“Oh, tosh,” responded his mother. “If the speaker wants the best healer, he can order her release.” Neither father nor son spoke or showed any sign of heeding Nirakina’s counsel. “Miritelisina is high priestess of Quenesti Pah. No one else in Silvanost can come near her expertise in the healing art.” She appealed to Sithas. “She’s been in prison more than six months. Surely that’s punishment enough for a moment’s indiscretion?”
Sithel coughed, a loud, racking paroxysm that nearly doubled him over in bed. “It’s the old delta fever,” he gasped. “It’s known to recur.”
“Delta fever?” asked Sithas.
“A legacy of misspent youth,” the speaker said weakly. When he sat up in bed, Nirakina gave him a cup of cool water to sip. “I used to hunt in the marshes at the mouth of the Thon-Thalas when I was young. I caught delta fever then.”
Nirakina looked up at Sithas. “That was more than two hundred years before you were born,” she said reassuringly. “He’s had other, milder attacks.”
“Father, send for the priestess,” Sithas decided gravely. The speaker raised his brows questioningly. “The negotiations with the dwarves and humans must go ahead, and only a strong, healthy speaker can see that justice is done.”
“Sithas is right,” Nirakina agreed. She pressed her small hand to Sithel’s burning cheek. “Send for Miritelisina.” The speaker sighed, the dry, rattling sound rising from his fevered throat. “Very well,” he said softly. “Let it be done.”
Later that morning came a knock at the door. Nirakina called for the person to enter. Tamanier came in, looking downcast.
“Great speaker, I spoke with Miritelisina,” he said abjectly.
“Where is she?” asked Sithas sharply.
“She—she refuses to come, my prince.”
“What?” said Sithas.
“What?” echoed Nirakina.
“She will not come to Your Highness, nor will she accept pardon from prison,” Tamanier announced, shaking his head.
“Has she gone mad?” demanded Sithas.
“No, sire. Miritelisina believes her suffering in prison will bring the plight of the homeless ones to the attention of all.”
In spite of his weakness, the speaker began to laugh softly. “What a character!” he said. The laughter threatened to turn into coughing, so he checked himself.
“It’s extortion,” Sithas said angrily. “She means to dictate her own terms!”
“Never mind, son. Tamanier, have the door of Miritelisina’s cell left open. Tell the warders to bring her neither food nor water. When she gets hungry enough, she’ll leave.”
“What will you do if she doesn’t come?” Nirakina asked, bewildered.
“I shall survive,” he replied. “Now, all of you go. I wish to rest.”
Tamanier went on his errand. Sithas and Nirakina drifted out, looking back frequently at the speaker. Sithas marveled at how small and weak his father looked in the great bed.
Alone, Sithel sat up slowly. His head pounded, but after a moment it cleared. He put his feet on the floor, and the cool marble soothed him. He stood and moved carefully to a window. The whole of Silvanost spread out below him. How he loved it! Not the city, which was just a collection of buildings, but the people, the daily rhythm of life that made Silvanost a living place.
A rainstorm had ended the day before, leaving the air crystal clean with a bite of cold. High, lacy clouds stretched from the horizon to mid-sky, like delicate fingers reaching up to the abode of the gods.
All of a sudden Sithel gave a shudder. The white clouds and shining towers reeled before him. He clutched the curtains for support, but strength faded from his hands and he lost his grip. Knees buckling, he slid to the floor. No one was around to see him fall. Sithel lay still on the marble floor, warmed by a patch of sunshine.
Sithas walked the palace halls, looking for Hermathya. He saw that she had not stayed with the speaker, so fearful was she of catching his illness. Some sort of intuition drew him up the tower stairs to the floor where his old bachelor room was. To his surprise, the prince found his devotional candle lit and a fresh red rose, sacred to Matheri, lying on the table by his bachelor bed. He had no idea who had left it. Hermathya had no reason to come here.
The sight of the rose and candle soothed his worried mind somewhat. He knelt by the table and began to meditate. At last he prayed to Matheri for his father’s recovery and for more understanding in dealing with Hermathya.
Time passed. How much, he didn’t know. A tapping sound filled the small chamber. Sithas ignored it. It grew louder. He raised his head and looked around for the source of the intrusive noise. He saw his seldom-worn sword, the twin of Kith-Kanan’s weapon, hanging in its scabbard from a peg on the wall. The sword was vibrating inside its brass-bound sheath, causing the tapping noise.
Sithas rose and went to the weapon. He looked on in amazement as the length of iron shook itself like a trembling dog. He put out his hand, grasping the sword’s hilt to try and still the vibrations. The shivering climbed Sithas’s arm, penetrating his body and sending tingles up his arm. He took the sword hilt in both hands—
In a flash the speaker’s heir had a sudden, clear impression of his twin brother. Great rage, great anguish, heartache, a mortal blow—
A loud crack smote his ears, and the sword ceased vibrating. Slightly dazed, Sithas, drew the blade out. It was broken cleanly, about five inches above the hilt.
Fear seized him. Fear for Kith-Kanan. He had no idea how he knew, but as he held the stump of the sword, Sithas knew without a doubt that Kith was in grave danger, perhaps even near death. He had to tell someone—his father, his mother. Sithas rushed to the dark oaken door of his old room and flung it open. He was startled to find someone standing just outside, shadowed by the massive overhang of the stone arch over the door.
“Who are you?” Sithas demanded, presenting the foreshortened sword. The figure seemed ominous somehow.
“Your sword is broken,” said the stranger soothingly. “Be at peace, noble prince. I mean you no harm.”
The stranger stepped forward into the pale light emanating from Sithas’s candle, still burning on the table. He wore a nondescript gray robe. A hood covered his head. The air around him throbbed with an aura of power. Sithas felt it, like heat on his face from a nearby fire.
“Who are you?” the prince repeated with great deliberation. The oddly menacing figure reached up with slim pink fingers to throw back the hood. Beneath the soft gray material, his face was round and good-natured. He was nearly bald; only a fringe of mouse-brown hair covered the sides of his head. His ears were small and tapered.
“Do I know you?” Sithas asked. He relaxed a bit, for the stranger looked like nothing more than a beggarly cleric.
“At a royal dinner some time ago, you met an elf with long blond hair who introduced himself as Kamin Oluvai, second priest of the Blue Phoenix. That was me.” The strange elf seemed pleased with Sithas’s evident surprise.
“You’re Kamin Oluvai? You look nothing like him,” said the puzzled prince.
“A simple disguise.” He shrugged. “But in truth, Kamin Oluvai is another of my masks. My real name is Vedvedsica, and I am at Your Highness’s service.” He bowed low.
It was a northern name, such as Silvanesti used in regions near Istar. Such elves were reputed to be deeply involved in sorcery. Sithas watched Kamin Oluvai—or was it Vedvedsica?—warily.
“I’m very busy,” the prince said abruptly. “What do you want?”
“I came in answer to a call, great prince. For some years I have been of use to your noble father, helping him in certain discreet matters. The speaker is ill, is he not?”
“A seasonal chill,” said Sithas stiffly. “Speak plainly and tell me what you want, or else get out of my way.”
“The speaker requires a healer to dispel his delta fever.” Sithas could not hide his surprise at the fact that Vedvedsica knew the nature of his father’s illness. “I have treated the speaker before, banishing the fever. I can do so again.”