We look into each other’s eyes. The blaze in my eyes of pride in him, and love, is reflected back tenfold. We move closer, just the one step that is needed to have all of him molded to my front. His head lifts, mine lowers, both tilt in the precisely correct way we had learned so well...there. We kiss.
Jerril
Somewhere behind, beyond, around us, Lokar and i’Lyria are impossibly present, sharing the blessings of the Goddess as black and gold, night and fire, dark heat and golden blaze, melt for a long and splendid kiss that is an all-too-brief human semblance of that moment of Oneness She granted us.
No one moves or speaks in the room, nor do the countless others to whom they are linked, as we separate.
DarkFire
As the kiss ends, I realize it is time, indeed, well past the time, for me to pay attention to my surroundings. Distraction can get you killed in battle. And I am...no, I am not alone in this, so we are in a battle. Or at least the start of one. Although perhaps, just perhaps, this war can be averted.
There is still no sound from our audience. Not even the normal sounds of nervous or other coughs, whispers, the rustle of clothing; the usual noises of this many people packed so closely together for so long.
I know the reason. I can feel it on my back. I turn slowly, bringing Jerril with me, look up the tiers to the grim stare of displeasure, if not outright fury, he is aiming at us...at me. Apparently Heran’s precept about not showing emotion in public applies only to princes and not King-Emperors.
He chose a place four tiers up when he came to see what new scandal I was brewing. Had I been asked, I would have picked that tier. Not too far away that he could not see everything—as if any Illoraeni would be stupid enough to block the view of either of my parents of anything they wanted to see—and not too close either. But just right. A place from which he can dominate. That does not work quite as well as it used to when we are on level ground, since he, too, like nearly everyone else, must look up at me. It must gall him. I am unfilial enough to enjoy that at times.
His link to me is so tight as to be almost painful.
# The Empire has other plans for you. No. #
# No? You saw, you felt...even you should have felt that...and you still think you have a choice? The only choice you have is whether to attend the marriage ceremony. #
The link vibrates with our escalating tension.
# The King-Emperor always has a choice. And it is treason to disobey an Imperial command. #
# Then command as you will, sire. And if my response is treason, I will make the most of it. Shall I summon the Sword tonight, call them all, every Goddess-damned, Goddess-lost one of them, and Speak with their Voices? Shall I leave you with the upper ranks of the High Houses and Families minus their souls, forever barred from rebirth? Shall I call up the dark fire and level this place and all in it but me and the man I love? Shall I.... #
# Stop it. Both of you. #
It is an odd blend of the voice of the Queen-Empress and the voice of my mother which slides out of the shadows at the edge of the link. She joined with the ease of decades of training and innate talent, and neither my father nor I noticed. # ‘Marekh. No more. #
The King-Emperor’s voice is...strained, formal, trembling with restrained...rage? Surely not fear?
# I can hardly question the bard’s talent, but.... # He pauses and I sense a desperate effort to find a reason, some reason, any reason to object. His attention is not on me. # My dear, he brings nothing to a marriage. No wealth, no lands.... #
My mental gasp is pure outrage as I cut the King-Emperor off, when I would have given so much to hear my Father speaking. # No distant home, either. #
# ‘Fire, # my mother says, and surprisingly I no longer hear an infinitely distant echo in her voice of the birthing name I gave up on that day. Her voice restrains me as surely as the slightest touch of her hand on my sleeve would have done. She, too, is on that fourth tier, beside him as she always is.
# This must end, # she says. # Tonight. #
In the physical world I breathe slowly and deeply. The silence from the Imperial family...and the outsider of flame and gold who is a bard several orders of magnitude more talented than any one here has ever heard, or heard a fantasy tale of...is noticeable. No one is stupid enough to try to link with any of us, even though we are so very obviously violating the Queen-Empress’ rule that all conversations in public will be vocal, save in an emergency.
I consider Father’s stupidity to be enough of an emergency to warrant the links.
