The Mad God's Muse (The Eye of the Lion Saga Book 2) (20 page)

Prandil paused writing for a
moment, considering the image in his head. House Veril was a
wretched lot of indulgent, insipid fools who practiced the most
shallow of arts, performance. They were barely a half rung above
thieves and beggars. It wasn't as if their opinion mattered
overmuch, so there was no worry about going too far. Still, insult
and mockery were art forms in and of themselves, and it wouldn't do
to get it half right. The rest of the houses would all be reading
this in the morning paper, after all.

He was still considering when
Thrun, his personal slave, entered the study, a piece of paper in
his hand.

“Ah, just in time,”
Prandil called. “Are the presses ready for the morning run? I
have some fine print here. Tell me, would you prefer outright
calling Sadrina Veril a vacuous, flatulent cow? Or something more
subtle, say a waste of food and air?”

Thrun leaned against one of the
many bookshelves and stretched, shaking his head and grinning.
“She's dead, Prandil. Kind of harsh.”

“Oh, it's not 'kind of'.
It's full and intentional. You know what they're doing, don't you?”

“The protest? Yeah, it
would be hard not to, with you bitching about it all the time.”

Prandil grinned and raised both
arms in victory. “That's just the point! I intend to mock them
without mercy until they grow up and put forth a house leader.”
He paused a moment and lowered his hands, noting the paper in
Thrun's grasp. “What have you there?”

Thrun started a bit, suddenly
remembering why he had come. “Oh! A letter from House Amrath.
The slave who delivered it said it was 'very important', so I
assumed some juicy news on recent events.”

Prandil raised an eyebrow at
this. “Well, there are all sorts of leaks we might find useful
from there of late, eh?” He made a twirling, hurry up gesture
with his hands. “Go on, let's hear what it says! We
have
taught you to read, yes?”

Thrun gave him a sour look, but
opened the envelope and began to read. “Amrath Narelki extends
her invitation to Idlic Prandil to join her for dinner at a place to
be determined, and would visit House Idlic to discuss said
location.”

Prandil considered a moment,
pulling at his beard, his smile growing wider with each passing
second. “Well, now, that
is
a pleasant surprise!”
He quickly took the letter from Thrun and held it to his nose to
sniff at it. “Perfumed. So it is, at least ostensibly, a
romantic overture.” He looked at it again. “Mei, I
thought you were just a clod paraphrasing words you didn't
understand. This is the actual text, hmm? Who wrote this? A slave?”

“A lawyer, more likely,”
Thrun opined.

“Certainly not an editor
or other literate.”

“I hear tell editors can
fix your mistakes, but are otherwise unable to communicate via the
written word.”

Prandil raised an eyebrow and
nodded at this wisdom. “That is true. I actually have to
remove one hat and put on another before I can perform my duties
properly.” He looked at the letter again in amusement, then
folded it and put it in his pocket. He took in a deep breath,
relishing it, and let it out, the scent of the perfume still faint
in his nose. “So her writing is stilted. She has other
qualities that interest me.”

“I haven't seen you this
excited since they started adding bran to the pancakes.”

“Nonsense! I'll have you
know I was at least as excited as that to run the headline of
Sadrina's timely demise.”

“Well, true, that was a
happy day for us all,” Thrun chuckled. “Still, I guess
there's more between you two than I know about.”

“I suppose you
are
a bit lacking in details compared to your father.” Prandil
felt suddenly and very wistful. First Narelki stepping out of the
past, and then to think of Alric. The man had practically raised
him. “I won't apologize for outliving him, but I miss him
terribly.”

“He told me a lot of
stories about you, but not this. I'm guessing there's a good
reason.”

“I shudder to hear the
sort of tales he might have told you of my youth, but this is from a
bit later, and nothing complicated. Narelki and I used to be lovers
some hundred years ago.” Again, Prandil felt a deep, pleasant
nostalgia rising in him, remembering things he had thought gone
forever.
Ah, it is so lovely to find a hope one counted lost.
“She was the sort of beauty that might freeze a man in place,
just contemplating her. And a regular hellcat in bed!” He gave
Thrun a conspiratorial wink, then waved as if dismissing a ghost,
shaking his head. “It's not surprising you don't remember.
What are you, all of fifty and learning to shave?”

