The Heir E-Book

Scott Michael Decker

• Herausgeber: Next Chapter
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

 The future of the Empire hangs in the balance. Separated from birth, the Royal Twins have been raised in opposite corners of the empire.

Meanwhile, bandits continue to lay waste to the kingdom in their attempt to force the Emperor to relinquish the Northern Imperial Sword. Among them is the Noble Bandit, nemesis of Peasant General Guarding Bear. Tasked with rearing one of the twins, the Peasant General wastes no time in preparing the boy for his destiny of ridding the kingdom of the bandits once and for all.

But long-kept secrets are brought to life as the Heir is mistaken for his long-lost brother. As the Heir completes his task, his new rival declares himself Emperor of the northern lands. Their path leads them towards a final confrontation that will forever change the fate of the realm.

Leseprobe

THE HEIR

Fall of the Swords Book III

SCOTT MICHAEL DECKER

Copyright (C) 2014 Scott Michael Decker

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2022 by Next Chapter

Published 2022 by Next Chapter

Cover art by http://www.thecovercollection.com/

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author's permission.

CONTENTS

Titles by the Author

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Next in the Series

About the Author

TITLES BY THE AUTHOR

If you like this novel, please post a review on the website where you purchased it, and consider other novels from among these titles by Scott Michael Decker:

Science Fiction:

Bawdy Double

Cube Rube

Doorport

Half-Breed

Inoculated

Legends of Lemuria

Organo-Topia

The Gael Gates

War Child

Alien Mysteries (Series)

- Edifice Abandoned

- Drink the Water

- Glad You're Born

Fantasy:

Fall of the Swords (Series)

- The Peasant

- The Bandit

- The Heir

- The Emperor

Gemstone Wyverns

Sword Scroll Stone

Look for these titles at your favorite e-book retailer.

To Bobby Foster,

Who gave me the idea over a cup of coffee in the town of Ft. Bragg on the north coast of California, and who to this day has no idea what an epic it became. Thank you, Bobby – SMD

PROLOGUE

It was a sword. It did not look important. Three feet long and slightly curved, the blade looked tarnished. The metal's dark color suggested it was simply brass. The edge was sharp and without a nick. The haft was pewter-colored, contoured for the human hand, and unremarkable – except for the single ruby set in the pommel.

Despite its modest appearance, the sword was skillfully constructed. The blade itself had been made from microscopic sheets of a chromium-antimony alloy layered one atop the other. The painstaking process made the blade very flexible and the edge very sharp. Even the best swordsmiths found the alloy difficult to work, however, making reproduction improbable.

In addition to its precise construction, the sword was ancient. Forged more than nine thousand years before, the sword had withstood all manner of use and misuse. The number of warriors who'd wielded the sword was a figure lost in the past. The number of warriors who'd died on its edge was many times that. The number of warriors mortally wounded while wielding this sword, however, was fewer than a hundred.

Called the Heir Sword, it assured the succession by preparing an Heir's mind for the Imperial Sword. No different in appearance, other than its slightly larger ruby, the Imperial Sword extended the range of an Emperor's psychic powers to the farthest corners of the Empire. Thus, the Imperial Sword was the figurative and literal source of an Emperor's authority. The Imperial Sword electrocuted anyone inadequately prepared by the Heir Sword, killing the unfortunate (or treacherous) soul. Thus, the Heir Sword was the only way to obtain that authority.

Each of the four Empires had its own pair of Swords, each pair adorned with a different gem. The four Imperial Swords all served the same function: To grant the current Emperor total dominion over his or her Empire. The four Heir Swords all shared their own function: To assure a smooth succession.

Although they shared the same function, the most valuable of the four Heir Swords was the one adorned with a ruby, the Heir Sword for the Northern Empire. Because of this Heir Sword, the Eastern Empire had slaughtered all the people of the Northern Empire. Because of this Heir Sword, a civil war had riven the Eastern Empire. Because of this Heir Sword, bandits besieged the Eastern Empire from across its northern border. Because of this Heir Sword, the four Empires' nine-thousand-year-old political systems were faltering, even though, ironically, the eight Swords had been forged to preserve them.

The Northern Heir Sword did not look important, but because of a single fact, it was the most important object in the world:

The Sword was missing.

– The Fall of the Swords, by Keeping Track.

1

Inordinately wealthy, given wide latitude in choices, worshipped by the populace before he could walk. The store of knowledge regarding Flaming Arrow's childhood would fill multiple volumes, but little of this knowledge helps us to understand who he was at age fifteen. The person he became bears little resemblance to the resplendence of his origins. We have no way to account for the compassion, strength, and benevolence that so characterized his rule. The Gathering of Power, by the Wizard Spying Eagle.

On top of cascading silks sat the Matriarch Bubbling Water, dressed in black high-collared robes, the hair styled fashionably, the eyes set wide on the face. The elaborate dress and meticulous coiffure did little to disguise the fact that she was dead.

Resting on pilings three feet high, the bier stood ready for transport to the pyre grounds. Milling around it were the highest of Eastern noble women, also dressed in black. Three men and nine women stood near the funeral bier between the two outermost battlements of Emparia Castle, waiting for Rippling Water. Over the towering battlement seeped the noise of the crowd beyond the castle walls.

“If Rippling Water doesn't appear soon,” Flaming Arrow said, “someone will have to take her place at the bier.”

The Prefect Rolling Bear grunted, nodding. “Infinite knows where she went, Lord Heir.”

