Gate of Ivrel

“We were children,” Vanye said. “Things were different.”

“When you killed Handrys,” said Erij, “you were plain enough.”

“I did not want to kill him,” Vanye protested. “Father said he never struck to kill, but I did not know that. Erij, he drove at me: you saw, you saw it. And I never would have struck for you.”

Erij stared at him, cold and void. “Except that my hand chanced to be shielding him after he had got his death-wound. He was down, bastard brother.”

“I was too pressed to think. I was wrong. I am guilty. I do penance for it.”

“Actually,” said Erij, “Handrys meant to mar you somewhat: he never liked you, not at all. He did not find it to his liking that you were given a place among the warriors: he said that he would see you own that you had no right there. Myself, it was neither here nor there with me; but that was how it was: Handrys was my brother. If he had decided to cut your throat, he was heir to the Nhi and I would have considered that too. Pity we aimed at so little. You were better with that blade than we thought you were, else Handrys would not have baited you in the casual way he did. I have to give you due credit, bastard brother: you were good.”

Vanye reached for the cup, swallowed the last, the wine souring in his mouth. “Father had a fine choice of heirs, did he not? Three would-be murderers.”

“Father was the best of all,” said Erij. “He killed our mother: I am sure of it. He pushed Handrys to his death, favoring you as much as he did once. No wonder he saw ghosts.”

“Then purify this hall of them. Let me ride out of here. Our father was no better to you than he was to me. Let me go from here.”

“You keep asking; I refuse. Why do you not try to escape?”

“I thought that you expected me to keep my given word,” he said. “Besides, I would never reach the ground floor of Ra-morij.”

“You might be sorry later that you missed the chance.”

“You want to frighten me. I know the game, Erij. You were always expert at that. I always believed the things you told me, and I always trusted you more than I did Handrys. I always wanted to think that mere was some sense of honor in you—whatever it was that he was lacking.”

“You hated the both of us.”

“I was sorry about you; I was even sorry about Handrys.”

Erij smiled and rose from the table, walked near the fire, where it was warm. Vanye joined him there. Erij still had his cup in hand, and took his accustomed chair, while Vanye settled on the warm stones. There was silence between them for a long time, almost peace. Two more cups of wine passed from Erij’s cup, and his tanned face grew flushed and his breathing heavy.

“You drink too much,” said Vanye at last. “This evening and last—you drink too much.”

Erij lifted the stump of his arm. ‘This—pains me of cold evenings. For a long time I drank to ease my sleep at night. Probably I shall have to stop it, or come to what Father did. It was the wine that helped ruin him, I well know that. When he drank, which was constantly after Handrys died, he grew unreasonable. When he would get drunk he would go out and sit by his tomb and see ghosts. I should hate to die like that.”

It was the rationality in Erij that made him seem most mad; at times Vanye almost thought him amenable to reason, to forgiveness. A man could not speak so with an enemy. At such times they were more brothers than they had ever been. At such times he almost understood Erij, through the moods and the hates and the lines that began to be graven into his face, making him look several years older than was the truth.

“Your lady,” said Erij then, “has not quitted Morija as you said she would.”

Vayne looked up sharply. “Where is she?”

“You might know,” said Erij, “since I think you know full well what she is about.”

“That is her business.”

“Shall I recall her and ask her or shall I ask you again?”

Vanye stared at him, beginning suddenly to see purpose within the madness, the sickly, fragile humors. He liked it no less. “Her business is with Hjemur, and she is no friend of Thiye. Let that suffice.”

“Truly?”

“It is truth, Erij.”

“All the same,” said Erij, “she has not quitted Morija. And all my promises were conditional on that.”

“So were mine,” said Vanye, “conditional.”

Erij looked down at him. There was no mirth there at all. Of a sudden it was Nhi Rijan in that look, young and hard and full of malice. “You are dismissed.”

“Do nothing against her,” Vanye warned him.

“You are dismissed,” said Erij.

Vanye gathered himself up and took his leave with a scant bow, maintaining the slender thread of courtesy between them. There were the guards outside to take him—there always were: Myya; Erij trusted no Nhi to do this duty, walking him to and from his quarters.

But they had doubled since he had come into the room. There had been two. Now four waited.

Suddenly he tried to retreat back within the room, heard the whisper of steel and saw Erij drawing his longsword from its sheath. In that instant of hesitation they hauled him back and tried to hold him.