Gate of Ivrel

darkness and rats, and he fought them and cried aloud, sobbing, clawing free of them: he found the table, snatched a knife and laid a man’s arm open with it before they wrested it away from him and pulled him down in a clatter of spilling dishes. A booted foot slammed into his head; when he went down his only thought was that they would take him back unconscious, and that the rats would have him. For that reason he fought them; and then a second blow to the stomach drove the wind from him and he ceased to know anything.

He still lay upon the floor. He knew light and heat and felt carpet with his fingers. Then he felt a cold edge prison one wrist against the floor, and opened his eyes upon Erij, who sat against the arm of the chair; upon the bright length of a longsword that rested over him.

“You have more staying power than you used to have, bastard brother,” said Erij. “A few years ago you would have seen reason two days ago. Is it so much you owe her that you will not even say why she has come?”

“I will tell you,” he said, “though I myself do not understand it. She says that she came to destroy the Witchfires. I do not know why. Perhaps it is some matter of her honor. But they never were anything but harm to Andur-Kursh; so she is no harm to Morija.”

“And you do not know what gain that would be to her.”

“No. She only says—somehow—she means to kill Thiye, and that is not... ” He moved his arm. The blade sliced skin and he decided against it. “Erij, she is not the enemy.”

Erij’s mouth twisted into a sour smile. “There have been more than Thiye that aspired to what Thiye holds. And none of those have meant us good.”

“Not to possess what he holds. To destroy it.”

The blade lifted. Vanye struggled to his knees, aching in head and belly, where he had been kicked. He met Erij’s cynicism with absolute earnestness.

“Little brother,” said Erij, “I think you actually believe the witch. And you have gone soft in the wits if that is so. Look at me. Look at me. I swear to you—and you know that I keep my word—that if you forsake that allegiance in truth, I will not collect the price you owe me.” The longsword flicked at his wrist. Vanye snatched it back, horrified. The blade instead leveled at his eyes, holding him like the eyes of a serpent.

“Bastard brother,” said Erij, “it has taken me these two years to learn some skill with my left hand. All for a careless, useless gesture. Romen’s efforts notwithstanding, I lost the fingers. They went before the hand. Need I tell you how I have sworn I would do if ever I had you in reach, bastard brother? Handrys may have deserved what he had of you; but I only tried to shield him at that moment—only to keep you from striking him again, I not even in armor. There was no honor for you in what you did, little brother. And I have not forgiven you.”

“That is a lie,” said Vanye. “You would as gladly have killed me, and I was less skilled than either of you: I always was.”

Erij laughed. “There is the Vanye I know. Handrys would have cursed me to my face and gone for my throat if I threatened him. But you know I will do it, and you are afraid. You think too much, Chya bastard. You always had too keen an imagination. It made you coward, because you never learned to put that wit of yours to good advantage. But I will own you were outmatched then. The years have put weight on you, and half a hand to your stature. I am not sure I should like to take you on now, left-handed as I am.”

“Erij.” He cast everything upon an appeal to reason, put utmost heart into his tone. “Erij, will you have this hall reputed like that of Leth? Let me pass from here. I am outlawed. I admit I deserve it, and I was mad to come here asking charity of Father. I would never have dared come if I had known I would have to ask any grace of you. That was my mistake. But Nhi will lose honor for you. You know that Nhi will have no part of it, or else you would not have to use Myya guards with me.”

“For what are you asking me?”

“To treat me as Nhi, as your brother.”

Erij smiled faintly, drew from his belt the shortsword, the Honor blade, and cast it ringing onto the stones of the hearth. Then he walked out.

Vanye stared after him, shuddered as the door slammed and the heavy bolt went across. Fear settled into him like an old friend, close and familiar. He did not even look at the sword for a moment. He had not asked for this, but for his release; and yet it honorably answered, more than honorably answered, all that he had asked of Erij.

At last he turned upon his knees and sought the hilt of the blade, picked it up and could not find it comfortable in his hand, even less could find the courage to do with it what was required of him to do.

It was, perhaps, safe refuge from Erij, and Erij’s last mercy was this offering: there were pains far worse than the honorable one of this blade.

But it required an act of will, of courage, toward which Erij challenged him—knowing, thoroughly knowing, that his Chya brother would not be able to do it.

And Vanye knew well enough that Erij, in his place, could. So might Handrys, or their father. There was the bloodiness in them; they would do it if only to spite their enemy and rob him of revenge.

He set it against the floor, at the length of his arms, shut his eyes and stayed there. All that it took from this point was one forward impulse. His arms, his whole body, shook with the strain.

And after a time he ceased to be afraid, for he knew that he was not going to do it. He let fall the blade and crept over to the fireside and lay down, shivering in every muscle, his stomach heaving, his jaws clamped against the further shame of sickness.

The daylight found him exhausted and placid in his exhaustion, though he did not truly sleep, save one time in the thickest darkness of the night. He heard steps returning now in the hall and had only one fleeting impulse toward doing belatedly what should have been done in dignity.

He did not even meditate killing Erij with the blade. It would be in the one case futile, for he would die for it, shamefully; and in the other, the act would be void of any honor or vindication for himself.

There were several of them that came in. Erij sent the other men away to wait outside, crossed the carpets and gathered up the abandoned blade, returned it to its sheath at his belt.

“I did not think you would,” he said. “But you cannot complain of me that I disgraced you.” And he set his one hand upon Vanye’s shoulder and dropped to his knee, took him by the arm and pulled at him, to have him up.

Vanye wept: he did not wish to, but like other battles with Erij, this one was futile and he recognized it. Then to his further shame he found Erij’s arm about him, offering him shelter, and it was good simply to fall against that and be nothing. His brother’s arms were about him after so long without sight of home or kin, and his about Erij, and after a time he realized that Erij also wept. His brother cuffed him to self-control and to sense with a rough blow and held him at arm’s length: there was the moisture of tears on Erij’s hard face.

“I am breaking oath,” said Erij, “because I swore that I would kill you.”

“I wish that you had,” Vanye answered him, and Erij embraced him in his hard grip and treated him like the little brother he had always felt himself to be with Erij, roughed his hair, which was boy’s length, and set him back again.

“You could never have done it,” Erij said. “Because you love life too much to die. That is a gift, brother. It makes you a bad enemy.”

Like Morgaine, he thought. Had that come from her? But he had had in the beginning of his wandering the broken halves of his own Honor blade, that his father had shattered; his weakness was not Morgaine’s doing, but that he truly did not deserve the honor of an uyo of the Nhi. There were prices of such things, that sometimes had to be paid at the end of possessing them; and he would never be fit to pay such a price.

And he wept again, knowing that. Erij cuffed his ear gently, made him look at him. “You robbed me,” Erij said hoarsely, “of brother, mother, father, and a piece of myself. Do you not owe me some recompense? Do you not at least owe me something for it?”

“What do you want from me?”

“We made you an enemy. Handrys hated you and set out to be rid of you, and Father always found you inconvenient. Myself, I had a brother to be loyal to then. I owed things to him. How do you feel toward me? Hate?”

“No.”