Flaming Arrow frowned at his cousin. What do you really think? he wondered. Without a shred of talent, and hence no telepathy, he would never know. Heir to the throne of the Eastern Empire, Flaming Arrow knew his lack of talent would be his most difficult challenge. He was blind in a world of the sighted. And he was supposed to rule the Empire someday.

He sighed. The Eastern Heir was fifteen years old. His hair was the bronze of cooling embers, his eyes the blue-gray of hazy skies, his skin the brown of tanned leather. Six feet tall, he weighed one hundred seventy-five pounds. He still had the narrow shoulders and hips of adolescence, which many mistook for clumsiness. Left-handed and able to fight equally well with either hand, he was anything but clumsy. Months ago, he had dueled Rolling Bear and won.

“Not like Rippling Water to shirk her duties.” Flaming Arrow looked at the bier towering above them.

The Matriarch Water's mate, Guarding Bear, stood to one side of the east castle gate. The vacant look that had taken possession of the General's eyes four days ago was more intense now. White stubble covered the sagging cheeks, weathered chin, and ropy neck. He hadn't shaved in days. Gray now and without luster, Guarding Bear's hair was more wild and unruly than usual, looking slept in. When alive, Bubbling Water had been the only person able to manage Guarding Bear. Now, in his grief, he couldn't manage himself.

Looking at the ground, Flaming Arrow winced.

Rolling Bear said, his voice low, “Don't worry, Lord; he'll recover eventually.”

Flaming Arrow nodded. Frowning, he fingered the hilt of the Heir Sword. The diamond on the pommel glittered.

I'd give it away to have Grandmother and Grandfather back, he thought.

Rolling Bear sighed.

Ten years ago, Guarding Bear had passed the Caven Hills prefecture to his eldest son. At first, as nominal Prefect, Rolling Bear had merely instituted his father's general directives, which had grown increasingly few over the years. Now, Father looks as if nothing will ever interest him again, Rolling Bear thought—not even his precious native lands. I'd give away the Caven Hills to have Mother and Father back.

What about your brother, who caused this mess? he asked himself.

Rolling Bear sighed again. No chance he'll be back. Rippling Water should be the one to tell him where she went, he thought. He looked at Flaming Arrow beside him, wondering what the boy would do if he knew.

“I hear you've asked the Lord Emperor to set your requirements,” Rolling Bear said.

“Yes, I asked the night before your…” Sighing, Flaming Arrow gestured mutely at the bier.

“Most boys don't ask until they're much older, Lord,” Rolling Bear said. “I didn't ask until I was nineteen.”

Every father gave his every son a grueling test before awarding the title of man. Few manhood ritual requirements were the same. Most boys formally asked their fathers to set the requirements at eighteen years old, after completing all formal studies. Flaming Arrow's asking at fifteen was atypical. He had completed nearly all his formal schooling early.

The Heir shrugged. “I'm ready for it, Lord Bear. Since I didn't have a talent to develop, I devoted the extra time to my studies.”

“Most people use their talents to learn, though, Lord. Not having any, how did you learn so fast?” How do you endure without talent? Rolling Bear wanted to ask.

“I don't know.” Flaming Arrow glanced at the sky. “What time is it?”

The bulk of Emparia Castle hid the afternoon sun.

Consulting the psychic flow, Rolling Bear said, “She still has ten minutes.” How do you endure it all, Flaming Arrow? Rolling Bear wanted to ask. Your father's sterile, your mother cuckolded him, you're a bastard and don't have a shred of talent besides. Why don't you fall on your knife to expiate your terrible shame? How can you laugh and charm everyone you meet and find the happiness I usually see in your eyes? How do you do it, Flaming Arrow?

“What do you think the Lord Emperor will have you do?” Rolling Bear asked. “Some fathers delight in finding difficult goals for their boys.”

“Something appropriate to my station, I hope.” Flaming Arrow smiled, knowing what he wanted to do. Although the ritual prohibited a boy from suggesting requirements, the Heir intended to do exactly that. The current military situation disgusted him. In the Windy Mountains, military attrition ran at nearly thirty percent per year; at Burrow, it was fifty. The pool of available warriors had almost doubled when female conscription began ten years before, but so had the number of bandits. I know I can decimate the bandits! Flaming Arrow thought, hoping the ritual requirements fitted into his plan.

“Do you have an assistant in mind, Lord?” the Prefect asked. Most boys chose someone to help them. For instance, if a boy had to climb a mountain, his assistant followed at a respectful distance and intervened only if the boy injured himself.

“Know anything about bandits, Lord Bear?” Flaming Arrow asked back.

“No, Lord Heir. Why?” Rolling Bear frowned at him.

“No reason. Know anyone who does?”

A black, bushy eyebrow climbed his forehead. “The Sectathon Colonel Probing Gaze spied on them for five years, Lord. Lives here in Emparia City. Why do you ask?”

Flaming Arrow shrugged, not looking at him. “Just curious. What the bandits are doing is intolerable. I'll have to resolve the situation.” He smiled. “Someday.”

Again, Rolling Bear frowned. “What are you up to, whelp?”

Flaming Arrow chuckled. “You sound like your father, Lord Bear.” My assistant will have to be an expert on bandits, he thought. I can't ask too many people before Father sets my requirements. If the Emperor learns my intention, he'll forbid it outright.

“Well, I do like a man who keeps his own counsel, but—”

“You'd still like to know,” Flaming Arrow finished for him, grinning.

