evendal felt any trepidation at having an armed stranger for escort, he gave no sign.
Contrary to Evendal's private anticipations, Abduram did not wait at the palace gate with a squad of Guard. Indeed, the sole Guard at the entrance explained how he had received the word Bruddbana had been circulating, and had seen no sign of Abduram. The Guard stared hard at Luom, but she neither questioned nor interfered. Once in the palace, m'Alismogh shouted for a healer and led the way to the apartment he had allocated. To his relief the lamps and torches illuminated the room, and a fire warmed from the hearth. He sank gratefully down into a chair and gestured for Luom to do likewise. Luom shook his head.
"We have business, lord. My life or death."
Evendal's headache still taunted him, pounding just above the eyebrows. "It would be easy enough to verify, so I will tentatively accept your word on a few questions. How familiar have you been with your brother? His plans? How conversant have you been with his cabal? Or his efforts with the Court?"
Luom answered promptly, sharing gazes with his interrogator. "From before Mausna, Abduram walked his own path. He communicated not at all with myself, with father, or with mother. After Mausna, what had seemed a merely preoccupied silence proved biting rejection. Two years after he had returned, our mother fell into her last illness. Father used to call her his little wren; plain and small but with a song to be treasured. She wanted to see her firstborn. Abduram sent a dead wren as a reply. He later sent a note, through a Guard, not to approach the palace or seek out the Lord Abduram. I disobeyed once, to inform him of our mother's death. I did not see him again, until he approached me this afternoon."
"Do you know what would have happened, had you succeeded against me?"
"I hazard now that Abduram would have had me 'executed' either for the murder of a citizen or for the assassination of the newly returned Heir of Menam."
Evendal nodded. He turned his head, about to speak again, when he saw Bruddbana soft-stepping through the doorway with his sword drawn and a half-frightened rictus of determination on his face. Both sword and concentration clearly aimed at Luom.
"Stand!" Evendal barked. Bruddbana stopped, startled. Luom turned, saw the Guard, and stepped back against Evendal's chair. "What do you mean by this? Drawing your blade in Our presence unsanctioned."
"Your pardon, my liege. I saw Abduram standing over you..."
"Look again, Bruddbana. Is he not a bit young?"
Bruddbana looked at Evendal, uncertain of the question. "You claimed his life before me, earlier today."
An old woman, small and fine-boned, shadowed the door as Evendal explained. "No, Bruddbana. The man before you is Luom agdh Lukaad, and is under Our custodial. Report this to your fellows, lest your error recur and Our care prove a thing of death and not nurture."
"He looks to be suffering from your 'care' already." A warm, willow-light voice intruded.
The Heir of Osedys smiled welcome at the woman. "Anlota! How good of you to respond to Our need. Do you know Luom?"
Anlota chuckled. "I know most of the children born in this town, both breathing and remembered. I delivered you, Luom, and Abduram."
"Lord Evendal. You went out from the palace without giving notice." Bruddbana snarled, covering his embarrassment.
"So?"
"You cannot do that! You just returned to us from.... Who knows! And Abduram still being free, you are in danger."
Evendal forgot the royal plurality. "I will not be caged! I do not need a royal nursemaid."
"Look. If you can walk blithely out of here, and back in, without a comment from anybody, so can an assassin. If naught else, then you need a personal Guard. We just got you back..."
Evendal paused, taking a breath. "Very well. You are right, Bruddbana. I cannot afford the freedom with which I came here. However sweet it was. One Guard during the day, two in the late night tolls."
"Thank you, my liege." Bruddbana bowed and left.
The woman proceeded to search for a waterbasin and, when acquired, glared accusingly at Luom. Evendal smiled, recalling a time or two when he had faced that disapproving glare. Anlota had no patience with passive or uncooperative ill folk. Luom refused to be daunted and stared back in silence, waiting.
"Lie down." Anlota finally commanded, slapping her patient with a flick of a rag.
"On the Lord Evendal's bedding?"
"Poor pickings, I know. But it must serve for now." Luom began to obey. "No. Off with the tunic, first."
With Evendal's help, Luom complied.
"Anlota, how is it that you answered the summons here? When I left, you were Mother of Midwives."
