ElvenSword

Volume 1 of The Tapestry of Life

THE SWORD OF FANUILOTH (7)

The earliest reports of the sword of Fanuiloth emphasize its extraordinary nature. It was a gift to the Emperor Fanuiloth I from the elves, and like many things from that mage-touched land, was intrinsically magical. No doubt the elves added their own powers and imbued it with greater might. What is not clear is whether the rightful wielder could utilize this power to its full extent, or whether only an adept in mage-lore and -practice was able to tap its full potential. The long wanderings of the Emperor Vordath I, when he used the sword to defend his life and that of his lyubon shed no light on this issue. One contemporary of Vordath opined that his abilities were critical in the awesome use he made of his weapon. But this has not been substantiated by others. It remains one of history’s great mysteries.

Forath ys Jarain – History of the Emperor Vordath I

I

The chapel was in the customary pre-Ilya I style, about three hundred years old, with a slight variation from the normal perfect square: along one side, a small, now empty, lean-to had been built. The doors were magnificent, made of stout oak, and decorated with scrolls and swirls of metal strips, little stars, and with large brass handles and hinges. The altar showed the Weavers creating the Tapestry of Life, but mysteriously, was made of black marble, flecked with gold, while it could be seen that the Weaver figures had once been outlined in gold leaf. This was unusually opulent for a small mud-brick village in the depths of the forest. But perhaps the chapel had been the place of worship of a local landlord or noble, who had endowed it so that it could be built in stone, with beautiful, luxurious fittings.

The four Weaver statues at each corner of the chapel were in good condition. The models had probably been drawn from the local population, or from the imagination of the artist, and were different from the images at the temple that Steppan knew best in Cappor. The sculptor had been very competent, and each image looked as if he or she was ready to speak and move.

In the north-eastern corner stood Jorac, the farmer. Whoever he had been in real life, he was handsome and had a kindly face. He was middle-aged, and looked wise and thoughtful. In Steppan’s experience, not all farmers are like that. Perhaps the artist had used a bit of poetic licence. One hand cradled a sheaf of wheat. At his feet were a large pumpkin and a calf.

In the north-western corner stood Aliya, who was the baker and mother and ruler, her hands working rising dough, with loaves depicted behind her, a child at her hip, and the rods of office carelessly displayed on the floury table.

The fine arts were represented in the south-western corner, where Nyal the musician endlessly strummed his stone kithara, with a flute resting nearby. Nyal was beautiful. The gods were always sculpted or drawn that way, as something to uplift ordinary mortals. Steppan’s experience of them was that they were just terrifying and numinous and beyond comprehension – beauty was an irrelevance.

The last corner contained the soldier, Mara, who was shown with her breasts bound flat, an exquisitely decorated helm, with small wings on each side, and the all-seeing eye of justice in the front. Her sword was decapitating a hapless enemy, who was staring at her in a sick horror, as his spirit floated off into the otherworld. Mara was his favourite. Her tough no-nonsense viciousness touched a chord in Steppan, and combined with her undeniable womanhood, made her the most interesting of the Weavers.

This sculpture of her was particularly lovely. He wondered idly which long-dead beauty had been the blushing subject of the sculptor. He knew that these were just images of the god-head, yet they acted as a focus for thoughts and prayers. Merely one visible manifestation of the Weavers out of thousands. Still, he stood in front of each, for a moment, his head bowed, praying for a happy life. He never prayed for a long life – the gods might give it to him, but make it unhappy. If nothing went wrong (and these days, who knew?), he would probably have a much longer life than most men, anyway – probably too long, and very lonely. Happiness may come from an unexpected quarter – do not ask for something specific, the gods may give it to you, and take away everything else. He hoped he was safe asking for something so general.

Fluin ignored Steppan’s praying, so far as he could see. He ostentatiously took no notice of the altar and the representations of the Weavers. He looked ill at ease, almost superstitiously afraid. Steppan wondered if Magda was an atheist, not common even in the sophisticated capital, and almost unknown out in the distant peripheries of the empire. Most users of magic were believers – but not all believed in the Great Spirit and the Weavers. Some believed in different, darker gods. He shivered slightly in disgust as he thought of necromancers and their god, and then felt the cool peace of this holy place soothing his jangled nerves, as if the spirit of the building was responding to his feelings. He realised that there was an area of harmony and calm surrounding the chapel, stretching out into the woods. This had been a holy place even before the Weaver chapel had been constructed here. Though there was but one Great Spirit, there were many lesser Gods and Spirits. This was obviously one of the sacred places of the earth, a residue of the time when the elves had ruled all creation.

