"I deserved it. I killed
her."
"No! You weren't even born. You
might as well blame me, for making her pregnant."
Bane nodded. "Still, she died
because of me."
Mithran looked up at Mirra.
"Heal him, please."
She reached out, but Bane drew
back. "No, leave it."
"If you're my son, you'll do as
I say."
Bane looked startled, then
inclined his head and allowed Mirra to heal him, the cuts and
bruises vanishing at her touch. She sensed a deep satisfaction
within him, a sense of coming home, and realised that he was
delighted to be bullied by his father. No one had ever cared enough
for him to do that before, and he enjoyed Mithran's concern. All
his life he had missed that protective form of parental love that
drives children to distraction. Mirra remembered her childhood
antics and the healers' horror at her penchant for climbing trees
and playing with wolves in the forest. Their concern had galled her
at the time, curtailing her fun, but she knew that it had stemmed
from their love for her.
Bane gazed at Mithran with a
strange expression, which she found difficult to name. It was a
mixture of uncertainty and wonder, perhaps, or sadness and
admiration, she could not be certain. He remained on his knees
before Mithran's chair, studying the older man with intense eyes.
Somehow, Mithran's words seemed to have stirred something within
him, and he appeared to be once again confused by the strange
emotions that a man whom he did not know had evoked.
Mithran regarded his son
broodingly. "Your mother would have..." He sighed. "She would have
loved you so much. But she'd have walloped the stuffing out of you
if you'd given her any back-chat. I can just see her chasing us
both around the house with a broom." He smiled, his eyes
distant.
Mirra got a vivid impression of
a tiny blizzard of a woman, brimming with quick emotions and
actions. One so strong-willed that she could cow a big man like
Mithran, yet in a way that made him love her to distraction. Bane
had inherited her temper along with her hair and eyes.
"How I wish she was here, to see
you now," Mithran continued. "She'd be so proud."
Bane stood up and pulled Mirra
to his side. "Father, this is Mirra, who saved me from the Black
Lord."
Mithran smiled
at her. "I owe you a great debt of gratitude for saving my
son,
healer. May the Goddess
always smile upon you."
Mithran gazed up at his son,
looking stunned, yet jubilant, as if he still could not quite
believe his luck, and expected to wake from this happy dream at any
moment. Bane, on the other hand, seemed more relaxed and at peace
than she had ever seen him. Since they appeared to be at a loss for
words, Mirra broke the silence.
"Shall I make some tea?"
Mithran nodded, then leapt up.
"Go and wash your face, lad. I'll start a fire."
In the tiny washroom, Bane found
a basin of water and a cake of soap, and scrubbed the dried blood
off his face, then went outside to help his father carry wood.
Mithran glared at him when he tried to relieve him of his load.
"I'm not senile, lad, I'm only
forty-two years old, ye know."
Bane looked around as Mithran
brushed past him, spotting Grem grooming the horses in the open
shed. The grey-eyed warrior grinned and shook his head, indicating
that he had already tried to help, and also been rejected. Bane
realised his shirt was still open and pulled it closed, starting to
do up the one surviving button. Mithran appeared in front of him,
his burden gone, surprising Bane with the speed with which he had
accomplished his task. He pulled Bane's hands away and inspected
the runes, frowning.
"He did this to you?"
Bane nodded.
"I'd like to cut his heart
out."
"He does not have one."
"How old were you?"
"Sixteen."
Mithran shook his head. "Don't
feel ashamed, lad. None of this is your fault. Your mother wouldn't
want you to blame yourself."
"I wish I had known her."
Mithran met his eyes with sad
grey ones. "So do I. She'd have liked Mirra, too. Am I right to
think that you're smitten with the lass?"
"Is it that obvious?"
Mithran chuckled. "Indeed it is.
You plan to wed her?"
Bane nodded. "If she will have
me."
"Oh, she'll have you, don't
doubt it. I can see the way she looks at you, and what girl
wouldn't fall for you? Just remember, if she throws a pot at you,
duck, or hide under the table. That's what I used to do."