The lady did not stop or slow her cleansing. "I have not borne that title in eight years, my lord. When I stepped down from that post, I disbanded the league for the duration of the duumvirate. This assured that no leader existed to be attacked, disgraced or threatened. As for why I came and not another? To see you, my lord. If the new claimant proved to be truly yourself, then I had a word of advising."
"And what is that word?"
Anlota smiled. "Accept the gifts of your enemies." She pulled a small container out of her sleeve, 'Primrose leaf' scrawled across its top, and scooped an ointment out of it to stroke along the cuts.
Annoyed at Anlota's nonchalance, Evendal asked. "What gifts? Death? That is all they would gift me with. What gifts?"
The midwife made no reply, but smirked at Luom as she pulled forth some squares of moss and strips of cloth. "Truly, my lord, has your absence made you slow? Have you gained nothing from Abduram?"
"I seem to have wrested the throne from him." Evendal considered, then realised that he looked at the answer. "Luom? But to what end?"
Anlota glared at him. "Stop talking like your father. For the end of Luom himself. Think about it and you will realise your adversaries gift you inadvertently. Remembering, of course, that not all gifts are for keeping." She finished wrapping the mass around Luom's cuts and dumped the waterbasin from the window.
"Anlota, why do you say this? How did you learn of Luom? And expect that the usurper might be myself?"
The Past-Mother of Midwives peered at the man addressing her. The sudden stillness, following hard on her constant bustling, disturbed both men. Anlota yet held the basin, her attitude a chill single-minded attentiveness. "Are you asking to join my communion? To be a mediator of the mysteries of life?"
Swift came Evendal's reply. "As who I am, as what I am to be, I qualify as such."
Anlota nodded, suddenly solemn, almost deferential. "More than I, but not just yet. And while you're waiting - heal." Heal others? Heal himself? Evendal let her cryptic demand pass without comment, suspecting intentional ambiguity. She kissed Luom, sealing her work, and left.
"She is like a nis-ralur." Luom offered, amused. Evendal silently agreed. Nis-ralur bore the shape of mountain lions, yet only two forearms long and indifferently domesticated; the Hramal in the eastern provinces trained nis-ralur to defend homes. More to Luom's point, nis-ralur tended to exhaust even the observer with an excess of personality.
"Luom, what would you? When we dueled you spoke of your wish for life. What I said before, still abides. Abduram's fate aside, is there nothing I can do for you?"
"A place to sleep tonight."
"Is this room, and the bed you sit on, sufficient to that need?"
"It is fine, but is your's."
"Mine only by requisition, as are all the other dwellings. Your's is the need, so the place is your own tonight. I can house myself in the next room. I would not leave you unattended, with Abduram still at leisure."
"Why?"
"You neither killed me, nor died. I doubt that pleases him. Once he is under our hand, your life and fate are your own."
"Having this day thrust myself into the sun of your regard, that is no longer true. You are Osedys, every life is your's."
Dismayed, Evendal glared at Luom. "How did you get such a notion? Polgern and Abduram? Menam? What rights I have only help expedite my responsibilities. And what right I might have dealing life or death comes in the service of equity. From my earliest years I have been disciplined to be the Left Hand of the Unalterable."
"m'elumna ekha nis-ureg Evendalh." Luom whispered, and Evendal flinched. "You dislike the label?"
"It reminds me of times best left in the past."
"What do you mean? It is who you are."
"No. It is not. It is an aspect of me, a wonder I was born with, but not exclusively mine. Records show that my father's father's mother had golden eyes. If mother had either been more fecund or father more libidinous...I might have had a sister with amber eyes. Another target for Polgern and Abduram."
"I don't understand your disquiet."
Evendal sighed. "When I was a child, some fool got the idea that my eye colour meant not only was I incontestably Menam's son, but also that I could heal people's maladies. Many folk spent money they did not have on keepsakes, items I was to have touched, used, or consecrated in some way. Some refused regular healing, trusting the efficacy of these mementos, and died. People committed extreme acts to see me, to touch me, even to kidnap me. And 'm'elumna ekha nis-ureg Evendalh' is the one phrase I heard again and again from people. I came to dread it."
"Then let me rename you. Evendal me'Loema. Evendal Sun-eyed."
The Prince of Osedys chuckled. "me'Loema? I like that. I like that much better. I am ready for some food. How about you?"
