Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2003 02:16:45 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kris Gibbons <bookwyrm6@yahoo.com>
Subject: SongSpell-3

This story is a work of fiction. It contains references to violent behavior
between adults, and expressions of physical affection between consenting
adult males. If you find this type of story offensive, or if you are
underage and it is illegal for you to read it, please exit now. All
characters are fictional and in no way related to any persons living or
deceased. Any such similarity is purely coincidental.

This work is copyrighted by the author and may not be reproduced in any
form without the specific written consent of the author. It is assigned to
the Nifty Archives under the provisions of their submission guidelines but
it may not be copied or archived on any other site without the consent of
the author.

I can be contacted at Bookwyrm6@yahoo.com

Copyright 2003 Kristopher R. Gibbons  All rights reserved by the author.

                3	Miching Mallecho

                Ophelia: What means this, my lord?
                Hamlet: Marry, this is miching mallecho; it means mischief.

                Hamlet, Act 3, Scene 2, Line 142

     The Heir of Osedys fled the palace, pacing west to the beaches for
open spaces and heart's ease. The skies crept bundled in a wintry haze, and
the air broadcast an appropriate chill. One solid cumulus loomed over the
ocean horizon, a great gray rock, defying the fashion of those around it by
not shifting shape. Awareness of the palace behind compounded a feeling of
vacancy in Evendal's heart, and the seascape before him alleviated none of
the terrifying emptiness. Not for the first time, m'Alismogh considered the
inexplicable 'death-song' he had experienced seemingly ages ago in the
wilds. His naming himself 'm'Alismogh' without hesitation or
provocation. The utter absence of nine years of living from his memory. The
looks on the faces in the crowd at the Causeway, the awe and starvation,
and the looks of his companions, the tears and surprise. The spellbound
obedience of a desperate conspirator, a man acclimated to authority and
primacy, not to submission. Ostensibly the elements suggested no
pattern. And after consideration of each and all, they still made no sense.
    Like a white cat of ill-omen in his path, Evendal's rage haunted.
    'I did not return for happiness. I doubt I would know it, nevermind
knowing how to pursue it. I wanted my home. It no longer exists. I want
justice. But there is no such creature. Only my childish gestures, impelled
by bitterness and disgust. My mother wants a corpse or a child, and I am
neither. Am I even here, returned from.... who knows what! Am I even here
for what I want, or what others might want of me?'
   The sea, in narcissistic aseity, had no wisdom and no solace. The great
gray rock had thinned; dust and vapour. From these indifferent witnesses
Evendal turned, and sought the still thrilling familiarity of the anonymous
avenues that had welcomed him home. The eleventh bell arrived, and the Heir
made no retreat for his palatial sanctuary. Faces and forms, remarkable and
not, commonplace pleasantries and annoyances; all inched Evendal away from
a dread abyss of self-consciousness.
    m'Alismogh found an exciting freedom in granting others freedom to see
him how they chose: prospective custom, alien, familiar acquaintance,
vagrant. No chill sense of destiny seemed even to touch the thoughts or
actions of those he met and saw, only habit and emotion. He wondered which
proved more cruel.
    His musings halted abruptly when, on turning a corner, Evendal walked
into someone poised at the other side. The Lord of Osedys found he had to
look up to speak to the fellow, but even as he did so the words of apology
died in his throat. A lean form and broad shoulders supported a head of
wavy brown hair, cropped short in an old, almost obsolete fashion of the
city. A dark brown beard and moustache framed an elegantly sinister face
centered by an aquiline nose that in no way overwhelmed its owner's
features. The posture and expression bespoke ferocious anger, the smile on
the man's lips one of mirthless determination. Evendal swore afterwards
that his heart froze rather than beat, as he gazed into the living
semblance of Abduram the traitor.
    "You will not run," the tenor commanded. Hearing the words, Evendal
felt angry warmth suffuse his limbs. "We fight. Or I slay you as you run."
    m'Alismogh took a step back and noted the two swords his enemy held,
unfamiliar in detail but plainly well tended. "You would grant me a fight
again? I might win."
    His adversary shrugged. "I would do the same for any, even a violent
thief. Better death than ignominy as a coward. No?" He proffered a hilt
toward Evendal.
    m'Alismogh accepted the offered blade, testing its grip and balance
with a relaxed, but sure, hand. The blades being long and just over a thumb
in width put Evendal's tall opponent to a disadvantage. These were swords
of skill meant for intricate, courtly fighting, between duelists of like
height and reach. They crossed. Evendal swept into a low cut that the other
man smoothly parried. After a few introductory side feints and intercepted
chest cuts, m'Alismogh kept to his guard and watched for a pattern in his
opponent's fighting. The questionable height advantage aside, his adversary
proved a strong fighter, and made up in sheer ferocity and endurance what
little he lacked in capability or foresight. When Evendal saw a marked
tendency on high cuts and feints, fatal in a person so tall, he took up an
offensive. As if drawn into his opponent's comfort zone, he copied his
adversary and struck high, toward the head, almost consistently. The energy
this required made his own head swim. Once he felt he had established a
believable habit, Evendal sliced across the man's stomach. A thin ribbon of
