Chapter Seven: The King and the Wizard

 

 

The king, who had once relied heavily on Blyord’s wisdom, spent most of his time pinning over former glories of his ancestors, and receiving reports of his spies from abroad, bitterly blaming the wizard for stealing his legacy and potential to become the great king lore spoke about.

“If I could have wielded the sword, none of this might have come to pass,” he often mumbled, meaning the rise of Htam and the power of the witches far to the south.

“Had you done so, you would have fallen,” the wizard always responded. “It is not your fate to take the sword south.”

“Who’s fate is it then?” the king counter, a white brow rising over his suspicious gray eyes, suspecting Blyord would utter Ely’s name, but the wizard never did.

Of the two men, Ely feared the wizard more, although this had not always been the case.

Once, his father had seemed the more powerful, as if a living form of the very figures carved into the columns around him, a thunderstorm full of fire and fury capable of drenching all others including Blyord with his wrath.

But the greater storm of time had weathered him, something that shocked Ely seeing him after so many months away, the once-mighty sinews weaken, and the once stern visage thick with weariness and despair.

Even dressed as he was in his armor, breast plate bearing the house of image of the sun – tribute to the fallen goddess few would openly praise, he seemed less than he had been, arms and hands thinner and frail, age creeping through his body.

He recognized the horror on its way north from the south, and was helpless to stop it, thinking that the wrong son would inherit his throne, the son who had been seduced by a sorceress, while his strong son, the son he felt the most confident in, sat and earned small glory against a lesser foe at Land Gate.

“You called me, father,” Ely said, “and I have come.”

“I have called for you many times, and you have not come,” the bitter king said. “What makes this time different?”

“You know, father,” Ely said, advancing up the first step, the armored guards to either side of the king stirring, but more of a concern, the wizard’s steady gaze remained fixed on the prince.

“I know you have taken up with that sorceress from Taffar,” the King said, his voice growing harsh, but not loud. “And you seem more aligned to her wishes than to mine – your own kin.”

 The reflection of the fire flared in the old man’s eyes, as if inside of him, spewing rage rather than lava, giving life to the deep wrinkles that surrounded his eyes. His frail voice reverberated in the chamber, like an echo, not completely real or solid, yet still potent enough to stir to attention the guards to either side of the throne – each called to arms, even if it meant fighting their own prince.

The old man half rose from the throne as if intending to strike Ely himself, then, worn from this brief act, fell back exhausted, murmuring again “your own kin.”

“Would you deny me love, father?” Ely asked, his voice echoing as well, but more remotely, cool as a cold spring water, without rage, full of that logic the wizard always tried to inspire in him. He had not come here to fight his father – yet suspecting he might have to, but rather to make his case against evil that threatened them all.

The old king’s gaze again turned towards Ely, full of sadness rather than rage, his eyes simmering coals, losing the intensity of a moment before.

“I would deny you nothing,” he mumbled. “But I would not have the heir of this throne twisted through the fingers of that sorceress as if through stands of hair, to shape you and this kingdom to her own wishes.”

“I know my own mind,” Ely said. “I am no more being manipulated by Queen Laithia than you are by Blyord.”

“How dare you make such a comparison!” the king again roared, outrage again firing up behind his eyes. “Blyord had not asked me to betray my people.”

“Nor has Laithia asked that of me,” Ely said.

“You are here on her behalf.”

“I am here because she would seek our help to defend her nation, as we would ask of her if our positions were reversed and Amlor was under siege.”

“So, you would make me her puppet as she has made you hers?”

“I merely bring her request for aide.”

“And yet, you forget your duty to me in doing so?”

“I have not,” Ely said.

Blyord for the first time, spoke” Sire, time presses us. We should not waste it in pointless argument,” the wizard said. “Your son is here now as you have commanded. Tell him what you wish him to do.”

Something dark flashed inside the wizard’s eyes that Ely alone seemed to catch, some fleeting thought that Blyord dared not utter aloud, perhaps about Ely’s true intentions the wizard knew would send the old king into deeper fury.

The wizard seemed less bent, dressed in his gray robes, his long gray hair falling back onto its hood, giving him the look of the monks, yet not nearly as holy.

“I need my son and heir to remain home,” the king said. “The world is in turmoil, and we may soon be under siege. I do not need him wandering about in the midst of it, when we have a kingdom to defend.”

“Which is why we need to confront it, father,” Ely said. “We cannot stay behind our walls and hope to survive this storm.”

“Do you really believe Htam dare assail us, knowing what we possess?” the king asked.

“War advances towards us whether we want it or not,” Ely said. “Htam had taken everything in its path except Taffar, which may even now be in flames.”

“And what would you have us do?”

