'He means exactly that,' said the Deathpriest.

  Aruke again waved Valko to take his seat, and reluctantly the young fighter sat down. 'What you will hear tonight began centuries ago,' he started. 'On a day not unlike this, one of my many greatgrandfathers was brought before his father in this very room, where four men sat, much as you see now. He was told things which he could barely credit, yet when the night turned to dawn, he was still alive and fully believed everything he had been taught. So it has gone for generations, for deep within the history of the Camareen lies a secret. It is a secret you will either keep within you for years to come, or take to your grave this night.

  'I sat where you sit now, many years ago, as my father and his father before had done. We sat, we listened, we could not believe what was said, but when all was said and done, we came to understand. And when we understood, our lives were forever changed.

  'Moreover, each of us has taken a pledge and embarked on a journey, from that ancestor to myself. My journey still takes place this day.'

  'Journey?' asked Valko. 'To where?'

  'To a place within the soul,' said the Deathpriest.

  Valko's mind immediately turned calculating. His mother had warned him against listening to the Deathpriests, for they were highest in the regard of the Dark One, after the TeKarana. As such, they could decree that any deviation from accepted behaviour could be labelled blasphemy and bring instant destruction; although his mother had cautioned him that as often as not such accusations had more to do with property, rank, an old blood feud, or over a female advantageous to an alliance, and little to do with doctrine.

  The Deathpriest read something in Valko's expression, for he said, 'I know your mother warned you against listening to those of us in the Brotherhood. But put aside what you think you know, and learn.'

  'How do you know what my mother warned me of?' asked Valko, alarmed.

  Aruke laughed. 'Because your mother is one of us, and if she could be, she would be sitting in the fifth chair. She is with us in spirit, if not in mind and body.'

  Valko didn't understand, but he knew down to his marrow that for the next few minutes his life would be in the balance.

  Aruke looked first to one side, then to the other, and the three men with him all nodded. 'My son, since long before you were conceived, plans were in place that required one such as yourself to be created.'

  Valko wondered at the choice of the word 'created', but chose to remain silent.

  'Like my father before me, I was raised with a single purpose, a purpose which I hope will be fulfilled this night.' He fell silent, either waiting to see if his son had a comment or question, or simply to gather his thoughts. 'You will either understand this or not and upon your understanding both our futures rest.

  'Everything you know about our people, the Dasati, is false.'

  Now Valko could not resist the urge to speak. 'False? What do you mean? In what way?'

  'In every way,' said his father.

  The Deathpriest spoke next. 'I am Father Juwon. As a child I knew I had a calling beyond that of being a warrior. When I returned to my father's estate and bested everyone he sent against me to test me and won, I left, seeking the nearest abbey.

  'There I trained until I was elevated to the rank of lector, and then to deacon. At last I reached ordination as a priest, and am now High Priest of the Western Lands.

  'But even from the first I knew my calling came not from the Dark One, but from somewhere else.'

  The hair on the back of Valko's neck rose, for surely this highly placed Deathpriest could never utter such blasphemy? There was no other source for a calling, save the Dark One. That is what everyone he had ever known had said ... everyone but his mother.

  Valko said nothing.

  The armoured man said, 'I am Denob, of the Jadmundier. I trained with your father, alongside Hirea. The three of us were chosen by fate to become as brothers, though this was not obvious to us at first.' He looked at Hirea.

  'I have seen into you, young Valko,' said the old training instructor, 'deeper than you think. I have also spoken to your mother, and she told me what to seek within you.

  'I have not found you wanting.'

  'When we fought, and I bested you with my bare hands, why the deception?' cried Valko. 'Why did you act as if you didn't know my mother, and then tell me she was a Bloodwitch?'

  Hirea smiled. 'Have you thought upon what I said?'

  'Yes,' said Valko. 'I have.'

  'And your conclusion?' asked the Deathpriest.

  Valko was silent for a moment. Then, in a low voice, he said, 'I believe my mother is a Bloodwitch.'