blood emerged along the fellow's chest and he stepped back. Evendal ceased.
    "Do you yield on first blood?" he asked his attacker, with eyes
dripping gold. The man took a deep breath and shook his head.
    Evendal swung, feinting a shoulder cut that went wide. His opponent
failed his counterstroke, and Evendal came back immediately with the flat
of the narrow blade against the man's head. His enemy took several steps
backward and would not fall. Two twists of his sword around the other
man's, and Evendal had disarmed him. The fellow paid little attention,
merely held his head.
    As his heart pounded wildly, Evendal rested the point of his sword upon
the man's chest. Any thought of mercy he utterly forgot. No image of
rabbits or snatch of pain-gifting melodies emerged to warn him of a price
he might pay. His only lucid thought whispered how this moment for redress
had arrived, and would pass, too quickly.
    "Better death than ignominy as a coward?" he mimicked, with a smile.
    His vanquished adversary heard the tone of teasing deliberation and
dropped hands from a pale, bloodied, face. Evendal's smile disappeared as
some inconsistency nagged for attention in his mind.
    "I will not beg for death or life," the young man declared, and glared
down at his vanquisher. "So do not further dishonour me."
    With the fellow's plea, the incongruity emerged. Age. The pallid face
he stared at held no creases or strains save those of fear. If Abduram
indeed now stood before him, nine years had made him taller but no
older. Abduram trembling? Not likely. And what was this talk of honour? No,
the supplicant nobly entreating mercy was a man preparing himself, with all
the ineptitude of a virgin, for an unknown: Death.
    And Death had been an intimate of the man Evendal had shadowed at
Mausna. "Who are you?" The point of Evendal's blade shook with his own
trembling.
    "Kin to the man you wounded yesterday."
    The answer did not fit the question. "I wounded no one yesterday. This
is my first day home in nine years. What are you called?"
    "Luom agdh Lukaad."
    Evendal groaned, uttered a choice curse, and shoved his sword into the
ground. That accomplished, he abruptly sat in the dust of the avenue,
woefully tired and headache-ridden, overwhelmed at this latest surprise. "I
will not kill you. Nor, to the extent it is in my powers, dishonour you. I
nearly dishonoured myself, perceiving you as Abduram." His hands continued
to tremble.
    Luom looked from the earthbound blade to its wielder with tension still
high. "I do not understand. You say this is your first day here, yet you
know my brother well enough to want him dead. And he knew you. You mock a
defenseless man?"
    m'Alismogh did not respond. "He sent you on this attack. How?"
    "This afternoon my brother came to me with his arm heavily bandaged. He
told me of how he had been attacked, robbed, and humiliated by some
churl. He said that to bring you to Court would let the wrong people see
him vulnerable. Unable to trust the Guard, whom he called 'Polgern's
pawns', he was reduced to finding and entreating me. But he harped at me
not to bother if I intended merely to lesson or wound. If I could not
satisfy honour with death, he himself would have to challenge you,
handicapped. He called on me to fulfill a promise of aid that I had offered
when our mother had died. He pointed you out to me, then promised to meet
me at the palace."
    Momentarily satisfied, Evendal spoke. "To answer the question you
asked. No, I do not mock you. If I fought your brother yesterday,
well.... The yesterday in which I fought him occurred nine years ago. Do
you not know who I am? Or why I found the thought of his lingering death so
pleasant?"
    The lesser son of Lukaad shook his head, and took another deep breath,
clearly struggling to resume thinking again. "I would guess, as you spoke
of nine years ago, that he had provoked you somehow at Mausna. And how can
I know who you are?"
    "By doing what I had failed to do with you.... Take a good look at me."
    Luom flicked a glance into the dusk-shadowed golden sclera. Evendal
granted them both a moment. For Luom's sake, to voice his
understanding. For his own sake, as a respite to restore his wits and
composure. The moment dragged. The Heir of Osedys peered into a drawn face
glistening with tear-tracks.
    "For what do you cry, Luom?"
    The man did not answer right away. "I weep over the brief moment in
which I had hoped my brother had truly turned to me." He heaved in a sodden
breath. "I weep over myself, seeking to harm the royal person. Who in
Osedys, at some time in their lives, has not heard, or has not himself
shouted, 'm'elumna ekha nis-ureg Evendalh'(10)?"
    The Songmaster nodded, and rolled his eyes. "Look on me again. Do you
not also cry for fear of your own life? Fear of my caprice? There is the
knife, the blade is your's. Take it. Here I am, recumbent, unarmed. It is
dusk, with no one to witness. Ensure your safety."
    Luom glared, appalled. "At the expense of my name! My honour! That is
too high a price. I loved my mother, my father, all they sought to make
me. I will not soil that! It is who I am."
    Evendal nodded. Voicing a groan of weariness and pain, the Heir shifted
about and, eventually, stood. "Should it prove to be as you have described,
Luom, then you shall continue to live and prosper, without royal
reprisal. But come with me to the palace. Someone there can see to that
wound and the bruise on your head."  He pulled the blade out of the ground
and started northward, only to halt when Luom hurried to precede him.
    When Luom heard no echoing steps, he stopped and turned.
    m'Alismogh indicated the fallen sword which Luom had wielded. "Never
forget a weapon like that. You had best retrieve it." he advised, then
continued walking.
    If Evendal felt any trepidation at having an armed stranger for escort,
he gave no sign.

