The Broken Blade

by Anna Thayer

  “The Nightholt,” Eamon breathed. He spoke out the name at the same moment as the Lord of Dunthruik.

  The Master glared. “How do you know of this?” he demanded. His voice, festooned before with indulgence, now grew deathly.

  “Master, I have seen it.”

  Silence. More terrible than any other.

  “What did you say?” the Master hissed.

  “I…” Eamon searched the Master’s face uncomprehendingly. “I have seen it, Master,” he whispered. “That is how I know.”

  An ear-splitting roar rent the air and suddenly the whole room seemed ripped in two with flame. Eamon staggered as the floor trembled beneath his feet and the unfettered power of the Master’s fury screamed across him with an intensity that might slash flesh from bone.

  “You would mock me!”

  Eamon shook his head in horror. “No –”

  Then the red light came.

  Eamon saw it leave the Master’s hands, saw it striking across at him and knew even as it came that he could do nothing to halt it.

  “Master!”

  But it was too late.

  The fire reached him and clawed into his body, arching through him and forcing him down to his knees in spasms of agony. Eamon tried to move his limbs, as though he might send the hideous power of the light from him, but his struggles merely gave it strength. The light careered through him and mauled him like ravening wolves; it moved like lightning between blood and bone, rocketing through him as though it meant to shatter him.

  Suddenly it stopped.

  The Master stood over him, rage in his grey eyes. Eamon wept in torment – did this man not love him?

  “I have seen it!” he screamed.

  The Master’s face creased with hatred. “Vile liar!”

  “I do not lie!” Eamon cried, but the light returned. He howled as it went back into him; his skin boiled at its touch and every nerve and tissue in his frail limbs jarred violently.

  The Master stopped again. There were tears on Eamon’s face and they seared down his cheeks and jowls like liquid fire as he sobbed.

  “Master,” he begged, “I held it! I brought it out of Ellenswell with my own hands!” The throned raised his hands. Eamon shrank back with sobs of fear. The letters on the ground beneath his palms scorched him like molten iron.

  The light came again. It consumed him, searing and rending, lacerating and scouring to the unimaginable depths of his wretched, writhing body. Again and again it came, until Eamon felt that he could bear it no more.

  What of the King’s grace?

  Somehow, in the throes of his torment, he remembered it. Of all the powers that he knew, the King’s grace alone could stand against the hand and mark of the throned. It could save him.

  In that very moment his thought and tongue clawed towards it, to beg it to release him from what he bore, and he felt supplicant howls rising to his lips.

  “Hold to the King.”

  Mathaiah’s dear voice washed through him, stilling the cries that clamoured to leave his mouth. It was then that he understood.

  The King’s grace could save him – and would if he asked it – but if he did, and it came, he would lose everything for which he had suffered, for the throned would see his heart.

  That was why the King’s grace had been silent. That was why it had not yet come. Eamon knew then that he was called to bear the anguish laid upon him by the throned’s fury. He was called to endure it so as to serve the King.

  In his roaring agony, while cracking flames lashed out again and again from hands that had caressed his face, Eamon summoned up the last of his ailing strength. With it, he held.

  “I do not lie to you, Master!”

  And the light dissolved.

  Eamon did not know what prompted the sudden mercy. He could not see, could not hear, could scarcely feel. As he recognized the respite from the grip of the throned’s power he shuddered and sobbed against the ground. Pain continued to dwell in him. Every breath he drew poured flame into his lungs while his blood was acid in his veins. He felt grisly blotches and burns all over his skin as he panted and wept.

  Suddenly a hand reached down. It seized him by his gagging throat and drew him to his feet.

  “This pained you, son of Eben?” Eamon could not answer him; all he could feel were his tears, thick about the Master’s fingers and his own throat, like blood. “You will know pain far greater if you deceive me!”

  With a baleful utterance the throned cast him to the ground. Eamon cried out at the burning stones. He tried to raise himself up, but his shaking hands had no strength. He coughed and vomited and the Master watched him with fury.

  “Speak!”

