by Anna Thayer
“Rise, my Hands.”
They did so.
Only Eamon remained kneeling. His cloak and ring were taken from him, and in their places were set another cloak, this with a deep red trim, and another ring which bore on it a black eagle. The sight and feel of them turned his stomach.
The Master’s hand fell on his shoulder. “Son of Eben, hold out your hand.”
Eamon stretched out his right hand. It shook. He held out his left to support his palm as he turned it towards the Master. The Master set his right palm upon Eamon’s own.
“You shall be my Right Hand.”
Eamon’s skin burned. Every sense in him heightened as red light cracked about their palms, meshing them together in a web of light. His senses reeled.
The Master held a dagger. Eamon could not help but stare at it, for its design was foreign to him. He had seen its like only a handful of times before – wielded by the Easters at Hughan’s camp. On the dagger’s blade he saw the same script that covered the Hands’ Hall and the Nightholt. The horrifying darkness of the letters struck him with renewed force.
“Son of Eben.” The Master’s voice was as thunderous as a roaring ocean. “Receive the token of your office and of my pleasure.”
The cool weight of the blade touched Eamon’s outstretched palm. He gasped, and the Master smiled.
He saw with other sight. Another man knelt before the throned just as he knew himself to kneel, and that man was dressed in the same black cloak with the same red trim as now lay upon his own shoulders. About that man stood four other Hands. Eamon recognized Cathair and Ashway, both grim-faced; the other two he did not know, though he felt the strength of their presence. The throne room was dark. Candelabrum, as tall as they were intricately gilded, stood at either side of the dais. There stood the Master, his brow shadowed by his fiery hair, his face more terrifying for being darkened by searing rage.
“Did you hold to me through dark and fire only to turn now?” It was the Master who spoke and his voice cracked with ire. “It is a witless gesture, and will avail you naught.”
“You had no right!” the man in the black and red cape called. Eamon started, for the defiant voice seemed somehow familiar. “You have no right and, while the house of Brenuin still has a single drop of blood, Edelred, you will have no right. The land itself knows what you have done and it reviles you, just as I do.”
“Where is it, Eben?” The Master’s voice shrilled banshee-like down Eamon’s veins. He stared at the kneeling man aghast. Eben…He saw the dagger, the same dagger that rested now upon his palm, on the floor before the man.
“Where is the Nightholt?”
“I destroyed it!”
Edelred’s face warped with wrathful mirth. “Destroyed it?” he cried. “You have neither the wit nor ability for that, Eben Goodman!” He cast out his hand and rending lashes of red lightning tore through the air.
Eben fell back with an agonized cry and collapsed to his knees among the standing Hands.
The light stopped. Edelred watched as Eben writhed.
“Where is it?”
“I destroyed it! Even had I not, it would be no more mine to deliver to you than yours to possess.” He turned bloodshot eyes towards the Master. “At last I have seen you for what you are, and this I tell you: the King’s house will hold. And should my house live long enough to see the Star return to Allera, to see undone what I have so recklessly done, then my life is not spent in vain.”
The Master picked up the dagger and turned it slowly in his hands before looking back to Eben.
“In striking bound, Eben Goodman,” he said. “So is your house to mine, and through your house will I blot out your precious Star. So is your treachery, and my victory, complete.”
The Master smiled, and as he smiled, the four Hands about Eben threw forth their palms. A hellish furore of red light blazed from them. Eben screamed and writhed as it tore through him.
“The King’s house will hold, Edelred!”
Eamon blinked and his sight returned to him. The dagger was in his hand. Tears stung his eyes. Eben Goodman had been the first Right Hand. He had been murdered in the place where Eamon, last of his line, now knelt.
He swallowed and looked up at the Master. Still the man smiled. His fiery hair cast an eerie light over his face.
“Rise to my service, beloved of my right hand,” he said. And Eamon rose.
Eamon Goodman’s journey concludes in Volume III of
The Knight of Eldaran: The Broken Blade.