My link-voice is quiet. # You have... # I change my word choice # ...acknowledged his talent, sire. Goddess bless, after tonight, he can name his price in any city on any world in or out of the Kingdom and Empire and it will be gladly met. So if bringing the Gift of the infinite treasure of Her music isn’t “wealth” enough for you, then consider this: he brings love for me. Not my power, not my lineage, not my wealth, or anything else...just me. None of your candidates brought that. #
My laugh, which fortunately only the three of us can hear, is soft and bitter. # Did you think because I never challenged you, I was blind to your efforts to find a “suitable” partner for me? Blind to the fact that every man, and the occasional woman, though I never understood why you bothered, every one of them as a partner would have meant living in the far reaches of the Kingdom and Empire? #
My voice in link becomes softer still. # You’re right, mother. It does end tonight. #
The link vibrates. In the physical world, murmuring begins as the Imperial silence stretches out and out. The nobility can only remain silent so long in the face of an event that will generate gossip for a long, long time. And with paid linkers at their beck and call, that gossip will eventually spread across the length and breadth and depth of the Empire.
# Sire. I have no idea why you want me at the limits of your rule, why you haven’t just banished me if that distance is so important. But if your reason, your fear, is so vast, then here is your opportunity. You have a choice. Accept us, as we are, free to stay or go at our will, except as the good-faith needs of the Empire may require. Free to serve you and the Empire, free for Jerril to learn to love you...as I...have...always...loved you, free to be your sons.
# Or the moment we unlink, I will publicly, loudly, in no uncertain terms, renounce House and Family, renounce all ties to the Crown, to the Kingdom and Empire, and Jerril and I will leave tonight. Trust me, sire, with the Sword you cannot prevent me from summoning in my hand, and the Rage at my command as it never has been before, we will get past any obstacle you put in our way, no matter the cost. After the first Gate, I will take us through so many other Gates, so fast, on such a twisted path, using every Gift and all the Power that I command, that we will find a home on a world far beyond your borders, a home you will never find, never disturb, and we will stay there. Forever.
# Whether you choose as my King and Emperor, or as my father, is up to you. But choose now, or I will choose for you. #
I drop from the link.
Jerril
Two remain in the link. Or so they believe. In the same shadows of the link in which the Queen-Empress hid, I hide, but deeper still. My beloved’s mother says, # Will you allow the other prophecies to destroy what has happened tonight? Will you destroy your son as well because you fear something that may never happen? The Goddess gives, my love, and She takes away—and we, you and I, are strong enough for all that She may give...or take. As are they. Look at them, dear heart, look at your son...and remember, as you look, what you and I have had all these years.
# Choose rightly. #
She drops from the link.
One remains, unlinked, or so he believes. I do not intrude, but know with Her certainty that he prays. King-Emperor and father look...and think...and feel...and decide.
I glide away from the link.
DarkFire
It is the dry voice of my Father which breaks the room’s silence. “I take it, son, that you don’t need me to in
troduce you to my new High Bard?”
The look I give my parents is radiant. I don’t allow my voice to shake with relief. Doing so would violate one of those pesky princely precepts Heran is so fond of. “No, my Lord and Father, we’ve met.”
I drape one arm around Jerril’s shoulder, partly to prevent him—me?—from sagging to the floor, but more just to be able to touch him. I grin broadly. “In the future, I will have to pay more attention to new arrivals at the Palace.”
Jerril’s voice and the glow in his eyes are as quietly edged as the fingernail that traces the line of my jaw. “In the future, you will not need to pay attention to new arrivals at the Palace.”
Laughter begins to spread about the room. Jerril moves my arm around his waist and I hug him. We are still the focus of attention, here near the edge of the dance floor, half-way between a pair of the quartered stairs, trapped as if held by chains of steel, chains of Power.
There has to be a way out. “Uh, my Lord and father, I beg your indulgence, and ask your leave for us to withdraw. I want very much to...uh...uh...talk...with the High Bard.” The crowd’s laughter surges when I actually blush. The Houses and Families are enjoying this so very much. The arrogant prince’s pedestal smashed at last, brought low by a commoner. The High Bard, true, but still, a commoner.
