The reign of Istar

boys. For the most part, you endured it patiently.'

Tarli's eyes widened. 'You knew, then.'

Moran nodded. 'I needed to know how each of you would respond. Being a knight is learning to act like a knight.' He finished, watching Tarli's face, 'Not just in training or in combat, but at all times.'

He waited.

Finally Tarli said, unembarrassed, 'Then you know about last night, too.'

'I do.' Moran cleared his throat. 'You fought in direct defiance of the Measure. What you said, even more than what you did, shows that you don't believe in the Measure.'

Moran sighed. 'Believe me, Tarli, I'm sorrier than you can imagine. But you just weren't meant to be a knight. You have your own way of doing things, your own view of others' rights, and your own code of honor, and they'll never square with becoming a knight.' Righteous but unhappy, he faced Tarli.

'You're absolutely right, Sire. The knights are all wrong for me.' Tarli made it sound as though it were the knights' fault.

Moran stared at him. 'You don't mind?'

'Not anymore.' Tarli frowned. 'I would have minded when I started. Did you know, I promised my mother that I'd try to become a knight?'

Moran shook his head, partly to clear it.

'She said it would be good for me and for the knighthood.' He sighed loudly. 'Sometimes, these past few weeks, I've wondered if she meant it as some kind of joke.'

Possible, Moran thought, smiling sadly. Very possible.

'Ah, well. Time to go.' Tarli stood up, but he didn't leave. 'By the way, I do have another name, Sire.'

Moran stiffened. 'So I assumed.'

'I just don't use it, since my father and mother weren't married.' He looked, clear-eyed and innocently, at Moran.

'Your mother's name was good enough,' Moran said gruffly. Since that summer, Loraine had become elevated in Moran's mind into a sort of spirit-woman, someone whose love was too wild and pure for Moran.

'By rights I can use the other name.' Tarli didn't sound bitter or ironic, merely stating a fact. 'Did you know that?'

Moran nodded. 'I assumed you didn't know the name.' He added quickly, 'Which is not an insult to your mother. She was a wonderful woman. I knew her well, you know.'

'I knew that.'

Moran licked his lips, which were suddenly dry. 'Of course you have the right to use your father's name. I think' — he paused and braced himself — 'I think he'd be proud.'

'Are you?' Tarli asked quietly.

Moran was stunned by the simple directness of the question. Tarli had to repeat it.

Finally Moran stammered, 'I… uh… She never told me…'

'Well, my mother told me. And she always told the truth.' Tarli looked tolerant of someone else's failing. 'She said you probably wouldn't like it if I took your name. She said you might feel awkward about it, training boys like you do. It didn't make sense to her, but she thought you'd want it that way.'

Moran nodded. 'She was good to me when I needed her most. Except for leaving, she was always good to me.' He asked a question he'd wondered about for eighteen years. 'Did she know that I would have married her?'

Now Tarli looked startled. 'She never told you? She knew, but she didn't think it would work. You're very different from her.' He added calmly, 'But I think she loved you.'

'I think so, too' Moran thought, briefly and with regret, of the demands of knighthood, of bastardly scandals in the knighthood, and of the fact that conflicts of duty can be every bit as painful as conflicts of honor. 'You have my permission. Use my name if you wish.'

Tarli smiled. 'Thank you, but I think I'll keep using my own name, plus my formal name, now that I'm an adult.'

Moran, amused by this sudden eighteen-year-old adult, said, 'And what name is that?'

Tarli answered easily and calmly, 'Tarli Half-Kender.'

Moran's jaw sagged slowly, like something settling into a swamp. 'Half… kender?' he repeated faintly.

'That's right.' Tarli flipped the broken lance end-forend.

Moran remembered Loraine's words. No matter who the child is, or what it's like? And her laughter. I love strange places and strange men. Even her constant patting of her hair, over her ears. 'Half-Kender?'

'I suppose I could use 'Flamehair.' It's a respected name among her people, you know. I didn't want to use it at first, since it would look like social climbing.'

Moran's room reeled around him. 'Half-Kender?' How could he have been so stupid? Or was it that he just wouldn't admit it to himself?

'That's right.' Tarli stared off into space and said reflectively, 'But my mother left her people and came here. Kender all love wandering. That's why she left here, too, partly.'

Tarli walked around the room with his duffel, looking absently at things. The shaken Moran would later discover that a bottle of wine, a table knife, and a copy of The Brightblade Tactics had disappeared. 'I'd better get going.'

But Tarli stopped and rummaged in the duffel, which seemed disturbingly full. 'Could you give these back to your cleric friend?'

Moran took the offered scrolls. 'He gave these to you?'

'Not exactly.' Tarli grinned. 'I just needed something to read one night, and his room was unlocked — or almost.' He trailed off, then brightened. 'The parts about the knights' treasury are pretty good.'

Moran unrolled the top scroll (the seal was already broken) and read:

Most Revered Cleric Ansilus, in Istar.

Greetings, and the blessings of the only true gods, from their servant and your brother rakiel; may you and they speak well of him.

Written when the moon Solinari is on the wane in the Month of the Moon Lunitari ascendant in the Queen of Darkness.

So far, things go well. I have learned the extent of the knights' wealth here in Xak Tsaroth and believe that it is more than is needed for a defensive training force in peace time. I will recommend that the Church could make better use of it.

I have gained access once to the Treasury, and have enclosed an itemized list of its contents. I am unsure how the money and precious metals are transported from the Treasury and where the knights' main store is, but hope to find out soon. The old man who trains these peasants is a fool…

Moran closed his eyes, remembering Rakiel asking questions, Rakiel filling out forms, Rakiel offering to handle requisitions for the lances.

'Plus this. I kept it because of the map — I love maps — but I don't suppose I'll be back here ever.'

The 'map' was a floor plan of the Manor of the Measure, with the storeroom marked in red. On the bottom of the scroll was a careful tracing, from the top, bottom, and end, of the treasure room key.

'I'll kill him,' Moran muttered, but even as he said it he recoiled. There was no honor in Solamnia's best- trained weapons master killing a cleric who trembled when the knight brandished a butter knife.

Moran turned the paper over thoughtfully. If he could soothe his honor somehow and refrain from slaying Ra kiel, this page alone, sent to the Order of the Rose, would humiliate the clerics and probably keep the knights in Xak Tsaroth free of their influence for years to come.

'Thank you for showing me this,' Moran said.

Tarli smiled, looked at the knight affectionately. 'Uncle Moran, you've been good to me.'

'Uncle Moran? You may call me 'Father.' '

Tarli nodded, almost shyly. 'I'd like that. You know, you've been almost a spiritual guide to me — '

Moran, holding Rakiel's tracing of the knights' treasury, had a wild idea.