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

by Karen Hancock

  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.

  Finally, at the age of thirteen, grieving over the unexpected death of his mother and faced with the prospect of entering Barracks to begin the military training traditional for a Kalladorne prince, Abramm defied tradition by renouncing his titles and entering the Guardian Novitiate instead. His family erupted in a storm of outrage, but he would not be swayed.

  He could still recall the feel of the razor sliding over his skull in the initiation ritual on that first day, stripping away his blond locks in a visible sign of all he had given up: his clothing, his pleasures, his noble titles-all that had made up his former life. Delighted to exchange Prince Abramm for Eldrin, he’d felt a fierce, hot joy in his chest, and never had he been so certain he had made the right choice.

  During the next eight years, secluded in Haverall’s Watch, he labored diligently to conform to Eidon’s standards, careful to observe every commandment, accepting the injustices and harsh disciplines with equanimity, knowing the pride of royal blood required extra effort to deflate. Sometimes he even inflicted the disciplines upon himself, for only he knew how flawed he really was, and he wanted desperately to be found acceptable, to find at last that which would satisfy the thirst that had driven him since he was three.

  Until a week ago he had been confident he would find it.

  Then the doubts began.

  Not everyone is suited to this life.

  There is no shame in changing one’s mind.

  One cannot help the blood one is born with, but one must recognize reality when one sees it.

  The thoughts spawned a fear that he would always be unworthy, no matter how hard he worked. Yet the desire to know Eidon remained, and had not his teachers assured him such desires were planted by Eidon himself, the call upon those who would be his servants?

  Perhaps his dream had been only a warning that he hadn’t worked hard enough to purge himself of the extra measure of Kalladorne pride.

  A tenuous hope brightened. At dawn, when his penance period ended, he would go before the Flames to fast and pray and meditate until the final veil of corruption was stripped from his soul, and he would not leave until it was done.

  The final hour passed with agonizing slowness, but at last the morning bells rang and he was free. Pulling his ragged Initiate’s mantle from its hook, he headed straight for the Great Sanctum.

  Not having seen the place in the eight years of serving his novitiate, he was unprepared for its jaw-dropping size, the massive bowl seeming wider, deeper, and more magnificent than he recalled. Concentric descending levels encircled a central tiered dais of white marble. In the midst of this lay the Well of Flames, crimson tongues licking upward in the darkness.

  Formed when Eidon’s son, Tersius, had given himself over to death and transformation outside Xorofin almost a thousand years ago, the Flames required no oil, no wood, no fuel at all save the sacrifices and purity of the Guardians sworn to keep them. Though they could not cook a meal nor warm a weary traveler, they remained Kiriath’s most valuable asset, guarding her borders against the evil that continually sought egress.

  Since Moroq and his rhu’ema could not function in the presence of Eidon’s Light, it was the Adversary’s intent to wrap the world in arcane shadow. For centuries a permanent fog had covered the southern deserts, and even now his servants-men in the form of the great Esurhite armies of the Black Moon-were slowly spreading it into the lands east of the Sea of Sharss and northward toward Kiriath. Without her Guardians to keep the Flames alive, Kiriath would be swallowed up like the others, no matter how great her army or her king.

  Removing his sandals at the door, Eldrin descended into the silence. The aura of the Flames’ ancient power rippled across his flesh with an eerie sense of awareness, as if the eye of Eidon himself watched him as he approached.

  At the lowest level he knelt behind the guardrail of the white marble moat and gazed into the living, leaping fingers of flame, five strides away and towering above him. Scarlet, russet, and crimson danced around deeper tones of purple and royal blue, a never-ending metamorphosis of shape and line and color that snared the eye and drew the mind into their depths. “The depths,” said the Second Word, “of Eidon himself.”

  “Your Light is my refuge,” Eldrin murmured. “Your Words are my sustenance. Your Name is my joy….”

  “Eldrin?”

  The voice startled him, then pierced his heart in a flood of memories. He leapt up to face the man who had come up beside him-and faltered in uncertainty. Dressed in the standard linen robe and mantle of any mid-level, rank-and-file Guardian, the man wore no ornamentation save the softly glowing amulet at his throat. Nothing indicated exalted rank; the usual wrist cords were missing altogether. His cowl hung in limp folds around his shoulders, baring a head of silver hair and a wrinkled, pleasant face.

  “It is you?” the man cried, smiling broadly. Again the voice struck chords of memory, and the smile finally confirmed them.

  “Master Saeral?” Eldrin breathed, delighted, wonderstruck, and wary all at once. Though Saeral had been Eldrin’s mentor and teacher eight years ago, he was now High Father, while Eldrin held the lowest of Mataian ranks. He had no right even to look directly at this man, much less speak to him.

