Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (53 page)

He snorted softly at the irony of that thought, for he had fully expected
to be dead by now-his duty to the Dorsaddi prophecy discharged, his debt to Shettai paid. But nothing had turned out as he’d expected, least of all that
he should find himself alive and faced with choosing to take yet another step
along a road whose destination he could no longer even begin to fathom.

Part of him wanted to walk away. He’d come to the SaHal, as Shettai had
asked. Surely that was enough. More than enough. Except … Even if he was
not the Deliverer, he was still in her debt. He had been eager enough to take
from her what by right belonged only to a husband. Should he not also be
willing to accept a husband’s responsibilities? If he’d taken her as his wife,
would he not now be honor bound to stand with her people against their
enemies?

He glanced at Trap. “Do you think there’s any chance of prevailing?”

Meridon grinned. “Shemm’s convinced of it. And I know Eidon will provide a way, if that is his will.”

Eidon. With a shiver of annoyance, Abramm turned back to the window,
deliberately keeping his eye away from the shining orb and fixing it upon the
goats below him.

“My Lord Deliverer?” They both turned to find a man in the standard
headcloth, ochre robe, slit-necked tunic, and breeches of the rank-and-file
Dorsaddi approaching across the carpet. “Your pardon, sir,” he said, stopping
a few respectful strides away and nodding in the Dorsaddi version of a bow.
“The arrows have been gathered, as you requested. Four thousand of them.”

Abramm’s eye snagged on the golden shield glimmering in the V of his
tunic. Annoyed, he tore his gaze free and made himself look at the man’s
face, lean and swarthy, with a touch of gray in the short dark beard.

“See that they’re distributed,” Trap said. “Twenty to a man. What about
the extra bowstrings? And the wax?”

“Still working on those, sir.” The Dorsaddi hesitated, eyes flicking to
Abramm and back to Meridon. “Sir, the Lord Commander sends his compliments and wishes to know if you’ll be speaking to us tonight.”

“My thanks, and tell him I will be.”

“Very good, my lord.”

Trap nodded a dismissal, and as the man vanished around the doorway
across the room, Abramm glanced at him askance. “‘My Lord Deliverer’?”

The Terstan made a face. “I’ve tried to get them to stop, but they refuse.
I suppose I should’ve been more forceful about it at the start, but I really
didn’t believe it would catch on like it has. It wasn’t me that awakened the Heart, after all-it was they themselves, accepting the Light into their flesh.
Shemm says I’ll never get them to stop now and might as well resign myself
to it.” His face reddened. “I guess I have, more or less, because I hardly notice
it anymore. It certainly doesn’t help that Shemm calls me that himself”

It was odd that Abramm should feel jealous at that. Odd and ridiculous
and completely illogical that he would feel increasingly disappointed-even
angry-as the realization dawned that he had been supplanted by his friend
in the vaunted role of Dorsaddi Deliverer. He had never wanted the role in
the first place, knew from the beginning that he was nothing more than a
pretender. Yet now that the truth had come out, he found it surprisingly hard
to swallow.

It was his cursed Kalladorne pride again-the bane of his existence as a
Mataian novice. He had thought that the experience of slavery would have
driven it out of him. But the last eighteen months of being the White Pretender had apparently resurrected it, for he found he did not at all like being
relegated to the ignominious position of companion to the great Deliverereven if Trap did refuse to claim the title.

He didn’t much like seeing himself for an arrogant fool, either, however,
caught up in petty considerations of rank and pecking order when there were
much more important things to consider. And perhaps, given the things he
had done recently, it was no more than he deserved.

So he swallowed his pride and his discomfort and said, “What’s he like,
this infamous Dorsaddi king?”

“Surprisingly humble-and sensible-for a Dorsaddi. But he is Dorsaddi,
and their … um … self-confidence … can get a little overblown. Some
were ready to ride on Jarnek the day after they received the shield.” He
paused. “Still, for all his pride, he does listen and sometimes even takes
advice.”