At the back of the church, against the southern wall, which shielded the church from the sub-zero blasts off the vast southern ice fields, there were the remains of old habitation. The door, as was common this far south, was north-facing. A hermit had lived here years before, tending the holy altar. Surprisingly, his skeleton was not there. So perhaps, he had died elsewhere – robbers or bandits? – or had died here, and his body had been burnt by the same people who had looked after him and fed him when he was alive. Or perhaps, on the other hand, his bones lay somewhere in the forest, forgotten and gnawed bare by the little forest animals. Where were they now, the inhabitants of this eerie deserted village? Steppan said a silent prayer for the hermit’s thread, and again felt the healing spirit of the place, and something else which puzzled him – the prickling buzz of future-change, slight, but unmistakable.

Did it mean danger? And from what? He sent out a very subtle dzallek touch, but found no human or other high minds anywhere close. A dormouse in the corner. An owl on the roof, which drifted off on silent wings with a soft “hoo”. A fox, sniffing their tracks. Their horses, glad to be resting, and full of horsy happiness in the shelter of the lean-to, munching oats (provided by the Duchess’s ostler) from their nosebags. Innumerable other life forms. But no danger, not from there. But its mere existence made him tense and cautious. Something was going to happen.

They collected broken branches and twigs from the forest, and put them in a pile in the fireplace of the chapel. This far south, every chapel or temple would of necessity have had a hearth to warm the congregation. The night was dark with cloud, and falling snow prevented seeing beyond a few yards. The wind would whip away any traces of the smoke.

“Come,” Steppan said to Fluin. “Let us begin your training. Put your hands either side of the sticks. Now close your eyes, and clear your mind. Imagine that you have a globe of fire, suspended in the air between your hands. Now imagine it getting hotter and hotter, stronger and stronger.” He was crouched obediently if skeptically in front of the fire, his hands a palm-width apart, when there was a whoomp, as if naphtha had been poured onto red-hot embers. The twigs and small sticks were blazing fiercely. Fluin leapt backwards.

“Damn! I’ve burnt my hands!”

Steppan was astonished that the power was so strong in him. Most trainees could produce little better than a few sorry, damp tendrils of smoke the first time they tried this spell. He examined Fluin’s hands which were badly blistered. He would have to use a healing spell on them. He held them close and muttered the invocations, and then took some of his healing salve and applied it gently.

“It’s dangerous being around you,” Steppan said when he had finished.

Fluin glowered at him.

They spread out the bed-gear next to the now-blazing fire, and talked.

“We should get to Bridgetown tomorrow, unless my calculations and directions are very wrong,” Steppan said. “It’s a reasonably sized town, so Nefta says in her letters. It will have all the comforts of civilization, which I must say I sorely miss. Warmth, books, decent food and baths!”

“Yes, you are getting a bit niffy!”

Steppan looked at him with indignation, and then saw the gleam of amusement in his eyes. He cuffed him gently. “Disrespectful little beast! I reckon you’re just as smelly, close to! Not that I intend to find out, and anyway it doesn’t matter. I am looking forward to a long, hot bath, with a glass of something warming.”

“Who’s Nefta?” Fluin remembered the name from the discussion between the Duchess and Steppan the day before.

“She’s an old friend. I was her pupil once, long ago, as you will be mine. She taught me how to use my powers. She was like a mother to me.” Better than his own parents, Steppan thought. It was strange how his and Fluin’s lives had this parallel. But Fluin’s parents had died, while his own . . . . .

“Why does she live so far from Cappor?”

“She was given her home by the Panthra. They quarrelled, and then Aliya felt guilty because of all the hard work that Nef had done for her, and all the help she had given her over the years. So she gave her the villa, as a sort of peace offering. Nef felt it better to live far from Cappor, and she was originally from around these parts.” Steppan didn’t tell Fluin that the whole debacle had been as much Nefta’s fault as Aliya’s, who had been a good queen, when all was said and done. Nefta could be amazingly stubborn when she felt that it was wrong to do something, and could become quite impervious to reason. Afterwards, the Panthra had tried to reach across the widening breach, but had failed.

