Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 12:17:18 -0800 (PST)
From: Kris Gibbons <bookwyrm6@yahoo.com>
Subject: SongSpell 46

This story is a work of fiction. It often contains references to both
sexual and violent behaviour, along with expressions of physical affection
and compassion. 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 and uncanny.

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 onto any other site without the direct
consent of the author.

I never know how well-received these chapters are. The only clues I get are
in emails from readers. Do you like the story? Hate it? Think Evendal
should take a vow of silence? Afraid I might have written other works? Let
me know and I'll let you know.

Your expressions of compassion have been a balm to me. Thank you.

I can be contacted at Bookwyrm6@yahoo.com



                                 46 - SongSpell

                    Hamlet. Not a whit, we defy augury. There is special
                    providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now,
                    'tis not to come; if it be not to come, it will be now;
                    if it be not now, yet it will come. The readiness is
                    all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what
                    is't to leave betimes? Let be.
                                              Hamlet V.ii., line 220-225



     Ierwbae and Par-shetope came in behind a rumpled-looking Ddronhelim
and a gaunt but serene-looking Darhelmir.
     The King waved away any gesture of worship. "A chair by the fire for
this man to sit in," he commanded. "Have you kin you would give warning to
before we assay this?"
     Aldul smirked and shook his head slightly at his friend's idea of
tact.
     Ddronhelim answered. "They know, Your Majesty. Our mother's sister and
her brood have feared for my brother and me for a long time. They have long
harboured anticipations of the doom that o'ertakes some males of our line,
without the comfort of certainty. Your offer evoked a fierce refusal from
them."
     "Better the ralur you know than the binturong you do not?"
     Darhelmir nodded and spoke between laboured breaths. "That is their
stance. But the choice remains mine. And I have lived with this...leech. It
is no tolerable companion to me."
     "Again I do ask," Evendal grated out. "You know that my efforts may
accomplish what your ailment as yet has not?"
     With his brother's help, Darhelmir sat before replying. "Our mother's
sister has made sure I comprehend that. Your Majesty. As any hale man
would, I want to continue breathing. And to serve...without worries or
doubts...as to the worth of that service. Such has been my durance of
late...that I trust Your Majesty in Your Majesty's uncertainty...more than
I trust my own body. Should Your Majesty not achieve our mutual
ambition..." The Guard shrugged, the skin around his eyes pearlescent in
his malady. "The Wheel turns."
     Ddronhelim looked horrified at his brother's apparent indifference,
but said nothing.
     A shiver caused the muscles in Evendal's face to twitch. "Commune with
your brother for a time, and await me," the King bade, and motioned for the
priestess.
     Before the King could engage the woman, Kri-estaul interrupted,
directing his hurried speech to Karondeo's earlier question. "Papa said
that I died, and he hurt so much he set the stones on fire and he asked me
to live so I did. I do. And did you see, Papa? I turned."
     "Yes, my son, I saw. That rolling chair is not built for such virile
usage. You left bits of the wheel on the floor.(284) We shall have to ask
of the Felters to restore the device. Please do not force your chair to do
that again. You will have more entertainment when Spring arrives and you
learn to ride a horse."
     "What is this tale that gushes from His Highness's lips?" Karondeo
enquired.
     "It is true!" the Prince insisted, but stung more at his Papa's lack
of glee over his accomplishment.
     Almost grateful for the diversion, Evendal gave answer. "You recall my
talk of Emial of Kernost?" The seaman nodded.(285) "When his heir emerged
from concealment with blade bared, Our son was first to sight him and,
seeing the man's goal, rushed to thwart him. Emial, Emial's son, changed
targets and killed Kri-estaul."
     "He stabbed me right here!" Kri-estaul added eagerly, rubbing his
breastbone.
     The King of the Thronelands leaned over, set aside the mobile chair's
weighted sash, gripped his son by his armpits, and lifted the boy up and
onto his lap. Evendal rested his head on his son's shoulder, then carefully
wrapped an unsteady arm around the again happy child. "I don't rec... I
don't want to recall what passed after." He spoke clearly but softly to
Kri-estaul's neck.
     "You ignited the walls that make the Council Chamber?" The seaman
pointedly surveyed the square, stark hall.
     The Council Chamber had been one of the first palatial stone buildings
rebuilt in Osedys after the Nikraan Advent; palatial only in the sense of
location. Its rectangular structure and spare look had abided unchanged
since that time. Unadorned walls of ash and dun grey tones pressed on the
guilty visitant with a feeling of uncomfortable otherness and a Damoclean
weight that each supplicant unthinkingly ascribed to the Royal
Authority. The very lack of character, the severe and unrelieved effect,
encouraged people to linger elsewhere.
     "Yes."
     Karondeo nodded again in understanding. "So we have you...Your Majesty
to thank for the improvements. But that feat, though remarkable, was ---
to you -- incidental, wasn't it? Your Majesty."
     Evendal lifted his head and shone incandescence on Kri-estaul. "The
most awe-full gift had been given to me, and then blithely destroyed. And a
room full of people, watching this fool emerge with purpose plain, lacked
the imagination or the charity to give an alarm that could have prevented
it. In that moment I knew of no cause that justified their continued