Luom smiled. "I am a walking stomach. At least so I am told. Repeatedly."
"Guard!"
A young woman with auburn tresses looked in.
"I know it is not your purpose, but could you see what the kitchens might have handy and safe?"
She smiled sunnily. "It would be best, mayhap, if you both accompanied me. That way I can keep close, and you can argue with the staff for what you like and what you do not."
Evendal opened his mouth to argue, took in the wide eyes and open countenance, then thought better of it.
Once returned from their foray, suitably sated, the Prince resumed the talk he had sidestepped. "I have been ruminating over the time people thought me a healer."
"As have I." Luom replied. "I remember something about that from my father. He once rebuked my brother when Abduram insisted the royal family were indulged weaklings. Father simply said that he would not want the burden of 'the Prince's gold'."
"Wise man."
"Was it so bad?"
Evendal nodded. "I lived in fear, not knowing if someone approached me because they thought my nail parings had some healing efficacy, or that only my blood would serve. Not knowing if a courtier befriended me for the political access to my parents, or for some peddling scheme. A lot of people got hurt, some killed. From that time forth, I had no friends. I did not dare. That pleased both parents."
"And now?"
"Now, what?"
"That crazed time has passed, and only dimly recalled. Surely some of the friends you made before that dementia still endure. You can resume your life with them."
Evendal looked at Luom with something like amazement. "No, you don't understand. I was Evendal m'Alismogh ald'Menam a Onkira, sulen nis-ureg is'dah: Sole Prince of the Thronelands. Only hope of a family that held but three living members, even before Mausna."
"So?"
"So, I could not afford familiarity with anyone. Every potential playmate was utterly beneath me, and the sooner I learned this the more serene were my moments under the royal scrutiny. The only acquaintances I knew were elderly tutors, carefully chosen attendants, and the either indifferent or hostile sons of courtiers that my father wanted something from." Evendal grunted in a reverie. "I am certain that Time buried those that Mausna did not."
"Or Polgern. This may indeed be so, my lord. If you saw fit to accept it, I would be your friend." The face uttering the offer matched his gaze, direct and with the suggestion of a grin of complicity.
Small crests of emotion arose in Evendal: A sudden anger, anticipating mockery, which just as suddenly fled. Fear, weak but inescapable, with that hesitency of confusion which was fear's handmaiden. And an expectancy of hope. "You do not know what you ask for, or offer." What Evendal intended as a scoffing denial came out as a plaintive breath.
Luom shrugged. "I do not forget Abduram is my brother. I doubt I ever can. I don't understand either all you have been, all you must face. I only wish I could help you, with all my heart. Should you want a friend, a commoner of a family once gentrified, I offer myself."
Evendal twisted about, every emotion in him urged acceptance. Following through on his turn, the Prince walked to the doorway, Luom's profferment ignored. A whisper of melody distracted him; notes with no clear source. "My sincere thanks. You don't know the creature you offer yourself to. You are welcome to the apartment. I shall be in the adjoining rooms. Until the morrow, fare well."
Quickly, Evendal fled.
Leaning against an oak in a courtyard copse, the predator contemplated lights flickering through the palace sills. The man's black cape, draped close, concealed his crimson outfit and rendered him a chill, if more solid, shadow among shadows. Cloaked so in black, and lean of face with eyes that reflected night, the watcher resembled an icon of alabaster and onyx; a celebrant of miserific mystery intent on his role. The chalk-pale face, though calm, serene, was fiercely striking. The one exposed hand, small but sinewy. He stood rigid, a frozen figure serving an abysmal silence, and plotted strategies for bloodletting. His sanguine thoughts, though, were not on the two innocents awaiting him unknowing in the torch lit palace apartments; they required but a bell or more of patient waiting and the element of surprise. Rather, the lone stalker pondered how their deaths might serve to discredit the mountebank son of Morruth - Polgern.