    Contrary to Evendal's private anticipations, Abduram did not wait at
the palace gate with a squad of Guard. Indeed, the sole Guard at the
entrance explained how he had received the word Bruddbana had been
circulating, and had seen no sign of Abduram. The Guard stared hard at
Luom, but she neither questioned nor interfered. Once in the palace,
m'Alismogh shouted for a healer and led the way to the apartment he had
allocated. To his relief the lamps and torches illuminated the room, and a
fire warmed from the hearth. He sank gratefully down into a chair and
gestured for Luom to do likewise. Luom shook his head.
    "We have business, lord. My life or death."
    Evendal's headache still taunted him, pounding just above the
eyebrows. "It would be easy enough to verify, so I will tentatively accept
your word on a few questions. How familiar have you been with your brother?
His plans? How conversant have you been with his cabal? Or his efforts with
the Court?"
    Luom answered promptly, sharing gazes with his interrogator. "From
before Mausna, Abduram walked his own path. He communicated not at all with
myself, with father, or with mother. After Mausna, what had seemed a merely
preoccupied silence proved biting rejection. Two years after he had
returned, our mother fell into her last illness. Father used to call her
his little wren; plain and small but with a song to be treasured. She
wanted to see her firstborn. Abduram sent a dead wren as a reply. He later
sent a note, through a Guard, not to approach the palace or seek out the
Lord Abduram. I disobeyed once, to inform him of our mother's death. I did
not see him again, until he approached me this afternoon."
    "Do you know what would have happened, had you succeeded against me?"
    "I hazard now that Abduram would have had me 'executed' either for the
murder of a citizen or for the assassination of the newly returned Heir of
Menam."
    Evendal nodded. He turned his head, about to speak again, when he saw
Bruddbana soft-stepping through the doorway with his sword drawn and a
half-frightened rictus of determination on his face. Both sword and
concentration clearly aimed at Luom.
    "Stand!" Evendal barked. Bruddbana stopped, startled. Luom turned, saw
the Guard, and stepped back against Evendal's chair. "What do you mean by
this? Drawing your blade in Our presence unsanctioned."
    "Your pardon, my liege. I saw Abduram standing over you..."
    "Look again, Bruddbana. Is he not a bit young?"
    Bruddbana looked at Evendal, uncertain of the question. "You claimed
his life before me, earlier today."
    An old woman, small and fine-boned, shadowed the door as Evendal
explained. "No, Bruddbana. The man before you is Luom agdh Lukaad, and is
under Our custodial. Report this to your fellows, lest your error recur and
Our care prove a thing of death and not nurture."
    "He looks to be suffering from your 'care' already." A warm,
willow-light voice intruded.
    The Heir of Osedys smiled welcome at the woman. "Anlota! How good of
you to respond to Our need. Do you know Luom?"
    Anlota chuckled. "I know most of the children born in this town, both
breathing and remembered. I delivered you, Luom, and Abduram."
    "Lord Evendal. You went out from the palace without giving notice."
Bruddbana snarled, covering his embarrassment.
    "So?"
    "You cannot do that! You just returned to us from.... Who knows! And
Abduram still being free, you are in danger."
    Evendal forgot the royal plurality. "I will not be caged! I do not need
a royal nursemaid."
    "Look. If you can walk blithely out of here, and back in, without a
comment from anybody, so can an assassin. If naught else, then you need a
personal Guard. We just got you back..."
    Evendal paused, taking a breath. "Very well. You are right,
Bruddbana. I cannot afford the freedom with which I came here. However
sweet it was. One Guard during the day, two in the late night tolls."
    "Thank you, my liege." Bruddbana bowed and left.
    The woman proceeded to search for a waterbasin and, when acquired,
glared accusingly at Luom. Evendal smiled, recalling a time or two when he
had faced that disapproving glare. Anlota had no patience with passive or
uncooperative ill folk. Luom refused to be daunted and stared back in
silence, waiting.
    "Lie down." Anlota finally commanded, slapping her patient with a flick
of a rag.