  'Then you've taken your first step,' said his father. 'When your mother and I coupled, it had been decided long before we had met that we should conceive a special child. Generations of Dasati were coupled and their offspring united in turn, in order that one day you would sit in that chair.'

  'Auguries and portents had set us all on this path years ago,' said Father Juwon. He leaned forward and looked Valko directly in the eyes, a challenge in any other circumstance. 'You are that special child, and the prophecy has begun.'

  'What prophecy?' Valko asked.

  The Deathpriest sat back and began speaking, as if reciting a familiar old liturgy. 'In the beginning there was a balance, and within that balance all things resided. There was pleasure and pain, hope and despair, victory and defeat, the beginning and the end, and between them all things lived, bred, and died, and the order of things progressed as they should.

  'But one day a struggle began and after epic battles and horrible sacrifice, the balance was destroyed.'

  'I don't understand,' said Valko. 'What balance are you speaking of?'

  'The balance between evil and good,' said the Deathpriest.

  Valko blinked. 'I don't understand those words.'

  'The words are lost because the basic concepts were lost,' said Aruke. 'Why do you think Attenders take up healing?'

  Valko shrugged. 'They are weak. They are ...' He let the thought trail off, for in truth, he had no understanding of why Attenders chose the lives they did.

  'Why would any sane being choose a life of being despised by those they serve?' asked Hirea. 'They could just as easily be Mongers, Facilitators or Effectors. But instead they pick a trade that, while useful, earns them continuous contempt. Why?'

  Again, Valko could not express a reason. He just had a deep feeling that something was wrong.

  'They endure what they endure, because they are good men and women,' said Father Juwon. 'They are good because they elect to help others, just for the satisfaction of healing, of helping, or repairing damage, of putting the needs of others ahead of their own.'

  'I don't understand,' said Valko, but instead of a defiant tone, his tone was quietly reflective, as if he really did wish to comprehend what was being said to him. Deep within, he knew he was beginning to understand.

  'In ancient days,' said the Deathpriest, 'there were two driving impulses within every man, woman, and child: the impulse to take what you wished, regardless of cost to others, to see and grab, to want and to kill, to live without regard for others. To live this life, there could be no progress, no growth, nothing but endless bloodshed and strife.'

  'But that's how it has always been,' said Valko.

  'No!' said Aruke to his son. 'The four of us here are living proof it is not always that way. Each of us would willingly lay down his life for the others.'

  'But why?' asked Valko. 'He is a Jadmundier—' pointing to Denob. 'Hirea is of the Scourge, and he?' indicating Father Juwon, '—is a Deathpriest. You have no bond or loyalty to one another, no social alliances, no pacts or obligations.'

  'Not true,' answered his father. 'Though Scourge might fight alongside Sadharin, or against Jadmundier, we three are as brothers.'

  Father Juwon said, 'This is the other driving impulse: the drive to band together, to share burdens, and to help one another; it's the very thing we now hold in contempt, yet some of us still feel it, or no one would ever become an Attender or Facilitator. Why choose a life that heaps scorn and hatred upon you?'

  Valko now looked defeated. 'I don't understand.'

  Aruke said, 'It's called "enlightened self-interest", my son. It's why warriors can put aside differences and aid one another, because it is to our mutual benefit. And we four, here in this room, are but a few of many who have come to understand that our people have become lost without the second impulse, the impulse to care for others. The only place in our people where that impulse is still pure is with a mother and her child. Think of your mother caring for you all those years in the Hiding, and wonder why that is the only time we Dasati exhibit that trait.'

  Valko said, 'But you four have found it?'

  'We have a higher calling,' said Aruke. 'We serve a different master than the Dark One.'

  'Who?' cried Valko, now sitting forward on his seat.

  Aruke said, 'We serve the White.'

  * * *

  Valko was stunned. The White was a tale told by mothers to frighten their young. Yet four men - three warriors and a Deathpriest - sat before him telling him they served a myth.

  Silence dragged on, then Aruke said, 'You say nothing.'

