The Lord Son's Travels (40 page)

Chapter 38

   
She didn’t know what woke
her, whether a light flashed in the room or only in her dream, but Elenna flew
up into a sitting position with a bitten-back cry.
 
She peered around her empty chamber, now lit only by the
cold moonlight peeking past the heavy velvet drapes of her small window.
 
She remembered the brightness of the
vision, yawned sleepily and rolled over to go back to sleep.
 
She stretched out her hand to fluff her
pillow, and brushed against the cold edge of sharpened steel.
 
This time she did scream;
 
tumbling to the floor as she tried to
reach for her own weapon, expecting a sharp point to cut across the bed any
moment in the hand of a monster.
 
Her chamber door burst open and Brendan appeared in the light of the
lantern he had grabbed in the hall.
 
He had his sword raised and ready.
 
He glanced at her briefly then scoured the perimeter of the chamber
seeking the invader.
 
She had
finally released herself from her tangled sheets and had grabbed her own sword.

   
“What happened?” he demanded.

   
“Someone’s in here,” she
called back.
 
She found a candle on
the table and lit it from his lantern.
 
With their combined light, they could investigate the corners of the
room, probing with their weapons for a hidden intruder.
 
Within minutes a bevy of servants
gathered at the door, whispering inquiries to each other.
 
Brendan and Elenna ignored their
presence.
 
They couldn’t find
anyone in the room or evidence anyone had been there.
 
Puzzled, they stopped their search and consulted each
other.
 
Brendan had not even
stopped for his britches when he had heard her cry for help; he only wore the
long beige cotton leggings men wore for sleep.
 
He still gripped his sword in front of his bare chest.
 
Elenna turned to her bed.
 
The sword she had felt was still laying
there in the center of the sheets, untouched.

   
“How did that sword get
here?” she demanded incredulously.
 
Brendan joined her as she approached the bed for a closer look.

   
The blade was intricately
worked; the edge looked newly sharpened.
 
The hilt was delicately worked in silver and gold.
 
In the crosspiece gleamed a hefty
emerald.
 

   
Expressions of shock and
disbelief flew across Brendan’s face.
 
He took a step back, jaw dropped open.
 
Without turning, Brendan barked at the servants in the
hallway to immediately bring the Lord Son.
 
He continued to gaze in wonder at the weapon.
 
When Elenna asked for comment, he could
only shake his head in amazement.

   
Adrien bounded into the
bedchamber, Arèal raised and ready for the expected fight.
 
His chamber was too far away to hear
the original commotion, but the collection of excited servants had awoken him
from sleep.
 
He had just left his
room when the servant stumbled on him and yelped that he was needed in the Lady’s
chamber.
 
Adrien pursed his lips
when he noted Brendan’s state of dress, but made no comment.
 
Elenna started to explain what had
caused her distress.
 
He approached
the bed, took one look, and asked her to stop.

   
“You touched it?” he
affirmed.
 
She agreed.

   
“Pick it up,” he
ordered.
 
She glanced to Brendan,
who still wore a look of disbelief.
 
Then she gingerly hefted the blade.
 
To her surprise, it felt good in her grasp.
 
Her normal blade always had seemed
serviceable though a little too heavy.
 
The length was perfect, too.
 
She looked back to her companions, who were both perplexed.
 
Adrien reached to touch the blade,
stopped with the hilt inches from his fingers.
 
Instead he side-stepped her and began digging furiously
through the crumpled bed sheets.
 

   
“What are you looking for in
there?” Elenna demanded, watching over his shoulder.
 
He stepped back, displaying a green-colored velvet scabbard.
 
Which, she noted, resembled his in
every aspect but color.

   
“Lady of all the worlds!”
Brendan exclaimed.
 
He rubbed his
forehead.
 
“This can’t be.”

   
“She holds Midiral,” Adrien
exhaled.
 
He didn’t seem to believe
his own eyes, either.
 
Elenna,
still in her slip she used for a nightgown, clutched the bright sword in
hand.
 
She examined the gem in the
hilt.
 
Her brow furrowed as she
began to have an idea.

   
“Is this…”

   
Adrien sighed.
 
“The sword is called Midiral.
 
Midiral’s Bearer was Lord Kendrall of
Actiane.
 
There must have been a
battle,” he added to Brendan.

   
Elenna gazed down again at
the blade.
 
“This is one of the
Neda Alia, isn’t it?”

“Aye,”
Adrien nodded.
 
Brendan braced his
own unneeded sword against the door.
 
He paced frantically in his confusion.

“How
could she have Midiral?
 
She’s a
stranger, she’s not a warrior, she’s …”

“A
woman,” Adrien agreed.
 
“But yet
there is Midiral in her hand.”

“But
how!”

“Neda
Alia does not tell me all its ways,” Adrien snapped back in anger.
 
“For some reason, she has been given
Midiral, so we will use it best we can for the sake of Allé-dôn.
 
Elenna,” he took a deep breath and
changed his mind.
 
“Brendan, I need
you to leave the room.”

His
friend began to protest.
 
“Now!”
Adrien roared.
 
Brendan glanced at
Elenna, who had watched the exchange anxiously.
  
He smiled briefly to reassure her, then obeyed the royalborn’s
command.
 
