Gate of Ivrel

“Will you come home? Your liyo has left you of her own choice. You are deserted. Your service is at an end if I pardon you so that you do not have to be ilin and go out to risk another Claiming. I can do that: I can pardon you. I need you, Vanye. There is only myself left of the family, and I—I have trouble even cutting meat at table. Someday I should need a brother with two good hands, a brother that I could trust, Vanye.”

It moved too quickly for him, this quicksilver mood of Erij: he was left amazed, and vaguely troubled, but there had been void so long where there should be family; and the solid pressure of his brother’s hand upon his arm and the offer of home and honor where he had none smothered other senses for the moment

Almost.

He shook his head suddenly. “So long as she lives,” he said, “and even beyond that, I have bond to her. That is why she could leave me. I am bound to kill Thiye, to destroy the Witchfires: this she has set on me.”

“She has set something else on you,” his brother pronounced after a moment, his expression greatly troubled. “Heaven defend a madman. Do you hear your own words, Vanye? Do you realize what she is asking of you? You could not lift your hand against yourself last night; and do you think that what she has set on you is any easier? She has ordered you to kill yourself, that is all.”

“It was fair Claiming,” he said, “and she was within her right.”

“She left you.”

“You sent her from me. She was hurt and had no choice.”

Erij gripped his arm painfully. “I would give you place with me. Instead of being outlaw, instead of being dead in this impossible thing, you would be in Ra-morij, honored, second to me. Vanye, listen to me. Look at me. This is human flesh. This is human. She is Witchfire herself, that woman—cold company, dangerous company for anything born of human blood. She has killed ten thousand men—all in the name of the same lie, and now you have believed the lie too. I will not see one of my house go to that end. Look at me. See me. Can you even be comfortable to look her in the eyes?”

You do not know how great an evil you are aiding. She lies, she has lied before, to the ruin of Koris. Ilin –oath says betray family, betray hearth, but not the liyo; but does it say betray your own kind?

Come with me, Chya Vanye.

Liell’s words.

“Vanye.” His brother’s hand slipped from him. “Go. I shall have them set you in your own room, your own proper room, in the tower. Sleep. Tomorrow evening you will know sense when you hear it. Tomorrow evening we will talk again, and you will know that I am right.”

He slept. He had not thought it possible for a man who had been deprived of conscience and reason at once, but his body had its own demands to satisfy and after such a time simply closed off other senses. He slept deeply, in his own bed that he had known from childhood, and awoke aching and bruised from the treatment he had had of the Myya.

And awoke to the more painful misery of realizing that he had not dreamed the night in the basement or that in Erij’s hall; that he had indeed done the things he remembered, that he had broken and wept like a child, and that the best there was left for him was to assume a face of pride and try to wear it before other men.

Even that seemed useless. He knew that it was a lie. So would everyone else in Morij-keep, most especially Erij, with whom it mattered most. He lay abed until servants brought in water for washing, and this time there was a razor for shaving; he made use of it, gratefully, and put off the clothing he had slept in, and washed his minor hurts before he dressed again in the clean clothing the servants provided him. In a morbid turn of mind he considered doing to himself again what Nhi Rijan had done, cutting off what growth of hair had come in the two years of his exile; and suddenly he gathered it back in his hand and did so, under the shocked eyes of the servants, who did not move to stop him. This a warrior decided, and whether it would please their lord, it was a matter among warriors and the uyin. In four uneven handfuls he severed the locks, and cast the razor on the table, for the servants to bear away.

In that attitude he went to his nightly meeting with his brother.

Erij did not appreciate the bitter humor of it.

“What nonsense is this?” Erij snapped at him. “Vanye, yon disgrace the house.”

“I have already done that,” Vanye said quietly. Erij stared at him then, displeased, but he had the sense to let him alone upon the matter. Vanye set himself at table and ate without looking up from his plate or saying many words, and Erij ate also, but pushed away his own plate half-eaten.

“Brother,” said Erij, “you are trying to shame me.”

Vanye left the table and went over to stand by the hearth, the only truly warm place in all the room. After a moment Erij followed him and set his hand on his shoulder, making him look at him.

“Am I free to go?” Vanye asked, and Erij swore.

“No, you are not free to go. You are family and you have an obligation here.”

“To what? To you, after this?” Vanye looked up at him and found it impossible to be angry: there was truly misery on Erij’s face at the moment, and he had never known prolonged repentence in his brother. He did not know how to judge it. He walked back to the table and cast himself down there. Erij followed him back and sat down again.

“If I gave you weapons and a horse,” Erij asked him, “what would you? Follow her?”

“I am bound by an oath,” be said, “still.” And then, to see if he could wring it from Erij: “Where is she?”

“Camped near Baien-ei.”

“Will you give me the weapons and the horse?”

“No, I will not. Brother, you are Nhi. I pardon your other offenses. I hold nothing against you.”

“I thank you for that,” said Vanye quietly. “So do I yours against me.”

Erij bit his lip; almost the old temper flared in him, but he restrained it. He bowed his head and nodded. “They have been considerable,” he acknowledged, “of which this latest has been one of the lesser. But I swear to you, you will be my brother, heir next my own children. And it would be a greater Morija than either I or our father ruled, if you came to your senses.”

Vanye reached for the wine cup. Something of the words jarred within him. He set it down again. “What is it you want of me?”

“You know the witch. You are intimate with her. You know what she seeks and I would wager that you know how it is to be had: that is implicit in the commission she gave you. I will warrant you have seen her use whatever powers she holds in those weapons of hers; you have passed together through Koriswood. I would even suspect that you know how they are used. I am not a man that believes in magic, Vanye, and neither, I suspect, are you, for all your Chya heritage. Things happen through the hands of men, not by wishes upon wands and out of thin air. Is that not so?”

“What has this to do with me and you?”

“Show me how these things are done. Keep your oath to kill Thiye if you will: but with my help. Remember that you are of human blood; and remember what loyalties you owe to your own kind. Listen to me! Listen. Not since Irien has there been a power in Andur-Kursh save that of Hjemur, and this was of her making, out of her lies and her leading. Our father’s kingdom once ranked high in the Middle Realms. The old High Kings are gone now and so is that power we once held, thanks to her. And it is within our hands to win it back again, yours and mine. Look at me, little brother! I swear to you—I swear to you that you will be second only to me.”

“I am still ilin,” he protested, “and I am safe from all your promises. Morgaine’s power is in what she wields, and unless you are a liar, she still holds it. Do not challenge her, Erij, or she will be the death of you: she will kill. And I do not want to see that happen.”

“Listen to me. Whatever she means to do with the Witchfires, whatever she means to do with Thiye’s power once she has possessed it—she is no friend of ours. We exchange one Thiye for another, she holding what he held, and she more unhuman than ever he was. Look at what Thiye has done with it, and he is at least in some part man. But she... the use of such powers is like the breath of air to her, the element in which she moves; and she is ambitious, for revenge, for power, for what else we do not know. What were you to her against the ambition that moves her? Think on that, brother.”

“You said that she is camped near Baien-ei,” Vanye answered. “That does not sound to me like what she would do if she had utterly deserted me. She is waiting. She expects me to come if I can.”