It was getting colder. Steppan took another swig on the brandy bottle, and passed it to Fluin. The snowflakes spiralling out of the sky and piling up in deep drifts on the eastern wall were beautiful. And the countryside around, with its rolling hills, thick forests, clear streams and distant views of the snow-capped ranges, was very lovely, even in the snow. Under the blankets and furs, next to another warm body, he was snug and at peace. He forgot the intimations of danger he had received earlier.

“You’re half-elvish, aren’t you?” Fluin asked, surprising Steppan with his acuity.

“In a way.”

Fluin lifted himself up onto his elbow, and looked at Steppan. “Tight, aren’t you! Don’t tell anything about yourself, keep it all well hidden, in case you frighten me. I’m tougher than I look. And I will keep your secrets.” Steppan was sorely tempted, then, to tell him everything. Fluin’s quizzical gaze and his open honest face and the warm glow of the brandy made Steppan open to persuasion.

“I’d really like to tell you everything, but I can’t, because some of what I know I’ve sworn not to reveal to the wrong person. OK. Here goes with what I can tell you. I’m a spy. I used to work for the Panthra.”

“I guessed that much.”

Steppan scowled at Fluin, embarrassed by the admission and Fluin’s easy acceptance of the facts. “I do messy, dangerous jobs. Sometimes I kill people.” There, it was said.

“Yeah, I know that, too. I could see when you joined in the fight.”

“Doesn’t that trouble you, to be with a killer, alone in the middle of a forest?” Steppan was being facetious to cover up his emotions. To have this revelation casually accepted like that had rocked him.

“I’m terrified,” Fluin said placidly.

“You are altogether too trusting. It will get you into trouble one day. Probably, the way things are, it will get us into trouble.”

“I trust you,” said Fluin quietly. He surprised himself – he hadn’t meant to say that. Yet once he had, he knew it was true.

That was all Steppan needed – a hero-worshipping youth dogging his footsteps. “Oh, stop it!” he said irritably, embarrassed. “I’m mad, bad and not fit for human-kind.”

“True. Because you’re half-elf. In a way.”

“I’d hoped you’d forgotten I said that.”

Fluin just shook his head at Steppan, his intelligent grey eyes watching him like a young bird of prey. He took another swallow of brandy and passed the flask back to Steppan, who took a gulp or two before he replied, feeling very reckless but suddenly not caring.

“I’m a shape-shifter. I’m half-dragon.”

Fluin stared at Steppan, his eyes sparkling. “Go on,” he said.

“My father was a dragon. They can shape-shift to elves. My mother was human. So I am half-elvish, in a way.”

“Why aren’t you flying, then?”

“Because . . . It’s to do with the job I’m on. I’m looking for something, and that something is . . . .”

“ . . . on the ground. And I suppose what you are looking for is secret?”

“Yup.” There was a silence. Steppan was debating with himself whether to tell Fluin about his own origins. The brandy decided him. He always became talkative when he was drunk, which was much too often. He took another swallow, and spoke, defying fate.

“There’s something I’d like to tell you, about yourself.”

“What?” Fluin looked wary. Steppan passed him the brandy flask. There wasn’t much left.

“You’re half-elvish. Elf-kindred, at any rate.”

Fluin looked at Steppan in silence for a long time, his mouth tight and his grey eyes hard. Then he shook his head, in silence.

“’Strue,” Steppan said, drunker than he realised.

“What does that make me then? And what about my parents? And why didn’t Magda tell me?”

“Special. Don’t know. To keep you safe.”

Fluin latched on to the last thing Steppan had said.

“Why would . . . ? Oh blast you!” His head was turned away from Steppan. Me and my big mouth! thought Steppan. He put his hand on Fluin’s arm.

“’Sokay,” he said quietly. “You’re with a friend. Your past isn’t important, right now. Whatever Magda did, she did for good reason. Why else did she teach you Elvish? Why else did she come down to this remote place, except to protect you or herself from something. She’s dead now, but I’m here. We are blood-brothers now. Remember?”

Fluin nodded, still staring away.

“It’s been a bit rough for you, the last few days,” said Steppan. “Normally this much doesn’t happen to people in their whole lives. Things’ll quieten down.” As usual, he couldn’t have been more wrong. Fluin took a last swallow of the brandy, and gave the flask to Steppan to finish.

Fluin yawned. “Sleep well. Weavers keep you!”

“And you,” Steppan replied. He lay for a while listening to Fluin’s steady breathing, thinking about their talk and his search. Their horses hruffed and stamped softly in the lean-to. The snow continued to swirl silently from the sky. At last, to the soft “hooo” of the owl, Steppan drifted off to sleep.

