by Pierre Pevel
Lorn was rooted in place for a moment, unsure what to do. He had the strange sensation of being lost on the stage of a theatre. He was thinking of returning the way he came when Alan spotted him and, stopping mid-sentence, immediately came over with a wide grin.
They exchanged a manly embrace.
‘I know that doublet,’ jested the prince.
‘Yes, Odric—’
‘Keep it. It suits you better than me.’
Lorn nodded.
‘I’m so glad you changed your mind,’ he said as he took his friend by the elbow.
He turned towards the people he had abandoned. They were waiting, looking intrigued. Lorn met their gazes, noticing an attractive young woman in the group as well as a man with a severe-looking face and hair plastered back, who was staring at him.
‘Who’s that grim fellow?’
‘The ambassador of Angborn. A Yrgaardian by origin. He’s delighted with the idea that his city will soon be under the Black Dragon’s authority once more. She’s such a pleasant being, after all …’
Since the Shadows, a Divine Dragon ruled over Yrgaard. A formidable and feared creature, intelligent but cruel, the Black Dragon nurtured an implacable hatred for the High Kingdom.
‘Come,’ added Alan, ‘I’ll introduce you.’
But Lorn refused.
‘Actually,’ he said in the prince’s ear, ‘if you don’t mind, I would rather …’
People were starting to dart glances in their direction, wondering who this man was the prince treated with such familiarity. He must be the friend Alderan had brought back from an expedition to the Sea of Shadows. They spoke in low murmurs, heads tilted together, pretending to look elsewhere.
‘He’s said to have spent five years at Dalroth for a crime he did not commit.’
‘Five years? I thought it was three.’
‘But what was he accused of?’
‘Who knows? Both trials were held behind closed doors.’
‘To deserve Dalroth, it must have been something terrible …’
Ill at ease, Lorn rubbed the back of his left hand through the thin leather band that wrapped it. Alan guessed how he was feeling and immediately blamed himself for his lack of foresight.
‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Besides, I’m getting bored … Let’s go and have a glass of wine somewhere else. The governor has imported an Algueran wine at great cost. It’s no match for our Langrian vintages, but it’s not too bad …’
Lorn followed Alan towards the buffet tables set up on the terrace. The prince purloined a bottle and two glasses, and they took a few steps out into the gardens. All those whose paths they crossed watched as they walked as far as a balustrade where they could look out over a harmonious perspective of flowerbeds and paths. There Alan filled the two glasses with a slightly unsteady hand. Lorn deduced that his friend had been drinking, but kept silent.
‘I … I’m sorry,’ said the prince, staring at a spot on the ground.
‘Sorry?’
The prince tried to choose his words carefully.
‘Yes, I … I realise that I’ve been tactless …’
Alan was standing with one shoulder hunched, as he always did when he was sincerely, deeply embarrassed. It did not happen often and one needed to know Alan as well as Lorn did to interpret this gesture. Prince Alderan had a calm, sunny personality, full of self-confidence, for whom dealings with others always seemed easy.
‘I don’t know how to go about this the right way,’ the prince was saying. ‘Yet I would like to help you, Lorn. I would truly like to help you.’
Lorn kept silent.
Alan had realised that he wanted the old Lorn back, as he was before. The prince had expected to find Lorn exhausted, to be sure. And bruised. Perhaps even diminished. He knew his friend had emerged from a terrible ordeal at Dalroth; but he wanted him to still be Lorn. Even though the road might be long and recovery difficult, he wished for Lorn to remain the person that he, Alan, had always known and cherished. The person he missed. And the one he wanted with all his might to find again. He’d been motivated by a sincere solicitude and affection, but also – he understood now – by a streak of selfishness and perhaps even capriciousness.
‘I still want to be your friend, Lorn. And to succeed at that, I know I must comprehend and help the man you have become. But … But it is as though you are out of my reach,’ Alan concluded, turning towards Lorn.
Their gazes met.
For the first time since they had been reunited, Lorn felt something of their old friendship stirring within him.
Restrained by an idiotic reserve, the two men merely touched glasses. Alan drank a mouthful of wine, contemplating the gardens for a moment, and then leaned back against the balustrade. Lorn did likewise. They raised their eyes towards the terrace and, beyond it, the governor’s palace illuminated by the Great Nebula.
And because they had no need to speak, they fell silent – together – for a long moment.
Alan kept Lorn company for as long as he could.
Then, called away by his political and social duties, he excused himself, promising to return. It was a little before midnight. Lorn waited for him a moment and then thought about leaving the party. But he knew he would have trouble sleeping. And even if he managed to, he also knew what awaited him: every night, nightmares took him back to Dalroth.
Lorn resolved to enjoy the gardens on his own.
They were quiet and fragrant, lit by paper lanterns, and he only needed to take one path or another and wait in a shadowy nook to avoid other strollers. As for lovebirds and couples of a single night, they had no desire to meet anyone else either.
Lorn found an isolated bench near an ornamental pond. Lost in his thoughts, he was rubbing his leather-wrapped hand as he looked up at the milky coils of the Great Nebula when …
‘Good evening.’