    "On the Lord Evendal's bedding?"
    "Poor pickings, I know. But it must serve for now." Luom began to
obey. "No. Off with the tunic, first."
    With Evendal's help, Luom complied.
    "Anlota, how is it that you answered the summons here? When I left, you
were Mother of Midwives."
    The lady did not stop or slow her cleansing. "I have not borne that
title in eight years, my lord. When I stepped down from that post, I
disbanded the league for the duration of the duumvirate. This assured that
no leader existed to be attacked, disgraced or threatened. As for why I
came and not another? To see you, my lord. If the new claimant proved to be
truly yourself, then I had a word of advising."
    "And what is that word?"
    Anlota smiled. "Accept the gifts of your enemies." She pulled a small
container out of her sleeve, 'Primrose leaf' scrawled across its top, and
scooped an ointment out of it to stroke along the cuts.
    Annoyed at Anlota's nonchalance, Evendal asked. "What gifts? Death?
That is all they would gift me with. What gifts?"
    The midwife made no reply, but smirked at Luom as she pulled forth some
squares of moss and strips of cloth. "Truly, my lord, has your absence made
you slow? Have you gained nothing from Abduram?"
    "I seem to have wrested the throne from him." Evendal considered, then
realised that he looked at the answer. "Luom? But to what end?"
    Anlota glared at him. "Stop talking like your father. For the end of
Luom himself. Think about it and you will realise your adversaries gift you
inadvertently. Remembering, of course, that not all gifts are for keeping."
She finished wrapping the mass around Luom's cuts and dumped the waterbasin
from the window.
    "Anlota, why do you say this? How did you learn of Luom? And expect
that the usurper might be myself?"
    The Past-Mother of Midwives peered at the man addressing her. The
sudden stillness, following hard on her constant bustling, disturbed both
men. Anlota yet held the basin, her attitude a chill single-minded
attentiveness. "Are you asking to join my communion? To be a mediator of
the mysteries of life?"
    Swift came Evendal's reply. "As who I am, as what I am to be, I qualify
as such."
    Anlota nodded, suddenly solemn, almost deferential. "More than I, but
not just yet. And while you're waiting - heal." Heal others? Heal himself?
Evendal let her cryptic demand pass without comment, suspecting intentional
ambiguity. She kissed Luom, sealing her work, and left.
    "She is like a nis-ralur." Luom offered, amused. Evendal silently
agreed. Nis-ralur bore the shape of mountain lions, yet only two forearms
long and indifferently domesticated; the Hramal in the eastern provinces
trained nis-ralur to defend homes. More to Luom's point, nis-ralur tended
to exhaust even the observer with an excess of personality.
    "Luom, what would you? When we dueled you spoke of your wish for
life. What I said before, still abides. Abduram's fate aside, is there
nothing I can do for you?"
    "A place to sleep tonight."
    "Is this room, and the bed you sit on, sufficient to that need?"
    "It is fine, but is your's."
    "Mine only by requisition, as are all the other dwellings. Your's is
the need, so the place is your own tonight. I can house myself in the next
room. I would not leave you unattended, with Abduram still at leisure."
    "Why?"
    "You neither killed me, nor died. I doubt that pleases him. Once he is
under our hand, your life and fate are your own."
    "Having this day thrust myself into the sun of your regard, that is no
longer true. You are Osedys, every life is your's."
    Dismayed, Evendal glared at Luom. "How did you get such a notion?
Polgern and Abduram? Menam? What rights I have only help expedite my
responsibilities. And what right I might have dealing life or death comes
in the service of equity. From my earliest years I have been disciplined to
be the Left Hand of the Unalterable."
    "m'elumna ekha nis-ureg Evendalh." Luom whispered, and Evendal
flinched. "You dislike the label?"
    "It reminds me of times best left in the past."
    "What do you mean? It is who you are."
    "No. It is not. It is an aspect of me, a wonder I was born with, but
not exclusively mine. Records show that my father's father's mother had
golden eyes. If mother had either been more fecund or father more
libidinous...I might have had a sister with amber eyes. Another target for