In hatred as rigid and hard-shelled as the tree behind him, he anticipated his satisfaction over Polgern's future demise. There were yet a few Guard whom he could threaten into confessing complicity with his now confined, but far from helpless, adversary. The vulnerability of his enemy enticed, irresistible, as if fickle Ir herself had finally tired of the dodderer's ascendancy. Polgern had been a worthy opponent, crafty and subtle, but subtle to the point of weakness. Contemplating his partner's career like a eulogy, the chill shade recalled the thwarting of his every effort at supremacy. Stroke for counterstroke, the spindly spectre of Polgern had turned his brash triumphal into a sterile fancy; his long-hoped-for march to power got shown up as the dream of a brutish half-wit. Even now, the obsession of being rid of his parasite stirred nothing in the night-clad watcher. Perhaps, he mused, it is that such liberty does not seem real yet. Polgern had been a fixture, an ever-present barnacle for so long.
Alert, the black-eyed wraith marked a companion torch-glow appearing in the apartment adjoining. His informant spoke true; his hen-headed brother bedded near the "royal" milksop. Though disturbed, the co-ruler's face betrayed nothing, pale and still as a lake of ice. He considered implications. Should he kill both brother and impostor, he could assert an accomplice of Polgern's had had orders to kill this Pretender and the Militia General, and that the accomplice had mistaken Luom for himself. Surprise and immediate action were crucial, and the "prince" should die first. Once the two inside were history, there would be only questions left, questions no one would dare ask.
Presently, light died from the first room. Not waiting for the second set of lights to wink out, the night-clad stalker eased out of his den of shadow.
Though he felt exhausted beyond all sense, and enjoyed the solace of resting in comfort after weeks in the wilds, Evendal fretted wide awake under the pernicious cool of the night. His body was drained, his mind numb, and yet he could not sleep. As he lifted up to grab an extra bedcloth, something stung his hand even as he heard a telltale hiss. With more reflex than thought Evendal was on the other side of his cot and shouting.
"Enkengnef(12)!!" Treachery!
Two more attacks came against him, either well evaded or poorly executed, before a breathless Luom rushed in with a torch and a sword. Evendal did not need torchlight to know his sword-arm had been rendered useless, it was painfully obvious.
He turned, grimacing, from the lightbearer to his attacker - and was stunned into a moment's paralysis of conflicting reactions.
Broad shoulders and a lithe form held up a black cape. The beard, moustache and long hair seemed, in Luom's torchlight, as sculpted and hard as the carbuncular eyes. Set against the linen pallour of the attacker's skin, the contrasts were ebony and alabaster and, in other folk might have evoked admiration. In this man and moment, not so. The face and form possessed elegance, but an elegance curdled. The man's expression was serene, but more at home on a corpse. Even the vitality, the rage and ferocity that radiated from him, seemed somehow frozen, chill. For Evendal the contrasts extended beyond the obvious. He felt revulsion, such as he would for an obscenity. He felt fear, for the nearness of death.
And he felt attraction, a sick admiration and excitement.
The force and virility of this man, blaring from him with all the callous excess of a whore, yet stirred a feeling in Evendal that scared him more than death could. He glanced at Luom, who was setting his torch in a sconce, and felt not even a shadow of that allure.
Abduram had paused with Luom's swift entry, and noted the torch and sword with utter indifference. He returned his attention to his target.
"Stand and be still, and I will kill you quickly. Try to thwart me, and I will enjoy your suffering." He beckoned to the crouchant Evendal. "Now, stand."
"Here, lord." Luom proffered his sword.
"What good is that to me?" The Prince waved his bloodied sword-hand, furious. "Its numb, it will not even clench. You help me. You."
Abduram stepped toward the cot. "He will not. My brother actually believes the fables children are fed with their mother's milk. To stop me he would have to kill me. And Kinslayer is the most evil of epithets."
He paused again, and peered at Evendal closely. "You are a good imposture. Now stand." He raised his blade.
Evendal, clutching at the bed, started to rise. When he got halfway he flung what he could of the bedclothes at Abduram and rushed around the cot to the window. Luom sprang upon his brother and struggled to keep him tangled in the blankets. He managed to hold Abduram long enough for Evendal to get one leg over the sill. With a roar, Abduram freed his sword-arm and struck Luom in the back. Luom fell to the floor in a surprise of pain, taking the blankets with him.
"No further, impostor."
Evendal cursed. That the ground outside settled lower than the floor inside meant he needed two good hands to maneuver. To tumble off the window meant taking his eyes off Abduram and chancing he could recover before Abduram got through the window. He stayed straddling the window and shouted for anyone to hear.