He recognised the young woman. She had been part of the group Alan had abandoned in mid-conversation to come and greet him. About twenty years in age, she was beautiful and particularly elegant in a pearl-grey dress.
Now she was alone, sipping from a glass of wine.
Lorn rose to his feet.
‘Good evening.’
‘Elana,’ she said, extending her hand.
Lorn placed a kiss upon it.
‘May I keep you company?’ she asked.
Lorn nodded as she already began to sit down. After a moment’s hesitation, he took a seat at her side upon the bench.
There was a silence.
Bringing her glass to her lips, Elana observed Lorn’s profile closely over its edge. Then she offered him her drink.
‘Do you want some?’
‘No, thank you.’
‘You don’t drink?’
She insisted with her gaze.
‘All right,’ conceded Lorn with a small shrug.
He took a swallow and returned the glass to the young woman. The wine was nicely cooled, slightly flavoured with kesh liqueur. It added a sweetish note, but that was not the kesh’s sole virtue. Perhaps it accounted for Elana’s indolent air.
Sipping her wine, she resumed her examination of Lorn. It was as if she were trying to detect in his face something that eluded her. Her black eyes flashed with mischief.
Lorn continued to look straight in front of him.
His embarrassment grew and he was about to speak when Elana beat him to it:
‘A few days ago,’ she said in a conversational tone, ‘a royal messenger arrived from the capital. He announced that Prince Alderan would soon be landing at Samarande following a dangerous expedition to the Sea of Shadows.’
Lorn waited, and she asked:
‘That dangerous expedition was you, wasn’t it?’
He smiled faintly. He’d never been called a dangerous expedition before.
‘My name is Lorn.’
‘Lorn?’
‘Lorn Askarian.’
‘That sounds like a Skandish name.’
He ma
de no reply.
‘And you were imprisoned at Dalroth,’ the young woman added.
Lorn discreetly slipped his left hand beneath his right: the leather band still hid the Dark’s seal embedded in his flesh, but he felt as though anyone could see it or guess at its existence. His marked hand hurt for no particular reason. It was the first time he had felt that, and thought it must be a cramp.
As he said nothing, Elana continued:
‘According to the messenger, you’re a friend of the prince. An old friend?’ she asked ingenuously.
‘Since we were born.’
‘So why did he do nothing, when you were convicted?’
‘He was far away. He didn’t know.’
‘For three years?’
‘For three years.’
Intrigued by her, Lorn turned to look at Elana. She held his gaze without blinking and, suddenly joyous, rose to her feet, leaving her empty glass on the bench.
‘Let’s go somewhere else,’ she proposed.
‘Pardon me?’
‘Let’s go somewhere else. Let’s go for a walk!’
She took Lorn’s right hand between hers and tugged him to his feet. He allowed himself to be led.
‘Who are you, exactly?’ he asked.
‘I’m the best thing that could happen to you this evening. Come on!’
Lorn paused to take a closer look at her.
She had long black hair, a pale complexion, sparkling eyes and a pretty face: she was very much to his taste. Or at least, to the taste of the man he had been.
A suspicion, then, arose inside him.
It was as though the pain caused by the Dark’s mark on his hand was heightening his wariness and sharpening his senses, as though it were warning him of a danger that was still vague and distant, but real all the same.
Was he mistaken?
He had to find out.
He followed Elana.
10
They left the governor’s palace but did not go far, remaining on Samarande’s heights.
With Elana on Lorn’s arm, they followed paved, brightly lit streets, bedecked with flowers and flags, where the celebrations continued into the night. People strolled, laughed and drank. They danced in the torchlight and played skittles in front of the packed taverns. Accompanied by flutes and tambourines, joyful dancers pranced by, entering and leaving the houses. Orchestras played at the crossroads and everywhere jugglers, fire-eaters, acrobats and bear-baiters performed for the crowds.
Radiant and carefree, Elana talked freely.
Lorn, naturally taciturn, barely listened to her. The pain spreading through his left hand had reached his wrist. The crowds and the noise, moreover, were making him uneasy. It seemed to him that everybody saw, everybody knew. And that those who didn’t, guessed. He was marked by the Dark. It was like a visible stigma, a shameful disease, a stain impossible to conceal. He caught people giving him furtive glances. And he felt others at his back.
In every glance, he read the same wariness, disgust and fear that he felt towards himself. And all of them were hostile.
‘What if we went to my home?’ Elana proposed.
Spoken with the most charming of smiles, this invitation confirmed Lorn’s suspicions. He knew he should have felt an attraction and even desire for Elana. And yet there was only mistrust. Who could possibly want to be with him? How could such a young, beautiful woman be seeking the company of a man afflicted by the Dark, in flesh and soul?
She must either be mad or have a special motive.
And Elana seemed to have all her reason intact.
So she wanted something from him. He was convinced of it, as the Dark’s mark grew more and more painful, to the point of hindering his train of thought.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Elana.
‘Yes,’ Lorn lied, flexing the knuckle of his hand wrapped in leather.
A cold sweat beaded his brow.
‘Are you sure?’
He nodded.
