The Sword Of Erren-dar (Book 2) (51 page)

 He had listened to her intently, but now he reached out and
took both her hands in his.

 “The man who asked you to marry him that day was not me,
Sareth. He was just some fool called the Lord of Westrin, who happened to look
like me. I look back at myself that day, at my arrogance and pride and I burn with
shame. I felt I was bestowing  on you the privilege of an ancient name, of
becoming the Lady of Westrin, when in reality, I was utterly unworthy of you.
It was only after our famous row in the Wood of Ammerith that my eyes began to
open. When I think of that day, how easily, how carelessly I let you go, I can
hardly credit the stupidity of my actions. I was like a blind man who held a
priceless diamond in his hand and threw it away because he could not see its
value.”

 “And yet,” amended Sareth, a light beginning to glow in her
eyes, “perhaps it was the best thing that could have happened, for it enabled
us to start again, to get to know one another again free from all that weighed
upon us in Eskendria.”

 “Perhaps you are right. Do you remember that day at the
inn, when you awoke to find me sitting beside you? I came so close to telling
you that day, and looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t. I suppose it was the
fear that held me silent. Fear that you still saw me as I had been in Addania.
Fear that you had not realised that I had changed. Yet, when I was in that
prison cell, convinced I was going to die in the morning, all I could think of
was that I had never told you I loved you.”

 Stepping closer, he took her face gently between his hands.
“And I do, Sareth. Not the Lord of Westrin, but just me, Vesarion.” Then
looking deep into her eyes, he said softly. “I swear to you, Sareth, that I
will love you to my very last breath.”

 Then he did what he knew he should have done a long time
ago. He bent and tenderly kissed her.

 When he leaned back, he saw that her eyes were shining up
at him with such joy that it took his breath away.

 Catching her hard against him, he kissed her again, but
this time with such intense desire that she wondered that she could ever have
thought him cold. He felt her arms go around his neck and she began to return
his kisses with such unrestrained passion that very soon they were desperate
for one another.

 However, just as he began to draw her shirt free from her
belt, an unwelcome interruption, of a wholly unexpected nature, occurred.

 “Hellooooo?” called a familiar voice. “Anyone here?
Hellooooo
?”

“It’s Bethro,” hissed Sareth, in frustration.

 Vesarion’s reaction was to smartly pull her into the
concealing foliage of the willow tree.

 “Did you ever meet anyone with a greater ability to be in
the wrong place at the wrong time as Bethro?” he demanded in a fierce whisper.

 Bethro, by this stage, had emerged from the tunnel and was
looking about him uncertainly.

 “I wonder if this is the place?” he said aloud and began to
consult a scruffy slip of paper. “Ah! But of course it must be! There are their
horses! Sareth? Vesarion? Anyone at home?”

 Vesarion, taking advantage of the fact that they were
completely hidden from view, responded by drawing Sareth against him once more.

 “He’ll be upon us in a moment,” protested Sareth,
half-heartedly pushing him away.

 “Oh! He can go to the devil, for all I care!”

 An imp of mischief crept into her eyes. “Are you not glad
to see him?”

 “No!” he declared roundly. “Oh, very well, yes. But he
might have had the decency to arrive about an hour later.”

 She smiled ruefully and caught his hand. “Come on, then.
Duty calls.”

 In the flurry of exchanging greetings, Bethro did not care
to mention to Sareth and Vesarion that for the last few days before leaving the
city, he had endured the sort of time that would have made a sojourn in the
Destroyer’s dungeons seem like a holiday. For three hideous days, before Iska
had managed to smuggle him out of the city, he had been stuck in a draughty
bell tower, complete with pigeon droppings, a bossy female, an irresponsible
young man who seemed to make a joke out of everything, and a sour and slightly
malodorous Turog. Moreover, it had been made perfectly apparent that they were
all very anxious to be rid of him.

