Thy Father's Shadow (Book 4.5) (40 page)

“Good journey?” Terian asked, shuffling slowly toward the door. “Why Kahlee … knowing all the places I’m now unwelcome, I don’t see how it couldn’t be.”

Chapter 62

There was still almost no light in the Brutal Hole, but he could see nonetheless. It seemed brighter than it had a few months earlier.
Because it’s not Saekaj. Everything that’s not Saekaj is brighter. Hell, swampy Gren would probably look brighter to me right now.
The loud raised voices of the longshoremen echoed through the establishment, and the smell of the hard whiskey on the table in front of him was not as pleasing as he’d hoped it would have been.

He slugged it back nonetheless and stared at the empty shot glass as Rosalla made her way over. “Another, I take it?” she asked.

“You still don’t sound thrilled to see me,” he said, staring at the glass. “I’ve been back for months, and it’s been months more since that little incident—”

“That cost me weeks’ worth of business.”

“I just get the sense you haven’t forgiven me,” Terian said, letting himself smile.

“I haven’t,” Rosalla said, without a hint of anything but annoyance. “Another round?”

Terian sighed and slid a few coins her way. “Please.” He watched her walk away but without the enthusiasm he might have felt a few months earlier. “I swear, no one’s the forgiving sort around here …”

“Perhaps it is the people you associate with,” came a voice from above him.

Terian didn’t even bother to look up, but he felt himself smile. “Hello, Alaric.”

“Hello, Terian,” Alaric said, and slipped into the seat across from his. “Do you mind if I sit down?”

“By all means,” Terian said, staring at the paladin in his faded cloak, the cowl turned up to hide his face. “Somehow I doubt you were drinking in here by sheerest chance.”

Alaric said with a wry smile. “The Reikonos docks are not known for their abundant hospitality.”

“Yet here you are braving them anyway,” Terian said. “Not that there’s anyone in this room who could be a threat to you.”

“Just because I wield the power to harm others doesn’t mean I wish to,” Alaric said quietly.

“I … had almost forgotten that about you,” Terian said, lowering his head to stare at the table, the wood pockmarked from years of abuse. “I had almost forgotten that quality existed at all.”

“I assume your sojourn to the homeland did not end as well as you might have hoped?” Alaric asked. Strangely absent was any glee; he sounded genuinely disappointed.

“I found out what happens when power and intention are unfettered by just law,” Terian said, not meeting Alaric’s eye. “Or maybe I should say I remembered what happens in that instance.”

“I see,” Alaric said.

“Impressively well for a man with one eye, yes,” Terian said as Rosalla sat another glass in front of him. “And one for my friend, Rosalla.”

“You have a friend?” Rosalla asked, nearly scoffing. Terian noticed she did not incline her head to look down at Alaric’s face.

“Possibly the only one I have left, but yes,” Terian said. “A whiskey for my friend.”

“Coming right up,” she said without enthusiasm, and she sashayed away again as Terian watched her out of the corner of his eye.

“You have other friends,” Alaric said.

“No, I don’t,” Terian said, shaking his head.

“I am certain Niamh would object to your dismissal of her out of hand,” Alaric said. “As would Curatio, Vaste, Cyrus Davidon—that bed you gave him was a most curious choice, I might add.”

Terian snorted. “I forgot about that. I doubt he’s used it like I told him to, though.”

“You have friends, Terian,” Alaric said quietly. “You need not walk alone down an aimless road.”

“I left, Alaric,” Terian said. “I left. I did wrong for Sanctuary, and I left in exile.”
It’s almost becoming a pattern for me.

“It was your choice, not ours,” Alaric said.

“I make a lot of bad choices,” Terian said, and the flash of a dagger came to his mind. “More than I can count. And with many of them …” He swallowed deeply. “There is no way to set them right.”

“You believe there is no redemption for our mistakes?” Alaric asked.

“I didn’t make mistakes,” Terian said. “I made bad choices. Calling them mistakes would absolve me of the fact that I knew what I was doing when I made them. They were not accidents. They were choices. Hurtful, cruel, vicious choices that cut me off from people I loved—” His voice choked off. “I don’t think I believe in redemption, Alaric. I don’t see how I could.” Terian kept his face lowered, studying every line of the table, every grain of the wood—

“Terian,” Alaric said. “Look up.” Terian hesitated then shifted his eyes gradually upward. Alaric sat before him in his seat, helm on the table in front of him, and his cowl back to expose his face.