“That I would, Lord, that I would.” The Prefect Bear chuckled mightily.

“Blast, where is she?”

“Wherever she is, I imagine.”

“I could garrote you, you know.” Flaming Arrow shook his head. “How do you handle it so well?”

Sighing, Rolling Bear put his heart on his face. “I don't, not really.”

Taking a deep breath, Flaming Arrow looked at the ground. The Bear Family tragedy was his tragedy, and their grief, his.

“When are you going to mate my little sister?”

Smiling, he looked at Rolling Bear. “You wouldn't think to ask if I'll mate her, eh? No one ever does. It's always when.”

“Of course.” Chuckling, the Prefect gestured over his shoulder, toward the bier. “You two almost grew up together, eh? Mother always winked and said, 'Two children together are less prone to mischief than both alone.' ”

Flaming Arrow laughed, shaking his head.

Bubbling Water had become the most influential woman in all the years of Arrow Sovereignty, bartering hers and her daughters' pleasures so avidly that her enemies called her “the Imperial Whore.” She withheld those pleasures for equal gain. The Water Matriarchy now included almost half of all Eastern women and reached throughout the four Empires. As Bubbling Water's only daughter, Rippling Water stood to inherit the Matriarchy.

If she doesn't show at her own mother's pyre, Flaming Arrow thought, she won't inherit a pox-diseased courtesan. “No one could hold a candle to Grandmother.”

“No, Lord Heir,” Rolling Bear said, looking toward his mother's still form on the bier. “No one could.”

“I'm sorry your mother's dead, Uncle.” Flaming Arrow put his hand on Rolling Bear's shoulder.

Nodding, he frowned and closed his eyes. Rolling Bear's aunt, the Matriarch Steaming Water, was Flaming Arrow's actual grandmother. She had died giving birth to the future Emperor Flying Arrow. Her youngest sister, Bubbling Water, had then reared the motherless infant. Thus, Flaming Arrow called Bubbling Water his grandmother, and felt similarly close to all the members of the Bear family.

All except Running Bear, the prodigal son who had murdered his own mother.

On the practice floor four days ago, he and Guarding Bear had been dueling just before dawn.

“Why did you disown Running Bear?” Flaming Arrow asked, locking hilts with the General. He wondered how Running Bear had felt when his father had cast him out of the largest, most influential Patriarchy in the Eastern Empire.

“Years ago, Bubbling Water and I asked Running Bear to sell his brothels. Instead, he transferred their ownership to a friend,” Guarding Bear replied, pushing the Heir away and slashing viciously. “For fifteen years we've tried to reform his behavior. Nothing seems to work. Then, yesterday, he slaughtered all the courtesans at one of them.”

Flaming Arrow fought off the General's attack. “Why?”

“Infinite knows, Lord Heir, Infinite knows.” Guarding Bear parried deftly, spun, and slashed at his legs. “That was the straw that broke the peasant's back. We couldn't condone such behavior, even implicitly.”

“So you disowned him, eh?” Flaming Arrow blocked a slash and was about to press an attack when the General collapsed, his legs giving out.

Flaming Arrow, his heart falling to his feet, tried to rouse the old man.

His face pale and body slack, Guarding Bear mumbled, “She's dead.”

At the castle infirmary an hour later, they heard the news. The manner of her death was beyond belief. Her own profligate and disavowed son, Running Bear, had killed her.

“It's time!” said the Matriarch Shading Oak, bringing the Heir back to the present.

The women arranged themselves at the rungs of the bier. One forward rung was empty—Rippling Water's place.

Shading Oak stepped toward the two men. “Infinite be with you, Lord Prefect Bear, Lord Heir,” she said, bowing. Aged Oak's mate was less than five feet tall; unlike her mate, she didn't have a wrinkle, despite her sixty years. “We seem to have an empty rung, Lords. With your permission, Lord Bear, I would ask the Lord Heir Flaming Arrow for his help.”

“By all means, Lady Oak,” Rolling Bear answered. “The Lady Matriarch Water, Infinite keep her soul, would be proud to have the Lord Heir Flaming Arrow escort her.”

“Thank you, Lord Prefect Bear.” Shading Oak turned. “Lord Heir, I humbly ask you to help us bear the Lady Matriarch Water on her final journey.”

Flaming Arrow returned her bow. “I would consider it an honor beyond my humble station, Lady Matriarch Oak—and certainly beyond my humble gender.”

She smiled, reaching for his hand. “Please, Lord Arrow, do us the honor anyway,” she said gently, tugging him toward the bier.

“Of course, Lady Oak.” Flaming Arrow followed her.

Taking up the left forward rung, Shading Oak shouted, “Ho!” The bier rose off the pilings. By ancient tradition, they used the strength of their bodies, not the talents of their minds, to carry the dead to the funeral pyre.

Rolling Bear stepped to his father's side and pushed open the castle gate. Guiding the dazed General through it, Rolling Bear led the funeral cortege onto the Emparia City-Cove road. A group of black-clad priests formed a line on either side of the bier, chanting a dirge.

The gathered throng greeted their appearance with a hush. Murmuring spread at the sight of Flaming Arrow's bearing a rung. Let them talk, he thought, wishing Rippling Water had shown.

Ten miles away was the pyre grounds. To accommodate the expected crowds, the Emperor had ordered extra tiers added to the coliseum. At noon, a courier had reported that the coliseum was already full.