  “Cathair and Ashway took me.” Eamon wrenched words from his throat; his sight returned to him and there was blood on his hands. He did not know whence it had come. Another spasm of pain vaulted through him. “They took me to Ellenswell.” He staggered through each word, retching and gasping. “They took me to Ellenswell and I opened it – I had the key. My ward was with me. They told us to search the grave tunnel. I found the Nightholt.”

  “Where?” the Master demanded.

  Eamon tried to splutter an answer but could not; his throat was scorched with bile.

  “Where!”

  Eamon’s head spun, but he remembered.

  “The tomb.” He pressed his eyes shut and saw it. “In the tomb…I gave the book to Cathair; he said it was to go to the Right Hand; the Right Hand sent us…”

  Suddenly he saw Mathaiah’s face before his own, lit by the torches of the tunnels, and he remembered the odd look on that face as the cadet had breathed out words that had led to his death: “I can read it…”

  He lost control and burst into choking sobs. “Mathaiah!” he wept.

  “What has that snake to do with this?” the throned spat.

  “They took him, Master. The Right Hand commanded it because…” Eamon could barely think. He was in Cathair’s library, at the second case, eighth shelf up, left-hand side… He clutched his hands to the side of his head with a cry. “Because Mathaiah could read it!” he howled. “He could read the Nightholt. They killed him when he would not tell them what he read.”

  The silence was deathly. Eamon tried to restrain his sobbing, feeling nothing but the searing cruelty of the Master’s gaze upon him. He blinked hard. When he opened his eyes, he could see once more.

  The Master strode the hall and tore back the door as though he would pull it from its hinges.

  “Summon Lord Arlaith!” he commanded. Eamon froze as the Master cast his steely gaze across him.

  “Get up,” he hissed.

  Clenching his jaw shut, Eamon rose. The marks on him melted back into his skin, as though he had never been touched. His head still swam, and he did not know where or if he bled. As he struggled to keep his feet, two servants scurried in; they cleaned the floor of his vomit and blood with efficient speed, then left.

  The throned paced by the high window, pausing to look down from it onto the city below with irrepressible, impatient, sheer wrath. Eamon did not dare to meet his gaze as it alighted on him once again.

  “Hold yourself like a Right Hand, Eben’s son!” the Master fumed. Eamon straightened his shoulders and drew his head up.

  “Your glory, Master.” As he met the grey eyes he saw a flicker of a smile pass over the man’s face. It chilled him to his quivering, ashen core.

  He did not know how much time passed. He stood still in the centre of the hall and the Master ignored him. Fear and weariness mustered in his limbs and he struggled to contain himself. He did not understand the throned’s rage. Surely Edelred had known that the Nightholt had been found?

  He stole a glance at the Master’s face, but it was utterly unreadable.

  More time passed, then the Master suddenly strode towards him. Eamon quaked as the Master straightened his dishevelled robes.

  “Stand by me, Eben’s son.” His voice was as gentle and untroubled as a sprin
g breeze. Eamon turned and stood with the Master before the door.

  Moments later Arlaith walked in. Eamon felt the man’s sharp gaze fall on him, but Arlaith looked swiftly to the throned and bowed.

  “Master,” he said. “How may I serve you?”

  “A well-asked question,” the Master answered lightly, but then his face darkened. “Son of Eben, you will wait beyond.”

  Eamon saw Arlaith’s eyes grow large with premonition. For a moment he almost pitied the Hand.

  “Yes, Master.” Eamon bowed and left slowly; walking was an effort.

  Servants gathered him as soon as the doors closed and they led him, shivering, away. He barely noticed them; all his thought was on the room behind him. What wrath would the Master inflict on Arlaith? He did not like to think of it.

  He was led to a wide side chamber that was lined with chairs. The silent servants had him sit. Eamon laid his shaking limbs down and exhaled. He felt ravaged.

  Not long later one of the servants came up to him. The man held a large chalice of wine, which he held out. Eamon looked up; it was the servant whom he had thanked on the first morning that he had breakfasted with the Master. The servant’s face was neutral, but he inclined his head as he held out the drink again.