Polgern and Abduram."
    "I don't understand your disquiet."
    Evendal sighed. "When I was a child, some fool got the idea that my eye
colour meant not only was I incontestably Menam's son, but also that I
could heal people's maladies. Many folk spent money they did not have on
keepsakes, items I was to have touched, used, or consecrated in some
way. Some refused regular healing, trusting the efficacy of these mementos,
and died. People committed extreme acts to see me, to touch me, even to
kidnap me. And 'm'elumna ekha nis-ureg Evendalh' is the one phrase I
heard again and again from people. I came to dread it."
    "Then let me rename you. Evendal me'Loema. Evendal Sun-eyed."
    The Prince of Osedys chuckled. "me'Loema? I like that. I like that
much better. I am ready for some food. How about you?"
    Luom smiled. "I am a walking stomach. At least so I am
told. Repeatedly."
    "Guard!"
    A young woman with auburn tresses looked in.
    "I know it is not your purpose, but could you see what the kitchens
might have handy and safe?"
    She smiled sunnily. "It would be best, mayhap, if you both accompanied
me. That way I can keep close, and you can argue with the staff for what
you like and what you do not."
    Evendal opened his mouth to argue, took in the wide eyes and open
countenance, then thought better of it.
    Once returned from their foray, suitably sated, the Prince resumed the
talk he had sidestepped. "I have been ruminating over the time people
thought me a healer."
    "As have I." Luom replied. "I remember something about that from my
father. He once rebuked my brother when Abduram insisted the royal family
were indulged weaklings. Father simply said that he would not want the
burden of 'the Prince's gold'."
    "Wise man."
    "Was it so bad?"
    Evendal nodded. "I lived in fear, not knowing if someone approached me
because they thought my nail parings had some healing efficacy, or that
only my blood would serve. Not knowing if a courtier befriended me for the
political access to my parents, or for some peddling scheme. A lot of
people got hurt, some killed. From that time forth, I had no friends. I did
not dare. That pleased both parents."
    "And now?"
    "Now, what?"
    "That crazed time has passed, and only dimly recalled. Surely some of
the friends you made before that dementia still endure. You can resume your
life with them."
    Evendal looked at Luom with something like amazement. "No, you don't
understand. I was Evendal m'Alismogh ald'Menam a Onkira, sulen nis-ureg
is'dah: Sole Prince of the Thronelands. Only hope of a family that
held but three living members, even before Mausna."
    "So?"
    "So, I could not afford familiarity with anyone. Every potential
playmate was utterly beneath me, and the sooner I learned this the more
serene were my moments under the royal scrutiny. The only acquaintances I
knew were elderly tutors, carefully chosen attendants, and the either
indifferent or hostile sons of courtiers that my father wanted something
from." Evendal grunted in a reverie. "I am certain that Time buried those
that Mausna did not."
    "Or Polgern. This may indeed be so, my lord. If you saw fit to accept
it, I would be your friend." The face uttering the offer matched his gaze,
direct and with the suggestion of a grin of complicity.
    Small crests of emotion arose in Evendal: A sudden anger, anticipating
mockery, which just as suddenly fled. Fear, weak but inescapable, with that
hesitency of confusion which was fear's handmaiden. And an expectancy of
hope. "You do not know what you ask for, or offer." What Evendal intended
as a scoffing denial came out as a plaintive breath.
    Luom shrugged. "I do not forget Abduram is my brother. I doubt I ever
can. I don't understand either all you have been, all you must face. I only
wish I could help you, with all my heart. Should you want a friend, a
commoner of a family once gentrified, I offer myself."
    Evendal twisted about, every emotion in him urged acceptance. Following
through on his turn, the Prince walked to the doorway, Luom's profferment
ignored. A whisper of melody distracted him; notes with no clear
source. "My sincere thanks. You don't know the creature you offer yourself
to. You are welcome to the apartment. I shall be in the adjoining
rooms. Until the morrow, fare well."
    Quickly, Evendal fled.