"Worms take you, Abduram! One Kingslaying was one too many. You would kill the son as you had the royal father?"
"What can you know of that?" Abduram's death-mask of a face betrayed nothing, but the eyes seemed blacker, wells of darkness.
"I saw my father's carcass on the floor of his war-chariot."
"The Prince died at Mausna." Abduram countered. "He fell down a crevasse which formed as he chased me. The land swallowed him up, to be swallowed in turn by the sea. I alone survived to tell my tale. You are merely a sly impostor..."
"With golden eyes."
"Whom I shall kill." He stopped again as Evendal's comment registered.
"My lord," panted a voice from the floor, weak and plaintive. "Had you no weapon against this likelihood?"
And it came to Evendal that he did indeed have a weapon. Desperate, he plowed through snatches of tunes and ballads, searching for an appropriate, saving, verse. As Abduram lifted his sword yet again, Evendal drew on a bit of mummery and improvised on it. His baritone cracking from a mouth suddenly dry, Evendal m'Alismogh sang.
By all the fabled power in threes,
By all that is not and yet may be,
Let the blade be broken if raised agin' me.
The sword in Abduram's hand held on to the last willowy note, trembling with it, amplifying the tone until a crack appeared along the length of the tang. Wordless, Abduram dropped the blade to pull two daggers. Each knife let out a sharp, brief sound, as if struck. The blades shattered. Impotent, Abduram glared at a startled Evendal, stinging fury in his stone-cold eyes.
Motivated by sheer desperation, Evendal felt dumbfounded. But, sizing up Abduram, he realised disarming this man would never serve. Abduram had to have cohorts all through the city; if not friends, then people he could coerce and blackmail. The silence of the palace grounds attested to this. Abduram must die. Now.
The desire, which had moved him with great fervor just this afternoon, now sickened Evendal. Still straddling the sill, he felt the room shift and blur, forcing him to lean against the jamb.
"Luom," he called. "Your sword."
The prone, wide-eyed Luom slid his blade along the floor to Evendal. The strident scrape of metal on stone seemed to awaken Abduram from his daze. As Evendal struggled to pick the blade up without tumbling from vertigo, Abduram quietly backed away. At the same moment that Evendal got a grasp on the sword hilt and propped himself back up by it, Abduram halted against his brother's body.
Abduram agdh Lukaad was hardly likely to stand in obedience and let his head get chopped off; yet, try as he might, Evendal could not dredge up a single helpful verse. Certainly nothing existed in song for making a sword attack on its own. Nor was there any verse to turn a right-handed swordsman into a left-handed one. Evendal's mind numbed into silence where he needed lyrics. Nonetheless he took a deep breath, hoping that, once more, desperation might inspire. Abduram would not simply stand and wait for death.
Abduram did not wait. He saw Evendal inhale, and fury overcame caution. "I will stop your evil with my own hands!" he cried, and launched himself.
Evendal saw the lunge, and raised the sword reflexively. Immediately the Prince got shoved against the sill, his left elbow pressed into his own stomach, his blade shoved in and through his attacker. Abduram skewered himself through the heart. A brief shriek, high-pitched, burst and echoed in m'Alismogh's head. The shock of pain through his body proved equally brief.
After a long moment spent shaking and bruised, and realizing his own heart had not stopped, Evendal slowly and gingerly brought his leg back over the windowsill. His right arm no longer numb kept him from lapsing into unconsciousness. He carefully lurched around Abduram's corpse and gazed down at the dead man's brother. "Luom?" he whispered, but got no answer.
"Guards!" he shouted, shrill with bitterness. "You can come now. It is over." The effort made the room twist in earnest. As footfalls sounded in the hall, a stray bit of lyric deigned to emerge also, a response to some delinquent inner prompting. He sang it softly - which was all he could manage.
Let none come near me but to help,
None come near you, dear friend, but to heal.
Yet I wager, when all is tried,
Our darkling strengths will forth for weal.
Then Evendal settled cautiously on his cot, closed his eyes against the whirl of the room's contents, and wished the pain to stop.
(10) m'elumna ekha nis-ureg Evendalh - the sunrise (is) the near-king Evendal.(same as note 7, chap. 2)
(11) Enkengnef - Treachery. In the Hramalregnan, two palatals together is offensive, equivalent to a double-negative in English.