Authors: Vera Nazarian
“
I see,” she uttered very softly, feeling a numbing cold.
“
He and I share one father, Lord Rendvahl,” continued Elasand. “My mother was the legitimate wife, of noble Family blood. While Elasirr—only a few moons after I had been born, he was born of a high-class courtesan, in the House of
Erotene
. For that reason, Father could never acknowledge him, nor could he ever grant him the name Vaeste.”
“
And is that why he killed his own father?” said Ranhé, in a voice like ice.
Elasand said nothing.
“
It is a sad man that has no family name,” said Ranhé. “Is it true that he killed your father? Answer me, my lord! Is that how he came to be thus, at the head of the most terrible Guild of death? And is that why he hates you so, his own brother?”
Elasand sighed. “He is brilliant and volatile, this younger brother of mine. And yet, as a bastard, he had to earn his own name. It’s natural that he harbors a grudge. And grudges can turn into insanity.”
“
A grudge!” said Ranhé. “Now, that’s an understatement. . . .”
Elasand kept his eyes on the road. For several moments there was silence.
“
He is my brother,” said Elasand then dully. “And he was very young when it happened.”
“
How odd,” said Ranhé, “that you do not hate him now. You are extraordinarily magnanimous, my lord. Or else, there is something you are not telling me. Something that exonerates him in your eyes.”
Once again there was a long pause of silence.
“
He was raised in the House of
Erotene
, but after the death of my father the Assassin Guild claimed him early. Back then, it was but a minor enterprise, nothing like today. The Guild had always stood opposed to my own father’s House Vaeste. And Elasirr chose to be thus, a full enemy, because he could not be a full brother. That’s all. And now—now it’s far too late for me to hate.”
Elasand turned his face to her, his eyes earnest. “This revelation, Ranhé, it was not meant to be. I didn’t expect you to learn any of this. Very few know it, and you must never admit any knowledge of it either. Promise me!”
“
I promise, lord,” she replied. And after a pause, said, “Then, was this a pretense too, when you were before the Regent, and you didn’t want your brother to accompany us on this trip?”
“
Only a half-pretense,” replied Elasand. “I wanted him to come with me, but the Regent must never know of this blood bond between us. For that reason, many of my interactions with Elasirr are two-edged. Ah-h-h. . . . There’s a lot that you don’t know about him, Ranhé. And our mutual hate is also more exaggerated than most think. . . . Although, there are times when the past resurges and stands up with a fury, and then we hate one another afresh, he and I. And someday, I will tell you the whole story. But not now. And one other thing, what I had told you before, still stands—do not trust him, not for a moment.”
“
As you wish, my lord,” she again said softly, while her mind was in a turmoil of new things.
They caught up with Elasirr about fifteen minutes later. He rode slowly, and barely acknowledged Elasand with a glance. Ranhé he ignored completely.
The sun was high above the trees, and the forest path had grown more narrow, so that they had to ride single file.
Surprisingly, Elasirr seemed to have regained his normal lazy high spirits, for he whistled as he hacked at the branches with his long knife. Only occasionally, when Ranhé got a chance to glimpse his face, did she see a new grim expression there, that she recognized to be a kind of despair.
They stopped for a midday meal, and no one spoke much. The deep living forest hummed around them, almost obscuring the slate-gray sky. At one point, Elasand looked up, and then said, “We should be there very soon.”
“
As you say, madman,” muttered Elasirr, his profile turned to them as he ate his bread and cheese, “And how soon is it that we see the blessed Rainbow?”
Elasand looked at him and then sighed. “You’ll have to trust me on this—Elas.”
“
Oh—I am trusting you beyond all sanity as it is—Elas,” retorted the blond in a like manner, only his voice was sarcastic.
And then, for hours, they said nothing more.
Toward evening, they had ridden in circles, it was beginning to seem to Ranhé. The tiny path had become a barely perceptible track upon the forest floor, and it meandered eternally, so that their heads spun from going around tree trunks and down small ravines, from cutting at the thick pale growth, and the twisting prickly branches striking their faces.
“
By all the lords of Rainbow, Elasand-re!” exclaimed Elasirr at one point, “I know we’re damn lost.”
And then, because the growth all around them was so lush and thick, and riding had become impossible, he dismounted, and started to walk forward, leading his tall stallion by the reins. Elasand and Ranhé followed his lead, dismounting, and all walked forward slowly, hacking at the wilderness of growth before them.
Soon, sunset burned, sending monochrome steel shadows of tree trunks low against the earth, like stretched out twins of darkness. In the lead, Elasirr cursed loudly, as for the hundredth time a low growing branch struck his face. It had become very difficult to follow the path, especially for the larger horses.
And then, the trees thinned suddenly, fell away on both sides of the path into a small natural clearing.
Bringing up the rear, Ranhé blinked, wiping sweat and tree sap off her face, and stopped suddenly. She could go no farther, because the two men and their horses ahead of her had stopped dead in their tracks.
And then, as the last minutes of light lingered on the western sky, they saw it, a small overgrown structure of pale antique stone, moss-covered and dilapidated, standing in the center of the forest clearing.
It was neither awe-inspiring nor like a sanctum. There was nothing religious in its simple walls. And in the gathering mists of evening, it somehow resembled a tomb.
But Elasand stood, breath caught in his throat, and stared long, before at last speaking.
“
We are here,” he said, as the sky became black with instant night, “and it is the place that we seek. Let us make camp.”
CHAPTER 14
S
teel morning sun illuminated the pale stone structure that was supposedly the Shrine of Light. Ranhé stared thoughtfully at the gaping darkness of the entrance, where Lord Vaeste had disappeared for the last several hours, since his moment of waking soon after dawn. He had gone inside without eating, having said nothing to either her or Elasirr.
