Gar-don said, “I am your king. I am the son of the true king, who was the son of a king, and the king before that. Today the talisman failed Canrad and Tordo. The spirits within it do not wish their will to succeed. They do not wish their powers used for something so pointless as killing and destruction and war. It is peace they want. It is peace they have allowed. And I suggest we obey their will and continue on that path, lest they turn on us and destroy us all.”
Someone said, “Gar-don, our king.”
A moment later this was repeated, then someone else said the same, and voices rose up from the crowd and filled the room, and the voices came not from the mouths of the frightened but from the souls of true believers.
There were a few who for a moment seemed unwilling to make the change to Gar-don, but they were vastly outnumbered, and those who tried to defend Canrad were quickly dispatched in a wave of bloody anger. If there was a lesson to be learned from Gar-don’s remarks about the talisman, they hadn’t actually learned it, which meant the bird-people were as human as the wingless. They were not ready to accept that the talisman was nothing more than an ancient myth.
Gar-don took the talisman, held it up as Tordo had done. He was still weak and struggled to hold it aloft. But his spirit was strong. He spoke so loudly his words could be heard at the back of the room and up into the leafy canopy.
“The power of the talisman will remain unused. Half of it will go back with Princess Jerrel, back to her city and her king, where it will continue to remain powerless, and our peace will continue.”
“What of him,” said a bird-woman, stepping forward to point a long finger at Tordo.
Gar-don turned his head to Tordo, studied him. He was about to speak when Jerrel beat him to it. “Gar-don, King of the Varnin,” she said, “I ask you to sanction my right to combat with Tordo. He has stolen from my family. He has insulted my family. And I desire to insult him with the edge of my blade.”
“And if you lose?” said Gar-don.
“I won’t,” Jerrel said. “But if I do, let him go. Banish him.”
“Don’t do this,” I said. “Let me take your place.”
“I am as good a warrior as any other, my love.”
“Very well,” said Gar-don. “But before that …”
He turned to the former King Canrad.
“I banish you. As of now, you will rise and you will go away, and you will never come back.”
The old man rose, and in that moment, seeing how weak he was, I almost felt sorry for him. Then a blade came out from under his cloak and he stabbed at Gar-don. I caught Canrad’s arm just in time, twisted. It snapped easily. He screeched and dropped the dagger. I let him go.
Gar-don leaned forward and looked into Canrad’s eyes. “I see emptiness.”
Gar-don weakly picked up the dagger Canrad had dropped. He seemed strong all of a sudden. “It will not matter what I do, Canrad, you are dead already.” With that, he jammed the blade into the former king’s chest. The old man collapsed in a cloaked wad, and immediately a pool of blood flowed around him.
“Give Tordo a sword,” Gar-don said, turning back to the situation at hand. “Death is your loss, Tordo. Banishment is your victory.”
Jerrel dropped the pike and was given a sword.
Tordo was given a sword. All of the disappointment of the moment, every foul thing he was, bubbled up and spewed out of him. He attacked with a yell. He bounced forward on the balls of his feet, attempting to stick Jerrel. Jerrel glided back as if walking on air.
Everyone on the dais moved wide of their blades as they battled back and forth, the throne sometimes coming between them. Once Jerrel slipped in Canrad’s blood, and in spite of this being a private duel, I almost leaped to her aid, but Gar-don touched me on the arm.
“It is not done,” he said.
Tordo put one boot on Canrad’s lifeless neck and used it as a kind of support to lift him up and give him more of a downward thrust. But Jerrel slipped the lunge.
Tordo sprang off Canrad’s lifeless neck and made a beautiful thrust for her face. I let out a gasp of air. It was right on target.
At the last moment Jerrel dropped under his thrust, which lifted the hair on her head slightly, and drove her weapon up and into his belly. He held his position, as if waiting for his form to be admired, then made a noise like an old dog with a chicken bone in its throat and fell flat on his face. Blood poured out of him and flowed into the puddle of gore that had fanned out from beneath Canrad.
Jerrel studied the corpse of Tordo for a moment. She took a deep breath, said, “I have drawn my kin’s own blood, but I have avenged Tordo’s treachery and honored my father.”
Gar-don stepped forward and surveyed the crowd. He lifted his chin slightly. The response to this was another cheer from the multitude, and this one was more than from the throat. It was from deep within the soul.
—–—
There were great celebrations, and we were part of it. It was pleasant and necessary to the new agreement between kingdoms, but I was glad when it ended and we were given back the mounts we had taken from the Galminions, sent on our way with supplies, fanfare, and of course Jerrel’s half of the talisman.
As we rode along the wide trail in the morning light, winding down from the great lair of the bird-people, I said, “Do you think Gar-don’s people believed what he said about the talisman?”
“Perhaps they did,” Jerrel said. “Perhaps some did. Perhaps none did. The only thing that matters is there was no great power when the two pieces were united. It’s just a legend.”
“Designed to prevent war between your people and theirs,” I said. “That seems like a legend worth believing. The halves of a great power divided so neither has a unique and overwhelming power over the other.”
“Devel would be amused,” she said.
We experienced a few adventures on our way to Jerrel’s kingdom, but they were minor, mostly involving brigands we dispatched with little effort, a few encounters with wild beasts. When we arrived in the land of Sheldan and Jerrel explained all that had happened to her father, I was afforded much curiosity, mostly due to the color of my skin.
I was thanked. I was rewarded with a fine sword and scabbard. I was given a prominent place at King Ran’s table, and it was there that Jerrel told him that we were to marry.
It was the first I had heard of it, but I was delighted with the idea.
That was some time ago. I am sitting now at a writing desk in a great room in this Sheldan castle made of clay and stone. It is dark except for a small candle. I am writing with a feather pen on yellow parchment. My wife, the beautiful warrior Jerrel, sleeps not far away in our great round bed.
Tonight, before I rose to write, I dreamed, as I have the last three nights. In the dream I was being pulled down a long bright tunnel, and finally into the cold, dark waters of the Atlantic, washing about in the icy waves like a cork. The great light of a ship moved my way, and in the shadows of that light were the bobbing heads of dying swimmers and the bouncing of the Titanic’s human-stuffed rafts. The screams of the desperate, the cries of the dying filled the air.
I have no idea what the dream means, or if it means anything, but each night that I experience it, it seems a little clearer. Tonight there was another part to it. I glimpsed the thing that brought me here, pulled me down and through that lit tunnel to Venus. I fear it wishes to take me back.
I finish this with no plans of its being read, and without complete understanding as to why I feel compelled to have written it. But written it is.
Now I will put my pen and parchment away, blow out the candle, lie gently down beside my love, hoping I will never be forced to leave her side, and that she and this world will be mine forever.