“Yes, I’m sure talking is precisely what is uppermost in a man’s mind on his wedding night...or morning.” I flush a deeper red, and Jerril’s own blush is a different blaze against his fair skin. “We can, of course, have a ceremony sometime if you wish, but you two can be no more married than if the Goddess had descended from Her throne and blessed you Herself...which I am not at entirely certain isn’t exactly what happened.” The King-Emperor my father smiles warmly at Jerril. “Welcome to the family, Prince-Consort and High Bard. Now go, go.”
With this leave we hurry up the steps which clear for us, heading for the main floor and the safety of the nearest exit.
But we do not escape entirely unscathed. ‘Kiri links with me, and through me to Jerril. # Oh yes, dear brother, and my newest brother...a very DarkFire party. And, I suspect, the last such party. # Her laughter echoes and echoes and we look at one another, and decide once again, to the Nine Hells with protocol. Grabbing hands we begin a laughing near-run towards the front door, as I link with Heran and order transportation back to the White Palace and my rooms and the bed that awaits us.
We are nearly at the door when I realize four very important things virtually all at once, each of which alone is enough to bring me to a stop. In the aggregate, the stop is abrupt...extremely so. Jerril is less than pleased to have his arm nearly yanked out of its socket, but regains his balance after an intriguing stumbling little dance that wiggles and jiggles his cock at me. He stops, and then looks at me, no impatience, just waiting.
In order of ascending importance:
What he and I have just done, the spectacle we so joyfully made of ourselves, was seen and heard by however many thousands of observers there were, in person or by link, and that has blown to the Ninth Hell any belief that the conspirators might have had that Niallan’s “howling red” signal was truthful. Hells, that display will make them believe Niallan deliberately betrayed them.
That must be dealt with.
I link with Imperial Security. # Alain. #
# Yes, your Highness? #
I am uncertain quite how to proceed. # Ah, there has been, uh, a slight change.... #
My cousin’s link-voice is dry. # In your plan, your Highness? The one that was going to work so well? # He pauses to add a dash of laughter to his tone. # That has to be the most spectacular unraveling of a battle plan I have ever seen. Heard of. Will you come to the Institute to lecture on battle plans, and the unraveling thereof, based on your vast experience? #
Arrogant bastard. Unfortunately, he is right. All I had to do was take a course of action other than the one I chose, and the plan would have worked. Perhaps. Or perhaps I would have fucked it up in some other way. # Is that out of your system? #
# But of course, your Highness.# Alain only calls me that when he is mocking me, lecturing me, or in public where others might hear. This moment undoubtedly qualifies on all three counts.
# Get.... #
# Niallan and his family are already in protective custody. I had him picked up shortly after you started your somewhat prominent display of Niallan-indifference. Although I did stay to watch. Niallan watched through a link with a friend...or a vicious acquaintance who wanted to make a point. #
He pauses. # Unfortunately, Niallan has been less than cooperative, although the words sullen and pouting also come to mind. He will not tell us the name. He says you told him he didn’t have to reveal it. # The tone of that last is especially astringent.
Well, damn it to all the Hells if that decision isn’t coming back to bite my ass. And I so much prefer having Jerril do that, once we are in a place where we can bite privately. # Hold. #
I open a multi-link with Niallan and Alain. # Niallan! #
I can feel his cringe. My link voice tends to be a bellow when I am...upset, on the verge of anger. He should be grateful that it is not the dire wolf’s snarl that happens when I am truly angry. But of course he isn’t.
# Tell me his name. #
# B-b-but you said.... #
# That was then. This is now. His name. #
He wails a pathetic “I can’t” in link. # He’s my friend. #
# Niallan, I’m going to make this very easy for you. You’ll just have to make a quick decision, as I have much better things to do with my time right now. #
Détente with Father or not, I can hear his roar at the idea of putting treason, and a matter of Imperial Security for the House and Family, second to anything. He has his set of priorities; I have mine. I know which set is correct.
