Exile's Honor

Alberich meant to shake his head in denial, but another stern look from the priest killed the gesture before he could make it. 'Don't argue,' he said. 'Don't think of an excuse. Just do it. And while you're at it, open your mind as well as your heart.'

The old man rose. 'I'll be going now, but if you need me, they know where to find me, or where to send you if you'd prefer, once you're on your feet. For that matter, I'm sure your Companion would have no difficulty finding me wherever I happened to be without you having to ask anyone but him.'

With that, he nodded to Talamir and shuffled out, followed by his acolyte. The door closed behind them, and Alberich stifled a sound that was midway between a sigh and a groan.

His sacred duty to join the Heralds, was it?

Hard words, thrown in the face of one who had lived his life by cleaving to duty, sacred or not.

Hard words, spoken by one who had been forced to abandon a potentially better life than anything ahead of Alberich, because he could not reconcile orders with duty. If anyone had a right to be bitter, it was the priest, but there was no bitterness behind that rough-hewn exterior manner. And no duplicity either. Nothing but unvarnished, unadorned truth, as the old man had seen it.

As he sees it—

But with forty years more experience of this place than Alberich had.

He swore under his breath.

'Pardon?' Talamir said. 'I didn't quite hear what you said.'

Alberich was going to growl 'Nothing—' and then changed his mind.

'I said, make a trial of you, I shall,' he answered—so brusquely, even rudely, that he was surprised that Talamir didn't take offense.

But the Herald didn't. 'Good,' he said instead, and moved to follow in the steps of the priest and his helper. But he turned when he got the door opened.

'In that case, there is one thing I should like to ask you to do,' he said, with another of those measuring looks. 'Before the Healer returns, 1 should like you to open your mind to Kantor. Completely. I think—I hope it will make a difference to you.'

He left the room then, without waiting for Alberich's answer.

But then, given that the priest had virtually ordered Alberich to do the same thing, he probably didn't need to wait. He already knew that—eventually, at least—Alberich would make a trial of that, too.

Eventually. In his own time.

2

THE Healer fussed over him for a bit, then prepared to leave; on a low table, within easy reach, were a pitcher of water, a cup, and a vial of one of the pain-killing potions. 'Take it when you need it and are ready to sleep,' the Healer told him. 'Or not at all, if that's your choice. But drink the water.'

Alberich couldn't tell if the man's brusque manner was his ordinary demeanor, or due to discovering where Alberich had come from. It could be both... and maybe, now that he knew Alberich was from Karse, he might be having second thoughts; maybe that wasn't just an ordinary pain-killing potion.

On the other hand, the man was leaving him with the potion and giving him the option of drinking it, or not. Unlikely that it was poison—why waste all that time and effort in healing him just to poison him? If the situations were reversed, a 'guest' of the Sunpriests would likely not be treated at all, much less given a comfortable room and pain-killing drugs.

'The potion will wear off about dinnertime if you choose to drink it,' the Healer continued. 'It's about time for you to Start feeding yourself again instead of having someone ladle broth into you.'

Evidently, they were ready to see the last of him. Well, the feeling was mutual. Alberich was more than ready to do without Healers altogether. Already he'd had more attention for his injuries now than he'd ever had for every other injury in his life combined.

Then the man left, closing the door behind him, leaving Alberich alone in his tiny cell of a room.

Not that his quarters in the barracks—when he'd actually been in them, which was