Chapter Two: Songs of blood and glory
Ely studied the image of his brother portrayed on the tapestry,
his twin, yet not his twin.
Some subtle differences separated them – not merely the left
hand with which his brother clutched his sword, but in the gaze, and posture,
in the twist of his mouth, differences few at first meeting them might notice,
yet to those close to the brothers knew instantly.
The image and the chill of his father’s hall told Ely the
folly of his errand, nothing had changed here, the king’s heart would not be
moved.
Nothing had changed; the old heard of Amlor still prevail,
maintaining the assumption that its soldiers could ward off any threat. The king’s
spies, however, told only so much, but not the look in the eyes of the advancing
army, how competent they looked, how well they fought, and how inch by inch,
how eventually they conquered.
Ely almost turned back, to retrace his steps back to the
ship that brought him, to sail back to the land that had become his true home,
and to be there, his sword ready when the attack on Taffar took place.
“Lord?” the guard with the scarred face asked. “Why do you
linger?”
Ely looked at the man, at the armor that glinted under the uneven
light of wall-lanterns and the deep fires of perpetual hearths. The man’s gray
eyes registered concern, as if he had done something to offend the returning
prince.
“Did you not come to see the king?” the guard asked.
“Yes,” Ely said. “But I think I should see the wizard first.”
A stunned, even frightened expression rippled across those
portions of the guard’s face Ely could see, more than hinting of something dark
that had transpired during his absence, some change of influence which had diminished
or at least alienated the wizard’s position in the court.
“The king has made it clear he would see you before all
else,” the guard said, stiffening, as did the rest of the entourage, gloved
fingers reaching ever so subtly to the hilts of their swords.
Ely glanced at each guard, the fear clear in their eyes,
their knowing their duty to the king might cost their lives at the hand of a
prince well-known for his prowess.
Ely made no move to grasp his sword. He simply sighed.
“I will see the king,” he said, the ripple of relief moving
through the six men around him. “Lead on.”
He would see the wizard later, seek his help even if the
king refused, make it clear just how dire the situation had become in the
south.
A sudden unexpected burst of sunlight streamed through one
of the narrow slits in the battlement, leaving streaks across the floor of the
hall ahead of where Ely and his escort walked.
A sign of hope in this otherwise dismal landscape, he
wondered.
“One can only pray,” he thought.
Ahead, the hall came to an end near where another arch rose
and the dully decorated door to the king’s chambers began. More guards, these
dressed in the blue mail of the palace proper, stiffened, gripping tall spears
at if expecting attack. They clicked their spears at Ely and his guards passed,
Ely catching glimpse of their expressions as well, curious and nervous, eyeing
him with a sense of awe and yet just a bit of hostility. Two of these fell in
with the six that already accompanied him and passed through the great doors
into the long hall beyond, adding to the metallic echoes, ghost-like, the
spirits of those stone kings from the great all, called back to life.
Although warmer, the king’s chambers could not keep the
chill out nor its brighter fires extinguish the gray that oozed out from its
stone walls, tapestry stirred up by the constant wind, carrying the chill deep
into the bones of those who resided here.
The entourage echoed in the passages that opened to either
side of the main hall, their sound the only occupants of rooms little used save
for time of war, and since Amlor had so few wars – discounting the skirmishes
fought at Land Gate – these went unused, filled with the memory of days when
they had some other reason to exist.
Ely missed the giggling chatter of children that Amlor’s
high chambers lacked – even back when he and Ajax grew up here, the joy of
childhood lost in the constant lessons that prepared them to serve as knights
of the kingdom, and perhaps eventually, kings. He rarely saw such playfulness
even among the children growing up in villages here, as if the whole focus of
their lives centered on surviving the austere climate of their lands, the cold
winters, nearly as cold spring and fall, and the all too short summers where
tilling the soil required all hands even the youngest.