How many people watched my brother's bier make this same journey fifteen years ago? Flaming Arrow wondered. His twin brother's death at three days old had shocked the Empire, profoundly affecting the way the citizens treated him. In their catharsis for the dead twin, they had made a cathexis of the living. Welcome at every hearth, Flaming Arrow had never lacked friends. Adulation and admiration had been his for the asking. They thought him a god.

Flaming Arrow blinked back tears, feeling terribly, impotently human.

Even he couldn't bring Bubbling Water back to life.

The Matriarch's history long and glorious, Flaming Arrow preferred to remember the Bubbling Water he had known personally. His grandmother had always been kind and loving, stern when he got mischievous, instructive without lecturing, quick to anger and quick to forgive. While the Heir had learned government and related disciplines from others, Bubbling Water had taught him about people and nature, art and creation, spirituality and the Infinite.

Flaming Arrow missed her. Deep within, he wished he were escorting his own mother to the pyre grounds instead. Infinite forgive me my terrible thoughts.

Aloof and reclusive, Flowering Pine had shunned him during infancy. His care-givers had been mostly servants. After he had started school, the Imperial Consort had him presented once a week at the door of her suite, as if he were an actor giving a weekly performance. Eventually, he had resigned himself to the charade, wanting more than that. The Consort seemed like a statue carved from ice. Flowering Pine's unstoppable mouth had always annoyed Flaming Arrow. He knew it her way of keeping others at a distance. Glancing back toward the castle spire, he wondered if she felt safe in her marble tower. If I'd been born in a hovel in the empty northern lands, she'd have treated me no differently, Flaming Arrow thought, sighing. I can't make my mother give me something she doesn't have. Perhaps she never recovered from my unnamed brother's death.

With Bubbling Water always near, Flaming Arrow had needed the Imperial Consort little. Never had he lacked for a warm breast when he was young. Half the Empire would have given him succor. At no time in his youth was he without a loving, gentle caress or a protective, comforting embrace. To have these attentions from his mother, though, Flaming Arrow would have given away the Heir Sword.

Bringing his attention back to the road, he frowned. A few steps ahead was Guarding Bear, his son leading him. He's a shadow of the man I knew four days ago, Flaming Arrow thought, aching inside.

Bubbling Water's death had taken the life out of Guarding Bear. His appearance now betrayed his age. In a few hours, his hair had turned completely gray. In four days, his wrinkles had become prominent. His sightless eyes now wandered aimlessly, as with dementia.

Flaming Arrow wondered what kept the General alive, mates of many years tending to die within hours of each other. The greatest general in all seven reigns of the Emperors Arrow is now an empty husk. Oh, dear Lord Infinite, bring Guarding Bear back to us or take him beyond, Flaming Arrow prayed. Please don't leave him like this!

Holding up the rung with one hand, he wiped his face with the other.

When the Heir was five years old, Guarding Bear had asked the Emperor Flying Arrow to let him teach the boy. Initially, the Emperor had refused, reluctant to trust the undefeated General.

Flaming Arrow, however, had known what he wanted, even at five years old. So often had the Heir insisted that Flying Arrow had acquiesced, despite mistrusting the retired general.

Flaming Arrow got more than he asked for. Guarding Bear had been a rigorous and unforgiving taskmaster. Idolizing the old General, Flaming Arrow had been willing to do almost anything to please him. After ten years of daily instruction, he still was.

Bringing Bubbling Water back to life was beyond him, however.

Though the worst affected by the Matriarch's death, Guarding Bear wasn't the only Bear Family member who concerned Flaming Arrow.

Rippling Water had disappeared shortly after her mother's death. When Flaming Arrow had tried to visit each day, the servants had politely refused to admit him. Respecting their grief, Flaming Arrow had left each time without seeing a single member of the Bear Family, a family he considered his own. I can't remember the last time I didn't see Rippling Water for four days, he thought.

Flaming Arrow had no siblings. His father was often busy with Imperial matters. His mother rarely emerged from her private suite in Emparia Castle. Daily lessons with Guarding Bear brought Flaming Arrow into constant contact with Rolling Bear, Bubbling Water, and Rippling Water.

From early childhood, Flaming Arrow and Rippling Water had played with the same toys in the same sandboxes, had bathed with each other, had napped with each other. To the young boy, always having her around seemed natural, inevitable, expected. She eased his loneliness. The Emperor Flying Arrow permitted the Heir few friends, of course, and fewer social contacts.

As adolescence approached, sexuality inevitably brought Flaming Arrow and Rippling Water together in different ways, and separated them in others. Before puberty, they had regarded each other's nudity as all children would. Their curiosity satisfied, they were curious no longer. At twelve, Rippling Water's body began to change. She became more reticent. Once, she showed him the darker hair at pubis and armpit, and once, let him touch the growing breasts. Once was enough, and she told him she valued her body and privacy. When he began to mature two years later, he showed her the physical changes to his body. Their curiosity satisfied, they were curious then only about coitus itself.

They remained close during these years, but without the physical intimacy that had formerly characterized their friendship. Although their elders had as much as told them to couple, they had agreed to wait. Lack of desire wasn't the problem. They each desired the other and no one else. Other potential mates wasn't the problem. Neither of them had ever questioned the assumption that eventually they would mate. Love wasn't the problem. Their love for each other was as certain as the rising of the sun.