 Iska had been unable to obtain a horse for him, and it was
all very well for her to say that he could find his way perfectly easily on
foot, provided he followed her directions – except that he couldn’t remember
them. After she had repeated them several times and he still couldn’t grasp
them, in something approaching a temper, she had written them down on a scruffy
piece of paper. Thus Bethro had found himself shoved out a drain one night to
the east of the city, clutching a small parcel of food in one hand and the
piece of paper in the other, and had been left to negotiate the perilous
journey all by himself. He had been informed that it would take him two days to
reach the cave, but in actual fact it took him twice as long because he had
taken several wrong turns, due to his inability to decipher Iska’s handwriting.
Yet, if truth be told, he had deliberately dawdled a bit on the way, for he did
not know how he was going to face Vesarion, and the more he thought about it,
the more a serious bout of moral cowardice had taken hold of him. Now he had
finally arrived, anticipating with great dread, thanks to Iska’s description of
Vesarion’s injures, what he would find.

 When he had seen Vesarion approaching him from the
direction of the pool, moving with a stride that was anything but enfeebled, he
experienced almost a sense of shock. As he had drawn closer, Bethro had seen
the discoloured remnants of bruising around his eye, but otherwise he seemed so
normal that the prim librarian began to wonder if Iska was prone to
exaggeration.

 However, he had little time to pursue his thoughts, for hard
on the heels of their initial greeting, Sareth asked him the question he had
been expecting.

 “Where is Iska? Did she find my brother?”

 He smiled at her, delighted to be the bearer of good news.
“Yes, she did indeed find Prince Eimer and when I left them four days ago, they
were both safe and well.”

 “Why did they not come with you?” she asked, ever direct.

 She was a little too direct for Bethro, who had not
anticipated getting into such dangerous territory so quickly.

 “I…er… when I left, they were deep in plans to...er…recover
the sword. I think they just regarded me as an encumbrance to be got rid of –
although,” he added, bristling with annoyance, “they let the rodent stay -
which I thought was the outside of enough. I mean, he’s a Turog! What use can
he be to them?”

Vesarion’s brows had drawn together. “I knew it. I knew Iska
would not give up so easily. We must return to the city at once. She will need
all the help we can give her.”

 “No!” cried Bethro in alarm. “She was afraid you would say
that, and has given me explicit instructions to tell you to stay here. She and
Eimer feel that they stand a better chance alone. Besides, you are too late to
help her, because whatever they were going to do, they were planning on doing
it last night. I’m afraid I should have been here sooner but I…er…got lost.”

 “What exactly were they planning?” Vesarion asked.

 “I don’t know. They wouldn’t tell me - I think, perhaps, in
case I was caught. All I can tell you is that whether they have been successful
or not has already been decided. There is nothing you can do to influence
events. Iska said that they would try to meet us here. So unfortunately, all we
can do is to wait for them.”

 “I’ve never been very good at waiting,” muttered Vesarion.

 But Sareth, anxious to endorse Iska’s advice, said
reasonably: “If we go back to the city we will probably miss them and that
would spell disaster. I’m afraid we must wait, whether we like it or not.”

 After all Bethro’s fears about having to face either a
wrathful, or dying, Vesarion, he actually passed the most pleasant afternoon he
had enjoyed in a long time. He told them of Eimer’s adventures, and his own,
turning his exploits in the cellar into such an amusing story he had them both
laughing. He then explored the cave, marvelling at the wonders of nature  and
examining with interest the carvings on the stone bench. But that evening, his
rising spirits suffered a check. When the time came for Sareth to treat Vesarion’s
injuries, for the first time Bethro was brought face to face with the
consequences of what he had done. Although the damage was clearly much
repaired, the wine-coloured bruising across Vesarion’s chest and stomach and
the healing lacerations on his back, brought home to Bethro the full extent of
his crime with such force that he could not bear to watch. Hurriedly, he
retreated down the passage to the outside world and finding a rock beside the
dark pool below the waterfall, gave vent to his feelings and wept bitterly. Not
one word of reproof had passed Vesarion’s lips, indeed, he had not mentioned
the incident at all, but Bethro’s heart was so full of self-disgust, he thought
it would burst. What he had done was beyond repair and he knew he would have to
live with the guilt for the rest of his life.