    Leaning against an oak in a courtyard copse, the predator contemplated
lights flickering through the palace sills. The man's black cape, draped
close, concealed his crimson outfit and rendered him a chill, if more
solid, shadow among shadows. Cloaked so in black, and lean of face with
eyes that reflected night, the watcher resembled an icon of alabaster and
onyx; a celebrant of miserific mystery intent on his role. The
chalk-pale face, though calm, serene, was fiercely striking. The one
exposed hand, small but sinewy. He stood rigid, a frozen figure serving an
abysmal silence, and plotted strategies for bloodletting. His sanguine
thoughts, though, were not on the two innocents awaiting him unknowing in
the torch lit palace apartments; they required but a bell or more of
patient waiting and the element of surprise. Rather, the lone stalker
pondered how their deaths might serve to discredit the mountebank son of
Morruth - Polgern.
    In hatred as rigid and hard-shelled as the tree behind him, he
anticipated his satisfaction over Polgern's future demise. There were yet a
few Guard whom he could threaten into confessing complicity with his now
confined, but far from helpless, adversary. The vulnerability of his enemy
enticed, irresistible, as if fickle Ir herself had finally tired of the
dodderer's ascendancy. Polgern had been a worthy opponent, crafty and
subtle, but subtle to the point of weakness. Contemplating his partner's
career like a eulogy, the chill shade recalled the thwarting of his every
effort at supremacy. Stroke for counterstroke, the spindly spectre of
Polgern had turned his brash triumphal into a sterile fancy; his
long-hoped-for march to power got shown up as the dream of a brutish
half-wit. Even now, the obsession of being rid of his parasite stirred
nothing in the night-clad watcher. Perhaps, he mused, it is that such
liberty does not seem real yet. Polgern had been a fixture, an ever-present
barnacle for so long.
    Alert, the black-eyed wraith marked a companion torch-glow appearing in
the apartment adjoining. His informant spoke true; his hen-headed brother
bedded near the "royal" milksop. Though disturbed, the co-ruler's face
betrayed nothing, pale and still as a lake of ice. He considered
implications. Should he kill both brother and impostor, he could assert an
accomplice of Polgern's had had orders to kill this Pretender and the
Militia General, and that the accomplice had mistaken Luom for
himself. Surprise and immediate action were crucial, and the "prince"
should die first. Once the two inside were history, there would be only
questions left, questions no one would dare ask.
    Presently, light died from the first room. Not waiting for the second
set of lights to wink out, the night-clad stalker eased out of his den of
shadow.

