Gate of Ivrel

It was, perhaps, safe refuge from Erij, and Erij’s last mercy was this offering: there were pains far worse than the honorable one of this blade.

But it required an act of will, of courage, toward which Erij challenged him—knowing, thoroughly knowing, that his Chya brother would not be able to do it.

And Vanye knew well enough that Erij, in his place, could. So might Handrys, or their father. There was the bloodiness in them; they would do it if only to spite their enemy and rob him of revenge.

He set it against the floor, at the length of his arms, shut his eyes and stayed there. All that it took from this point was one forward impulse. His arms, his whole body, shook with the strain.

And after a time he ceased to be afraid, for he knew that he was not going to do it. He let fall the blade and crept over to the fireside and lay down, shivering in every muscle, his stomach heaving, his jaws clamped against the further shame of sickness.

The daylight found him exhausted and placid in his exhaustion, though he did not truly sleep, save one time in the thickest darkness of the night. He heard steps returning now in the hall and had only one fleeting impulse toward doing belatedly what should have been done in dignity.

He did not even meditate killing Erij with the blade. It would be in the one case futile, for he would die for it, shamefully; and in the other, the act would be void of any honor or vindication for himself.

There were several of them that came in. Erij sent the other men away to wait outside, crossed the carpets and gathered up the abandoned blade, returned it to its sheath at his belt.

“I did not think you would,” he said. “But you cannot complain of me that I disgraced you.” And he set his one hand upon Vanye’s shoulder and dropped to his knee, took him by the arm and pulled at him, to have him up.

Vanye wept: he did not wish to, but like other battles with Erij, this one was futile and he recognized it. Then to his further shame he found Erij’s arm about him, offering him shelter, and it was good simply to fall against that and be nothing. His brother’s arms were about him after so long without sight of home or kin, and his about Erij, and after a time he realized that Erij also wept. His brother cuffed him to self-control and to sense with a rough blow and held him at arm’s length: there was the moisture of tears on Erij’s hard face.

“I am breaking oath,” said Erij, “because I swore that I would kill you.”

“I wish that you had,” Vanye answered him, and Erij embraced him in his hard grip and treated him like the little brother he had always felt himself to be with Erij, roughed his hair, which was boy’s length, and set him back again.

“You could never have done it,” Erij said. “Because you love life too much to die. That is a gift, brother. It makes you a bad enemy.”

Like Morgaine, he thought. Had that come from her? But he had had in the beginning of his wandering the broken halves of his own Honor blade, that his father had shattered; his weakness was not Morgaine’s doing, but that he truly did not deserve the honor of an uyo of the Nhi. There were prices of such things, that sometimes had to be paid at the end of possessing them; and he would never be fit to pay such a price.

And he wept again, knowing that. Erij cuffed his ear gently, made him look at him. “You robbed me,” Erij said hoarsely, “of brother, mother, father, and a piece of myself. Do you not owe me some recompense? Do you not at least owe me something for it?”

“What do you want from me?”

“We made you an enemy. Handrys hated you and set out to be rid of you, and Father always found you inconvenient. Myself, I had a brother to be loyal to then. I owed things to him. How do you feel toward me? Hate?”

“No.”

“Will you come home? Your liyo has left you of her own choice. You are deserted. Your service is at an end if I pardon you so that you do not have to be ilin and go out to risk another Claiming. I can do that: I can pardon you. I need you, Vanye. There is only myself left of the family, and I—I have trouble even cutting meat at table. Someday I should need a brother with two good hands, a brother that I could trust, Vanye.”

It moved too quickly for him, this quicksilver mood of Erij: he was left amazed, and vaguely troubled, but there had been void so long where there should be family; and the solid pressure of his brother’s hand upon his arm and the offer of home and honor where he had none smothered other senses for the moment

Almost.

He shook his head suddenly. “So long as she lives,” he said, “and even beyond that, I have bond to her. That is why she could leave me. I am bound to kill Thiye, to destroy the Witchfires: this she has set on me.”