"Mirra is very gentle."
His father snorted, smiling.
"Don't you believe it, she's got a glint in her eye much like your
mother had." Without warning, he pulled Bane into a fierce embrace.
"Goddess! I'm so glad you found me. Raysha lives on in you. Now I
have something of hers again."
Bane returned his father's
embrace awkwardly. Mithran thumped him on the back and held him
away. "I've got something to show you." He led Bane through the
house to a sunny room at the back.
A carved cradle stood in the
corner, overflowing with baby clothes. Bright curtains framed the
windows and woollen rugs were scattered on the floor. The room was
warm and cheery, the sort of room in which a child would be happy
and secure. It radiated a mother's love, from the embroidered
flowers on the tiny clothes to the paintings of fairies and animals
on the walls. A faint patina of dust covered everything.
"This was your room, all ready
for you. Your mother made those clothes herself, every one."
Mithran went over to the cot and
picked up a minuscule shirt covered with embroidered horses and
rabbits. Bane gazed at the room, starting to understand the pain
his father had suffered. A pang went through him; a surge of pity
and empathy for a man whom he barely knew, who fondled the shirt he
had never worn. What anguish he must have suffered, to lose the
young wife he loved so much, and his unborn child.
Bane remembered the dark, foetid
chamber in which he had been raised, the stink of urine on wet
sheets, the Underworld forms of insects, snakes and rat-like
creatures that had crawled over him in the dark, making him cry in
helpless, infant terror. He resolved never to add to his father's
burden of grief and guilt by telling him anything of the
Underworld, or the life he had led there.
Turning away from the bright
room in which he should have been raised, he went back to the
lounge, where Mirra was setting out the teacups. His father
followed, closing the door.
"Bane? What's wrong?"
Bane shook his head. "Nothing.
Everything. I wish he had not chosen me."
Mithran put an arm around his
shoulders. "So do I. But you're home now, and that's the main
thing. I shouldn't have shown you the room; I'll clear all that
stuff out tomorrow. I only kept it to... well, at first it was
hope, that I'd find her, you know. Then I couldn't bear to put away
all the lovely things she made." He grinned. "But I doubt you'll
fit into those clothes now."
Bane smiled, the gloom lifting
off him as suddenly as it had fallen. "I do not think so."
Grem came in, and smiled at the
quaint tableau. Mirra had swept the table's remains into a corner
by the fire, and they sat around the kitchen table, which Bane
carried into the lounge. A fire burnt in the grate, and the cabin
grew warm and snug. Mithran still looked stunned, and his gaze
seldom strayed from Bane. Expressions chased each other across his
face, ranging from joy to utter anguish.
Mirra wondered how Mithran would
cope with being the Demon Lord's father, but he seemed to be a
strong man, and able to withstand the alienation that would result.
He was a loner, anyway, but perhaps it would be better for all of
them if they moved somewhere where no one knew them. At least
Mithran was young, so he still had many years to spend with
Bane.
"I think I know why the Black
Lord chose you," Mithran muttered into a short silence, and Bane
glanced at him.
"Why?"
"The mage blood. You have it on
both sides of your family. My grandfather was a blue mage, and my
great grandfather before him. Your mother's grandmother was the
daughter of the black mage Emmeron, who was the grandson of
Gordall, also a black mage. Your mother's mother was a lay witch, a
seeress. You've probably got more mage blood in you than anyone,
good and bad. It runs in the family."
Bane frowned at his tea. "I
thought mages lived for hundreds of years."
"They do, but your ancestors are
all dead. They only sired offspring towards the end of their
lives."
"I suppose that makes
sense."
Mithran leant over the table.
"Could you... show me something?"
"What?"
"You know... a trick. A
power."
Mirra smiled, shooting Bane an
amused glance, and he looked embarrassed when she picked up a
teaspoon and handed it to him. He fiddled with it as if reluctant
to oblige, and she realised that he found it awkward to be asked to
show his power, and wondered why.