  Bereft of words, Eamon took it and drank. In that moment there seemed no kinder gesture to him in the world.

  He waited and the servant waited by him. About him all was silent; it was as terrifying as the throned’s fury.

  Again, he did not know how much time passed; all was stillness.

  At last the servant looked towards him. The look was sure.

  “Now?” Eamon asked.

  The servant moved towards the door and Eamon followed.

  They came back to the doorway and the eerie silence persisted. The doors opened; fear and wrath quivered in the air. His heart quickened and he went inside.

  The Master was there, his face dire in the strange light. Arlaith knelt before him. The Hand looked wan, haggard; an almost imperceptible trembling wracked him.

  The doors closed. Eamon looked at the throned and waited. The Master’s swathe of anger was disturbingly lucid.

  “Eben’s son.”

  “Master.”

  “See this wretch?” The Master’s baleful glance touched on Arlaith. Tears stormed in the Hand’s eyes. “He is nothing but a Raven’s dupe.” The words sliced through the air with the force of sharpened steel. Arlaith knelt very still, as though his life hung upon a thread. Perhaps it did. Eamon did not dare speak. Both he and Arlaith waited on the Master’s wrath.

  “Cathair knew full well what you delivered to him, son of Eben,” the Master spoke at last, “but your predecessor did not command that search. He had not the wit for it.”

  Eamon glanced silently at the Left Hand. Cathair was many things… could he really have betrayed the throned? Yet surely the Master would have breached Arlaith?

  “Cathair has denied you praise which was justly yours,” the throned continued, “and an artefact which is mine by right.” His tone hardened. “Arlaith is lax and inept – but Cathair has knowingly, insolently wronged me. It will cost him dearly.”

  The throned gestured, curtly and disparagingly, at Arlaith. Stepping forward, Eamon touched the Hand’s shoulder. The Lord of the East Quarter shuddered but endured him.

  Slowly, gently, silently, Eamon raised Arlaith to his feet and steadied him as he sought his balance. Then the Master turned to them again.

  “Son of Eben.” The throned’s voice cracked with authority.

  “Master?”

  “Go with Arlaith and reclaim what is mine. Bring it to me, along with Cathair’s head.”

  Eamon blanched. “Master –”

  “Bring me the treacherous vermin’s head!” the throned roared. “Send his worthless body to the pyres and string his precious, wretched, blithering dogs at the Blind Gate!” The Master’s eyes narrowed. “You will do it, son of Eben… and, to prove your worth, you will do it alone. Be sure that you serve me better than Arlaith.”

  Eamon bowed low. How could he possibly kill Cathair unaided? But he could not gainsay the throned. “Yes, Master.”

  He and the Lord of the East Quarter left the room.

  As the door closed behind them, Arlaith staggered. He gave a cry as his knees buckled and he crumpled to the floor. Eamon reached out to help him, but Arlaith recoiled.

  “Don’t touch me!”

  Eamon looked at him. Arlaith was perhaps the man he hated most in the whole world, the man who had wronged him the most. Yet as he looked at him he thought suddenly of Hughan. His memory of the King’s compassion washed over him and stole his breath away.

  Was not Arlaith also a man?

  “Are you hurt, Lord Arlaith?” Eamon asked.

  Arlaith looked at him as though he were mad. “No,” he hissed.

  “Let me help you,” Eamon answered.

  “You have done enough,” Arlaith spat. The Hand forced himself to his feet with an inhuman effort, then began a slow and unsteady walk down the corridor. A sheet of crumpled paper fluttered to the ground from his dishevelled robes.

  “Is this yours, Lord Arlaith?” Eamon glanced up at the Left Hand, then stopped: Arlaith’s face pallored to corpse-light.

  “Is something the matter, Lord Arlaith?”

  “No,” Arlaith clipped. The Hand seemed fixated on the paper: every muscle and nerve was held in tension. “It does not concern you, Lord Goodman,” he added, holding out his hand for the paper. His voice quivered.