  Uncertain how to conduct himself, Eldrin settled on averting his eyes and stepping back. He would have gone to his knees again, but Saeral stopped him.

  “Leave off with that, dear boy. There’s no one here but us. And I want to have a look at you.”

  Eldrin lifted his face as the man seized his arms and realized with surprise that another reas
on he had not recognized his old friend besides the premature aging-was because Saeral seemed to have shrunk. Formerly, Eldrin had looked up to him; now he looked down, head and shoulders taller.

  Saeral was surprised, too. “Such height you’ve gained! Though come to think of it, you were all legs when last I saw you.” His gray eyes shone; his hands squeezed Eldrin’s shoulders affectionately. “You have done well, my son. Belmir can’t say enough good things about you.” He paused, eyeing Eldrin shrewdly. “I trust you have not taken yesterday’s events to heart. You were the victim, not the cause, you know.”

  Eldrin did not know what to say.

  Saeral smiled. “I’ve heard all about it, including Captain Meridon’s clumsy attempts at proselytizing. Surely you haven’t let that Terstan get to you? Not after all those years of enduring your brother.”

  “No, sir, of course not.”

  “Then why are you down here on your knees before you’ve even broken your fast? Was not your penance to end at dawn?”

  Something about this man had always broken through Eldrin’s natural reserve, so that now, as on countless occasions before, he found himself blurting out his troubles, telling about the vision and his concern about his worthiness and the fact that he had not yet felt Eidon’s touch during meditations. To his dismay, an expression of alarm flickered across Saeral’s face at this last, but it vanished so swiftly that a moment later Eldrin was unsure he’d seen it at all. He concluded with his supposition that the vision had been a warning of his need to work harder at purging the pride of his blood.

  And that’s why I’ve come,” Eldrin finished. “I mean to fast and pray and meditate until I find him. Or they have to carry me away.”

  Again Saeral looked surprised; then he smiled. “Your devotion has always been a wonder to me, lad, and Eidon has noticed. He will come.” He squeezed Eldrin’s shoulders again, then released him and stepped back. “You have pleased me more than you can know. I look forward to the day when you join us in union with the Flames.”

  A thrill of anticipation danced up Eldrin’s back. He nodded, and Saeral answered with a nod of his own.

  “His Light be with you, Eldrin.”

  `And with you, Father.”

  In three strides the man had passed through a curtained doorway set under the second tier-one of four leading into the vesting rooms and private chambers of the high-ranking Guardians who led the rituals of service.

  Buoyed by Saeral’s confidence and more determined than ever to attain his goal, Eldrin settled to his knees again, bowed his head, and murmured, “Eidon, Almighty One, lay my doubts to rest. You know I long for you. Please. Touch me with your goodness. Let me know you have accepted me.”

  He looked into the Flames and let them swallow him up as he began the liturgy, the familiar words tumbling out in a soft, mesmerizing rhythm.

  A bell tolled in the distance, then stopped. People moved around him, rustling at the edges of his awareness, driving him ever more deeply into the Flame and the passion of his desire. Like the bell, the people went away, too. Occasionally pain shot up from his knees and hunger gnawed at his stomach. His throat ached; his voice grew hoarse. He put the sensations down, sacrific ing his discomfort and weakness to his need. His body trembled, swayed. He held it up with force of will, weeping, pleading, beseeching with all the power of his soul.

  And then it happened.

  The scent of roasting grain tickled his nose as a cold pressure enfolded his body, an eerie sense of otherness crackling with energy. Gooseflesh prickled the back of his neck, and he squirmed, feeling suddenly, horribly like a fly in a spider’s web, about to be cocooned in silk. Coldness seeped into his skin. He gritted his teeth as the ethereal embrace tightened. Rising fear and revulsion banged his heart against his chest, rapid-fire beats that powered the blood into throat and temples. His breath quickened; his hands clenched the railing.

  Then he flinched, crying out as a cold tongue of inhuman awareness slid into his soul, and terrified aversion erupted like molten rock.

  The tendril withdrew as swiftly as it had entered and the cold pressure on his skin vanished with it, leaving him sick and shuddering. Head swimming, he sagged forward, bracing his brow against the rail as he gasped back his breath and fought the rising gorge in his throat.

  Gradually his pulse slowed and the nausea in his gut subsided. He sat back on his heels, the Flames leaping before him, and slowly understood: the god in the Flame had touched him. At long last, his years of labor and yearning had borne fruit. He should feel euphoric and triumphant. Instead, it was as if the invading tendril had taken all his emotion, leaving only flat, shocked emptiness.