breathing. Or mine own. But, yes, you are correct. My immediate goal, when
the flames first sprouted unbidden, was the torture and death of Master
Emial of Kernost."
     Without a shift in body or tone, Evendal redirected his speech. "What
have you determined, Your Eminence? Is it solely his heart?"
     Sygkorrin squinted in surprise before answering. "Yes, Your
Majesty. Those of our discipline who pursue these matters guess that a
heart can get called into service while incomplete. Its...walls, its
curtains, unfinished or unfashioned. And as the afflicted one grows, the
lack becomes more dear. An adult's heart is basically two cordoned
well-pumps. One sends blood to the lungs to restore its virtue, the other
sends that restored blood through the rest of the body. For some the
unfinished wall is the one between the two `pumps', and blood meant to be
restored gets sent forth with no virtue to it. Or blood invigorated gets
pressed back into the lungs, to no purpose. The liquid of blood has been
found in lungs in place of air."
     The King frowned. "Your priests...They `guess'?"
     Sygkorrin gave her king a look as dared him to complain. "Yes. You
expect better? Your Majesty has never heard what nonsensical assertions
once served us! Shall we wait until the moon waxes full, its influence must
surely keep the blood strong? Or shall we wait for the new moon, since it
resembles a bottle being stoppered -- what we want in Darhelmir's heart? Or
shall I explain to your Guard how his heart is flawless; he merely was
fashioned(286) to not live as long as his brother?
     "Your Majesty knows how delicate the structures in a body are. Your
struggle for His Highness at the Temple shall ever abide in my mind. Though
the flaw is in the heart, the whole body suffers. Were a servant to unlace
and remove his boots, you would see consequent swelling in Darhelmir's
ankles and feet."
     "We accept your vassals' best `guess'. The heart, then, is like an
old-style fortress, though its walls breathe more rapidly." Evendal
m'Alismogh let his mouth continue without censor. "I shall need the hearth
fire built up, and well-fed. Two or more chairs beside it and Darhelmir
barefoot in his. Set the krater down by the hearth also."
     Par-shetope relinquished the bowl and fed the fire while Ierwbae set
about providing chairs.
     Evendal waited on his throne, gripping Kri-estaul around the belly
while holding Karondeo's hand on his right and thinking. He had made a
promise. As Darhelmir's liege, were his royal powers merely political he
would stand obliged to provide his Guard little more than sustenance and
shelter. Added authority, Evendal knew without reflection, obligated him to
employ that extended authority in the service of those who served
him. Vassal Darhelmir suffered an inherited malady. Did not a King's
purpose encompass his menial's need? Evendal had no doubt he could readily
deliver the young Guard into lasting good health.
     More was needed than personal impunity; the flaw was borne in both
blood and seed, and Darhelmir might himself thrive only to helplessly watch
all future offspring suffer and die. The Guard's heart was set, from before
his first full breath, to grow into a ruined holt invested with a further
curse of the cruellest sterility; a fault permeated every stone and only
waited to be disseminated.
     Yet if a fatal command abided in every crenel and boss, down to the
euthynteria(287) of Darhelmir's body, what else did?
     "Your Eminence," Evendal called again. "Talk to Us further."
     "What would Your Majesty?"
     "Some of Our father's men spoke of tent-healing. Of skin-grafting. How
it would save them from enduring open -- easily infected -- wounds. Yet, as
many grafting efforts failed as succeeded."
     "This does not surprise me."
     "Does the skin..." The King struggled for the words to approach his
suspicion. "Does the skin grafted take on the qualities of the area it is
given over to?"
     Sygkorrin frowned, bemused. "I do not ken your meaning, Your
Majesty. Skin is skin."
     Evendal shook his head in dissent. "Skin from a hip, grafted onto a
chin. Does it not sprout hair with the skin surrounding it?"
     The Priestess's face eased. "Yes, Your Majesty. Though not along the
borders of the graft, scarring intervenes."
     "And I am given to understand that while malignities such as warts and
tumours can fatten under their own impetus, nothing else benign other than
nails and hair extends so freely on us."
     Sygkorrin answered advisedly. "This had been the Temple's conclusion
for a long time. Of late, one elder, long relied on for her perceptions,
has argued how every particle of us is engendered, used, discarded and
replaced. She contends this...circuit occurs more stealthily than with
nails and hair and, like breathing, becomes more slow and laborious with
age. Of course all healing oft seems increasingly fitful and incomplete
when people near the end of the traditional lifespan."
     "So the body's talent for restoration lingers in every organ, losing
virtue with the accumulation of years? This would suggest that nascency can
be a resource for healing. For making the unfinished whole."
     "This was the woman's argument. An unprovable idea. One can hardly
return to the womb."
     Evendal glanced down at Kri-estaul, then away. "Every element in our
bodies has the...capacity to grow rapidly -- much as nails do -- and the
knowledge to alter its aspects or qualities -- much as skin does. Just not
the...permission?"
     Sygkorrin nodded. "Something like. She insisted both form and function
in each part are not essential.(288) Rather they are like malleable
commands specific to their part, and in some people those instructions are
garbled even while the confusion is preserved and adhered to slavishly."
     "We envision a common set of `commands' for each element, resulting in
a normative `liver'...or `heart', with distinctions, or ornamentation,
provided by breeding. Indeed, given different trappings and proddings,