Thrun chuckled at this, and
poked back, “What's that make you, like a thousand?”

Prandil feigned shock and
placed his hands on his hips in an indignant pose. “One
hundred eighty seven and still vigorous enough to thrash a strapping
young lad like you!” He raised an eyebrow in amusement. “And
take your women, too. You remember that, boy. Age, treachery, and
cold, hard currency trump youth and beauty
every
time.”

Thrun
rolled his eyes at this. “Well of course you can beat me up.
You're a Meite!”

Prandil
gave him a smug look. “And why aren't you?”

“You're
stalling. Misdirecting. Must be some real meat to this one.”

“You're
like a pit bull, Thrun. Who taught you this tenacity for getting a
story, I wonder?”

Thrun
chuckled. “I wonder. Come on, plate the meat. W
hy'd you
quit her?”

Prandil, never the sort of man
to try to conceal even the tiniest emotion, suddenly wished he had
bothered to learn at least some small talent for it. Clearly, just
the look on his face told plenty.

Thrun's eyes widened with
surprise and humor. “
Oh!
”
he shouted, slamming a fist into his palm as if he had scored a goal
in a ball game. “
She
quit
you
!”

Prandil heaved a great,
dramatic sigh. “Indeed she did. I loved her quite completely,
and I suppose I still do, after a fashion.”

“So even Meites have to
deal with being rejected now and then.”

Prandil grew serious. “It
was considerably more than my wounded pride. If it were just that,
it would be so trivial.” He gazed at Thrun for long moments,
remembering Alric. The boy had much of his father in him. He was
thick and strong, and quite fearless. He was almost the right
material to be trained, but the small lack was the difference
between the lightning and the lightning bug. To try and fail was so
much worse than to never have tried at all. “How much do you
know of our order?”

Thrun cocked his head,
thinking. “Besides the fact that you're all crazy? Not much.”

“That's quite a bit,
actually. More than most understand.” Prandil steepled his
fingers beneath his chin. “It
is
a sort of madness, a carefully cultivated one. We spend our lives
denying reality, deciding what we feel based on what we want.”
He heaved a great sigh and lowered his hands to his knees as he
leaned forward. “What I am trying to say here is that while I
remember my heart being broken, my soul utterly crushed, it was just
a moment before I
chose
to see it another way, to realize I never cared very much for her at
all, to see her as a dalliance I was well rid of.”

“Yeah,
that's the same advice I got my first heartbreak.”

“
You're
not fully grasping what I'm saying here. I wasn't merely playing
sour grapes. I
believed
it because I chose to. The same way that I can convince myself that
physical laws are not real things. I can
fly
,
Thrun.
Anyone
can.
They just have to stop believing in gravity.”

“Just
like that,” Thrun said, snapping his fingers. “Stopped
loving her. It's easier to imagine believing gravity isn't real.”

“
Just
like that,” Prandil agreed. “A Meite defends his mind as
a miser defends his gold. If something hurts us, we lash out. If
that won't help, we choose to see it another way, one where we are
the victor, or where we're merely biding our time, gulling our enemy
into a false sense of security. Often enough, we get excited about
some other matter and completely forget troubling issues. It's our
way.”

Thrun shifted, seeming
uncomfortable, as he absorbed the idea. “So how does it play
into this story?”

“She didn't do that,”
Prandil muttered. “She turned away from me, and then she
turned away from everything.” Prandil paused, feeling
unexpectedly haggard and mean. “And all because of that
wretch. I should have murdered him when I had the chance.”

“Who?”

“I don't remember his
name, if I ever even knew it. He was a commoner she took a fancy to
for a brief period of time when she and I were split. She got
pregnant, then tired of him. He didn't take it well.” Prandil
paused a moment.
Perhaps I ought not tell this part, but Elgar
take it.
“He forced his way into her home, and then into
her bed. Into
her
, if you
take my meaning.”

“Wow!”