Emotional maturity was the problem. Neither was stable emotionally. Both had just emerged from puberty and both wanted the stability of completed educations and budding careers. They had agreed that each year they would pull the problem from its compartment, reexamine all the variables, and decide.

Sighing, Flaming Arrow trudged along the east road toward the coliseum. His mother locked away in her marble tower, his father always busy oiling the machinery of government, his grandmother dead, his grandfather and mentor nearly catatonic with grief, his betrothed only the Infinite knew where, he felt a loneliness more bitter than limes.

Flaming Arrow began to weep, wanting to turn back time.

2

Abject poverty, misery, and squalor. We know little more about Seeking Sword's childhood than that. So little do we know that we could almost say his life began at fifteen. Perhaps it did, in a figurative way. The person he became bears little resemblance to the depravity of his origins. We have no way to account for the compassion, strength and benevolence that so characterized his rule.—The Gathering of Power, by the Wizard Spying Eagle.

Seeking Sword found himself a place to sit on the shiny log, exhausted. His eyes were the gray-blue of hazy skies, his hair the bronze of cooling embers, and his skin the brown of tanned leather. Fifteen years old and six feet tall, he weighed one hundred seventy-five pounds. He still had the narrow shoulders and hips of adolescence, which many mistook for clumsiness. Left-handed and able to fight equally well with either hand, he was anything but clumsy.

Slithering Snake retrieved his sword from the bushes where the boy had flung it with his own. His body so lacked oxygen that his peripheral vision clouded with sparkle.

Their practice clearing was a circle of smooth, packed dirt, which they leveled every year after the winter rains. For ten years the two of them had practiced in this clearing, ever since the boy had shown up one day at the Elk Raider caves and asked Slithering Snake to teach him. The child holding a sword as big as he was had touched the sectathon.

Seeking Sword had turned out to be an apt pupil. Now the boy was so skilled that he disarmed his every contestant. At every other form of hand-to-hand combat, he was indomitable as well, and showed incredible promise, despite his maleficent parentage and the squalor in which he lived.

“You're getting better,” Slithering Snake said. “I like the weight shift you put into that last parry—surprised me. You'll have to refine it, though.”

Seeking Sword smiled, nodding. “It won't work as well on a smaller man. With your bulk, Lord Snake, it worked perfectly.”

The large man grinned.

“Listen, my friend, I need to decide something.”

The large man frowned.

Seeking Sword plunged his weapon into the ground between his feet. The ruby set in the pommel sparkled. “It's my father, Lord Snake.”

How could a woman, any woman, deign to let Icy Wind into her sacred cave? Slithering Snake wondered. The man stank like a skunk two weeks dead and had halitosis bad enough to frighten a bear. Uglier than excrement, Icy Wind was as abrasive as sand rubbed into wound, and looked as if any act of coitus would be his last. Only through the Infinite's direct intervention could Icy Wind have sired a child as handsome as Seeking Sword.

“What about him, Lord Sword?”

Seeking Sword sighed. “I hate him,” he said, as though describing the weather. “I love him, but I hate him.”

“He's … not a pleasant man.”

Nodding, Seeking Sword put his face in his hands. “Remember when Fawning Elk stopped him from beating me?”

Slithering Snake grunted. “Five, six years ago, wasn't it?”

On one of the few occasions Icy Wind had come to the Elk Raider cave, Seeking Sword had misbehaved in some way. Icy Wind began to beat him with his staff.

“What the Infinite are you doing?” Fawning Elk demanded, stepping between them.

“Get out of my way, wench!” Icy Wind said, swinging the staff at the boy again.

Somehow, Fawning Elk avoided the blow and slapped Icy Wind.

“Meddling harpy!” His face red, the old man swung at her. Lunging at his father, Seeking Sword tackled him at the waist, throwing them both off balance. In a tangle they fell to the cavern floor.

Fawning Elk put her knife to Icy Wind's neck. “If you harm the boy again, I'll peel your skin off in strips and feed them to you!”

Leaping into the fray, Leaping Elk and Slithering Snake pulled her off Icy Wind and dragged her away.

Sullenly, pulling the boy behind him, Icy Wind had left the Elk Raider cave and had never returned.

“I remember, Lord Sword,” Slithering Snake said. “She would have killed him if the Lord Elk and I hadn't stopped her from going after you.”

“Infinite bless her for caring,” Seeking Sword said. “It didn't stop him, though. That was the first time I realized something wasn't right about the way he treats me.” The boy sighed, biting his lip. His left hand picked absently at scabs of bark still clinging to the log. “How old was I? Six, seven? I don't remember. He dragged me back to our cave and beat me worse than ever before.”

Slithering Snake winced, nodding. Once, he had visited Seeking Sword at home. Seeking Sword and his father Icy Wind lived under an overhang on the opposite slope of the mountain in which the Elk Raiders made their home. The cave stank of unwashed body. The ceiling and walls were rancid with the smoke of a thousand cooking fires. Discarded bone and other detritus choked the floor. Seeking Sword had tried to clean their cave for Slithering Snake's visit. Icy Wind had beaten him nearly senseless, and Slithering Snake hadn't visited again.

“Anyway, it's time for me to leave,” Seeking Sword said, weeping softly and closing his eyes.

Slithering Snake put his hand on the boy's shoulder, not knowing what else to do. He doubted that Icy Wind had fathered Seeking Sword, but had no proof. Icy Wind had appeared with the infant one day at the Elk Raider caves, claiming the boy was his own. The mother had died shortly after giving birth, Icy Wind claimed, in the earthquake that had destroyed Burrow Garrison and stopped the Imperial siege of the Tiger Fortress. The old man also claimed she died before bestowing half her psychic reserve on Seeking Sword, hence his lack of talent.