these commands either become `garbled' -- as you say -- or the wrong
command acknowledged in the wrong moment. The result being a liver
dispensing bile, and the like."
     The Priestess examined her King. "You have thought on this before."
     Evendal shook his head. "Nothing so clear as thought." He released
Karondeo's hand and waved toward Darhelmir and Ddronhelim. "I am not
assured of my competence for this. Yet I grasp what needs doing. We know
how a black-furred nis-ralur, mating with another equally sable, can birth
parti-coloured kittens. Just so can not Darhelmir's starvation dwell
unmanifest in his brother? To be passed on to Ddronhelim's brood?"
     Irritated, Gwl-lethry interrupted the Priestess. "Why are we here,
Your Majesty?"
     "We do not know why you are here, Lord Tinde'keb," Evendal
snapped. "Our royal person has chosen this place to fulfil Our pledge to
Our Guard. Go, if you so wish, or take a seat with Us amongst the dust and
detritus." The King waved carelessly to the seats facing the dais.
     "Aldul?"
     The Kwo-edan approached the Throne. Catching a glint of perversity in
the man's eye, Evendal waited until it looked as though he meant to
kneel. "If you mark our different states by abusing your knees, I shall
sing you to a chair that only my song will get you out of."
     The two men exchanged grins.
     "For this effort I dare not rely solely on ecstasy. Have you some
litter I might could use?"
     Aldul nodded. "Permit me to retrieve it from my rooms, Your Majesty?"
     The King shook his head, wanting to spare his friend additional effort
and aches. "Out of your kindness, Matron, if you would?"
     Drussilikh bowed and left. She returned, with a tool-laden Lialityne
olm'Eruidin, to a room slightly changed. Ierwbae had dragged five chairs
onto the dais, ranged near the hearth. For the moment, though, only the
twin Guard sat by the fire. The King sat his throne, Gwl-lethry, Danlienn
and Urhlysha sat in the rows, and the rest -- by their own choice --
remained standing.
     Evendal returned Kri-estaul to his chair and secured him with a kiss
on his head, then accepted leaves, lap-table, and ink from Lialityne.
Staking out the parameters of his purpose proved a struggle. Having someone
else offer alternative words or word-order, as Lialityne was wont to do,
distracted. M'Alismogh finally confined the young lady's responsibility to
examining metre. His first adaptation sounded timorous and long-winded to
his own ears. In conferring with Sygkorrin, he came to see how his attempt
spent itself preventing any events whatsoever from coming to pass.
     Sygkorrin's tuneful voice added a liveliness to the would-be
lyrics. "'Let no assemblage of helpers rush to tear what We make'...Your
Majesty, you repeat this too often here! You fear too much what command
might go astray. By the same token, calling on unspecified `helpers' could
submerge the humour needed, or the air his lungs need. The words you've
chosen could isolate both blood and air from the heart!" Urhlysha and
Gwl-lethry watched in bemused fascination as, engrossed, Her Eminence
chided His Majesty without qualm.
     Evendal gripped his jaw and rested his elbow against his knee,
frustrated. "I do not want blood besieging a heart...wall...just as it is
forming! Or clots(289) threatening Darhelmir as they did Kri-estaul!"
     Sygkorrin held the rag up and shook it for emphasis. "You concentrate
too much on what might go awry! Is your end to accomplish a deed, or ward
against one?"
     "Both!"
     The Priestess shook her head. "On this occasion be singular of
purpose, as in those few times I have witnessed your song."
     Evendal secreted his misgivings away as he laboured a second time. He
wondered how his forefathers Osmaredh and Kahalam came by the burden which
made some Thronelander Kings' touches curative. Over a hundred generations
apart, yet both kings reputedly healed the scrofulic, the consumptive, the
sterile and the infertile. If he himself had wielded the `gift' others once
believed he owned, Evendal felt certain he would not have survived his
childhood fame. The royal gift that in truth was his, the Left Hand of the
Unalterable -- a dignity Kahalam himself had also borne -- manifested only
in the face of human injustice. Unlike the curative King's Touch, it did
not concern itself with the effects of accident or illness. Or not much.
     Documents of the past held no clews. Osmaredh and his grand-daughter
lived in a time when writing, for the most part, served commerce and
governing; no one had thought healings worth detailing. Indeed, what
records as existed of Osmaredh's dealings with Llyssha only came about out
of his fear; as a counter to whatever the record-in-coral of the Llyssha
might contain.
     By the completion of Evendal's second composition, Sygkorrin's
considered opinion was blunt. "More to the matter and less art."
     Aldul perused his friend's second attempt and disagreed. "As you do
not depend on simple rhyme or the strong emotion of your past songs, it
seems apt for you to employ example or sympathy to direct and encompass
this... undertaking."
     Frustrated in his conferences with Sygkorrin and Aldul, the King
reconsidered, wrestled his overworked mind into something like obedience,
and refabricated the evocation to his companions' satisfaction if not his
own.
     He glanced from a sleeping Darhelmir to a weary and alert
Ddronhelim. "Let us not awaken him. If We can effect this restitution
without fanfare, so much the better for all."
     Ddronhelim, all but hovering by his brother, nodded.
     Evendal then stood, walked to the hearth, adjusted a chair to sit
facing Darhelmir and Ddronhelim, and settled the large krater against his
feet. Danlienn, Drussilikh, Gwl-lethry, Lialityne, and Urhlysha had chosen
to sit in Innocents' Row. M'Alismogh waited for Sygkorrin, Karondeo and
Aldul to claim their seats, for Kri-estaul to wheel over, and for Ierwbae
and Par-shetope to take their stations.
     He began his recital.