  Valko chose his words carefully. 'What I have been taught, above all else by my mother, is to question everything.' He shifted his weight in his chair, as if trying to make himself more comfortable as he wrestled with such difficult concepts. 'Until this moment, had you asked, I would have said what I assume every warrior of the Dasati would say: the White is a myth. It's a tale concocted by Deathpriests to keep the faithful in their place, or a fable created by the TeKarana's ancestors to give weight to the claim that his line was chosen by the Dark One to protect His Darkness's people from the harshest of light. Or perhaps simply a tale handed down from our ancestors that means nothing.

  'It is said that the White is a being who lures the unfaithful into insanity and makes the weak perform irrational acts that mark them so that all Dasati can see their contamination. It is said that even to think overly long upon the White is dangerous. For me, the White always signified madness.

  'Until tonight, I would not have believed such a thing as the White truly existed. Yet here you sit thus avowing, so I should assume that the four of you are mad, claiming as you do to be in the service of something that does not exist outside of myth.

  However, nothing I've seen in Hirea indicates irrationality, nor in you, my father.

  'So I am forced to assume that the White is real and that the world is not what I have been told it is.'

  Aruke sat back positively beaming with pride. He glanced at Father Juwon who said, 'You reasoned that well, young Valko. Assume the White is real. What do you suppose it is?'

  Valko shook his head. 'I doubt I can even guess.'

  'Guess,' commanded his father.

  'The White is not a being,' Valko began slowly. 'Or there would have been more ... believable stories. Witnesses, testimonies and the like. It would have to be immortal, for the legend has existed for centuries. I have never once heard of anyone who even knew anyone who had seen a manifestation of the White, so it cannot be a person or a being.'

  Father Juwon nodded with approval.

  'So,' continued Valko, 'it must be something abstract.' He looked at the four men, 'Perhaps a society, like the Sadharin or the Scourge.'

  Aruke nodded. 'It is, but it is more.' He looked at Hirea.

  Hirea said, 'I've watched you, young Valko, and I've seen you kill, yet you take no pleasure in it.'

  Valko shrugged and said, 'I ... no. I do not. I feel ...'

  'What do you feel?' asked Denob.

  Valko said, 'I feel a sense of ... waste. Even when I become enraged, or feel the hunger to spill blood, when it's over I feel ... an emptiness.' He looked at his father. 'The young warrior I fought on my day of testing, Lord Kesko's son... I have seen those who would not stand against him victorious in the training arena. It was chance that had him face me. Had he faced another, he would be serving his house and the Sadharin this very day. There is no advantage, but chance, and chance ... it evens out eventually, doesn't it?'

  Father Juwon nodded. 'It does. We lose many fine young warriors to mere chance, and keep lesser warriors alive.'

  'It is a waste,' Valko repeated.

  'It is wrong,' said Aruke. 'If you can come to understand this thing, then I am content to die this night.'

  'Why should you wish to die tonight,' asked Valko. 'Why should either of us die? Is it because of this ... secret you carry? I can scarcely believe it, but if you say the White is who you serve, then I will serve with you. You have much to teach me, Father, and there will be many years before I take your head.'

  'No, you must take my head tonight.'

  'But why?'

  'So that when dawn comes, you will be Lord of the Camareen. You must install your mother as ruling female of this house and begin to sire sons. Your mother will pick those females who will give you strong, well-connected sons.

  'And you must come to understand many things that I cannot teach you. Your mother must; for a time of change is soon upon us, and you must remain for many years the Lord of the Camareen, and come to fully understand your fate.'

  'What is my fate,' asked Valko. 'That I must hear this and ... believe it?'

  'Your mother will tell you all, and she will be here within two days,' said Aruke. 'But before I go, I reserve the pleasure of telling you what you must know.

  'You build an alliance unlike any seen since the Days of Forging, and you or your heir must take that alliance and ride across the Star Bridge to Omadrabar, and there you must do a thing that has never been done in the history of the Dasati.