His lack notwithstanding, the Infinite had blessed Seeking Sword with incredible luck. In ten years of weapons practice, he had received only one injury. Slithering Snake couldn't count the number of cuts and scratches he'd gotten while teaching the boy.

Furthermore, where the destitute, half-crazy, obnoxious old man had obtained the boy's sword was a mystery. The blade looked like tarnished brass. The haft was plain, contoured for the hand, and unremarkable except for the single ruby set in the pommel. Slithering Snake had seen many swords more elaborately decorated, but none that color of metal. Modest in appearance, the sword was valuable, its craftsmanship superior.

The mystery of Seeking Sword and Icy Wind had attracted the attention of Scowling Tiger, the most powerful bandit in the Windy Mountains. Months ago, the bandit general had questioned the sectathon at length, then the two Wizards Melding Mind and Easing Comfort had plied him with further questions. The three men had then interviewed Leaping Elk. Initially, Slithering Snake had thought that the questioning was the bandit general's first move toward inducting Seeking Sword into the Tiger Raiders. Months had passed since then, and Scowling Tiger hadn't offered the boy a position. Why was Scowling Tiger so interested in Seeking Sword? Slithering Snake wondered.

Sighing, the sectathon scanned the area for human presence, his talent enabling him to detect others from as far as twenty miles away.

The eye-sore of Icy Wind's psychic signature was the only one within two miles. In all his forty-three years, Slithering Snake had seen few signatures as ugly. The figure tottered toward them, leaning heavily on a staff. Why does Icy Wind need the staff when a medacor can easily correct any infirmity? Slithering Snake wondered. Is it a talisman, as Leaping Elk suspects?

“Here comes your father,” he said.

A look of resigned disgust passed across Seeking Sword's face. “Just in time,” the boy said, wiping the tears off his cheeks. Sighing, he stood and stepped to his discarded weapons. Quiver, weapons belt, a knife for each moccasin, pack and bow. He slid the sword into a sheath that disparaged the blade it housed. None of Seeking Sword's clothing was of quality workmanship, the boy having made it himself. All of it was better than Icy Wind's rags.

“The Lord Elk's offer of better clothing still stands, my friend.”

“As does my refusal, Lord Snake.” Seeking Sword already owed Leaping Elk more than he could repay. For years, Leaping Elk and other members of the Elk Raiders had taught Seeking Sword various disciplines. The boy had often wondered how to repay that debt. I wish Father didn't hate them so much, Seeking Sword thought. If he didn't, I'd join them tomorrow.

The old man limped into the clearing. Clutching a polished staff were trembling, gnarled hands of shriveled skin, prominent vein, knobby knuckle.

“Father, you didn't need to come all this way,” Seeking Sword said as usual, the clearing several miles north of their cave.

“Oh, I know, my son, my only son, but I wanted to see you disarm this bandit. Yes, I did,” Icy Wind said, directing a contemptuous look toward Slithering Snake. Glistening, bloodshot, jaundiced eyes dregged sunken sockets and peered from beneath a precipitous, lupine brow.

“It's becoming easier, Father,” Seeking Sword said. “I'm getting very good with a sword, good enough I think to join the Elk Raiders.”

“No! A thousand times, no! How many times do I have to tell you?!” Spittle slathered a prognathous jaw, the mouth nearly toothless, two rotted stubs remaining.

Looking toward Slithering Snake, Seeking Sword motioned with his head.

The sectathon gathered his accoutrements and left without a word.

Sometimes Seeking Sword argued with his father, sometimes not. Always his responses were mild. The boy smiled apprehensively. “If you won't allow me to discharge my debt to them, then you had better do so yourself, Father.” He had tried many tactics, but never this one.

Flush crept up the neck, a corded, wrinkled pillar buttressing sagging jowls that hung in scaly folds below cheekbones collapsed into the face. “You impudent little runt, I ought to beat you black and blue for that!” Narrow nostril dripped nasal mucus, sleeved on crusted cloth.

“You ought to be grateful they taught me how to survive as a bandit!” Seeking Sword replied. “The time has come for me to decide for myself what to do, Father,” he said sadly, sighing. “I'll come visit you when I've found another place to live.”

“What!” Icy Wind screamed, his voice acid to eardrums. “You'll listen to me, oh yes, by the Infinite, or I'll thrash you so soundly you won't walk for a week…”

Seeking Sword turned to go. His senses tuned, he spun at the whistle of staff, blocking it with the edge of his blade.

The explosion blew him backward, stunning him.

Blinking the flash from his eyes, his ears ringing, Seeking Sword extricated himself from bushes, wiped the blacking and singed hair off his arm, and looked toward his father.

Laying at the opposite edge of the clearing, Icy Wind rolled his head from side to side with a groan, a hand tenaciously clinging to staff.

Good, he doesn't look harmed, Seeking Sword thought. Caring only to get away from his father, he sheathed the weapon and started north. Jogging slowly at first, he soon settled into a distance-eating pace.

Three or four times, Seeking Sword slowed to a walk because he couldn't see the path very clearly. His grief filled his eyes and spilled down his face. When his eyes burned so badly he had to close them, he doggedly put one foot in front of the other. More than once he fell. Every time he got back up and continued northward.