,,You like him.”

“I do. He’s a good man and a strong leader. A lesser one could not have
held this group together. Especially not now, with half of them bearing the
shield and the other half not. It’s been a real battle convincing them to let
each other alone.”

So. There are others, then, who have refused.

“I’m surprised,” Abramm said aloud. “Seeing the king himself has it.
You’d think his subjects would flock to imitate him.”

“Dorsaddi are not big on flocking and imitating. Mephid, for example,
thinks he ought to be king himself, or at least the true Deliverer. And in any
case, you can’t receive the shield unless you really want to know the One
who gives it. It is your own desire that ignites its power. A man who doesn’t
want it sees only a plain, round pebble, completely ordinary and sometimes
even faintly repellent. Picking it up would be like picking up a rock. Well,
you know.”

Abramm had turned his attention to the goats again, his middle suddenly
tight and fluttery, his heart pounding. `And what,” he asked, glad he managed
to keep his voice neutral, “does a man who wants it see?”

Ah, he sees it as it is-ablaze with light and life, filled with the presence
of the One whose Light it is.” He could feel Trap’s eyes upon him now but
ignored him, watching one of the goats, a little red one, as it leaped for the
fork of one of the olive trees, scrambled briefly for a hold, then fell back.

“Some even claim they see a man-Tersius himself, perhaps….” Trap’s
voice strangled into silence, and he stood staring at Abramm, his tension palpable.

Abramm felt as if his chest were wrapped tight with Dorsaddi thong, and
he knew his face had gone dead white.

Trap’s voice came softly, hardly more than a breath. “You almost took it
that night, didn’t you? That’s why you threw it away. Because you nearly did
it, and it scared the wits out of you.”

Abramm’s headache was back, as if little men pounded with tiny hammers along the inside of his skull. An image flashed through his mind-a man
standing in the darkness, his marred features clear in their own light. Not
Eidon, who could not be seen, but Tersius, who was both god and man and
with whom men had once walked and laughed and lived. Who had not been
consumed to make the Mataio’s Flames, claimed Terstans, but lived on in the
light of their magical orbs.

He shook his head, opened his mouth, closed it. Then he tried again, his
voice barely more audible than Meridon’s had been. “I left all that behind,
Trap. Don’t ask me to go back to it.”

“You left a lie, and no one’s asking you to go back to that.”

Abramm shook his head. “It’s not that easy. I believed in Saeral! With
every fiber of my being I believed. And I was wrong.” He drew a breath to still the trembling that had crept into his voice. “I don’t ever want to be
wrong like that again.”

A breath of air blew through the window, and the chimes tinkled quietly.
Outside, the goat made another leap, scrambled, and fell again. Another one,
smaller, with white and black patches set against the red, came up to nuzzle
it.

Trap exhaled softly. “You were a boy,” he said finally. `And he set himself
to deceive you-a master deceiver versus a ten-year-old. What chance did
you have?”

“Still … I should have doubted.”

“You did! Why do you think they never touched you in all that time of
your novitiate? Because somewhere you doubted.” He paused. “But things
are different now. You know a great deal more about the world and evil …
and truth. Certainly you know enough to choose.”

He lifted a hand, and a tiny globe bloomed on his fingertip, blazingblazing-at the corner of Abramm’s vision.

Abramm rubbed his throbbing arm and refused to look at it, grinding his
teeth with the effort of keeping his eyes away. After a moment it hardened
and rolled down the Terstan’s finger into his palm. He set it carefully on the
sill, his eyes never leaving Abramm’s face.

“I … I have to know it’s Eidon this time,” Abramm said. “No doubts. No
questions.”

“How can you not know, Abramm?” Trap waved a hand at the mist-free
city with its glowing Heart and living trees and bright blue bowl of sky.
“What more do you need?”