        True night, the vulture's(290) dam, netted you(291) in her stifling
pall;
        Your wellhead breached ere that first breath, and half-formed
floodwalls flawed.
        At the last, you turn to Our pledge, to live or die Our shield.
        We, in turn, employ myst'ries no hand can touch, no man wield:
        Lambskin scudded and waiting, chosen Kul-stone yet uncarved,
        The flooded plain,(292) the unborn child's words, attend Our rough
trawl.

        Rebuke those heralds in you clutching blazons spoiled and marred,
        Every fell script, in tissue,(293) vein or marrow, etched awry.
        That which would tear the banks of your life's founts into ruin --
        Ignored or heeded, large, small, alive or yet to quicken --
        Each fragment, its own womb recall and winter's promise ply.
        Heed, attend; in your cocoons mend, amend, and miss no shard.

        We claim the slab unhewn, hope entombed, the year at its hinge.
        We spell your centre lithe, with a strength equal to your years.
        Amend. Excise, alter or add, but of virtues lose none.
        Inform every mote and grain in you with how it is done.
        Mend. Sow no flaw, of surface or substance, as would reap tears;
        Bequeath no twist, knot or cavity to cause a king's whinge.

        Quicken these wonders in you; in their season heed them all.

And m'Alismogh gestured to the bowl of oatmeal.

        Let this, a base and end in Our consumption, answer well;
        Use the moist weight of our bounty at need, gleaned and kratered.
        What We ask, cement; make fast through begettings uncounted.
        We bid winter's veils enfold you, invest a reformed well.
        We beg winter's web heal you, her pall secure your heart's caul.


     In the silence immediately after the song, Evendal's ear alone
distinguished the suspiration from thirteen sets of lungs. And only the
King's bones and skull felt a thrumming and disordered rhythm that built up
slowly; built up in ferocity so that when Aldul spoke to Sygkorrin, he
could not hear the Kwo-edan's voice. After quietly enduring, Evendal
determined the beats to be random cycles of one, two, or three strikes
accompanied by pauses. One beat, pause, two beats, pause, two beats, pause,
three beats, pause, one beat, pause, three beats, pause; and so on. About
when he distinguished that whatever assailed him pounded out no more than
three strikes at a time, the percussion ordered itself into a succession of
one beat, two beats, one beat, three beats, and repeated this series until
it faded from his awareness. The thrumming, too, settled into a headache.
     Only Evendal's ear distinguished that suspiration from thirteen sets
of lungs. The King was not alone, however, in noting when one resident
failed to contribute to the ephemeral noise in the Chamber. No follicled
blade on Darhelmir's upper lip even so much as quivered.
     "Dar!" Ddronhelim cried out, stricken and disbelieving. "No! No! Your
Majesty?"
     And Evendal who, disoriented from the songspell's wake, saw and felt
everyone moving as through an aether of honey-like thickness, wondered
where he had erred. "You were right to chastise me," the King commented
numbly to the Priestess. "Less artifice might have better served." Likewise
feeling affected by the lethargy he saw around him, his gaze dragged to
fix, pointedly, on no one person or object in the chamber.
     "Your Majesty!" Alarmed for the Guard, Sygkorrin insisted. "Do
something to the purpose!"
     Evendal's brow bunched; the glow from his eyes had washed away during
his cant, leaving them a clarion brass. "Dare I tempt further mischance?"
     He spoke lowly, as if mumbling in a drowse. Since no one quite knew
what the King's song had effected, none felt prepared to challenge his
question. The young lord kept a palm over Darhelmir's face and waited for
movement, some perturbation, knowing it a useless gesture. The befuddled
attendants sat or stood in clusters of a complicit silence that grew more
burdensome and paralysing the longer it remained. The Songmaster looked
able to wait out the season in the quiet of the recently devastated
chamber.
     Discarding the reticence born of self-consciousness, Karondeo moved
from Evendal's back and interposed between King and Archate. Where his
peers and betters kept silent, Karondeo spoke; yet softly, lest others hear
and presume him disrespectful of the royal office.
     "Beloved, look on your vassal. He trusts you. He belongs to you. Will
you let him get stolen away?"
     Evendal startled himself with a louder, anguished plea. "Have I not
done too much?" And those not fooled by the King's impassive mien heard the
agony of remorse Karondeo knew to be sapping Evendal. The corsair's son
ignored the question, seeking to stir a more deep-seated anxiety intrinsic
to the Evendal he knew.
     Karondeo did not raise his voice to match the King's, testing the
measure of the King's truth as spoken to him. "One of your own is
failing. Retrograde to both your wills, he is being taken from you. Have
you so many as to not miss this one?"
     "One of Our's," Evendal affirmed in a whisper. The thought gave him
pause. The room righted itself in his perception. "Pledged to Us. Failing
or not, he is Our's else he would have died while We were at sea. And
whatever else We may have done, We have not released Our faithful!"
Karondeo noticed his beloved's shoulders untense, and small signs of
animation return as suddenly as they had fled.
     "Ddam, hoshe'Ddronhelim," m'Alismogh's amber eyes focused once more as
he jabbed the corpselike Guard in the chest with a finger. "Kharemeh!"(294)
     Annoyed at the dallying, the seemingly pointless emotion, and the
apparent non sequiturs, Sygkorrin again protested. "Do something to the
purpose. No one talks like that anymore. A Guard would not know the words
you..."
     Then Darhelmir obliged his king.
     Ddronhelim leaned back from his gasping, insensate brother to gaze on
the King with an awe unalloyed by affection. All that the Guard could grasp
at this juncture was how his brother was not dead. Yet.
     He and Darhelmir had acceded to what were, for them, unclear risks in
seeking Evendal's succour. They had served under the Beast and the Walking
Abacus and both rulers had been worse than indifferent to physically
weakened or `sentimental' Guard. And while Menam's Heir had shown regal
magnanimity, the thought of presuming on it felt as perilous as the family
malady.
     Darhelmir had been reticent, despondent in the aftermath of the
priest's cavalier treatment and disdain. Prior to this bell, Ddronhelim
thought he had endured the limit of unrelieved frustration in the struggle
to help maintain his brother's sangfroid after that dung-spewing Archate
discard had visited. Ddronhelim had turned to him, believing that what he
might not understand or notice in his pain, Darhelmir might grasp. But
Darhelmir's anxiety for his brother had rendered him deaf to all but
delusion and hope. It seemed clear that neither he nor the King knew what
good or ill the King might accomplish.
     The niggling but earnestly nibbling doubt that he and his brother were
being toyed with again, in service to this creature of odd dispositions and
disjointed fancies, added to Ddronhelim's fear. Discovering still more
opportunities for that all-too-familiar feeling of helplessness did not
endear this sovereign to him.
     Both brothers calmed as their King watched without comment or censure;
Ddronhelim back into his rounds of self-recrimination, Darhelmir back into
apparent sleep.
     Karondeo's grip on his shoulder startled Evendal and reminded him that
not everyone held him in a distancing fear; the hand's steady pressure and
warm weight gave the troubled Songmaster the impetus to chant more
recklessly.


