Seven Swords

Chapter 40

and mine are in your power. What do you fear?" "What are your children's names?"

Javelle. And Thane.' Irissa studied the small images in the mirror. 'Names only command those who can be commanded. You cannot take anything from my children, Geronfrey, just as you ould take nothing from me." 'But I did! I took your essence. I made a woman of it,

a mother." You made a mockery of it, poor hollow thing. You skimmed my surface, Geronfrey, and mistook it for self. Perhaps your son is all surface, too. All shadow.

Does a shadow sit beside your own spawn? No. Eeryon is all I wanted him to be."

Silence held while Geronfrey contemplated his mistake in naming the boy he had so recently declined to name.

"I have never used anything's name to hurt it, Geronfrey,

Trissa said softly at last. 'How do you remain so strong?" The sorcerer's voice was softer, too, carrying a bit of regret, a bit of envy,

'Because I am not afraid to be weak." "Evasion! Wordplay. Glib, tongue-twisting half-truths. 'Half-truths have their place, as shadows do. No, I don't fear your son for your sake, or his own. I know nothing of him.'

'Perhaps you feel a maternal bond." 'No! I have children enough, in danger enough. Don't give me custody of your guilt. I will not harm him, but I need not help him. He is yours, as you always wanted something to be. As I even as that empty Issiri - could never be."

'Where is your Wrathman?' Geronfrey asked after another stormy silence in which Irissa could sense his gathering venom. The sorcerer had finally grown old enough to show it - and bitter enough to know it. 'Why is he not thundering at the gate, at the brink of the Dark Mirror in search of his lost ones?"

'He keeps his place in Rengarth,' Irissa answered with all the serenity she could muster. Within, her heart was pounding sudden alarm. If Geronfrey suspected her real weakness and Kendric's - he would direct his baleful attention to Rengarth instead of Rule.

And Kendric, mortally poisoned, had no one to protect him there, except ludborgs. Geronfrey must be kept from inquiring after Kendric.

'A Ruler has an obligation to rule, you know,' Irissa added blandly. 'I know." Geronfrey's tone was sardonic.

Irissa knew why: he considered himself the sole and future Ruler of Rengarth - that was the empty triumph that drove all his schemes. 'Will you ever end?" she asked curiously. 'Does your

lifeline dwindle or stop? Will... Eeryon become your

heir? Or is he a stopgap? A... tool in your l**t for

immortality. Will you again sacrifice your own creation

to your desire to create?"

'Questions! Torlocs and talking cats were ever fond of posing them. Answer your own speculations, seeress. You shall have time enough to do it in the bottomless hourglass of Without. And as you think, you shall diminish, in every respect, as I have." 'Age? I age in Without?' The note of

not unwelcome hope in Irissa's voice silenced the sorcerer. Moments after, the vision in the Dark Mirror winked out. Irissa felt a fabric tear in her mind, felt a distant

tapestry amend itself. You have truly bequeathed all vanity to your dead shadow, Geronfrey's parting voice whispered against the

stones. It is something I shall never be guilty of

He was gone. Irissa wryly found herself missing the

company. She passed her hand over the mirror, hoping

to raise a vision of her own... yet knowing it answered

only to Geronfrey. Finally, for boredom's sake, she searched her waist band purse. Inside were the forgotten flint and steel Kendric had given her for the journey to the Spectral City.

Like dull gemstones the two pieces clicked together in her palm. She smiled to remember Kendric carrying them through Rule and beyond, to recall the fires they had started and how comforting a fire always was to the children we all become in the dark.

She had seen her children by firelight. They carried no flint and steel - at least visibly - but still had learned to coax fire into their lives when needed. Her sharp eyes had spied the curled fish skin at the fire's verge: maternal anxiety eased remarkably when she knew that they had eaten properly.

So the scene Geronfrey had hoped would taunt had reassured her instead. Perhaps that is what she meant by a strength that he would never understand. Nor had his threat of Without's aging properties frightened her. Irissa smiled again to think how little she feared aging for her

self if it meant keeping pace with Kendric. Yet two disconcerting facts remained to trouble her. One

was the odd lack of feeling she toward the nadow son - neither love nor hate. The other was an absence that Kendric, were he here, would consider the height of good news. Irissa did not. Felabba had been nowhere to be seen in the Dark Mirror,

Irissa would have felt better had she seen the cat. When one's children venture into a hostile world ignorant and kind, when they sleep innocent as babes beside an unsuspected half-brother spawned from a shadow mother, it would be reassuring to know that something as wise, cranky, and chronically suspicious as Felabba was keeping watch.

Dawn struck the silver sea like a sword on a shield - the clash of sudden light brought Javelle and Thane instantly awake.

Eeryon had already been stirring; half-shells abrim with

fresh water lay in a row by the fire shards.

'You rise early, Thane noted with a trace of suspicion. 'Water! Thank you.' Javelle gulped down one shell's contents. 'Where did you find it?' Eeryon's head jerked over his shoulder. 'Inland, beyond

the dunes.'

Felabba was crouched over a smaller shell, lapping

intently. Briarwhip had already overturned his gigantic

shell and was loping along the waterline.

'At least today we have sun to see by.' Thane stretched

and stood.