“Alaric,” Terian hissed, looking to the crowds shuffling behind the Ghost of Sanctuary, “this is a dark elven bar! They won’t take kindly to—”

“I do not care,” Alaric said, staring back at him with his one good eye. “Let me state this in no uncertain terms.” He leaned forward. “I am not ashamed to be seen with you, regardless of what might have happened to you in the time since you have left.”

“Alaric, I’m not worried about you being ashamed to be seen with me, I’m worried the dark elves in this bar are going to come after you in a drunken fury,” Terian said, not bothering to mask his alarm.

“I don’t care,” Alaric said, still leaning forward. “And do you know why I do not care?”

“Not really,” Terian said, still feeling the sense of fear and panic in his stomach. “Alaric, put your helm back on.” He shifted to look up. No one had noticed the old paladin yet.
And that is fortunate, but his time is bound to run out, and soon.

“I do not care because you are here with me,” Alaric said and leaned back. “With you and I together, what threat can they pose?”

“Mobs tend to pose a pretty big threat, even to spell casters,” Terian said nervously. “All it takes is one nut with a bottle to whack you across the back of the head, and all the spells in the world don’t count for much—”

“I have faith in you, Terian,” Alaric said, as if Terian had said nothing at all. “I have faith in you—as a man. Faith that you’ll do the right thing. Faith that … no matter how bad things get, you’ll seek the right path instead of blindly following the wrong one for your whole life. I am proud to be associated with you, if you’ll let me—”

“I’ll let you anytime,” Terian said urgently, waiting to see if the largest fellow at the bar would turn around, “but I’d rather you’d do it with your helm on!”

Alaric let a short chuckle. “Now who’s ashamed to be seen with whom?”

How can I more obviously communicate to him that I’m not looking for a barfight?
Terian rubbed his temple between his thumb and forefinger, and kept his eyes on Alaric’s face. “When we get assaulted by fifty angry longshoremen, I’m going to be asking myself what redemption I’m going to find by caving in some poor, dock working bastard’s skull.”

“Why, there’s no redemption in that,” Alaric said as Rosalla set a glass in front of him. He glanced up at her and smiled. “Thank you, Rosalla dear.” He slid two coins out of his purse and placed them on the table.

“I didn’t know that was you, Alaric,” she said, leaning down to scoop them up with a smile. She turned a pointed gaze toward Terian. “Or that you’d associate with such a lowlife vagrant—”

“Take care in how you talk about my friend, please,” Alaric said, taking the glass in his hand. He never took his eyes off Terian.

“Because you’re the only one he’s got?” Rosalla asked, clearly unamused.

“I very much doubt that,” Alaric said, “though it may take some convincing.”

She gave a slow nod, and her expression softened as she looked Terian over. “Well, Alaric, any friend of yours is a friend of mine, I suppose.” She slapped the edge of the table lightly. “Let me know if you need anything else.” She turned to walk away and bellowed a shout in dark elven at one of the big men at the bar. It turned the attention of everyone in the place toward them, just briefly, and Terian watched the patrons’ eyes fall to Alaric and then slide off, as though he was a matter of little consequence.

“Even here, you’re more welcome than me,” Terian said with dry amusement. “I guess that’s as it should be.”

“Redemption does not come overnight,” Alaric said, leaning forward toward his glass. “And it does not buy you any friends—at least, not in and of itself. Those require their own sort of cultivation. It is a path that you walk every day. A path that you choose. One that you have walked away from, and one I invite you back to now.”

Terian stared at the amber liquid in the glass before him. “How do you know, Alaric?” He glanced up. “Not to sound combative,” he kept his voice low, almost mournful, “but how do you know that there’s redemption out there for someone like me?”

Alaric stared back at him, that one, cool grey eye. And for just a moment, he blinked, and Terian saw … pain. “I could not believe otherwise … and keep walking it myself,” Alaric said.

Terian swallowed hard, and nodded, trying to bury the emotion. “What would you have me do?”

Alaric watched him with careful consideration. “I would send you to the Ashen Wastelands.”

“I thought you said you forgave me!”