        By song and vow
        We claimed you at Our start.
        We claim you now.
        To sing whole your tired heart
        We keep Our claws in you,
        Assuring every breath;
        And in your brother too.
        Now's not your day for death.

        What errors each mite and weaving holds,
        Of blood and bone and seed within you,
        Emend down to life's moulds,
        That your lines beget wholesome issue
        If that is the path your will unfolds.


     His chant came out mangled, mixing metres and rhythms and using too
few dynamic eikhons. At the short song's end Evendal first looked to
Darhelmir, breathing obediently, and saw him blush. Curious, the King
touched the Guard's face. His hand tingled, with fingertips melting a
translucent rime by their warmth. The Guard did not flinch or respond. As
the King and his coterie watched, Darhelmir's seated form slowly collected
what looked like flakes of white ash out of the air. When, befuddled but
wary, Ddronhelim made to brush at the debris, the King gestured him to
forbear.
     The ash-hued bits of ice multiplied, adhering into a rind of patchy
grey and white scales. Soon enough Darhelmir resembled a Kul-stone carving;
his serene effigy breathing shallowly. This patina of sleet attached itself
exclusively to Darhelmir. Moments passed. Occasionally small sections of
slush would slide off of the Guard and puddle on the floor, replaced soon
enough. Though proximity to the room's hearth caused continuous dripping,
in less than a quarter of a bell a suit of winter's armour encompassed
Darhelmir, pulled seemingly from the moisture in the air and unimpeded by
the hearth-fire.
     His Majesty's attendants patterned their haviour on their King's. No
visible response.
     All attendants but one.
     "Whence all this?" Ddronhelim demanded, fear and fury leashed but
evident.
     "Par-shetope? Ierwbae?" m'Alismogh directed. "Please to lift Darhelmir
--- by this seat --- away from the hearth for now." The logs in the
fireplace looked to be burning well, but Evendal no longer felt heat from
them. Uncertain if what he felt or failed to feel was shared by others,
Evendal ignored the anomaly.
     "Your Majesty," Ddronhelim pleaded, as he anxiously shadowed the
labouring Guard. "As you love me, what passes with my brother?"
     The King's countenance matched Darhelmir's body for chill. "What
must."
     Satisfied with his brother's transposition, the beset young man
returned to face his liege. "Your Majesty, I beg of you..."
     Evendal rounded on the distraught Guard. "No! Do not. We have never
asked it of you. We never will. What do We ask of you, Guard Ddronhelim?
What?"
     Astonied, Ddronhelim fumbled in his answer. "Truth, honesty, loyalty."
     "The phrase you march carefully around is `earthly worship'. To treat
with Us as if We were valued by you. As having worth in your eyes." The
King flattened his lips against his teeth and squinted grimly at his
obstreperous Guard before continuing. "What shines out of those eyes when
you look on Us, Guard Ddronhelim? Respect?"
     Himself squinting against the royal glare, the Guard let silence damn
him; Evendal would not.
     "We asked a question. Guard. Of. Our's."
     "No, Your Majesty."
     "No. Respect is fled. We tell you a secret any Court-bound Guard must
know, shallow-hearted vassal -- We do not manifest the King's Touch. We
never have. We are not Ir's darling. We are not the `essential King.' We do
not encompass in Our person all gifts politic as are granted to humans. You
will have a long wait for such a ruler. Shall We say aloud what passed
through your heart at the seeming failure of Our song just now? Or will you
confess it? And which do you suppose would soften Our own heart toward you
more?"
     Shaken by the King's ferocity and his bluntness, Ddronhelim stammered
out a nonetheless angry confession. "You merely toy with us. Our lives and
deaths mean nothing to you."
     Evendal shook his head, clenching his teeth until he could control
what flew past them. "A rather glib summary. Did We consign your brother to
a cell in the Archate, away from Us, to be watched over by strangers until
he ceased to breathe? Did We order his death as a tool no longer useful to
Us? We refuse to bleed merely for your comfort. Go. Leave Us ere We decide
to banish you, away from your healing brother."
     Ddronhelim, moisture dotting his hairline, hesitated. "He is truly
mending?"
     The question was one too many and Evendal's face darkened. "Go! Inform
Bruddbana you are to troll the wall as your duty hence. Until We grant you
leave to visit Darhelmir you do not have the privilege. Go!"
     "`Twas ill done," Aldul murmured after Ddronhelim had fled.
     To the surprise of all but Kri-estaul, Karondeo and Ierwbae, the King
turned a calm and studiously bland mien upon those remaining. "Not at
all. Our command fit the need. We are not a well that one may come to for
water and then baulk at the taste. He approaches Us in his brother's last
extremity, ignores Our caveats, then decides to despise Us when they prove
justified. We warned him of Our frailty. He chose to turn a deaf ear. Now
We show him another way We are common...not all-powerful(295) nor
impassible(296). While Our response was honest, as well might it penetrate
his callow armour since it deprives him of a reassurance -- the lack of
which he will feel keenly. We have not counterfeited Our anger. He offends
Us. And without some seasoning of his humours he may disable Us, becoming a
staff We dare not lean on."
     "And your own disposition?" Gwl-lethry asked.
     "Abroil. His arrogance tried Us greatly."
     "What arrogance?" So truly puzzled did Gwl-lethry sound, the King took
no umbrage.
     "He assumes, still, that We have no genuine fear for a man not of Our
blood. He presumes Our words and efforts are trumpery and that We do not in
all verity care for those We tend. Because Our concern is not shouted to
the horizons, as his is, he expects Our vassals to be as gamepieces to
Us. Given time, he himself would come to ape the disdain he ascribes to Us,
and come to besmirch Our reign with its consequent actions."
     "Papa," Kri-estaul spoke up, eyeing the doorway but pointing to the
trident. "What did you do to that man? He did not look at all well."
     "No, he didn't. I do not quite know what my song did for him. We shall
have to wait and see."
     "You don't know?" That did surprise the boy.
     "No."
     "Why did you make that other Guard angry?"
     Evendal pulled Kri-estaul's chair closer to him. "He weighed himself
down with anger before he met Us, sweetling. We only make Ourself a person
to transfer that burthen onto."