When he was gone, Adrien
motioned Elenna to sit on the edge of the bed.
 
She complied with some trepidation.
 
He strode to the window, gazing out
into the moonlight to collect his thoughts.
   

“You
are not ready for this, woman.” He muttered darkly.
 
He continued his view out at the night.
 
“You are not a great swordsman, nor
even yet more than fair.
 
You don’t
belong in this land, you have no loyalty to Allé-dôn or anything beyond
yourself and your survival.
 
You
are little more than a lost girl with barely the strength to lift that sword.
 
You can’t understand what this means.”

Elenna’s
face darkened.
 
“I understand that
you are biting my ass off for no good reason.”

He
turned and crossed the room in three steps to fume at her.
 
“That is Neda Alia.
 
Without the Neda Alia my home would be
as ruined as the rest of the Eastlands.
 
For you to bear Midiral…”

“Fine,
I give it to the right guy,” she interrupted.

He
smashed his fist against the wall in frustration.
 
“You can’t! Midiral was given to you!
 
You are the bearer of Midiral, and this
world has gone to dust!”

Elenna
grasped his shoulder and half-pushed him into a seat on the corner of the
bed.
 
She took a seat next to him
and waited for him to speak.
 

In
a low voice he continued, “For five hundred years, the Bearers of the Neda Alia
guarded our land.
 
When they grew
too tired or old, their sword would go to a new warrior – the best
fighter in the land.
 
For you to be
the best fighter left… you are not even by birth or name Allé-dônian.
 
My land may not still stand.”

He
shuddered as he voiced this final fear.
 
She laid her hand on his shoulder in an effort to comfort him.
 
He allowed this for a minute, then
straightened up.
 
“You are the
Bearer of Midiral now.
 
Midiral
will only pass on to a new Bearer when you die or you betray my land, which
will also result in your death.”
 
He watched her face until it had paled in understanding.
 
“Whatever your plans for the future,
you have been chosen, and you must take this path.”
 
He slid from his seat and, to add to her confusion, knelt in
front of her.
 
He grasped the hand
holding the sword, and addressed her solemnly.
 
“I must beg you for the sake of Allé-dôn and the whole of
the Eastlands, to take on this burden with the most serious of hearts.
 
Can you do this?”

She
clasped his hands with her free hand, and paused for a moment. Then she replied
in a
 
resolute voice, “I don’t know
anything about Allé-dôn except it is your home and hopefully can help us stop
this tyrant from my home.
 
I have
promised to you that I will do everything I can to stop him.
 
If this sword will help me do that,
then I will swear to use it for that purpose.”

He
bit his lip.
 
“That will have to
do.
 
It must.”
 
He rose to his feet and glanced around.
 
“When a new Bearer is made, the others
gather to initiate him with the rites.
 
I am the only other Bearer present, so I will complete the ritual.
 
What I need for this I have in my
room.
 
Come with me.”
 
He didn’t allow her a chance to
refuse.
 
He pulled her cloak from
the wardrobe for her as she sheathed the sword.
 
She accepted the warm wrap with gratitude, and followed him
into the now crowded hallway.
 
With
a withering glance he scattered their observers; by the time they reached his
chamber the corridor was empty again.
 
His suite contained a sitting area with two chairs before a fireplace,
with the bedroom behind a separate door to her left.
 
She glanced around as he prepared the lantern on the mantel
of the fireplace.
 
The light cast long
shadows into the corners of the room, eerie to her shaken nerves. Then he
crouched in front of the fireplace to start the fire already laid out ready
inside.
 

“How
long have you been a Bearer?” Elenna inquired for the sake of
conversation.
 

“I
was twenty at the presentation,” he answered.
 
“That is the required age for a bearer.
 
I had thought you younger than that.”

“Made
it by a few months,” she admitted.
 
She waited impatiently as he criss-crossed the chamber, assembling a
variety of objects, wondering what the initiation rites entailed.
 
He approached her again carrying an
item wrapped in piece of cloth.

He
 
motioned with the cloth in his hand,
“Kneel before the fire.”
 
She
complied, glancing back at him as she knelt down on the cold stone floor before
the mantel.
 
She didn’t see what he
removed from the cloth wrapping.
 
“First comes the oath.
 
Hold
Midiral's tip in the fire.”
 
He
waited for her to obey.
 
Then he
continued.
 
“Repeat these
words:
 
I swear with my own life to
raise my blade only for Allé-dôn.
 
I shall serve my Lord King with my heart, blood and blade.”
 
She repeated the oath with surety,
stumbling only on the reference to the King.
 
She wondered what time it was.
 
She wondered if the cold floor underneath her and the words
she said were only part of a dream.
 
She wondered why she was even going through with this.

She
heard rustling and surmised that Adrien had knelt closely behind her.
 
He whispered in her ear,
 
“The next stage of the ritual may not
be pleasant.
 
Trust me that it is
necessary.
 
Take Midiral’s tip from
the fire.”
 
She had almost
forgotten it was there.
 
Aréal was
now resting beside the new sword. The tips were red hot from the flames; too
quickly hot, she surmised from her knowledge of physics.
 
She didn’t know how the newly stoked
fire could have turned the tips to a bright red already.
 
Adrien interrupted her thoughts to ask
her to turn to face him with her blade.