“She was one of us before
him, and he stole that from her.”

Thrun's eyebrows arched in
genuine shock. “She was a Meite? How the hell do you
steal
that?”

Prandil nodded gravely.
“Psychological trauma. A deep and personal violation.
Something to shake her to her very soul and make her doubt herself.”

“The rape? Mei! But
that's crazy! She could have torn him to shreds!”

Prandil chuckled sadly. “And
now you see the tragedy, eh? She
chose
not to. That always
irked me, honestly. She stabbed me more than once, you know, but her
plaything, she couldn't bring herself to harm. Not until it was too
late.” He ground his teeth a moment, then went on. “Another
Meite would have simply decided to enjoy it, to want it even, or at
least look at it as indulging a pathetic creature. We change our
minds like we change socks. It's whatever we want today, and
yesterday be damned, typically. But she had a weak spot there, I
suppose. She couldn't get past it.”

“Rape is pretty
traumatic, I guess.”

Prandil dismissed the thought
with a wave of his hand. “It wasn't the rape. I've forced
myself on her a time or two, just to prove a point. It was her
reaction to it.”

Thrun's face went from shocked
credulity to sly amusement. “Mei! I thought you were serious.
You're just jerking my chain.”

“No, not at all. Meite
relationships are stormy. I did mention she'd stabbed me on
occasion, yes?”

“For raping her?”

Prandil snorted laughter. “No,
once for burning the toast, and another time because I was too drunk
to service her properly. I don't actually recall what set her off
the other times. And those are hardly the worst incidents, but there
were damned fine times, too, I assure you. The highs far outpace the
lows.”

“Then why? What made her
change?”

Prandil found his gaze
wandering to the floor, and viciously forced himself to maintain eye
contact. “My best guess is that she couldn't bring herself to
hurt him. Being defeated in battle is one thing. If he had actually
been strong enough to take what he wanted, she would have respected
him. It's our way, you understand.” He felt his eyes wandering
again, to a distant point over Thrun's shoulder, and decided to let
it stand. “We revere power. We acknowledge no master but
ourselves, no morality but our own. But we do not waste. We
capitulate to the stronger, usually. When we're stupid enough not
to, someone usually ends up dead.”

Thrun said nothing for a
moment, then shrugged. “I never knew any of this.”

“We've been remiss in
training, to be frank. There are any number of things I ought to
have explained to you, any number of students we ought to have taken
and shown the light. But I fear we've grown too selfish.”
Prandil shook his head in consternation. “I only recently
decided to take one on. The boy who comes here, Jareth.”

“He's your student?
Honestly I thought....” Thrun grinned widely, almost
snickering.

Prandil paused in confusion a
moment, then sneered at Thrun's subtle jab. “Oh, please. If my
tastes ran that way, I'd have pushed you into some closet or another
around here and had my way with you long ago. I'm sure you'd have
enjoyed it.”

Thrun placed a hand on his
chest as if he'd been shot with an arrow. “Oh, ouch! I'm not
sure if that's a compliment or an insult.”

Prandil shot him a smug,
patronizing grin. “Well, it's both, don't you think? I thought
it was clever, telling you you were attractive while insinuating you
were gay. I get paid well for that wit, you know.”

“You deserve it, Prandil.
You're the best, and everybody knows it. Including you. There, is
that what you were fishing for?”

“You've quite the acid
tongue yourself these days. It's a terrible habit. Where could you
have learned that from, I wonder?”

Thrun shook his head, playing
the obesient slave, but still grinning. “I wonder.”

“Clever, handsome, and
rude. You're the son I never had, Thrun. I think I'll make you my
heir.”

Thrun's eyebrows rose in
genuine shock. “What? You can't do that.” He paused a
moment, looking at Prandil with suspicion and curiosity. “Can
you?”

“Make a slave a full
house member? I'm the
patriarch
.
With
a word. Happens all the time.”

“Yeah, but not putting
them in charge! It would be scandalous!”

Prandil cackled like a madman
and slapped his knee. “Oh, Mei forbid it, then! Which simply
inclines me to do it.”