 However, only a few moments later, he saw something that brought
him an unexpected gleam of hope. He returned to the cave just as Sareth was
finishing her task and was helping Vesarion to resume his shirt. The sound of
running water masked his footsteps and they were obviously unaware of his
presence, for just as she began to draw the shirt on, she impulsively leaned
forward and pressed her lips against the skin of his shoulder. Vesarion
responded by swiftly turning round, catching her in his arms and kissing her in
a manner that, even viewed from a distance, was clearly very far from cousinly.

 The unseen watcher’s heart leaped for joy.

 “He has found love,” breathed Bethro. “Sareth will bring
him happiness and healing and undo the harm I have caused, and perhaps, if I
can find the courage, someday I will beg him  to forgive me.”

 The old crypt was once more in total darkness. Three
shadowy figures, crouched on the grass behind the grille, were trying to blend
into the night and calm their ragged breathing so that they could listen for
signs of occupation. They already knew that there were two sentries on duty at
the main door, but otherwise all seemed quiet.

 Iska nodded to Eimer, who carefully moved the heavy metal
grille aside, wincing slightly when it squeaked. Inside, all at first seemed as
dark and still as any place should be amongst the dead. Moving stealthily
between the graven figures asleep on their ornate plinths, they saw a dim light
emerging up ahead.

 Using the tombs as cover, each silent intruder flitted
closer, making no more noise than the ghosts of the kings and queens now
departed.

 On a bare tomb that bore no effigy, sat two oil lamps,
their tiny flames being the source of the faint light. Between them, a black
velvet cloth had been spread across the level surface of the tomb in a manner
that transformed it into an altar. Lying side by side on its sable surface,
were two swords. Their scabbards lay discarded on the floor below the altar and
their nakedness revealed their similarity. Exactly alike, they were, in all
respects save one. The blade of the sword of Erren-dar gleamed in the light,
its flawless steel embellished only by the three chalice flowers, their intertwined
stems stretching towards the tip. It lay against the rich velvet, a thing of
beauty and grace, yet its lethal purpose proclaimed by its razor-sharp edges.

 The other sword was its mirror image in every way, except
that its blade bore no gleam of light, for it was midnight black. Not a glossy
black, like painted steel, but the blackness of a lightless night, of the
heavens without moon, without stars; a bottomless void. It blended so well with
the velvet upon which it rested, that its outline was almost indistinct.

 “Is that the sword the demon made?” Eimer whispered, and
immediately the echoes took up the question and rustled it around the crypt
like the wind through a wheat field.

 ‘
the demon made, the demon made…. made…. made’

 Despite himself, Eimer shivered.

 Gorm, who had been silent since they had left the bell
tower, finally spoke.

 “Should take bad sword, too,” he advised. “Stop evil men
using it.”

 “I think he’s right,” Eimer agreed in a low voice. “At
least there seems to be no sign of the maker of the sword. I’ll take the black
sword and you can put my cousin’s sword in its scabbard,” he directed Iska.

 Gorm stayed where he was, his yellow eyes probing the
darkness suspiciously, as if he expected the demon to rise out of a tomb at any
moment.

 “Why am I so nervous?” Eimer muttered as he approached the
altar. “There’s no one here, after all.”

 Iska stood for a long moment looking at the beautiful sword,
trying to rid herself of the notion that she had no right to touch it. A
nebulous feeling had taken hold of her, that because she was of the House of
Parth, she was tainted and therefore not fit to hold the legendary blade.
Forcing back the feeling, gingerly she lifted it by the hilt. It was heavier
than it looked, yet was so perfectly balanced that it was not clumsy. She felt
that were she but to swing it sideways, it could slice the very air into
ribbons.

 Whimsically, she spoke to it as if it were a living person.
“I feel like I have been waiting all my life for this moment,” she told it
gravely. “I have come to take you home.”

In response, it slid willingly into its scabbard, as if
happy to go with her.

 Eimer was finding himself in similar difficulties, but for
different reasons. Twice he stretched out his hand to take the black sword and
twice he drew back, pierced by a strong sense of dread that he didn’t
understand. It seemed to him that the sword was more than merely inanimate
steel. It was as if it possessed a will of its own, a sentience. Exuding from
it was an emotion – malevolence, and he felt it directed against him. He tried
to resist it, but the feeling found its way behind his defences and penetrated
his innermost mind, making him irrationally afraid of it.