  'You must take the head of the TeKarana. You must destroy the Empire of the Twelve Worlds and save the Dasati from the Dark One.'

  • CHAPTER SIXTEEN •

  Lord

  Aruke made ready to die.

  Valko again voiced his objection. 'This is wasteful, and unnecessary.'

  'You are young,' said Father Juwon. 'You are powerful, talented, and perceptive beyond your years, but you are inexperienced.'

  Kneeling before his son, Aruke said, 'Listen to them. Father Juwon will remain here, as your "spiritual advisor", and Hirea and Denob will visit regularly. Others will make themselves known to you.

  'But it is to your mother you must look first, and then to Father Juwon, for they will be your heart and mind until you have matured to fulfil your destiny, my son. You must be the ruling lord of the Camareen, not any man's son. It is vital that you rise quickly, and that all recognize you, for a great struggle is coming, and you must be ready when it arrives. Your mother will be a fine mistress of this castle - it is to my everlasting sorrow she was never here long during my tenure as ruler; she taught me more than I imagined possible to learn from a female, and I regret that I will not see her again - and with a prelate as powerful as Father Juwon acting as your personal advisor, you will begin with great prestige and influence.

  'They will guide you, keep you safe from those who will seek to crush you, and shield you from those who wish to pull you down from below.'

  He looked at Father Juwon, and nodded. 'I am ready.'

  Father Juwon looked at his old friend, then at Valko, who saw a sheen of wetness in the Deathpriest's eyes. An open display of weakness from a Deathpriest? This, as much as anything he had heard, proved that what he had been told was true, or that it was at least the truth as these men knew it.

  The High Priest of the Western Lands said, 'We are so far from the light, we who serve the White, that we do not even have a name for the One we seek to worship. Somewhere lost in time that being lived, and somewhere we pray goodness abides, until such time as the way is made to return it to our lost people. But we still wish for our brother that being's mercy and know that this sacrifice is all that can be asked of any man.' He looked at Valko. 'Make it swift, and with honour and respect.'

  The Lord of the Camareen presented his sword hilt-first to his son and Valko took it from him. He took a deep breath, and then in one swift motion he brought it down in a slashing blow, cleanly severing his father's head from his shoulders.

  Orange blood fountained up in a spurting arc as Aruke's head rolled across the floor and his body crumpled. Valko stood over his father's body, generations of Dasati breeding causing a feeling of triumph to rise up in him. He was now Lord of the Camareen! He was now ... then another feeling intruded: a dark, cold sensation in the pit of the stomach, far more chilling than the mere sense of wastefulness he had felt before when seeing someone needlessly die. It was a lonely thing, a dull ache of the heart, and he had no name for it. He looked at Juwon with a silent question in his eyes.

  'It is called sorrow,' said the Deathpriest. 'What you are feeling in your heart is called sorrow.'

  Valko felt moisture gather in his eyes, and a cold grip seized his heart. He looked at the three remaining men in the room and said, 'Surely this cannot be what you seek to serve?' His voice was thick with unfamiliar emotions.

  'It is,' said Hirea, also betraying sadness at seeing his old friend dead. 'Dying for a noble cause doesn't lessen the loss, my young friend. Your father was my oldest companion and the only brother of the heart I have known. I will think of him every day for the rest of my life.'

  A single tear ran down Valko's cheek. 'I cannot welcome this,' he said.

  Father Juwon put his hand on the young lord's shoulder. 'You must. It is what will save you. And it will save our people. I know it is a great deal to understand, but in time you will. Just know that the most difficult task is now behind you.'

  Looking down at the body of the man he barely knew, Valko said, 'Why do I feel such ... sorrow? I ... he was a stranger.'

  'He was your father,' said Denob. 'In ages gone by he would have loved you as your mother has.'

  'Can that be?'

  'It is what we fight for,' said Juwon. 'Now, let us go forth and announce to the household that you are now the Lord of the Camareen, then send word to the courts of the Sadharin and the Karana. Then make this house ready for your mother, for she is sorely needed here, my young friend.'

 

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