Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (5 page)

Eldrin stared at him, nausea clawing once more at his gut. Blood pounded
a tympani in his ears. The iron bands were back on his chest.

“You didn’t know,” Meridon said.

Eldrin shook his head. “I only learned about my brothers this afternoon.”
“You had no need to know.” He swallowed. “Well, it changes nothing. Once I
have touched the Flames and taken my vows, I will return to Haverall’s
Watch, and that will be the end of it.”

Meridon raised a mocking red brow. “I doubt very much you will return
to Haverall’s Watch, my lord.” He exchanged a glance with his dark-bearded
companions. “Forgive my bluntness, Your Highness, but the measure to reinstate you was sponsored by lords of Mataian persuasion. They pushed it
through the Table with the High Father’s blessing. Don’t tell me you aren’t
destined for more than meditations in a distant Watch tower.”

He held up a hand, stopping Eldrin’s indignant protest.

“Think, my lord Abramm,” he said forcefully, no longer bothering to hide
his impatience. “Do you not find it significant that your father and all the
brothers between you and the Crown save one have died? And that, only
since you joined the Mataio?”

Gooseflesh crawled up the backs of Eldrin’s arms. “What are you saying,
Captain?”

“That your kinsmen were murdered, my lord. And Raynen will follow,
once you take your final vows.”

Eldrin looked away from Meridon’s piercing gaze, glanced uneasily at the
other men, then at the bales of dirty wool. The rat had returned, watching
warily from within the shadow.

“You’ll be granted special dispensation to rule,” Meridon went on. “The
Guardian-King who will deliver the realm from evil. There’s already talk of
it, and at the rate Beltha’adi is expanding his empire down south, it won’t be
long before the realm may well need a deliverer.”

Eldrin stared at the soldier in spite of himself, part of him incensed, derid ing the notion, another part held in horrified abeyance. It was possible. The
High Father had the power to grant such dispensation. And everyone knew
that the ancient, allegedly immortal Lord Beltha’adi and his soldiers of the
Black Moon served the Adversary-steadily expanding his kingdom of darkness and tyranny with their might. But it went against all he believed in, all
he had built his life upon these last eight years.

“I seek only to serve Eidon,” he said. “I don’t want to be king.”

Again that mocking brow came up. “Not even if the High Father told you
it was Eidon’s will?”

Eldrin did not answer. That would never come to pass. He could accomplish far more in Eidon’s service as a full Guardian, nurturing and protecting
his Flames in the Keep, than he could playing politics on the throne. “What
are you going to do with me?”

“What do you want me to do with you, my lord?”

“Bring me to the Keep.”

“Very well.” Meridon stood and offered him a hand, his eyes still cold.

Eldrin almost refused his help, but rising turned out to be harder than he
expected. Reluctantly he grasped the man’s hand, the palm hard and rough,
the grip steel-strong. Meridon hauled him to his feet. The world swam briefly,
then settled.

Eldrin loosed a breath and straightened the tunic around his bony frame,
cringing with distaste and mortification as he recalled how the garment had
come to be so wet.

“This way, my lord.”

“Captain, I am not your `lord.’ My name is Eldrin now.”

Meridon regarded him stonily, then turned away with a snort. He headed
toward the dark aisle, only to stop and fling his dirk into the shadowed corner
behind them. A screech pierced the building’s heavy silence as in the corner
the rat squirmed out its life, impaled by the captain’s blade.

Meridon walked over to it, removed the dirk, wiped it on his britches,
then continued wordlessly on his way.

Eldrin swallowed, trailing his guide more reluctantly than ever.

Meridon brought him to the Avenue of the Keep without incident, stepping out a mere twenty feet from the Keep’s tall wrought-iron gates. “Here
you are, my lord. I recommend you not venture into Southdock after this.
You might not be so fortunate next time.”

“If I ever go there again, it will be too soon,” Eldrin assured him. “Thank
you for your help.”

The soldier bowed, his sword scabbard jingling. “Good night, Your Highness.”

“One thing more, Captain-“

Half turned, Meridon glanced back.

