Seeker (The Source Chronicles Book 1) (39 page)

“We should kill the King,” remarked Baron Tilroan.  “Then the Common would have no choice but to elevate you, Lyrra-Sharron, and we will be victorious.”

Varlock-Sharron barked a short laugh, echoing his daughter’s earlier, looking to the Baron.  “Fornon Val-Cara, do you know nothing?  If I am killed, and at the hands of my own daughter, she will never rule Sharron.  If I do not return or send word back to Gara-Sharron, Sir Tulock becomes Regent, and the Common will name him King soon after.”

Lyrra-Sharron turned to the Baron.  “If it were that simple, Baron, I would have done so long ago.  You forget your own family history.”

Baron Tilroan frowned, and turned away.

“We’re getting nowhere with this bickering,” interjected Cam.  “It’s time to set this right, they need to know the full story, to hear the full truth.”

“You are the bearer of such?” queried Lyrra-Sharron, hands on her hips, glaring, antagonistic.  “Come now, my dear Sorcerer, none here will trust
you
after this betrayal.”

“Sorcerer?” breathed Barons Foltupp and Dovan quietly, taking a step back.

Lyrra-Sharron did not look to them, but a bemused look crossed her face.  “Aye.  Sorcerer.”  She glanced towards the King.  “Going against your own law, Father?”

Varlock-Sharron crossed his arms.  “I have granted Cam Murtallan amnesty.  His purpose, I am certain you know, is too important for us to interfere with.”

“We can’t let him leave here, Lyrra-Sharron,” warned Torman, fingering the edge of his knife.  “He’s seen us.  We’re all as good as dead now.”

“No, Torman.  You must hear him out,” Cam said.  “I brought the King here to stop this folly, avoid bloodshed, and in so doing stop the Medaelians from invading.  Have you seen how Wilnar-Medira makes war?  A full-fledged invasion?  I am Anarian.  I was there when he overran my home.  My father was butchered where he stood, in his field, planting crops.  Unarmed.  My mother was raped and beaten.  Anaria became a wasteland.  I won’t watch that again.  Sharron cannot suffer the same fate.  This must end before that can happen.”

“Speak your peace, then,” said Lyrra-Sharron simply, forestalling further discussion.  “Say what you must, but do not think for a moment that anything you might say here will magically end this.”

*****

Varlock-Sharron stepped forward.  Cam sidestepped, but remained between the King and the Falcon Raiders.

During their ride to Tarmollo, the King had thought long and hard on what he would say, how he would explain to Lyrra-Sharron and her militia his side of the terrible events that drove their rebellion.  Convincing them he spoke the truth, when his daughter was as strong an orator as he, would take the deepest sincerity he could muster. 

He hoped the truth would be as powerful a tool as he had always believed it to be.

“I know what you think of me, my daughter,” began Varlock-Sharron.  “You tell them I am remote, I am cruel.  Ruthless.  Terrible.  You say I build the largest army on the continent, prepare tactics for invasions, dream of my own glory, plot the conquest of my neighbors.  Never any regard for the common people of Sharron.”

Varlock-Sharron looked to the Falcon Raiders beyond Lyrra-Sharron.  “I am regularly indifferent.  I can be cruel.  I have been called ruthless.  I do build the largest army on the continent.  But my strategies are not invasions, they are counterstrikes and defenses.  Our neighbors constantly posture, they threaten.  Every two years, in some manner or other, they initiate a conflict on our border.  One year it is the Medaelians.  Two years later, the Cordianlotts.  Then the Medaelians again.  Always pushing.  Frequently trying to break our stability, always trying to tear us apart.  Endlessly grasping for more land.  It is necessary for us to frequently defend ourselves against that.”

He took a breath, and looked to Lyrra-Sharron.  “I do not dream of my own glory.  I have no plans to conquer my neighbors.  It is enough for me to rule Sharron.  Medaelia, Cordianlott, An-Quarvan...they are all entitled to their own sovereignty.  I do not want to take that from them by force.  Peace is prosperity.  Peace is the health of the people, the crops, the invigoration of the arts.  I want peace.  I do not crave battle.  I do not like war.  I do not position myself for greater fame.  Let history say what it will of me.  I do not seek to be another Pallantir.”