To see what?' Javelle rose, too, brushing sand from her clothes. She glanced curiously at Eeryon's black velvet garb still imperviously black despite the damp and sand dunes. It was as if nothing quite touched him. 'It's island all around us, and sea all around the island.'

'That's usually the way of it,' Thane remarked, 'Well, we shall have to find a way off the island. Perhaps a wrecked ship with wood enough to resurrect a boat from its bones will serve us.'

'I'm not traipsing all over this island," Javelle objected, 'in hopes of finding a shipwreck. Can't you two use magic, or something, to make us a boat?'

'Magic isn't that sort of servant, Javelle,' Thane said. 'You'd know if you had it. Besides, you're talking about make-magic, and that was never particularly Torloc.' 'We won't get off the island,' someone said. Thane and Javelle turned to Eeryon with open mouths.

Another voice had never intervened in their sibling debates before, unless it had been parental. "I sent Briarwhip to cover the island last night, Eeryon

went on. "The beast never sleeps. If it had found anything

of interest - like broken ships - it would have told me It speaks, too?' Thane was not about to believe that. 'No. But we have communicated without speech for so long that I know how to understand it - in any form.

"Then we have come to Rule only to find ourselves

farther from it than ever.' Javelle said. 'Unless there is a

gate here to another part of this world."

There was a gate, Thane realized bitterly. "I sealed it

to keep Geronfrey out.' In the silence, Thane condemned himself, Javelle mulled the situation, and Eeryon stood struck to stone. Yet of

them all, he managed to speak again first. "Geronfrey?" he asked uncertainly.

'An evil sorcerer who has haunted our parents." Thane

waved an impatient hand. 'It's our problem, and of no importance to you.' "Geronfrey. It's an ... unusual name.'

'I thought you didn't care about names,' Javelle teased.

'Eeryon, are you all right?"

His eyes were on the sea. When he turned to look at her. she could almost see right through them. They were silver and green, like the sea... so aquamarine that for a dazed moment she thought she saw into saltwater.

"Tell me of Geronfrey, Javelle,' Eeryon said quietly. '! should know the... danger you face."

"Tell him the old stories, if you like,' Thane interrupted. 'I'm going to explore the island for myself.'

Eeryon had sunk to the sand, crossing his legs to sit 'You are sick.' Javelle leaned down to inspect him. 'Was

it the fish, do you think it was tainted?' 'No.' Eeryon smiled palely. 'Why should you think that?" 'My... father had a bout with a bad fish once, but be fought it, rather than ate it. And Rengarth, where we live.

is rife with poison.' I'm not ill.' Eeryon nodded at the sand beside him until

levelle set there. Tell me about this,

You say the word "evil" as if you didn't believe in it evil sorcerer There is no evil. Except failure." Oh, I hope you're wrong. lavelle shook his arm, but Beryon pulled away from her grasp. 'If failure is evil, I

am full up with it."

What have you failed to do?

Find any magic within myself."

Perhaps that is success, if magic makes for evil sor cerers. Tell me." So Javelle did, glibly, with the ease of repeating a tale

often told and retold. She told the boy who didn't know what a mother was that her own had once been a maiden coveted for the magical powers she would convey on her first lover.

"Geronfrey?" Eeryon guessed. No, not Geronfrey. Javelle was indignant, rising to her

knees in the sand to report how clever Irissa, her mother, realizing that she would have no value for Geronfrey if her maidenhood were given elsewhere, bestowed it on her traveling companion, Kendric. "Then he was gifted with these Torloc powers?"

Well, not immediately, not evidently. And not willingly. Javelle went on. Kendric neither knew or approved of his new 'gifts." Yet he learned to use them, and Irissa and Kendric traveled together until they found the lost Torlocs and came finally to Rengarth, where Kendric was heir to the High Seat, as it turned out.

And then everybody got rid of Geronfrey, who - it came out - had usurped the power in Rengarth for generations. And then Irissa and Kendric had Javelle and Thane, and

it all ended relatively well, after all. But Geronfrey,' Eeryon urged. Oh, I've heard about him since I had ears.' lavelle

strained fine, dry sand through her fingers. "I think he's a myth parents make up to cow their children, actually. He's always been out there somewhere, waiting. He still wants my mother, and she is beautiful, I suppose, but I wouldn't want to go against her will. They seem to dread

his remppearson, my parents. And yot, I've g of Geronfrey in all my life

What is your mission bere in Rule! Jevalle hesiteted. These had told her not to share the quest with this stranger from Without Yat no one has ever set and listened to Javelle for so long as if what s had to say was important. As if she ware importan whether she had magic or not

long Her dark eyes sobered. He is only mortal," she whis pered. "My father. Our father. He will die before the rest of us unless Thane and I can find his original eword that was left here on Rule years ago. You asked what having a mother was like, but you, too, have had a father, even if he was a bit distant. One does not want to lose that."

"No. That would be the ultimate failure. Earyon turned away from Javelle.

The cat was sitting on the sand, staring at him with its emerald eyes in full glory. He stared back, unable to look away.

'So that's the family tale," Javelle said, sighing. I thought a quest to Rule would be more exciting than it is, but if - when - we find the sword, it will all be worth it. Oh

look. Thane's coming back. Thane-l' Javelle jumped up and ran to greet her brother. Earyan

remained.