      The King waved the matter aside. "Enough on this."
     "But what of Darhelmir?" Gwl-lethry shivered, for the room had gotten
colder.
     Evendal m'Alismogh's expression was sombre, somewhat between grim and
sad, as he stared at the unresponsive figure settled under the trident, but
he kept his uncertainty unvoiced. "We expect both of Our songs are at work
toward his recapitulation. Do not be alarmed should his chest cease to rise
and fall with breath for a period."
     Lady Sygkorrin shook her head in consternation. "Breath is our
boundary-marker between life and death, Your Majesty. How could we not be
alarmed?"
     Feeling too weary and muddled for further confrontation; the King
rubbed his forehead and shut his eyes for a moment. His revived lambency
reflected off his palm. "All look on a mountain and -- without hesitation
-- call it `living rock'. The phrase is a true one: Stone does indeed
breathe, though few men have the patience to mark it. We did not say
Darhelmir would cease utterly to breathe!"
     "Can you not simply tell us what is passing?" Gwl-lethry persisted,
having stood when Ddronhelim fled. "What you have done to...for your man?"
     Evendal stared blankly at the manourlord, surprised at the sloth the
request revealed. "Did you not listen when We sang both times? If We could
explain any more clearly using other words We would have chosen them for a
lyric."
     Sitting in Innocents' Row, Urhlysha piped up. "Thunder! Your Majesty's
every humour reminds me of Her Majesty at her most cryptic."
     Relieved at hearing a pacific, undemanding voice, Evendal let a grin
spasm on his lips. "Magister, that I cannot remedy. Nor would I."
     The King's use of the singular pronoun was not lost on Urhlysha, whose
eyes crinkled in an appreciative smirk. "Like Your Majesty, Your Majesty's
dam all too often saw what her fellows did not want to; her intelligence
ever accurate -- if quelling." The older man's breath huffed out in a
mist. "I have no doubt she knew every shameful secret of every ambitious
craft-master and manourlord. Likewise, it would seem Your Majesty can hear
every contrary motive or impetus of Your Majesty's vassals."
     Evendal shrugged. "We are unsure whence much of Our knowledge
comes..." He glanced at the now empty krater lying by the hearth and
shrugged a second time.
     Urhlysha nodded, understanding; in his own never-voiced estimation,
his survival and best successes had little to do with any personal wisdom
or cunning.
     "Ierwbae?"
     Metthendoenn's beloved looked up from securing a rug about His
Highness. "Majesty?"
     "Assign two to stand watch over Darhelmir for the night. They are not
to touch him except he open his eyes and address them by name. Reassure
whomever you designate that We will know if boredom gets the better of them
and they disregard Our stricture."
     "Your Majesty," Gwl-lethry persisted, "Do you know what encompasses
Guard Darhelmir?"
     "Were you truly Her Majesty's pupil?" The King jibed. He forced two
deep breaths before replying more clemently. "First, forgive Us, Tinde'keb,
Our unmannerly treatment of you this bell. We wrong you."
     Gwl-lethry aghd Gilbrahalnir peered ungraciously at Evendal to see if
he was being mocked again, then flushed at his own breach. "If His Majesty
can forgive my importuning him with questions on matters most particular to
him..."
     "Readily. And to answer your query... No. Our best suspicion is that
his body cannot mend while serving all the demands it(297) commonly
fulfils. `Send blood here,' `equalise that humour there.' This...slumber,
then, would be like unto the snake's, which must retreat to a chill burrow
and sleep in order to shed its skin. But, in truth, We do not know. We
cannot claim any comfortable certainty that such is what we witness."
     "What's the purpose now?"
     Evendal grinned slightly at his son, who stared uneasily at the
splotchy white figure under the trident. "We retire for some much needed
rest."
     That answer clearly did not soothe the manourlord, who opened his
mouth to react, and then shut it with a clack.
     "Your eagerness puzzles Us, good Gwl-lethry."
     Gwl-lethry bent his head, startled away from his pursuit. "My wards
have been all my concern, Your Majesty. Some other bell I would like to
tell you specifics of the trek eastward that they endured. Their trust,
their courage, and their weakness. Not all of them had the constitution the
journey demanded. And I... I have knelt beside rugs that became
deathbeds. I have held too many uncomforted siblings and grief-filled
friends. Niem Dir chided me as too soft, but...Ddronhelim's misery is
familiar to me."
     "And you seek an auspicious, and swift, summa -- to assuage your
nerves, your memories, and your sensibilities?" The King shook his head and
waved a hand toward the trident. "As would We, were the choice and
authority Ours. We have no such sop. Though We call Our gift `Songmastery',
We are not its master. The true master here is..." Evendal stopped short,
hard pressed to convey what he felt, what he perceived. Predisposed Chance:
Whatever embodied the process when the small decisions and the deferred
decisions of many unrelated people create conditions unforeseen by those in
media res. Whoever or Whatever governed the apportioning of momentum and
inertia in all things seen and unseen that pushed for one conclusion and
not another. This perception shone clear in his mind, but had no avenue for
conveyance in Hramal-regnan. Then the moment and insight passed. "...Ir."
he concluded.
     "Whose Ir?" Gwl-lethry responded brashly, surprising Evendal with his
own apperception. "No `Ir" I might acknowledge. Even before Mausna, we your
subjects wanted nothing more than the life Your Majesty's family had long
safeguarded. The pedestrian greed of the Landed never sought beyond the
excesses permitted by our estate; the ambitions we enacted were common,
traditional. Yet the unwholesome fancies of a rabid few impelled Ir into
overturning our world along with her wheel. Is it not high time that wheel
turned again, to raise up these your vassals?"
     Evendal had no quibble with Gwl-lethry's sentiment. "You ask a
heresiarch, Tinde'keb. The world We accept is not a bureaucracy(298), where
litanies and rituals influence Ir's hand each day. Neither will, nor wish,
nor hope, nor drive... No thought long harboured, no passion long-hoarded,
nor need long-suffered, has ever caused a grain of beach sand to move so
much as its own width. `Twas not the intensity of those few dogs' hunger
that fed them their success. `Twas their readiness. They permitted no
distance between resolve and act. They ground under foot what made them