“Evil fights evil sometimes?” Abramm cried, dismayed by the desperation
that rang in his voice. “How do I know it’s not another trick? Just another lie
dressed up in pretty clothes?”

“You know in your heart.”

“I can’t trust my heart.”

The goat finally managed to make it up into the fork of the tree and was
now straining toward the fresh green leaves, still out of reach. The others
moved farther along the promenade, the bell on the lead animal clanking, the
boys who were seeing to them practicing idly with their slings. Up the street
a group of men laden with bundles emerged from one of the cliffside doorways and hurried away.

The breeze washed around Abramm again, warm and heavy with goat
smell. The chimes tinkled. And after a time he said softly, “What of the sarotis, Trap? Do you just pretend it doesn’t exist, or do you count it the price
you must pay to stand on the side of good?”

The Terstan frowned. “The sarotis is caused by our own choosing.”

“Who would choose such a thing?”

“Those who pretend it doesn’t exist. Those who receive the gift, then turn
away from it to follow their own path.”

“But why would anyone, once he had the Light, refuse it if it really is
good?”

“Because even when we have the Light, we still carry the Shadow. And
the Shadow will always strain against the Light. When we let the Shadow
have sway over us, when we indulge its desires and delusions consistently,
ignoring the Light, refusing its entreaties-that’s what eventually produces
the curd and the madness. And any acquisition of spawn spore accelerates
the process.” He paused. “It’s commonly believed that the sarotis will inevitably strike all those who wear the shield. But that is not so. It’s merely
another lie spread by the enemy. Far more people than you guess have worn
the shield for years and have never shown a trace of curd. My father, for
example, and others-people you’ve known all your life, in fact.”

“Who are not here to prove this claim, I note.”

Trap regarded him for a long, silent moment, then turned away, a look of
frustration on his face.

“I want to believe you,” Abramm said. “I really do. I just … I can’t.”

Meridon ran a finger along the sill in front of them. “Can’t, my lord? Or
won’t?”

“If I could believe it was true, I’d do it in a moment. I would.”

“Well, then, my friend, I suggest you ask yourself just what it is that’s
keeping you from believing. Because whatever it is, it lies in your own soul,
not in the evidence before your eyes.” He pushed back from the window. “I’d
better go. I expect the king will call you this evening. In the meantime you
get some rest.”

“I feel fine.”

“You are weaker than you know. And if…” He hesitated. “Will we be
riding with them tomorrow, then?”

“Yes, of course.”

Even if he said no, he had the feeling he would be pulled there anyway.
A leaf in a windstorm. Carried along by forces quite beyond his ability to
control or even understand. The question was … did anyone have hold of
the windstorm?

“Do you ever wonder why you’re alive?” Carissa asked, scratching the
new staffid bite on her forearm and eyeing the salmon-and-ochre cliffs looming around them. She sat with Cooper at a wrought-iron table under an
ancient, gnarled olive tree in one of Jarnek’s outdoor restaurants. It was situated on the artificially constructed island standing at the point where two
wide, currently dry wadis converged to become the one main channel. “I
mean, do you ever think maybe there’s no real purpose in it?”

“I think we’re alive to serve Eidon,” Cooper said.

A stock Mataian response.”

“If we keep the commands, we are blessed. If we don’t, we-“

“Not good enough, Coop. These people do not serve Eidon, yet some of
them are blessed.”

He frowned at her.

“My brother wanted only to know and serve him-I have never known
anyone more devoted to that cause. Yet what did it gain him?”

“He is surely reveling in the Garden of Light right now, my lady.”

She snorted. “If there is such a thing. How do we know it doesn’t all end
at death?”

His frown deepened. “You certainly are being grim today.”

She sighed deeply. “I feel as if my whole life has been nothing but one big
blundering. Everything I touch turns to ash. Not one thing I have wanted
have I received. Only pain and despair and failure. If Eidon really lives, what
have I done to deserve that?”