  It was the quiver that elicited his distrust. Holding Arlaith’s gaze, Eamon turned the sheet to read it.

  The paper bore a list of names. Some were grouped together, though there seemed to be little to associate them. Some weren’t even names, merely titles or descriptions. Some of the names had marks by them, and some of those with marks had been crossed through; others had been underlined. Some had notes by them, but Eamon did not read them at first, for he did not understand.

  The Left Hand stood motionless.

  As he read the list a second time Eamon realized that he recognized the names; indeed, he knew every one. With a shocking start, he saw that many of those named were dead, and suddenly saw that the dead names were the ones that were marked through with a thick red line.

  At the foot of the sheet was Lord Tramist’s seal, and a note in his hand.

  Eamon looked up slowly. “What is this?”

  Arlaith did not move, did not breathe, did not answer. Horror and realization lurched to meeting, and Eamon turned incredulous eyes to the list again:

  The nature of the list was suddenly, chillingly, all too clear to him.

  “Bastard!” he yelled. “Conniving, murderous bastard!”

  Arlaith said nothing. Eamon surged at him.

  “You are behind their deaths! Every one of them!”

  Arlaith trembled; the Hand would not meet his gaze. But Eamon’s mind leapt from thought to thought: Tramist’s hand. The glimpse of the breaching plain…

  He knew it: Tramist had probed his thought as only breachers might. This list was the result.

  “You did this… you did this to spite me!”

  Arlaith’s silence confirmed it. He glanced at the doors to the Master’s chamber in terror.

  Eamon seized him.

  “The restoration list and the grain hoard! Holding my quarter! Marilio! It wasn’t enough for you? You scheming bastard! What kind of man are you? These were good men! They were loyal to the Master – they served and protected this city!”

  “I’m sorry!” Arlaith protested suddenly.

  “What?” Eamon breathed.

  Arlaith drew a shaking hand across his brow. “I was vindictive and petty. I am sorry.”

  There was a long silence between them. Eamon could only stare as Arlaith began to quiver uncontrollably.

  For a moment he tried to forget his fury; all that remained of the Left Hand was a frightened man.

  Eamon cast his predecessor
aside and scoured the list again. “How many of these are in progress?”

  “What?” Arlaith murmured distractedly.

  “How many are threatened by your assassins?”

  “I’ll call them off,” Arlaith told him. “I’ll do it now, as soon as we leave the palace. You shall witness it.”

  Eamon watched him with restrained anger.

  “If any of the men who have survived your schemes die of anything other than natural causes, Lord Arlaith, you will answer to me. Is that clear?” Arlaith nodded silently. “The men who were killed and arrested in the grain skirmish,” Eamon added quietly. “Have they been cleared of treachery?”

  “The survivors have been released, but there was a delay with the clearing orders –”

  “You will organize funerals for Draybant Greenwood and the two ensigns who died,” Eamon told him. “You will invite their families and the men who were falsely imprisoned. You will publicly clear all of their names and apologize for the deaths of men loyal to the crown.”

  “Yes.”

  “Have you commenced the re-hoarding?”

  “No.”

  Eamon glowered. “There were commands from the Master, Arlaith!”

  “I will put back thrice what you stored!” Arlaith cried earnestly. “I will cease being hostile to your house. I will run it in the way you would have it run.”

  Eamon blinked, then realized that Arlaith meant the servants in the East Quarter. He found his thought turning in horror to Cara, who had been the keeper of his room.

  He turned to stare at Arlaith. The Hand seemed to follow his thought, for he matched Eamon’s gaze.

  “I have done nothing to the Handquarter’s servants, Lord Goodman,” he said quietly. “Neither will I.”

  Eamon believed him.

  Silently, Eamon looked at the list again. Arlaith fidgeted, twisting at his cape-fastenings.

  “You will not take this to the Master?”

  Eamon looked up in surprise; the idea had not occurred to him.

  Seeing his face Arlaith fell suddenly to his knees. “I beg of you, my lord!” The cry caught in the man’s throat and he shuddered. “Do not take it to him!”