A moment later, it seemed, the dream began. At first he thought he was awake, but became aware in the muddled way of dreams that he wasn’t.

An obscure figure, veiled as if by magical mists and vapours, a knight in full battle dress, leather armour and silver greaves, approached the altar, from the doorway. His helm was silver, chased with gold and copper scrolls and curvetting lines, and he wore a sword, which was sheathed in a scabbard, beautiful to behold, decorated with runes and a crest. His cloak was decorated with amethysts sewn into the folds, and turquoise opals, and he wore an apple-jade brooch. He turned to look at them, and with a shock, Steppan thought he recognised Fluin. But, muddled though he was in this dream, he knew that Fluin was asleep next to him. Then he realised that the man merely had the look of Fluin about him, with golden shoulder-length hair, streaked with grey, tied back in a warrior’s queue, and blue eyes. There was something else, though, a way of carrying himself that was very reminiscent of Fluin, a quiet confidence and grace.

Looking all the time at the two of them, the knight drew his sword from the scabbard. The sword was even more beautiful than the scabbard, its blade shimmering with power. The figure turned back to the altar, and placed the sword upright against the north-facing central column. He knelt in front of the altar, and said a short prayer. Steppan felt the buzz of future-change, and the beginnings of a vision-headache. The figure bowed to the altar, and looked at them again, with those farseeing, penetrating blue eyes, and nodded, as if satisfied with what he had engineered. Then he suddenly vanished.

Steppan’s headache intensified – this was much more than a dream – and abruptly he was back at his father’s death, reliving the nightmare.

His father’s head lay gushing black blood and his eyes looked at Steppan with blame and derision. ‘Still unavenged,’ he said inside Steppan’s head. Then in a moment the body began to shift into vapour and drift towards him. ‘Come with me, failure,’ it said, ‘Come with me.’ Behind his father, Steppan could see the gateway to the otherworld gaping open, and heard cries of suffering and grief and eerie loneliness. Then the vapour turned into a snake and coiled itself hissing about him and he gave a great cry of terror and sorrow.

He awoke, sweating and bitter, with Fluin shaking him.

“Wake up, Stepp, wake up!” Steppan clutched Fluin to himself and groaned and wept as Fluin tightly held onto him. After a few moments, Steppan let go and Fluin threw some more wood on the fire, and got back under the pile of furs and blankets. He lay next to Steppan, their bodies close.

Fluin gazed steadily at Steppan. “Well?” he enquired.

Steppan looked away for a moment, then looked back at him.

“I dreamt of my father’s death.” Fluin inclined his head to one side, in the way that Steppan was to get to know so well, and waited. “I’m sorry, but I can’t talk about it.” He was dismayed to hear how his voice was trembling, but that obviously convinced Fluin.

“Go back to sleep,” Fluin said, and lay down next to Steppan, putting his arms round him. Steppan didn’t think he would be able to sleep after his nightmare, but he slipped easily into a deep slumber.

Fluin lay staring at the back of Steppan’s head, which was dotted with melting snowflakes, thinking of the despairing shout, “I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!” For the first time since Magda had died, he felt a connection to another human being. Steppan’s problems, whatever they were, and whoever he was, were his problems now. He knew that he couldn’t just walk away. They were connected, and not just because of the blood-bond. He knew this as certainly as he knew who he was. That thought was both frightening and satisfying. For a long time, thoughts filled his head. At last, a few hours before dawn, he drifted into an uneasy sleep.

He woke to the smell of cooking. Oatcakes and dried fishcakes and the spicy fragrance of tea. For a moment he watched Steppan’s back as he worked over the fire, then yawned. Steppan turned, and smiled.

“It’s nearly ready. I was going to bathe in the stream but the ice put me off! Anyway we’ll soon be at Nefta’s villa.”

They ate in silence and packed their gear on the horses which were glad to see them. Steppan appeared distracted from the tasks at hand, was thinking hard about something. At last, he ventured, “Did you dream at all last night?”

Fluin shook his head – apart from waking up at Steppan’s yells, in the end he had slept deeply and felt refreshed.

“The first part of the dream was very interesting.” He had no intention of speaking about the second half. “A knight, dressed in old-fashioned armour placed a sword on that side of the altar” – he pointed – “and then turned and looked at me. Before you woke I looked,” he said, rather shamefaced at his gullibility and credulity, “to see if I could find the sword, or anything, but there was no mark of it – nothing visible anyway. And I don’t know what to make of it. This is clearly a holy place, and I believe both parts of my dream have significance. But what the significance might be, I don’t know.”