He paused, looked over the Falcon Raiders again.  “I am the King of Sharron.  I rule this nation, and I care for the people therein.  I have the Common to be their voice.  I listen to the Common.  Do I tax too much?  Taxes are at an all time low.  Do the people starve?  It is documented that since I began to rule Sharron, hunger is less.  Even those who are peasants do not, as a whole, go to sleep hungry.  Poverty is less apparent throughout the Kingdom. We have had no pestilence, no famine, for twenty years.  Only Tarmollo suffered from the plague, as we stopped it from spreading throughout the land.  Of course, not all enjoy good health.  Not all can put food upon their table.  But overall, the people of Sharron live decently, more so than in the times of nearly every monarch before me.”

He crossed his arms, raised his voice.  “Do any of you find my taxations unfair?”  He was met with silence.  “Do you starve?”  More silence.  “Are beggars and brigands ruling this nation?”  No one made any response.  “Have any of you really suffered by my hand?  By my law?”

The stillness was only interrupted by a muffled cough from someone in the pavilion.

“My daughter, Lyrra-Sharron, is beautiful, intelligent, charismatic.  She is a natural leader, a gifted orator, a fantastic strategist, and a clever tactician,” continued Varlock-Sharron.  “She has been educated and raised to be a Queen.  She is my heir.  The Crown of Sharron will one day rest upon her head…when the time is ripe.”

He looked to Lyrra-Sharron, stepped closer to her.  “When the time is ripe, my daughter.  You were meant to be the Queen, even before the deaths of your brother or sister.  You were the sharpest, the smartest, the strongest of my children.  So much like me, but so much your own.”  He stopped, changed his tone.  “I am young.  I will in all likelihood sit upon the throne another twenty, thirty, maybe even forty years.  It is a seemingly endless trial of your patience.  So brilliant, so well ready to rule.  You have a great many ideas, many plans.  But your time comes not soon enough for you.  As patient as you are, once the limit of that endurance is reached, you demand action.”

His voice changed, it softened, as he gazed into the eyes of his daughter.  “I admit that I have not been a good father.  I have been reserved.  I watched your progress from the distance.  I was too close to your older brother.  So close, that I did not see what he was becoming, until it was too late.  I thought if I stayed near to you the same, you would have a hard time learning how to do for yourself.  The hardest lesson of being a ruler is that you must make most decisions alone.  There are few to no people you can truly rely on.  Too well did I want you to learn that.  So I watched from afar.  I observed you unseen.  I remained detached.”

He shook his head, and looked up to the others in the pavilion.  “My daughter has told you of the monster I am, responsible for the deaths of our family.  My wife.  My son.  My daughter.  Perhaps I am responsible for their deaths, after all.  But not in the manner Lyrra-Sharron would lead you to believe.”

“I will not listen to this any further,” interrupted Lyrra-Sharron, trying to storm past her father and leave the pavilion.

Varlock-Sharron grabbed her arm.  Strong as she was, she could not break his grasp.  He looked into her face, clouded by many, unreadable emotions.

“You must hear this,” stated the King.  “I have avoided this for too long.  I left you alone too long.  I have to set things right, Lyrra-Sharron.  Before it is impossible to do so.  You will hear me out.”

She glared at her father, tried a last time, half-heartedly, to free herself, but soon relaxed, her face remaining expressionless. 

Everyone else in the pavilion remained spellbound, watching the tableau, caught up in the unfolding tale that answered the unanswered questions that had motivated their actions up til now.

“Your brother,” began the King once more.  “Karlock-Sharron was my first born, a younger version of me.  My first heir, though I did not think he would become King.  He was trained for the military, to be a leader, a soldier.  But I was too close, was blind to the truth, and his instructors went easy on him, let him pass lessons he should have failed, and he grew haughty, and arrogant.  Despite this, he trained well and hard, gaining proficiency with the sword, and learning military strategy and history.”

Varlock-Sharron paused, then continued.  “A border dispute, like so many before, and after, emerged with Cordianlott.  My son was fifteen, then.  He came to me, proud of a plan he formulated to strike at our enemy, and stop them before they could strike us.  A sound plan on paper, but unrealistic applied to the battlefield.  His strategy was far too complicated to coordinate.  I told him he was mistaken, showed him that it could not work as he anticipated.  He argued with me.  He was so proud, absolutely sure of himself, so arrogant.  When he finally refused to listen to my counsel further, Karlock-Sharron stormed from my study.  I was angry with him, and called after, taunting, ‘Get yourself to the battlefield?  No, son!’  I had thought the matter closed.”