The warmer climate of Taffar brought out something special
in the young, something joyous, as if the sun endowed them and their race with
a hope gloomy Amlor lacked, stirring up what the king would call trivialities
in their young hearts, painting the world as much grander place, and the future
as much more hopeful, long summers, mild winters, and spring and fall rich with
colors no Amlorian could possibly imagine from afar.
His grim people rarely even smiled, leave along laughed, and
bent their labors to build walls between them and others who might do them harm,
setting up a perpetual guard along Land Gate, the only access other than the
sea to their realm.
Possibly, this allowed Amlor to survive when many other kingdoms
had not, reaching perhaps not the same brief pinnacle as some great nations to
the south, yet not falling as deep into despair when their greatness fell swiftly
into decline. Amlor remained, a fixture of stone in the north, unyielding, yet
without joy. Ely wondered whether its survival equaled the cost and concluded
he would rather fade away after feeling joy than remaining unchanged, unmoved as
much as Amlor remained.
What a terrible price for immorality, he thought.
“Maybe my father is right. Maybe the wizard cast a spell on
me while still in our mother’s womb that made me crave for something more than
this,” Ely thought.
For this reason, he had sought out the role of Amlorian ambassador,
perpetually traveling through the wider kingdoms in the name of a king who cared
for nothing beyond the boundaries of his own land, acting as peacekeeper, and
sometimes ally to the kings of other lands who found Ely persuasive.
And later, ignoring the requests by the king so cease these
duties and come home, as if the king’s spies abroad, had reported back things
about Ely the king found troublesome, changes in the young prince that did not
fit the stern mold that an Amlorian might need when crowned king.
The rattling mail of his entourage reminding him of his
current mission, the need to move his father’s heart.
From down deep in the remote corners of the castle, a
droning started, almost inhuman, the echoes carrying through every chamber,
stirring an old dread in Ely he had not recalled until then, something that made
his bones ache, a memory of something primitive he had felt first as a young boy,
the initial terror still as fresh now as back then.
He didn’t need to see the monks to know from whom the sound
emerged. The old guilt over his lost faith stabbed him as deeply as any blade
might, a lingering pain from a time when he foolishly clung to such rituals until
doubt crept into the back of his mind, perhaps inspired by the teachings of the
wizard, or maybe a need for some other, better faith in some other god less barbaric
than the old gods to which Amlorians clung.
This, too, had divorced him from the king, and what made the
king love his brother all the more, Ajax’s faith in the old gods as unmoving as
a mountain, a faith Ely struggled to share.
“That wizard has done this to you!” the King roared when Ely
had expressed his doubts, then still young enough to feel intimidated by the
old man’s rage.
“I think I had doubts long before Blyord took me as his
pupil,” Ely told the king. “What I’ve learned since only confirmed those doubts
for me.”
Ely believed in magic, since he witnessed its manifestations
daily, here and in the south. He just found no evidence such magic emanated from
gods he had never seen. If anything, the old faith discouraged magical
practices, claiming it as the evil manifestation of lesser gods, even though the
monks conducted dark rituals in their deep chambers, and prosecuted those who
praised magic over faith.
How Blyord remained unscathed by the monk’s persecutions,
Ely never understood. Perhaps because the practical king needed the wizard more
than he did the monks, a wizard that could look far and provide practical
answers the monks always shrouded in mystery but with little result.
Then, their chant faded again and more distant voice rose,
not from with the castle, but out beyond it, down into the city itself, the
faint songs workers loading ships sang, or those easing out the doors of pubs,
some tunes Ely remembered admiring when he was young, songs of heroes he rode
the high hills in days past, or even of great deeds done more recently in the
east:
Steel and stone
Blood and bone,
Men who stand
With sword alone.
Ely heard Ajax’s name sung in some of these, couched in
glory that annoyed him, and he hurried his step down the hall towards the door
of the king, hoping the echoes of his entourage’s movement would eradicate it,
if not from his memory, then from his hearing, but once started the songs would
not be extinguished so easily, dancing in the gray air like angry pixies, foretelling
a time of coming war – a war Ely had brought home with him, though few yet knew
of its coming.
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