“If you honestly believe those things you told me,” Eldrin said, “why
didn’t you let them sell me to the slavers? From your standpoint it would
seem the practical thing to do.”

Meridon’s dark eyes narrowed. “Because you are the king’s brother. And
because he still has hope you will change your mind.” He hesitated; then that
mocking brow came up and he added, “If it is truly Eidon you seek, my lord,
you are looking in the wrong place.” He bowed again and walked into the
night.

Eldrin watched him go, at first in shock, then in rising anger. Looking in
the wrong place? How dare he? Did he think being captain of the King’s
Guard gave him leave to spout blasphemies?

Thunder growled as another gust of sprinkles spattered the already wet
cobbles. Drawing a deep breath to calm himself, Eldrin turned back toward
the Keep looming on the hill above him, the white square forms of its library
and dormitory flanking the gleaming, gold-plated dome of the Holy Sanctum.
The dome’s mullioned glass pinnacle glowed redly against the dark sky,
revealing the everlasting light of the Sacred Flames within.

Looking in the wrong place indeed! And where else would I look, Captain
Meridon? Shall I ask the Terstans?

He frowned as a sudden notion occurred to him-Meridon had spared the
kidnappers, had been almost solicitous to them, when he should’ve killed
them or at the least arrested them for having threatened a member of the
royal family. Moreover the kidnappers had clearly known him better than
would be expected of a pair of Southdock ruffians. And hadn’t the one said
that Meridon would be as happy as they to see Eldrin gone? He thought of
the man’s hard eyes, the cold distaste in his manner, the clear communication
that he did not like Eldrin or anything that Eldrin represented. “If it is truly
Eidon that you seek, my lord, you are looking in the wrong place.”

Was it possible that Meridon was… ? No. Raynen would never allow a
man so openly allied with the Evil One to command his own guard.

A gust of wind whipped around him, lifting his hair over his shoulders
and piercing the thin weave of his tunic. Shivering, he hurried up the sidewalk toward the Keep’s iron gates.

Inside he was welcomed with open arms, Rhiad and his men having
returned after a fruitless search to gather a larger force. Belmir was there as
well, and Eldrin learned he was not the only Initiate to have had a bad day.
As feared, the Procession had been disrupted by rioting and somehow a fire
had gotten started. The flames and smoke had sent half the Initiates scurrying
for the Keep, while the other half retreated to the safety of the barge. The
storm had put out the fire and doused the riot, but the ceremony was in a
shambles.

Bathed and wearing a fresh tunic, Eldrin was with Belmir in one of the
private chapels recounting what had happened-and confessing his many
sins-when Rhiad burst in upon them, trailed by his two shadows and
demanding to know if it was really Captain Meridon who had rescued him.

Annoyed in spite of himself, Eldrin breathed out a long breath and said
that it was. “Or at least that’s who he claimed to be.”

A simple description convinced Rhiad the man was indeed Meridon, and
the three Guardians exchanged grim glances.

“Saints, they’re getting subtle,” one of them murmured.

“You know this Meridon?” Belmir asked.

Rhiad grimaced. “Captain of the King’s Guard? Who doesn’t?” He looked
at Eldrin. “Meridon’s as much a Terstan as the men he rescued you from-if
it was a rescue.”

“You’re saying it was staged?” Belmir asked.

“Of course it was staged. Meridon probably wanted to get to him alone.”
He turned to Eldrin again. “I’ll wager he filled your ear with all manner of
crazy stories, too-about your family being murdered and the High Father
wanting the Crown?”

Eldrin stared up at him in surprise.

Rhiad chuckled. “Yes, I see he did. That tale’s been around for years.” He
shook his head. “The evidence doesn’t support the theory, though. There are
no suspects, nothing to indicate anything but that the deaths were accidental.
And your father and Aarol were most certainly not murdered by a man. Their
mauling is well documented.”

“Then how can they claim-?”

He shrugged. “They’re all mad. And they lie as easily as they speak.”

“I don’t understand,” Eldrin said. “Why would my brother make a Terstan
the captain of his own guard?”