Hramal, what kept their hearts soft, and counted it no loss. They delivered
away what was not theirs to discard. They were ruthless toward themselves
and more ruthless toward others. The same can not be said for those who
might have opposed them, who in doing so might have evoked a different
outcome."
     The manourlord looked suitably scandalised, though with a macabre
mirth curling the corners of his mouth. "So had I heeded Niem Dir, or took
my lessoning from the Abacus and the Beast...had I treated every stranger I
met as chattel, every citizen as only a tool for my hand and nought but
dross when useless to me, I would not now be starting at every noise, nor
would my levity and gentilesse have so completely fled."
     Evendal grimaced, weary. He sniffed back moisture in a too-cold nose
as he stood up. "Do not strive to rile Us with hyperbole, good
Gwl-lethry. We speak of defying those effective few with a mirroring
commitment, not with identical methods. We can count on one hand, and leave
Our thumb free, the number of lords owning a purity of heart for the weal
of the realm. Most courtiers wished, wanted, and hoped for the good of the
kingdom -- and accounted those mental...visitations sufficient. So did the
wheel turn."
     Glancing up and out from the dais, the King went still. After a
moment, his face reddened. "Is there aught else for Our dispensation this
bell?" His voice came out thin, unsupported.
     Drussilikh and Gwl-lethry debated with solemn glances between them but
felt no cause as yet for heraldry and kept their own counsel.
     Inexplicably distrait, the King sputtered. "Think you the masons would
object... to a reappointment of this room? At this bell in their efforts?"
     "Not to usurp Chancellor Fillowyn's offices, Your Majesty," Aldul
proffered, puzzled at the change in concerns, "but would that not be an
extraordinary expense?" Mercifully, no one commented on Kwo-edans and
frugality.
     "The t'bo's share of the labour is already done for them," the King
insisted, his arm fanning out to indicate the accidents before them.
     Twice Lord Evendal m'Alismogh had unwittingly altered the room's
layout. The first time in the fury of his grief, fire had consumed old,
ossified mortar and had cracked stone. The simple, deliberately basic,
structure of the hall rendered this damage essentially cosmetic.
     The slightly skewed stones, the cracked rock, fallen shards, and soot
damage Lord Evendal had caused had disappeared in the space of two
songs. Undetectable to those uninitiated in a mason's craft, living,
evanescent song had given substance and pliancy to the filler. Change knows
only itself, making the return of original materials centuries old a vain
human fancy; so, had Evendal sung for restoration instead of rectification,
his failure might have doomed more than Darhelmir.
     Even so, gone were the precise angles to the walls; funnels of rough
unpolished stone now ornamented the golden mean, the regulum that this hall
for justice and equity was built to inform. The once-sharp straight edges
at floor and ceiling were now concave with rock additions indivisible and
indistinguishable from the original ashlar(299). Abrasive columnar bulges
visually divided the east and west walls into even sections. Had organpipe
mud daubers learned symmetry, their efforts might have resembled what the
Chamber walls looked like to the King's companions.
     "What is it for?" Ierwbae asked.
     "What brought it to pass?" Aldul asked simultaneously.
     The King turned to his travelling companion, who anticipated just such
a doubtful expression as the King sported.
     "Your Majesty's first song was over-mannered but both were rife with
ambiguities. Your Majesty assuredly meant Guard Darhelmir as the sole
object of your working. But the...target was not specified in either
song. We may find that your songs have wreaked results beyond this room."
     Evendal raised an eyebrow and nodded. "A fair concern. Were Our
authority the only power employed, We posit that the effect would have
remained confined to Our Guard. But Anlota's realm, and its substance(300),
has its own routines and rules; imposes its own limits. As We said earlier
-- We are not the master in the songs We use. And you are wrong..."
     Just then Lin-kaelug entered, Ddronhelim stumbling at her side. "Your
Majesty?"
     The King waved honours aside. "What has beset him?"
     "He is fevered. I found him three doors away, bent over and puking
air."
     The King nodded, unperturbed. "We were hasty to banish him. He'd best
remain with his brother until this reconstitution is complete. Someone
retrieve rugs and bedding."
     Between gasps and groans, curtailing briefly the urge to vomit,
Ddronhelim again railed at his liege. "What have you done to me? Your
Majesty?"
     "Did you presume that not turning pixie-blue(301) at odd moments meant
you, and any issue, were spared your brother's affliction?" Evendal glanced
back at Aldul. "As We were saying. Having Darhelmir alone house the fruits
of Our song would make an obscenity of Our oaths."
     "What runner did you send across Ddronhelim's ken, to prepare him for
this?" Aldul pressed, thinking the Guard ill-served.
     "None. Do We enquire as to whether Our arm desires healing when the
want is plainly there?"
     Aldul desisted and helped Ddronhelim to the trident-bearing wall,
which the Guard leaned against and slid down until he rested his head on
his brother's chair. After a moment's gasping, Ddronhelim spoke unprompted.
     "Mother says he came out first. But he was always the slower, quieter
one. Cautious and gentler. Forgive me, my long-suffering liege. I don't
think on what to say to others until it is too late to say anything. Then
Dar tells me if I was wise or churlish."
     Evendal had a sudden image of two young rapscallions; one stung beyond
endurance and barrelling into a brawl, the other shielding the first one's
back. "You've fought the fights he could not." The King observed quietly.
     "My brother's no mollycoddle!" Ddronhelim protested, then groaned in
nausea.
     The King grinned down at Ddronhelim. "He outlived the Interregnum. Of
course he isn't. Rest. And consider a life without your most constant
companion."
     Alarmed, Ddronhelim struggled to stand back up.
     Gesturing the troubled Guard to abide, Evendal clarified. "We do not
speak of your brother but of `Worry.' Has that not `fear' been your most
loyal companion?"
     The worn man nodded, scraping the back of his head.
     "Then anticipate your brother's waking," m'Alismogh advised. "And days
when you both may breathe easy. Days when you may breathe your own air and
not each other's."