    Though he felt exhausted beyond all sense, and enjoyed the solace of
resting in comfort after weeks in the wilds, Evendal fretted wide awake
under the pernicious cool of the night. His body was drained, his mind
numb, and yet he could not sleep. As he lifted up to grab an extra
bedcloth, something stung his hand even as he heard a telltale hiss. With
more reflex than thought Evendal was on the other side of his cot and
shouting.
    "Enkengnef(12)!!" Treachery!
    Two more attacks came against him, either well evaded or poorly
executed, before a breathless Luom rushed in with a torch and a
sword. Evendal did not need torchlight to know his sword-arm had been
rendered useless, it was painfully obvious.
    He turned, grimacing, from the lightbearer to his attacker - and was
stunned into a moment's paralysis of conflicting reactions.
    Broad shoulders and a lithe form held up a black cape. The beard,
moustache and long hair seemed, in Luom's torchlight, as sculpted and hard
as the carbuncular eyes. Set against the linen pallour of the attacker's
skin, the contrasts were ebony and alabaster and, in other folk might have
evoked admiration. In this man and moment, not so. The face and form
possessed elegance, but an elegance curdled. The man's expression was
serene, but more at home on a corpse. Even the vitality, the rage and
ferocity that radiated from him, seemed somehow frozen, chill. For Evendal
the contrasts extended beyond the obvious. He felt revulsion, such as he
would for an obscenity. He felt fear, for the nearness of death.
    And he felt attraction, a sick admiration and excitement.
    The force and virility of this man, blaring from him with all the
callous excess of a whore, yet stirred a feeling in Evendal that scared him
more than death could. He glanced at Luom, who was setting his torch in a
sconce, and felt not even a shadow of that allure.
    Abduram had paused with Luom's swift entry, and noted the torch and
sword with utter indifference. He returned his attention to his target.
    "Stand and be still, and I will kill you quickly. Try to thwart me, and
I will enjoy your suffering." He beckoned to the crouchant Evendal. "Now,
stand."
    "Here, lord." Luom proffered his sword.
    "What good is that to me?" The Prince waved his bloodied sword-hand,
furious. "Its numb, it will not even clench. You help me. You."
    Abduram stepped toward the cot. "He will not. My brother actually
believes the fables children are fed with their mother's milk. To stop me
he would have to kill me. And Kinslayer is the most evil of epithets."
    He paused again, and peered at Evendal closely. "You are a good
imposture. Now stand." He raised his blade.
    Evendal, clutching at the bed, started to rise. When he got halfway he
flung what he could of the bedclothes at Abduram and rushed around the cot
to the window. Luom sprang upon his brother and struggled to keep him
tangled in the blankets. He managed to hold Abduram long enough for Evendal
to get one leg over the sill. With a roar, Abduram freed his sword-arm and
struck Luom in the back. Luom fell to the floor in a surprise of pain,
taking the blankets with him.
    "No further, impostor."
    Evendal cursed. That the ground outside settled lower than the floor
inside meant he needed two good hands to maneuver. To tumble off the window
meant taking his eyes off Abduram and chancing he could recover before
Abduram got through the window. He stayed straddling the window and shouted
for anyone to hear.
    "Worms take you, Abduram! One Kingslaying was one too many. You would
kill the son as you had the royal father?"
    "What can you know of that?" Abduram's death-mask of a face betrayed
nothing, but the eyes seemed blacker, wells of darkness.
    "I saw my father's carcass on the floor of his war-chariot."
    "The Prince died at Mausna." Abduram countered. "He fell down a
crevasse which formed as he chased me. The land swallowed him up, to be
swallowed in turn by the sea. I alone survived to tell my tale. You are
merely a sly impostor..."
    "With golden eyes."
    "Whom I shall kill." He stopped again as Evendal's comment registered.
    "My lord," panted a voice from the floor, weak and plaintive. "Had you
no weapon against this likelihood?"
    And it came to Evendal that he did indeed have a weapon. Desperate, he
plowed through snatches of tunes and ballads, searching for an appropriate,
saving, verse. As Abduram lifted his sword yet again, Evendal drew on a bit
of mummery and improvised on it. His baritone cracking from a mouth
suddenly dry, Evendal m'Alismogh sang.