Fluin stood up and shook his legs and then walked over to the altar. “Which side? This one?” As he put his hand flat on the face of the central pillar with its motif of woven cloth, they felt a wave of magic and power surge outwards from the stone and the black marble simply vanished, as if it had never been. Fluin felt something else, a prickly discomfort that he later learnt was the indication of future-change. It made his teeth ache, and he immediately felt edgy and tense.

Startled, he leapt backwards. Behind the black marble was a gap and in that gap, something shone. He turned to look at Steppan, and then, without a word, reached forward and took the object out from behind the marble façade. It was a sword – and such a sword – still shining after who knows how many years hidden from view, with a blade silver-blue, covered with runes, a hilt of bronze and tin, chased with gold and silver inlays, and a guard inlaid with glittering jewels. Fluin could feel the power of the whole thing, a beat insinuating itself into his consciousness, a tincture colouring his awareness of the chapel and all the forces gathered there. Steppan told him afterwards that he felt it too. The jewels alone were massively potent. The runes on the blade carried more magical strength. The whole sword was an intensely ensorcelled object. Whoever wielded it would be a mighty and powerful fighter.

Steppan told Fluin afterwards that he recognised it at once.

Fluin didn’t know what it was, nor care, but fell in love with it straightaway. It felt so right and fitting in his hand, as if he had always carried it.

The sword was singing to him, I am Stor – I crave truth, I seek honour, I am death. I am yours. Its blade shimmered with immense power. Fluin saw in his mind’s eye images of long ago battles, the brave flutter of banners, the cries of the enemy, the satisfying effectiveness of the blade as it slaughtered his opponents. The shock was almost enough to make him drop it, but he instinctively knew that to drop it would dishonour this matchless weapon.

Fluin brought the sword over to Steppan and looked at him quizzically, rendered momentarily speechless. He held it as a swordsman would, and appeared to be perfectly familiar with the proper way to handle a weapon. Again Steppan was surprised by the boy’s maturity. Most boys Fluin’s age would be thunderstruck with excitement, and though his eyes shone with interest, this was far from being the case with him.

“Now what?” was all he said.

Steppan could feel all around him the buzz of future-change, as the Weavers adjusted the threads of the Tapestry of Life to produce a new design. He was completely flummoxed. This could not be the one he sought. It was impossible. And yet he had handled the sword, without harm, and with the grace of someone to whom swords were second nature. He had found the sword. And Steppan – to make sure he accepted Fluin’s right to the sword? – had been given a vision showing him where it was.

“Put it back,” Steppan said.

“What?”

“Put it back!” He was angry now, from the shock of the discovery, and the fear that it brought. He found to his dismay that he was shaking. Fluin the new emperor? How? How in Mara’s name?

“But why?”

“Because it is clearly magical, because equally evidently, we were sent here by the Great Spirit and the Weavers and because I say so.” Anger flowed suddenly in Fluin’s face. Slowly and sulkily, he did as he was told, and then looked at Steppan in silence. His face was cold, and his eyes grey-blue slits. Steppan thought how strange it was the Fluin could look so warm and friendly at one minute, and turn instantly to an icy anger the next. He moved over to the marble, passed his hands over the surface of the stone, and the hole closed over.

“We will come back,” Steppan said, more calmly, “after we’ve been to the villa and talked to Nefta. I need to discuss what happened here with her and the sword must stay hidden until then.” He stopped, then felt the need to offer an apology. “I’m sorry for being so short with you a moment ago. I can’t explain it. Not yet, at any rate.” He was dismally aware that he had been rash and stupid.

“You think you’re so marvellous, don’t you? I’m just a kid, who knows blight-all, that you can order around at will. I’m a nobody from nowhere. I don’t count. I find a magical sword. And you tell me to put it away, just like that. No explanation, nothing!” He turned away, his jaw set, his eyes cold slits. With his head still facing away, he said in a gentler voice. “It sang to me, Steppan. It sang!”

Steppan was shaken rigid. He was the one. He had to be. Whatever appearances were, this was the saviour, the new Panthron.

“That’s not fair! I don’t think you’re just a kid. If you must know, I think you’ve been singled out.”

Fluin’s head snapped back to Steppan when he said that. His grey eyes inspected Steppan, hard. He was unsmiling. “Don’t play with me.”