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(284)~The wheels of such devices are padded with a caged layer of resin
soaked cork.

(285) SongSpell 40.

(286)~English does not always serve Hramal-regnan well. The verbs used here
do not imply manufacture. `Growth to a deliberate pattern' is closest, with
no implication of planning or fabrication. If the Hramal have any stories
of a benevolent or malevolent Creator or Architect, they have never put
them in writing.

(287) the base of the building that was used to create a level surface on
which to build.

(288) of, relating to, or constituting essence. She is saying that they are
not types and so are mutable.

(289)~Old-blood-bundles

(290) Neophron percnopterus

(291) Most of the 2nd person referents in this chant are plural form.

(292) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_plain

(293)~blood-lace

(294)~Kharemeh -- (car-eh-may) Imperfect imperative -- (a form fallen
into disuse. Uvular `h'): Continue to breathe. "You! Ddronhelim's anchor!
Breathe!"

(295)~Hramal does not have a word for omnipotence that includes the natural
and praeternatural in its semantic range, so Evendal fashioned a
word-cluster.

(296) For those not familiar with theolo...

1 a: incapable of suffering or of experiencing pain. b: inaccessible to
injury

2: incapable of feeling.
     
(297)~Just a reminder that Hramal have -- but tend not to use -- neuter
pronouns; I alter the gendered ones to conform to our convention.

(298)~'not a congeries of conclaves'

(299) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashlar. Also, The Medieval Castle;
Philip Warner; Penguin Putnam, Inc.; 2001.

(300) The nearest approximate is a Platonic eidolon.

(301) cyanotic