And now, she tarried outside, a loyal guard, watching the interplay of metallic sun and old weathered stone of the building, watching many-legged insects crawl along old bricks, in ebony ivy.
Elasirr had also disappeared, having wandered off somewhere in the forest around them, full of simmering anger, and having nothing else to do.
All around her was living silence.
Ranhé had settled in a cross-legged position several feet away from the entrance, upon her spread cloak. She had left her sword, as always, nearby, concealed just behind her and within reach. Soon, the heat of the day made itself felt, and she felt it, slithering gently down her spine, while a shimmer of fine sweat covered her brow.
“
Is he still inside?” came a voice from behind. She was once again startled by how silently the blond assassin could move, as he stood behind her. If he wished he could have very easily struck her a mortal blow. And the fact that she had allowed him to creep up behind her made Ranhé angry at herself.
She suppressed her instinct to jump, and instead stilled herself, turning her head very slowly, with outward disdain.
“
He is within,” she replied softly, her voice indifferent. “My lord had told me he is not to be disturbed. I saw him take some candles from his pouch. There’s a small ancient altar there, supposedly. He’s probably lighting the candles now.”
Elasirr snorted. “Oh, is he? Insane Elasand-re is burning candles and praying for our City’s deliverance. Gods help us indeed.”
He walked forward, stopping before her, so that his shadow fell across her face in direct opposition to the sun. His hands were folded, his feet planted apart. And he just looked at her.
“
Do you know that your lord and master is stark raving mad?” he said suddenly, leaning forward to look at her even more closely, so that Ranhé blinked. “That he is obsessed with a dream, a hallucination of beauty? He’d told me about it once, you know. About the place that is
violet
. . . .”
“
He is right,” said Ranhé suddenly. “You shouldn’t have come. It’s something that you can never understand.”
“
Why? Could it be that you believe him, then?”
“
Yes . . .” Her reply had been a whisper. She said nothing else.
Elasirr shook his head in a sarcastic show of amazement, then stepped away and turned his back to her. He was still obscuring the sun as he began to speak, “Your Elasand-re had told me once that I was free to do as I please, in all things. That I had no duties to him or his father’s memory, or to the House.”
He swung around to face her then. “Well, Ranhé,
that
in itself had bound me to him in such a way that now I can never be free—free of him or anything having to do with the damn Vaeste. I am the murdering executioner of our progenitor. I follow him in all things now, like a bound demon. When he tells me in public to leave him be, it means I have to come with him. When he insists I do something, I do nothing. When he asks for help, I struggle. And when he denies his need, I follow him and force that what he secretly needs upon him. I am his dark
familiar
, Ranhé. I would have you know this, so that you can begin to understand what it is between us, so that you—”
And then his words cut off. He turned away in disgust, and took several steps to place distance between them.
Ranhé watched the pale liquid mane of brightness that was his hair, watched the sun inflame it. And something prompted her to say, “I see now it was not you who had tried to kill my Lord Vaeste. Whoever had sent the impostor assassins is still out there.
You
, on the other hand, will never kill your brother. He has nothing to fear from you, and does not even know it.”
Elasirr, pacing nearby, laughed suddenly. “Yes, by gods! I of all people, would never kill more than one Vaeste! Patricide alone is within my means. I killed the old one, and that has soured my taste for Vaeste blood. How ironic that you see this and my brother does not. He never trusted me, and for that I am his enemy.”
“
Are you?” she asked softly.
“
What do you think, clever Ranhé?”
“
I think,” she said, “that you are more like your half-brother than you suspect. And I am sorry that your father had never been—yours. In fact, even now it’s hard for me to believe that you killed him. Did you?”
“
I killed him with my own two hands,” said Elasirr, his face profiled against the burning silver sun.
“
You’re lying,” said Ranhé. “How is it that I know you’re lying? I know it, and it doesn’t matter what you or your brother say.”
“
Ah, you have such noble faith in me,” said the assassin. “Think what you like.”
There was silence, resounding with the wind and sunlight.
“
The
man
who had been my father made a clear choice,” said Elasirr with an unreadable expression, as he again approached her. “The pale-haired
erotene
who bore me out of mindless love for the man also made a choice. She had called me ‘Elas’ so that Rendvahl would remember always that he had two sons, not one. In the very hour of my birth, she had sealed my fate, damned me to a connection with Vaeste.”
“
Do you go to see her often, this woman who is your mother?” asked Ranhé. “Is that who you visited that day in the
Red
Quarter?”
“
My mother is blissfully dead,” said Elasirr grimly. “But I visit my half-sister Iherema, who apprenticed herself in the House of
Erotene
. I too had almost become one of them. I’d grown up in that House. I know all of it, their ways. That’s why you were so easily deceived by me. But the ways of
erotene
are less than what I—craved. And the House of Joy would never harbor a murderer in their midst.”
“
So, you killed. Murdered. Call it what you will,” she said. “Is that what made you turn to the Assassin Guild?”
And hearing her say that, Elasirr began to laugh. “Turn?” he said. “Why, clever ignorant Ranhé, I
am
the Assassin Guild. I formed it, made the Bilhaar into what they are today. Before me, they were a minor guildless cross-section of the Southern Quarter’s lawless. Some were with the Thieves, some were trained by the Warrior Guilds. And some simply worked alone.”
“
An achievement it is then, my Lord Bilhaar,” said Ranhé. “I see it makes you pathetically proud.”
In reply, the Guildmaster of Bilhaar unexpectedly neared her, and sat down on the edge of her cloak, right at her side.
Unconsciously, she stiffened. She was remembering that other time when there was proximity between them.
“
Why?” she asked then. “Why really did you form this Guild of death? Whatever would induce anyone to organized destruction? And don’t tell me it was the cliche result of having killed your father, for I will not believe you—it is not enough.”