Mithran seemed to divine the
reason for his reluctance, however, and reached out to clasp Bane's
forearm, stilling his fidgeting. "It's all right if you don't want
to. It's... I'm just curious, that's all. It makes no difference to
me if you had come here a beggar in rags or a prince. You're my
son. That's all that counts."
Bane lifted the teaspoon, and
Mirra caught her breath as the metal shimmered, appearing to flow
around the spoon as if it had become liquid. It turned to gold, and
Mithran gaped at it, taking it when Bane held it out and examining
it.
"It's gold."
"Yes."
"Amazing. We could be rich." He
grinned, then sobered at Bane's sombre expression. "What's
wrong?"
"You are my father, and as such,
I am bound to you. I am also bound to obey you. To disobey you
would dishonour me, but... do not use me, Father."
Mithran frowned at the teaspoon,
then nodded and handed it back. "Change it back."
Bane did so, and Mirra glanced
from one to the other, biting her lip at the sudden tension.
Mithran stared into his teacup.
"I
understand,
Son. You don't
know me, and now you're wondering what kind of man I am. Rest
assured, I won't ever ask you to use your powers to do something
you don't wish to. In all other respects, I'll treat you as a son,
but when it comes to your powers, I want no say over them. What you
do with them is your decision alone."
Bane
smile
d and held out his hand
to Mithran, who clasped it. "I will be a dutiful son, and you may
ask of me what you will. Just do not order me to move mountains to
improve the view."
Mithran gazed at him. "What it
must be to have such power."
"A burden, mostly. I plan to
dwell in obscurity, and hope that people will forget who I am."
"All I want from you is to be
your father."
"Then it is agreed." Bane
released Mithran's hand and leant back.
A short silence fell, until Grem
put down his cup with a clatter and cleared his throat. "Well, I
could use a few coppers turned to gold from time to time."
Bane smiled. "And you shall have
them."
Mithran
stood up and vanished into another
room, returning with a picture, which he handed to Bane. The Demon
Lord studied the tiny painting of a smiling young girl with a blue
shimmer on her raven hair and a pink blush in her pale cheeks.
Sparkling blue eyes gazed out from under fine, arched
brows.
Mithran nodded when Bane looked
up at him. "Your mother, lad. I had that done for our wedding."
Bane stared at the picture for a
long time, memorising the face of the mother he had never known.
"Do I really look like her?"
Mithran frowned. "Goddess, lad!
You've only to look in a mirror."
"When I tried to look in one, it
broke."
Mirra giggled, causing Bane to
glance at her with a raised brow. She stifled it and looked down at
her tea.
His father looked puzzled. "It
broke?"
"Yes, the Elder Mother at the
abbey said that the dark power broke it."
"Ah, well, you've no more fear
of that, have you?"
"No."
"Good, come."
Bane rose and followed his
father into a tidy, spotlessly clean room furnished with a dainty
dressing table and a bed covered with a patchwork quilt. Printed
floral curtains draped the windows, and a few cheap ornaments stood
on a narrow shelf. Mithran gestured to a mirror that hung over the
dressing table.
"See for yourself."
Bane bent and examined his
reflection, relieved when the mirror remained intact. Now he saw
the resemblance to the portrait he held, and straightened to smile
at his father.
"I do look like her."
Mithran nodded. "Aye, lad,
there's no doubt you're her son."
Bane replaced the portrait on
the table, and they returned to the lounge, where Mirra grinned at
him.
"Did you break it?"
He smiled. "No."
Chapter
Twenty
The Rune
Bane lay stretched out on
the soft leaves, his hands under his head, dozing. The fishing rod
was propped by his feet, almost forgotten as he slipped towards
sleep. The lakeshore slumbered in the late afternoon sun. Only
birdsong and the faint humming of busy insects broke the silence.
It had been an exhausting day, cutting and dressing logs for the
new cabin he and his father were building. Grem was a great help,
but Mithran was the only woodsman. They had moved to this peaceful
valley several months ago, leaving the people of Mithran's village,
and their hatred, behind. Now they travelled to the nearest village
every month or so for supplies, and no one knew who Bane
was.