Rhiad lifted a dark brow. “Because your brother is a Terstan himself” He
smiled at Eldrin’s unveiled shock. “Don’t tell anyone, though. He still
believes it’s a secret.”

Eldrin jerked awake and back to the reality of the cold stone beneath his
knees, the draft at his back, the flickering oil lamp on the stand before him.
Heart drumming, he groped at his chest, shuddering with relief when his
fingers slid over smooth skin. There was no shieldmark. It was only a nightmare.

He sagged back onto his heels, wincing at the painful tingling in his legs.
Afterimages roiled in his mind: his hands reaching into flames, a searing flash
of red, an overpowering sense of evil that seized him and burned a Terstan’s
shield of heresy onto his chest before he could pull away.

Eldrin swallowed hard, stroking the thin, hairless skin over his breastbone
as the images faded into the familiar reality of the Penitent Cell’s stone walls.
He had confessed his fear and anger to Belmir last night, his discipler transferring the sins to the aergon for judgment. Once laden with sin, the handlong consecrated oak slats were then cast into the great Flames and consumed. His penance was a night’s worth of prayer, meditation, and praise in
one of the solitary cells surrounding the Great Sanctum.

The lamp guttered, the yellow droplet of flame perched precariously on
its lip. In the distance, the university clock tolled: one, two, three, four. Outside, up under the eaves, pigeons rustled and cooed, and the faint tang of the
sea drifted down to him.

This was not the first time he had dreamed of the Flames finding him
unworthy, especially of late, but it was by far the worst. To have dreamed
they made him a Terstan? It was an unthinkable, hideous blasphemy and deeply shaming. No truly worthy Initiate would conjure such a heresy, even
in his sleep.

And certainly yesterday’s events revealed serious flaws in his character.
When he’d grabbed that rod from his assailant he’d had every intention of
hurting someone, eagerly feeding the power of Eidon’s enemy with his own
malicious passions.

It was reprehensible, disgusting. It was also a typical Kalladorne reaction.

He shuddered, nauseated with the conviction that despite what Belmir
said, he didn’t have what it took to be a true Guardian after all. That that
was why he was the only Initiate Eidon had not yet touched in meditations.
Because he was unworthy and always would be.

He closed his eyes, feeling a sudden tightness in his chest. The thought of
living past the death of his dream was unbearable.

Oh, Lord Eidon, you above all others must know my desire is genuine. Please,
please let me know you.

He had wanted this for eighteen years, remembering the day the desire
had been kindled within him as if it were yesterday. He’d been playing with
his sister, Carissa, in the garden. Hot and tired, he’d flopped onto the grass
beside their nurse and stared at the sky.

“Is Eidon behind those clouds?” he had asked the nurse.

She hadn’t known but thought perhaps he was.

“Well, then,” Abramm persisted, “how can he be in the Flames, too?”

“He is everywhere,” the nurse said, returning to her needlework. And
anyway, it’s Tersius, his Son, who’s in the Flames, not Eidon himself”

Abramm had asked more questions, but mostly the nurse did not know
the answers and, more important, did not care. When she began to speak
irritably, he asked no more and addressed the clouds instead. Are you up there,
Lord Eidon? Nurse says you can hear my thoughts. If you can, well, I’m pleased
to meet you, sir. He had waited a bit and sighed with resignation when no
response came. He was only three, and clearly Lord Eidon, like Abramm’s
own father, was much too busy and important to speak to little boys. Perhaps
when he was older …

Years later Abramm’s mother, a devout Mataian, had invited young
Brother Saeral to come to the palace as spiritual instructor for her children,
and from the start Abramm had considered him a personal savior sent by
Eidon himself A weak and sickly child, more given to scholarship than ath letics, Abramm was the unhappy exception in a family where physical prowess was the measuring stick of worth. The more disappointing he became as
a soldier-prince, the more he was drawn to Brother Saeral and the spiritual
comforts he offered. Bright and eager, the young prince excelled in theology,
learning verses and doctrines effortlessly. While his siblings tried every imaginable ploy to avoid religious edification, Abramm memorized much of the
First Word of Revelation and scatterings of the Second.