‘I think … I think I need some peace and quiet. Let’s go to your home, yes. Good idea.’
She took hold of his arm.
‘Come. It’s close by.’
It was a discreet, tidy house at the end of a quiet little street. Elana opened it with her own key and apologised: to allow them to enjoy the festivities, she’d given her valet and her chambermaid the night off. Lorn realised that she was trying to put him at ease, thinking they were alone, which was no doubt untrue.
He entered, more on his guard than ever.
The interior was so clean and well kept it was difficult to say whether anyone actually lived here or not. Elana, however, seemed to know the place well. They climbed a staircase of varnished wood and passed into a pleasantly decorated salon. While the young woman lit some candles, Lorn went to the window and saw that, on this side of the house, they were not on the first floor but much higher. Like all of its neighbours, the house clung to the flank of a hillside and overlooked a river some fifty feet below, running between high banks and spanned by a series of bridges.
Lorn held back a grimace: his hand and his forearm were causing him increasing pain. It was starting to worry him. Not merely because the Dark’s mark had never been painful before, but because he supposed the other symptoms he was experiencing – faintness and sweating – were associated with it.
What was happening to him?
‘Would you like something to drink?’
Lorn got a grip on himself.
‘Yes,’ he replied, turning round.
She was standing close to him, a glass in each hand. She was smiling, with a mischievous expression, confident of her charm.
Lorn took the glass she held out, but did not drink from it.
‘What is it?’ he asked in an amiable voice.
‘Wine. From Sarme, I believe. You don’t like it?’
‘And that’s all?’
‘What do you mean?’ the young woman asked in surprise.
‘Just wine. Nothing else?’
‘Of course.’
Lorn’s tone grew hard.
‘Really?’
The young woman seemed perplexed.
‘What? But …’
‘Really? Answer me!’
She took a step back. She remained calm but her features grew tense. She sensed that something wasn’t right, that the situation was getting out of hand …
‘There’s no drug in this?’ demanded Lorn, advancing with a menacing air.
‘What’s come over you?’ ventured Elana. ‘I don’t …’
‘Answer!’
‘I don’t understand!’ she said, keeping her eyes fixed on his.
She retreated slowly and cautiously, as if she were facing a wild, dangerous beast ready to pounce.
‘Nothing that will put me to sleep?’ asked Lorn. ‘Nothing to knock me out or kill me?’
The young woman tried to flee but he was quicker.
He seized her and shoved her against the wall. With a swift gesture, he drew the dagger tucked in his belt and slipped it beneath Elana’s chin. She immediately froze.
‘Call,’ he said.
‘Wh … What?’
‘Call. Call out for help.’
When she didn’t seem to understand, he shook her roughly.
‘Call out!’
She finally obeyed.
She called out, but not loudly enough to suit Lorn, who, eyes blazing, shook her again.
‘Louder!’
This time she cried:
‘Help!’
Satisfied, Lorn signalled her to be silent by placing an index finger against her lips, and waited.
He listened, alert to the slightest sound.
Nothing.
‘No one?’ he asked in an almost jesting tone.
‘I … I told you …’
‘Yes! I know what you told me!’
‘Then why did you ask me to—’
‘Because … Because …’
His face twisted by an inner torment
, he struggled to think. He felt nauseous. He could not use his left hand without gritting his teeth from the pain and his vision grew blurry at times.
He needed to concentrate.
‘Because I don’t trust you!’ he finally managed to say. ‘You … You had me come here for a reason … and I want to know what it is! And don’t tell me it’s because of my pretty face!’
Enraged, he planted his dagger in the wall, right beside Elana’s cheek. She flinched, quivering. He seized her by the throat with both hands and squeezed.
‘You’re going to tell me what you wanted,’ he shouted, spattering her face with saliva. ‘You’re going to tell me why you lured me here. And … And I want to know who you work for. For the queen? For … For …’ He searched his mind. ‘For Irelice? For Yrgaard? For …’
Even if she were willing to answer, Elana would have been incapable.
Lorn was strangling her so hard that she could not breathe, much less speak. She needed air. Her eyes full of tears were bulging as she fought to loosen the vice around her throat. But she lacked the strength, and Lorn, prisoner of some inner demon, had lost track of the world around him. The pain in his left arm was blinding him. A red veil had fallen before his eyes. His voice sounded deep and slow in his ears when he repeated:
‘Who is it? Who? Speak!’
Elana struggled, in vain, and more and more weakly. Finally, in a gasp, she managed to emit a pitiful:
‘Mer … cy …’
And that word, that simple word uttered in a dying voice, had its effect.
Barely audible, it reached Lorn. He suddenly realised what he was doing. It was if he had snapped out of a waking nightmare. He released Elana, who fell to her knees, while he stumbled backwards and stood there gaping at his hands, his surroundings and, lastly, at the young woman before him.
‘I’m … I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I …’
He did not understand what had come over him. He did not understand why he’d suspected this young woman of …
Of what, exactly?
His arm was still hurting him. And he still felt ill, but he had recovered enough lucidity to appraise the situation, as if in a thick fog, and realise the gravity of his deed.