  C H A P T E R

  4

  Eidon has finally touched you, Eldrin told himself as he went looking for Belmir. That’s all that matters. He’s touched you. The feelings of revulsion and fear were clearly another manifestation of his deep-seated unworthinesswhich explained why he had not been touched sooner. All-knowing Eidon would have realized he couldn’t have handled it, might even have been driven from the Brotherhood by the shock of it coming before he was ready.

  Now he understood what even a month ago he might not have: it wasn’t so much revulsion he’d felt but the keen awareness of the gulf, the incompatibility between himself and a being ineffably not human. Naturally his pride would find such power threatening. Next time would be better.

  He found Belmir emerging from a meeting with the other Initiate disci- plers on the second floor of the library. Seeing Eldrin, the older man guessed immediately what had happened.

  “You found him,” he said, drawing Eldrin aside as the other Guardians flowed around them and down the hall to the stairway.

  Eldrin nodded, smiling.

  The older man clapped his shoulder affectionately. “I never doubted you would. Just as I don’t doubt you’ll make a fine Guardian.” He pushed his spectacles up his nose and glanced down the hall. “We’ve decided to postpone the Initiation. The boys trapped on the barge have only just arrived. We’re hoping three days will get everyone settled down. The Procession will have to be redone, but the Festival of Arms will have begun by then, so the crowds shouldn’t be as large.”

  “Will I be able to participate this time?”

  Belmir smiled up at him. A touchy subject. But most are agreed that the best way to deal with this nonsense about your taking the throne is to ignore it.,,

  “I should sign a letter of abdication,” Eldrin mused. “Take myself back out of the line of succession.”

  ‘A good idea, though I’m not sure even that would satisfy. It will take years of nothing happening before people believe it. And I imagine some won’t until you’re in your grave.” He sighed in exasperation. “Well, I have an audience with the High Father. I will bring him your good news. The other Initiates are at choir practice in the Chapel of St. Elspeth. You can join them there.”

  “Yes, Master.”

  But before Eldrin reached the chapel, a stubble-headed, first-year acolyte accosted him, waving the large introduction card of a nobleman.

  “B-brother Eldrin? You have a v-visitor.” The boy bowed awkwardly, struggling to catch his breath. With trembling hand he gave over the card, and Eldrin felt a pang of empathy. That trembling was not born of nerves alone. Well did he recall his own early months in the novitiate: every movement monitored and scheduled, every moment spent in the company of others, every day filled with more tasks than could be done until fatigue became a constant companion. He had withstood it without undue distress, but many of his novice mates had not. Tics, tremors, ungovernable fidgeting, wandering concentration-they plagued many of the boys. Some had broken under the strain and left.

  He smiled at the lad. “How long since you took your vows?”

  “Two months, Brother.”

  “Well, you’ve survived the worst.” Eldrin glanced at the card and did a double take. Carissa? What was his sister doing… ? Oh, the Festival of Arms. Her husband, chief of the border lords
, must have come down for the contest, bringing her with him. And she, seizing the opportunity, had come to see Eldrin. For the first time in eight years.

  Trepidation tempered his rising delight. As fraternal twins he and his sister had been inseparable throughout childhood, and she’d been devastated by his decision to enter the Mataio. They had argued hotly during the weeks before he left. Afterward her letters had been brief and cool. That, of course, could be due to their having been censored, but as far as he knew, she’d never forgiven him.

  The boy was eyeing him nervously. “Shall I t-tell her you are unavailable, Brother?”

  “Of course not. Where is she?”

  “B-by the pool in the g-guest’s garden. I c-could lead you there if you w-wish.”

  “Please.”

  The garden lay across the main court, west of the Keep itself. Graveled paths wound between hedges of redhart and hockspur and beds of smaller herbs laden with fragrant purple-and-white flowers. Downslung branches of tall, stately weepers provided shady bowers for meditation or counsel, their yellow, fleshy blossoms abuzz with bees and hummingbirds.

  The boy led him to a small court with a stone-lined pool and looked around. “I had t-trouble finding you, Brother. She was t-to have been escorted here, but … p-perhaps she did not stay.”

  Eldrin doubted that. He swung round searching, then heard a familiar voice ring briskly over the hedges. “I’ve been waiting over half an hour, Brother? I will be put off no longer.”

  With a nod of thanks to the acolyte, Eldrin headed for the voice. Rounding a spherical bush, he spied a tall, amber-gowned figure near the rear portico, half hidden by the weeper that stood at the path’s bending between them. She’d cornered a young Initiate Brother.

  “But you must know everyone here, sir?” she exclaimed. “How hard can it be to find him?”

  The Initiate, shorter than she, had retreated up against a pillar, hands offered placatingly. “I’m sorry, my lady,” he said. “There are many newcomers this week.” His gaze caught on Eldrin. “Here comes another. Perhaps he will know where to find the one you seek.”