“I’m not. There is something about you . . . . Something extraordinary. And what happened with the sword just proved it. But I can’t tell you what it means until I’ve discussed it with Nefta and probably also Patrika.” There was more to it than that, and Steppan knew it. And Fluin did too. What the otherworld am I getting into? thought Steppan, awed and moved.

Partly mollified, Fluin asked, his tone a little warmer, “But how long will your magic hold the marble in place? It seemed to melt away. Shouldn’t we take the sword with us to Nefta? Will it be safe in this deserted place?”

“The magic will hold for a while. It’s been hidden here for a few hundred years, I’d say, and no-one’s found it yet.” Except you! Dear Gods, except you! And without even trying! “Sometimes the best place to hide something is where no-one would dream of looking for it. What better than a deserted village in a remote province of the empire? And that sword must not fall into the wrong hands. We were sent here, for a purpose – and I need to understand that purpose, because what has happened is fantastically important and significant for all of us – and I will explain, if I can, I promise, as soon as I can. I need your oath that you will not mention this to anyone unless I say you may.”

Fluin looked at him, and then said, “I promise by the four Weavers and the Great Spirit that I will not tell anyone else about this, until you say so.” His anger had faded. He looked so solemn that Steppan almost smiled, despite the deep seriousness of what was happening and about to happen.

“Good lad!” He knew now why he had had to endure the discomforts of riding, not his usual mode of travel, why he had stopped at that inn, why those foolish, cruel youths had done what they did, just then, why they had been taken by the Duchess’s men, why it had started to snow. Everything. Except what they should do now.

“Thank you for your trust,” he said to Fluin, resting his hand lightly on Fluin’s shoulder. “I meant it when I said that I will explain, if I can. Meantime we are in great peril. We must get to the protection of Nefta’s villa as soon as and as quietly as we can.”

In a moment, they were off. They left the ashes of the fire – any pursuer would think it just the embers left by a passing hunter. They set off into the silent, snow-covered forest.

As they went, the sun came out, surprisingly warm, but then it was only Litho and it had been the snowstorm that was unseasonable and should have startled them. After a while, the snow started to melt and great swodges would slide off pine trees and larches and slip down their necks. Although the sun was warm, the wet snow seemed to get into everything, making their journey more uncomfortable. In due course the track returned to the main road. Steppan performed a dzallek scry for strangers. There was no-one. He turned to look for landmarks that would show the entry to the track on the way back. Then they set off for Bridgetown.

II

At a keep in Roidan, a black-clad man turned from the silver scrying mirror he had been looking into, and sighed. He did not know who this boy was, or why his power should cry out to him as it did. The boy reminded him of himself when he had also been young and innocent, long, long ago. He recalled the first man he’d loved, who had introduced him to the taste for death. He had been a good teacher of the pleasures to be obtained from torture and death, and he’d been a skilful lover, so subtle in his seduction that Waigath had not known the dark road he was travelling until too late. For a moment Waigath felt a deep sadness and regret. What if he had been taken up by somebody like Steppan, and not Miklo? He thought back to the simple pleasures of his childhood, swimming in the river-pool on hot summer days, lying drying in the sun with his friends and sister, playing hide-and-seek in his father’s castle. All gone, now.

Sometimes it seemed that he had no pleasure any more, except when he took life and pain from one of his victims. Even that no longer sated him as it once had. He stroked the dead boy on his table absent-mindedly, his eyes averted from the ruinous hole in his chest, and the trail of semen and blood down his leg. Could he start again? But he knew it was too late. He knew that he and this shining, beautiful, powerful youth were destined to clash, and he felt sorrow and anger and fear at the prospect. Sorrow because he was someone he could have loved, and might have been like had he had another tutor, unperverted by the dark god. Anger because he resented the opposition that he knew he would face from this seemingly unimportant person. Many things made him angry, these days, and sometimes his black rages would last for days. And fear – because he would be a mighty opponent.

Briskly, Waigath set aside his foolish sentimentality, wondering where these weakening thoughts had come from, and decided to accelerate his plans. He prepared to pay a visit to his accomplice in Cappor, one who was exactly the sort of pupil he liked – unscrupulous, ambitious, high-born and utterly ruthless. And too ambitious and stupid to realise until too late who was really in charge.

© 2010 Nigel Puerasch. All rights reserved.

Romantic m2m novels and short stories

www.nigelpuerasch.com

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