Alaric smiled. “Forgiveness has little to do with it, and I said no such thing. I offered you a chance to walk back down the path of redemption—and that path will lead you to the Ashen Wastelands, where I need you to ask a very important question of some old friends of yours.”

“Ahhh,” Terian said with a nod. “The brother wurms.”

“Indeed,” Alaric said, nodding slowly. “There are things hanging in the balance that could destroy us all—questions that need answers.” He stared over his glass at Terian. “Are you willing to go wherever the road takes you?”

Terian stared at the amber liquid, sloshed it around one time, and then upended his glass, draining it in a single drink. “Sure. Why not?” He stared at the empty glass, and smiled. “Tell me something, though, Alaric—how did you know that I would be willing—that I’d be willing to come back to you—to help you after our last conversation?”

“Because I know you, Terian.” Alaric raised his glass in the faint dim of the bar, and Terian could have sworn he saw a faint hint of a smile on the corner of the paladin’s lips. “And I could expect no less from you.”

Epilogue

Three Years Later

“Where is he?” Curatio called into the darkness. “Has anyone seen Cyrus?”

Terian could see the end of the bridge, putting the lie to its name.
Oh, but it felt Endless until the scourge hit us. Then, suddenly, the end came all too soon.

“I’m over here!” Cyrus Davidon’s deep voice came out of the darkness to Terian’s left, along with the wash of the waves against the sand. “I’m here.”

Curatio led them off the edge of the bridge, the healer hurrying toward the origin of the voice that had called through the night. Terian sighed. He could see Cyrus shuffling toward them in the dark, leaning on Windrider with the shape of the Baroness Cattrine next to him.

The favorite son.

Terian drew close to the front of the group, Longwell and Odellan close behind him. He could sense the presence of Martaina close at hand. She had an eye out for him, that elven wench.
Clever, on her part.

“Ryin,” Cyrus said as they approached. Terian glanced over and saw Ryin Ayend, that contemptuous human druid, standing apart from them a little ways.
How long has he been there?

No matter.

Terian separated himself from the others, drifting toward the jungle to their side. His feet crossed over each other side by side until he stood in the middle between them and Cyrus.

Apart.

“Cyrus,” Terian said, his sword in his hand.

Cyrus drew his blade in response and turned slowly toward Terian, dropping the reins of his horse. “Now, Terian?”

Terian felt the twist of emotion near his heart again. “No. Not now. I did what you asked. I fought to the end. Now … I’m not going back with you. Not to Sanctuary. Not so you can put me on trial like some kind of circus or example. I’m leaving.”
And I don’t even know to where.

“Terian,” Curatio said with that damnable sternness that the elf could produce on command, “you tried to murder a fellow officer. If you think you can simply walk away from that—”

“No,” Cyrus said. The blue glow of Praelior moved in the dark, pointing toward the jungle behind Terian. “He can go.”

“I wasn’t asking your permission,” Terian said.

“I wasn’t giving permission. I was releasing you from the charge of attempting to murder me. Go on. Be about your business, then; we have no more between us now to deal with. It’s all settled on my end.”

Terian felt the grief run over him, and he nodded. “Not on mine. This isn’t over between us. Not yet.”

A sigh punctuated the darkness. “Fine. But at least do me the courtesy of not coming at me like a sidewinder next time. Try it head-on, like a man. I’ll give you the fight you’re looking for.”

Will you?
Terian stared at Cyrus for a moment.
Will you indeed?
Terian felt himself start to move on faltering legs, the sands feeling like they were shifting beneath him. He watched the warrior in black in the dark of the night, his allies—his friends—clustered around him.

His friends.
Not mine.

Not anymore.

Terian turned, returning his father’s sword to the scabbard. He felt the hilt in his hand as he sheathed it, felt the weight of responsibility—something he could not have predicted he’d feel when confronted with the situation as he had been.

Cyrus Davidon killed my father.

Terian swallowed, the taste of the salt air on his lips and the feel of fresh tears on his cheeks.

But I was the one who put him in Cyrus’s path.
Who caused him to fall, who arranged his landing in that army, at that time.

I was the one who prayed for his death.

The sand gave way to grass, and Terian fought his way through. The blades of green brushed against his armor near the waist, and he took another step toward the darkness of the jungle beyond.