He took a breath, controlling his emotions, and continued.  “I did not send him to battle, Lyrra-Sharron.  I did not order him to his death.  Karlock-Sharron was forbidden to take his strategy to the field.  But he was the Prince, and I did not give orders to stop his leaving Gara-Sharron.  He made the choice.  He went to battle.  I could not stop him, before it was too late.  The officer in charge let him assume command.  His foolhardy tactics failed just as I had warned him that they would.  He placed himself in the grave.  May he rest in peace.”

Not a sound could be heard in the pavilion as everyone absorbed the words of the King.  He had, after all, always been noted as a gifted speaker.  A natural leader, like his daughter. 

“I was angry.  I was upset.  I blamed myself for not preventing his error in judgment, and subsequent death.  I considered myself responsible for failing him.  But I had to put on a good face, for a King cannot show emotion, lest his enemies think him weak.  I did not know what to say to you.  You were so very young.  I was going to tell you all of this when you were older, but...but things only got more complicated.”

The King took another deep breath, and once more continued his narrative.  “My father allowed the practice of Sorcery primarily because he thought Sorcerers were a boon.  He thought they brought with them prosperity, and he was tremendously superstitious.  But there is another reason, however, for this.  It has been a long-held family secret, which I had not the opportunity to impart to you, my daughter.  On the twenty-first birthday of any in the House of Anduin, this secret has traditionally been exposed.  I missed my chance to reveal it to you.  But I shall remedy this now, in the presence of witnesses, that it will be a secret no longer, for it has nearly destroyed us.”

He sighed, looked into his daughter’s eyes.  “Long ago, during the reign of the first monarch from the House of Anduin, Varlyn-Sharron, Sorcerers walked the continent freely.  Though the Academy had been pulled down nearly six-hundred years prior, many monarchs still chose Sorcerers as counselors and advisors.  Varlyn-Sharron was young, just past twenty, and unmarried.  Chief among her counselors was a Sorcerer, maybe ten years her senior.  Over time, they fell in love.  She took him as her consort.  She bore him five children.”

He paused, let that sink in, and continued.  “Of the five children, two discovered they possessed sorcerous abilities.  They took the name of their father, and left Sharron, never to return.  The entire episode was forgotten, and in those days, the family lives of the monarchy of Sharron were far more private.  Since that time, every couple of generations, one or two emerge in our line with these abilities.  There have been sorcerers among the Anduins.  Your sister was such a one.”

“Miara?” asked Lyrra-Sharron in a whisper.

The King nodded his head solemnly.

“It is poorly documented,” Cam interjected, taking over the narrative.  “But it is written, none-the-less, that when the time comes, one could destroy themselves in the discovery of Sorcery.  That’s why, when the Academy Citadel was still functional, the offspring of known Sorcerers were watched, so that the discovery of such powers would not destroy them.  Though it is rare, it does happen.  In old family lines, if one of sorcerous abilities was ever part of the bloodline, sorcerers will appear every few generations.”

              Lyrra-Sharron glanced towards Cam, before returning her gaze to her father.

“There was no-one around to observe, and thus nobody to protect Miara-Sharron from herself,” Varlock-Sharron took up again.  “There was not any way to know.  As Cam says, it is not always the case that the discovery destroys the Sorcerer, but it can be.”  He shook his head.  “Miara-Sharron was my gentle daughter.  She loved art, dance, and music.  She was as talented as you, my daughter, but in her own manner.  After my mistake with your brother, I kept a certain distance with you both, and never showed you how proud I was.  But your mother knew…and it was she who noticed Miara-Sharron becoming more withdrawn, more aloof.  I did not know what to do, but I intended to make time with you both.  Always intentions…”

Varlock-Sharron paused, got control of his emotions yet again.  “I...sensed something, that night.  I know not how I felt it, but it seemed like a surge of energy, like a flash of lightening, though it did not storm.  It awoke me.  I came to your room, and...I found her, lying beside you, my daughter, dead.  There was nothing I could do for her then.  I took her to her own room, and cried for her, alone in the dark.  I returned to comfort you, Lyrra-Sharron, but you were asleep; I did not want to wake you, I knew not what to say to you.  And I did not do right by you.  I should have awakened you, should have stayed, should have told you...”