# Here’s your choice. You tell me his name right now, or I turn you over to Imperial Security as an admitted traitor and co-conspirator. The man who is presently in charge of you is my cousin, Colonel il’Alain dar Andrae. He is the head of Imperial Security. # Niallan whimpers on receiving that information. Our House and Family has a well-deserved, millennia-long reputation for complete and utter ruthlessness when it comes to the needs of the dar Andrae. And a reputation several orders of magnitude greater when the Kingdom and Empire is at issue.
# He will force-link with you, rip the name and anything else he wants out of your mind, and whether you survive to reason again is, of course, at the Goddess’ whim. I doubt She has much sympathy for traitors. Well? #
# M...Maron Tilsat-Khell. #
Goddess damn. Third of the High Houses, First Family within it. And he was at the Ball. I could.... No, I couldn’t. Wouldn’t. Won’t. Tilsat-Khell and the conspirators are not my problem, not right now. Perhaps later. I slice Niallan out of the link.
# Thank you, your Highness. And may I wish.... #
I cut the link again. Whatever he was about to “wish” would have had a sarcastic tinge to it. He can do that later.
The second is that...both the monitor and the personas are gone.
The monitor is not merely “off” or somewhere away, temporarily in hiding, as I thought when we were dancing, when we were wherever that other “there” was. The part of me that splintered off that day, allowed me to escape what was being done to me, to watch it happen from somewhere above, looking down dispassionately, as if the boy being raped was not me, as if the pain was not mine, is...no more.
And all those personas I adopted and used to deal with life and the world, are gone as well.
I am...complete again.
Complete...but not whole. I will deal with that, too, later, as needed. But for now, there is happiness waiting to be grasped.
The third? The realization that after all these years the Goddess has finally answered my “Why not?” Jerril is my answer.
That, too, will be explored later. Right now I have yet another thing on my mind.
Such as the most import
ant reason for the abrupt stop.
“Uh, we can’t go home.”
Jerril tilts his head just slightly and looks at me in a “well, get on with confessing your sin” way I expect I will see more than once in the future.
“There’s no bed.”
The look doesn’t abate.
“I...there...uh, there was...an accident.” I will not admit, at least not now, that I was the “accident.”
“And the lack of a bed is a problem how? There are available flat surfaces, aren’t there?”
The remembrance of the way we’d used flat surfaces so well so recently makes my cock thicken.
“Actually, no. Uh, except for the walls.” I can feel the embarrassment in my face since I had ordered the staff to leave the suite alone, and my recent, now-defunct—thank Goddess—Niallan fuck plan—over a couch in the outer room—is not something I want for Jerril. For us. Well, not now, though definitely later. Perhaps with me baring and bending. My cock is going to kill me if I don’t come up with a solution.
Jerril just smiles at me. And waits.
What is he waiting for?
Oh.
He knows.
I grin. He grins back. I retake the hand I’d let fall, our fingers curling. We turn away from the door, heading back to the ballroom. We will have to go through it. Everyone will, of course, know where we are going and what we will be doing when we get there, but then, that will be just a different location than the one they already knew about.
An even greater joy floods through me as I realize that finally, finally, I can go to the heart of the maze. With someone.
We start at a sedate walk, but soon mutually agree that princely precept twenty-three, “Thou shalt not run in public except in an emergency, and then only with dignity,” must be abandoned.
Love and dignity do not always go hand in hand. But we are...hand in hand. We start to run.
Author’s Afterword
“They” say to write what you know. So I did.
We met this way, my love and I, but in a bar, not at a ball. Glasses and skinny was not at all imperial. His hair was flame, though that changed from time to time (a talent he had). We were together but not together until I finished school a few months later and moved to his home town. We eventually made it as official as we could with matching bands and a “service” in a friend’s home, with a sympathetic pastor—back when truly official was a fantasy not even worth dreaming. We had thirty years and a couple of months until the aneurysm took him away. This one’s for you, too, my love.
The Warlord and the Bard Page 17