“What I have always counseled, father,” Ely said. “Go out and meet it before it seeks us out.”

“And spill Amlorian blood for other people?”

“The blood will be spilled whether here or there,” Ely said. “Better we fight it out there, then have to do it while our own villages burn. Innocents will perish if we do nothing.”

“Do not tell me how I should govern my own kingdom!” the king said, suddenly angry again. “You do not yet wear the crown and would never have it not for a fluke of fate.”

“I know you prefer Ajax over me,” Ely said. “You have said as much if not in words, then in looks and deeds.”

“And why should I not prefer a son who honors the wishes of his father?” the king asked, then fell into a fit of coughing. “He keeps faith with Amlor and not the bed of a witch.”

“Laithia is no witch.”

“That is not the reports I receive.”

“Then your spies err,” Ely said, refusing to admit that witch’s blood ran in her veins, a heritage going back generations which she had tried to set aside. “As for my brother, he hungers for no woman as much as he does glory.”

“You find fault in glory?”

“Yes, if it is glory for glory’s sake,” Ely said. “He aches for the great sword. So much so, I sometimes suspect he would see me dead so he could possess it.”

“Ely!” Blyord snarled, his gray gaze saying even more than the tone of that one word, cautioning Ely not to trample that ground or revealing his own intentions – pushing the king into those thoughts as well.

No curse could have cast Amlor into such a dark place as the birth of twins that left succession so unclear.

“Better one of you had died at birth than what I fear may happen in the future,” Blyord had once warned Ely. “There is a dark space in your brother’s heart, and I fear that passion for power will outweigh his brotherly love.”

And from the outraged expression shown on the king, Ely feared these same dark thoughts had entered the king’s head as well, desiring to rid himself of an heir he did not love or trust to replace him with an heir of better liking.

But the king did not pursue this, turning to his original purpose.

“If what you say is true about the approach of Htam’s armies, then I will need you here to command our defenses,” the king said.”

“What of Ajax?” Ely asked.

“I will have need of both my sons,” the King said, “You to guard the mainland, while Prince Ajax continues his post at Land Gate.”

“They won’t come by Land Gate,” Ely said. “It is too far east, and they would have to deal with the horse people first – a sizable and costly conflict of its own. They will come at us by sea. We do not have the navy to oppose them as we once did.”

“Fishing boats instead of war ships,” Ely thought. “We have long neglected what once made us strong. The elves who lived here once knew the need, while we fall asleep believing water can keep us safe.

“We cannot keep them off our shores if they arrive by ship,” Ely said. “We must meet their army while it still marches on solid ground, spilling our blood where it will do the most good.”

“We will not argue this again,” the king said. “You will do what I tell you to do.”

“I shall not!” Ely said.

The volume of his voice and its tone of defiance filled the sacred chamber in clear sacrilege, stirring the king’s guard, and drawing a dark glance of rebuke from the wizard.

The king’s face went pale first, then then red with rage.

“I came north for help,” Ely went on in a less strident tone. “Since you have made it clear that I can expect none, I must return south to do what I can to help stem the tide without it.”

“Fool Sorcery!” the king cried. “Bad enough this wizard stole your mind from me, how a witch steals your heart!”

“That is unfair, sire,” Blyord objected. “While I agree Ely’s desires are disturbing, he knows his heart and his mind better than either of us. He is under no spell but his own. Accusing me or anyone else of controlling him does us all injury. The times are too perilous for such petty disputes.”

“The heritage of Amlor is no petty dispute,” the King said. “I have no doubt my son, my heir, intends to marry this witch and that I can’t permit.”

“It is my right to choose,” Ely said.

“Your right? What about your oath?” the King asked. “As prince of this land, you are forbidden to marry anyone other than of Amlorian blood. Or do you intend to relinquish your birth right?”

The King’s tone came so close to one of hope, Ely stuttered.

“Give up my…?” he said, halting when he caught the sharp glance from the wizard and the careful shake of head, the gray eyes suddenly enlightened as he fully read what Ely actually had planned.

The wizard’s eyes flashed with fury and fear, as if he had dreaded this moment for a very long time and understood how much hinged on Ely’s reply.

“I relinquish nothing,” Ely finally said, firmly. “If I marry Queen Laithia, it will be after she has sworn allegiance to our throne, not before.”

The brief hope died in the old King’s eyes, even as alarm grew in the eyes of the wizard.

Blyord knew what Ely intended, and he glanced at the elderly king to determine if he had come to the same conclusion.

The king looked weary and sad but seemed to see Ely’s reaction as something far less than the intended betrayal.

What was an old man to do when his children no longer listen to reason, letting the world overwhelm them?

They had reached an impasse, and the nervous Blyord wondered how the king would react. Do you behead the heir to the throne?

 

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