While his relationship with his father had never been ideal, he did love him and was full of sorrow that he needed to leave. I've lost more than my father, he thought. I've lost my youth; I'm not a boy anymore. He knew that to shed his youth he needed to shed his tears. Even then, the past remained, and the tears only mitigated its effects on his present.

Dark fell. Still he continued, feeling that he neared a destination. In his distress, he recognized nothing familiar. As the moon cleared the trees, he stopped. Shedding his weapons, he sat at the base of a huge oak tree, where dense wood encroached upon meadow.

The quiet was eerie. No bird sang, no wind blew, no cricket chirped. The feeling of the place was annihilation. That was how Seeking Sword recognized it. Hundreds of acres of broken granite boulder marked the plain where the castle of the Emperor Lofty Lion had once stood. Once, ten years before, Seeking Sword had come here.

The memory was vivid. At the time, he thought that his father had lost the little sanity left to him. Icy Wind awoke one morning. Without the help of staff, he started northward, ordering the five-year old to accompany him. After two days of hard traveling they had reached this place of death.

Approaching this oak, Icy Wind smote it with the staff between its two largest branches, splitting the massive trunk. Out of the tree had fallen a sword. The trunk had then closed without a wound. As the boy took the sword from him, Icy Wind collapsed and slept for a full day.

Waking, Icy Wind asked the boy what happened, as if he hadn't been there. Explaining as well as any five-year old could, Seeking Sword felt he had been a character in one of the stories told late at night around the fire. His father didn't want to believe him but had to.

The sword.

Icy Wind's eyes lit up like lamps when he saw the weapon. Seeking Sword didn't remember his father's exact words, merely that Icy Wind was ecstatic, as if they had found something very valuable.

To this day, Seeking Sword wondered why the sword was valuable, and also wondered, if it were so valuable, why Icy Wind had left it in a five-year old's possession.

Sighing, Seeking Sword stood to examine the place where the trunk had split ten years ago. He found no seam, no scar, nothing to show where the tree had opened.

His stomach growled, and he shook his head. I need to eat, he thought, not feeling hungry. Shouldering his bow and quiver, he stepped toward denser forest, leaving his other accoutrements behind.

Sliding along a clearing edge, Seeking Sword saw motion among the opposite trees. Dropping to a crouch, his back hunched, an arrow in his bow, he crept through the grass. Slowly, he approached, tracking the animal more by sound than sight, the wind favoring him. At fifteen paces from his prey, he rose, found a bead and loosed the arrow.

“You vomitus of a cancerous hyena, what do you think you're doing?!”

Laughing, Seeking Sword rose to his full height. “How are you, Thinking Quick?” he asked, unable to see the girl to whom the voice belonged.

She appeared in the moon-dapple, his arrow in her fist. “Alive, thank the Infinite. You almost put that arrow in my heart, Seeking Sword. Have you begun hunting humans?” she asked affably, stepping into his arms.

“I love you and would never harm you, child,” he replied, embracing her. “I may go hungry if I don't kill something.”

“I'll be back.” She disappeared without sight or sound, teleporting herself away, her usual method of coming and going.

He smiled, grateful she was here. Eight years old, Thinking Quick was the daughter of Melding Mind, the bandit Wizard. Independent, mischievous and talented, she was a full-fledged Wizard of many psychic disciplines, and of all three time sights—temporal, extant, and prescient. She often complained that her prescience was more a curse than a blessing.

Waiting in the clearing, Seeking Sword wondered what it was like to know the entire past and all possible futures. She claimed it was torture. He sympathized, knowing he was incapable of truly understanding. At one time she had told Seeking Sword he was invisible to all three time sights. “I can never see where you've been, where you are, or where you'll be. Sometimes I can see the effects of your presence on others.” Despite her multiple talents, Thinking Quick couldn't determine why he was without one. “Only the Infinite knows,” she had said.

She appeared before him, carrying a large hare by the ears. Taking it from her, he gestured toward the oak where he had left his other weapons.

“I saw the burst of energy earlier,” she said. “What did he do, try to hit you with his staff?”

He nodded, stepping through moon-dapple.

“It's not easy to leave one's father,” Thinking Quick said, “or lose a son.”

Seeking Sword was in tears again, feeling his grief anew. She always knew what to say to bring his pain pouring from him, always knew when he needed her. The girl calmly took his hand and led him while he was blind.

Her practice seemed to be to help him through his rough times. A psychological Wizard, she was expert at treating emotional imbalances. With him, of course, she used words instead of psychic adjustments.

“Icy Wind has his own terrible purpose—as you do,” she said, guiding him across a dry stream-bed. “Your time had come to take a different path. Remember, my friend, he's a very sick man. The staff compounds the problem. I think he'd die without it.”

“It's just a staff.”

“It's a talisman,” she replied.

“Oh?” Seeking Sword wiped his face, puzzled. “Why's he so angry?”

“The staff makes his every adjustment useless.” She turned to look at him. “Do you know he's not angry with you?”

The pain came up again, blinding him. “Then why does he take it out on me?”

“He's sick, as you'll be sick if you don't express all that anger inside you.” She poked a finger at him and led him around the base of the oak.

Sitting, he gave the hare to her, knowing she would have it prepared far more quickly. How can I express my anger without alienating those around me? Seeking Sword wondered.

“Your life will soon change, my friend,” she said, preparing the hare.