		By all the fabled power in threes,
		By all that is not and yet may be,
		Let the blade be broken if raised agin' me.

    The sword in Abduram's hand held on to the last willowy note, trembling
with it, amplifying the tone until a crack appeared along the length of the
tang. Wordless, Abduram dropped the blade to pull two daggers. Each knife
let out a sharp, brief sound, as if struck. The blades shattered. Impotent,
Abduram glared at a startled Evendal, stinging fury in his stone-cold eyes.
    Motivated by sheer desperation, Evendal felt dumbfounded. But, sizing
up Abduram, he realised disarming this man would never serve. Abduram had
to have cohorts all through the city; if not friends, then people he could
coerce and blackmail. The silence of the palace grounds attested to
this. Abduram must die. Now.
    The desire, which had moved him with great fervor just this afternoon,
now sickened Evendal. Still straddling the sill, he felt the room shift and
blur, forcing him to lean against the jamb.
    "Luom," he called. "Your sword."
    The prone, wide-eyed Luom slid his blade along the floor to
Evendal. The strident scrape of metal on stone seemed to awaken Abduram
from his daze. As Evendal struggled to pick the blade up without tumbling
from vertigo, Abduram quietly backed away. At the same moment that Evendal
got a grasp on the sword hilt and propped himself back up by it, Abduram
halted against his brother's body.
    Abduram agdh Lukaad was hardly likely to stand in obedience and let his
head get chopped off; yet, try as he might, Evendal could not dredge up a
single helpful verse. Certainly nothing existed in song for making a sword
attack on its own. Nor was there any verse to turn a right-handed swordsman
into a left-handed one. Evendal's mind numbed into silence where he needed
lyrics. Nonetheless he took a deep breath, hoping that, once more,
desperation might inspire. Abduram would not simply stand and wait for
death.
    Abduram did not wait. He saw Evendal inhale, and fury overcame
caution. "I will stop your evil with my own hands!" he cried, and launched
himself.
    Evendal saw the lunge, and raised the sword reflexively. Immediately
the Prince got shoved against the sill, his left elbow pressed into his own
stomach, his blade shoved in and through his attacker. Abduram skewered
himself through the heart. A brief shriek, high-pitched, burst and echoed
in m'Alismogh's head. The shock of pain through his body proved equally
brief.
    After a long moment spent shaking and bruised, and realizing his own
heart had not stopped, Evendal slowly and gingerly brought his leg back
over the windowsill. His right arm no longer numb kept him from lapsing
into unconsciousness. He carefully lurched around Abduram's corpse and
gazed down at the dead man's brother. "Luom?" he whispered, but got no
answer.
    "Guards!" he shouted, shrill with bitterness. "You can come now. It is
over." The effort made the room twist in earnest. As footfalls sounded in
the hall, a stray bit of lyric deigned to emerge also, a response to some
delinquent inner prompting. He sang it softly - which was all he could
manage.

		Let none come near me but to help,
		None come near you, dear friend, but to heal.
		Yet I wager, when all is tried,
		Our darkling strengths will forth for weal.

    Then Evendal settled cautiously on his cot, closed his eyes against the
whirl of the room's contents, and wished the pain to stop.

(10) m'elumna ekha nis-ureg Evendalh - the sunrise (is) the near-king
Evendal.(same as note 7, chap. 2)

(11) Enkengnef - Treachery. In the Hramalregnan, two palatals together is
offensive, equivalent to a double-negative in English.