Interim II
Kothifir Encampment: 55th of Spring
"My boy, it's almost dawn," said Lord Ardeth. "Don't you mean to sleep at all?"
"I will, when the chair behind me is empty."
Torisen saw the old lord's worried look. The chair in question was empty, now that Harn had reluctantly left to do the rounds of the watch. He knew that. And yet . . . and yet . . . moments ago, something had sat down in it.
Think of something else. Burr.
"I hope," he said, "that there was nothing worse in that wine than a sedative."
Ardeth shrugged. "An infusion of black nightshade never hurt any Highborn. The dose wasn't measured for a Kendar, though. You should never have made him drink it."
Torisen winced. He should have asked about the wine's composition earlier, too. Pieces of the night kept slipping away from him. He forced himself to half-turn, his back still toward the empty chair. His servant slumped on the other side of the table, his head in a pool of wine as red as spilt blood. He touched Burr's broad shoulder. The bond between them told him that the Kendar only slept, but was beginning to breathe with difficulty. Face down in narcotic wine . . . .
Torisen carefully turned the man's head to one side, clearing nose and mouth. His hands had begun to shake again. Sixteen years together, through a dozen hells not even counting Urakarn, and he had almost let Burr quietly suffocate within arm's reach.
"You and your damned drugs," he said to Ardeth unsteadily. "Have you ever tried to live without them?"
"Why should I? My boy, can't I persuade you . . . ."
"No!"
Ardeth's pharmacopoeia might do no harm in itself—after all, Highborn were almost impossible to poison—but it could rob Torisen of the few defenses which his lack of sleep had left him. The old terror returned like a hand closing on his throat: not only to dream such horrible things but to be trapped in one of his nightmares, unable to wake. This whole night had begun to feel that way, but dawn was almost here.
Hold on, just hold on . . . .
He found himself again in front of Pereden's ornate mirror. His pale face seemed to float in the glass, black coat and hair casting almost no reflection. The room behind him was dim, lit only by gray light seeping through unshuttered windows. At his back was a chair—his, he realized, from his tower room at Gothregor—and in it sat an indistinct form. He must be dreaming, but he couldn't wake . . . .
Movement in the back shadows of the mirror: the ghostly reflection of the Wolver Grimly entering the commander's quarters in Kothifir, stopping short.
"I smell blood," he said.
Torisen looked blankly down at his left hand, at red running along the white scars on his palm. His grip on Kin-Slayer had cracked the hilt emblem.
Ardeth came forward at once, fussing. "Let me see." He took Torisen's thin, elegant hand and turned it palm up. "You are so hard on yourself, my boy. More scars . . . "
"That's enough," said Torisen thickly, detaching the other's grip with a strength that made the old lord blink. "That's more than enough."
"My boy . . . ?"
"I'm not. That was Pereden, and he's dead. Remember?" He jerked the emerald signet ring off his left hand and held it up. "I'm Ganth Gray Lord's son, former commander of the Southern Host, present Highlord of the Kencyrath, and I will not be condescended to or spied on. Understand?"
Ardeth fell back a step.
"My . . . lord," he said, shaken. "I understand that you are tired and ill. I will leave you to rest." With a formal salute he departed, deliberately not glancing at the Wolver who remained crouched in the shadows, on guard.
Torisen looked at Ganth's ring for a moment, then slipped it onto a finger of his right hand. Was this how Pereden had felt, trying to exorcize his pain by inflicting it on others? In another moment, he would have accomplished that wretched boy's revenge by telling Ardeth the truth about his son, after all he had done to protect the old man from it. Torisen put both hands over his face, heedless of the blood which still trickled down between his fingers.
Sweet Trinity. He must be going mad.
"And whose fault is that?" Ganth's voice asked. "You were all right until she came back, your darkling half. Now you will never be right again until she is . . . ."
What? wondered the Wolver Grimly, ears twitching.
But Torisen's hands had slid from his eyes to cover his mouth, stopping the words. The fur slowly rose down Grimly's spine. Did his friend know that he had been speaking out-loud? The "darkling half" must be Tori's new-found sister, whom Grimly had met at the Cataracts the previous winter and liked very much.
Until she is . . . what?
In turning away from Ardeth, the Highlord had brought himself again face to face with the mirror. Now he froze, staring into it. All Grimly could see was Torisen's reflection, a smear of blood down one cheek from his cut hand. The Highborn made a half-choked sound:
"No. I refuse to dream this. I refuse . . . . No!"
"Don't!" yelped the Wolver.
Too late. Kin-Slayer was out of its sheath, hissing through the air. Glass shattered. Grimly threw the unconscious Burr to the floor and shielded him with his body as razor-edged shards scythed overhead. Wood shrieked. Clay dust filled the air. For an endless moment, Grimly was sneezing too hard to wonder what had happened. Then he looked up. The mirror had disintegrated. So had the foot-thick wall behind it where blade and brick had met. A shaft of gray dawn light lanced through the ragged hole into the dusty murk of the room. Outside, dogs had begun to howl.
"Son of a bitch," said Grimly reverently. "You finally made the damn thing work. Tori . . . where are you?"
Dust began to settle. The room was empty except for the Wolver and Burr's sprawling figure. Below, hooves rang on stone. Grimly leaned out the ragged hole in time to see Torisen bareback on Storm, his quarter-blood Whinno-hir, bolting out of the courtyard, Kin-Slayer still naked in his hand.
Grimly remembered the old songs. You didn't unsheathe a battle-blade, especially that one, unless you meant to kill someone.
You will never be right again until she is . . . .
Dead?
"Oh, no," said the Wolver. "Oh, Tori, no." He dropped to all fours and ran out of the room yelping, "Tori, Tori, wait for me!"