Seeking Sword preferred not to watch, his own methods clumsy. I wish I had a talent, he thought. The thought had gone through his head so many times that it registered as nothing more than small sigh, a small frown.

“A storm of change is coming toward the bandits,” Thinking Quick said. “I can't join you in the new life you'll lead.”

“Why not?” he asked, suffering another jolt.

“Some things I can't say,” she replied, not pausing in preparing the carcass. “I can tell you how encompassing the changes will be. They'll affect all bandits in some way. Everyone in the three Empires will know of them. Promise me, Seeking Sword, that you'll tell no one what I'm about to say.” She floated hot, sweet rabbit meat in front of him.

He drew a knife and stabbed it, self-pity spilling from the holes in his soul. “I promise.”

“More than one quarter of all bandits in the northern lands will die.”

Suddenly, Seeking Sword felt more sick than hungry. She's telling me I'll live through it, he thought. Perhaps I should be grateful.

3

Some historians say that the na-Emperor Flaming Arrow's campaign against the bandits in 9318 was revenge for the murder of the Matriarch Bubbling Water. Other historians refute this point. In their view, no one knew her real murderer until five years after the act. Flaming Arrow, they conclude, would have warred on the bandits regardless of her death. All we really know is that shortly after Bubbling Water's murder, Flaming Arrow descended upon the Windy Mountains like a plague.—The Fall of the Swords, by Keeping Track.

The Colonel Sectathon Probing Gaze watched the ceremony begin from the upper tiers of the coliseum. During the confusion of last-minute preparations, he took a moment to look around. Women outnumbered men nearly two to one. Beneath the obvious grief on the psychic flow was anger at the manner of the Matriarch's death. Her profligate son Running Bear had killed her in her sleep.

Entering through the archway, the pallbearers set the bier atop the wood-filled pit in the coliseum floor. Priests of the Infinite spread in a circle around it. The pallbearers stepped back, forming a larger ring. Opposite the archway was a platform decorated with bunting and a single banner of the Water Matriarchy.

Disinclined to believe the other information on the flow, familiar with the way people distorted rumor, Probing Gaze didn't really care how it had happened. He hadn't come to mourn the Matriarch, having never met her. He had come to watch the Heir, to take his measure.

Just after the Twins' birth, Probing Gaze had joined a band of outlaws in the Windy Mountains, one of nearly a hundred Imperial Warriors to become a spy. Of them only he had survived. For five years he had lived among bandits, gathering information. At the end of his tour, he had returned to the Eastern Empire a full Major, comfortably wealthy with five years accrued pay.

Even before becoming a spy, the Captain Probing Gaze had grown disgruntled with the way the military handled the bandits. It had been a war of attrition. Returning five years later, he had pioneered a system of guerilla warfare. The military had adopted the system and still used it along the length of the Windy Mountains. As applied by the more conventional generals, however, the war of attrition still raged. I know an approach that will restore the Eastern Empire's dominion over its own border, he thought. They're just bandits, for Infinite's sake. Without a few leaders to share my vision, my plan won't do anyone a turd bucket's worth of good.

Through the archway came the Emperor. Silence settled over the crowd. Around the bier strode Flying Arrow, resplendent in his robes of state. He stopped to speak with Guarding Bear, whose now-bleached hair stood out beside the scintillating bronze of the Heir's. Continuing around to the platform, Flying Arrow mounted the steps.

Two men followed the Emperor, one of ebony skin and one of straight, blue-black hair. Probing Gaze guessed they were ambassadors from the Southern and Western Empires, respectively. The sectathon wondered why no member of the Water Matriarchy had come to honor the Matriarch. It seemed an injustice.

Just then Rippling Water strode through the archway, wearing only halter, loincloth, sword, and a bag tied at her waist. Decorum requiring as formal dress as possible, her clothing was inappropriate for the occasion. Murmurs rippled through the crowd. No one had seen her since her mother's death. She looked as though she had just returned from wherever she had gone—her hair tousled, and her body dirty and sweaty.

Striding angrily around the bier and ignoring both her father and her betrothed, she mounted the steps and said something that caused all three men there to step backward. Flying Arrow looked around, anger on his face. The two ambassadors exchanged a glance.

Pulling the sheathed Imperial Sword from his sash, the Emperor raised it above his head. Silence settled upon the coliseum. He spoke in a voice that carried to the uppermost tiers. “Infinite be with you, Lords and Ladies. We have come to honor a woman renown for her compassion, to help her on her final journey to the realm of the Infinite. She leaves behind her memories, and the knowledge that her legacy will always be with us. I, Flying Arrow, her son in substance if not name, would ask all to pray with me. Not for her soul which is safe with the Infinite, but for her memory to live on in the minds and hearts of all who felt the touch of the Lady Matriarch Bubbling Water.”

Flying Arrow lowered the Imperial Sword, bowing his head in prayer. Ten thousand spectators joined him.

Probing Gaze noted that Rippling Water didn't.

Having worked with Spying Eagle and Healing Hand just before the twins' birth, Probing Gaze had maintained contact with the two men over the years. Through them, he had come to know something of the Heir. What he heard he liked. The stories the two apprentices told revealed a boy who knew what he wanted and who was willing to take the hard road to get it. Through the two Wizards, Probing Gaze hoped to gain audience with the Heir.

Flying Arrow finished his prayer. The Ambassador Plunging Peregrine stepped forward to speak. Listening for a moment, Probing Gaze heard only platitudes and shut his ears to the noise.