Light of Eidon (Legends of the Guardian-King, Book 1) (25 page)

A galley ship.

He turned the thought over in his mind, still half disbelieving it, while a
bleak terror swelled beneath his consciousness. He had done his share of labor
around the Watch but nothing like what faced him now. With his slender
frame scrawnier than ever, how would he survive?

I won’t, he thought dully. Gillard has won at last.

And after that, Why?

The word echoed aimlessly in his head, finding no answer, only the great,
fathomless emptiness, swirling like a wind across a barren, rocky field.

Somehow he fell asleep, rousing to foggy daylight, a clatter of chain, and
a deep bellowing. He lay curled on the hard bench, his ear aching where it
pressed against the wood. Iron anklets pulled painfully against his feet.

He sat upright.

To the right, crates and barrels were stacked to the ceiling, a central island
that blocked his view of the offside oarsmen. Ahead, more cargo jammed the
stern, framing the ladderlike companionway that led to the upper deck. Light
checkered through a grate at the top. More filtered through the long oar slot
on his left, washing over the hunched form of his bench mate, collapsed now
over the oar. Its handle end was anchored beneath a ledge directly in front of Abramm’s feet, the massive blade now up, out of the water.

Glancing back, he found himself sitting the second bench in a rank of
fifteen-thirty men in all. Like his own bench mate, a few of them were
slumped over oar handles, but most lounged easily, regarding him with
unveiled curiosity.

Abramm’s gaze returned to the man at his side, then out the slot beyond.
Silver water, lined with gentle ripples, swept away from the ship to meet a
dark runner of foliage-cloaked land. The boat was not moving, the air breathlessly still.

Somewhere a fire crackled-its smoke scent tickled his nostrils alongside
the aroma of roasting meat. Laughter sounded above, mingled with thumping
footfalls. Behind him someone rustled and a liquid trickle was chased by the
reek of urine.

Finally he forced himself to look at his left arm. It still throbbed, the flesh
swollen and angry around a palm-sized, dark red scab shaped vaguely like a
rampant dragon.

Branded like a common ox.

His stomach turned. His hair would grow out and his dignity could be
restored, but this he would have with him always.

And then he laughed aloud, the sound high-pitched with incipient hysteria. He was chained to the deck of a galley, a Kiriathan in the hands of an
Esurhite Gamer. The brand was the least of his troubles.

The bench creaked as his companion shifted, and a hoarse voice spoke.
“So you are alive.”

The man still hunched over the oar, but now his head was turned to face
Abramm, curly hair backlit by the fading light.

Abramm gaped. “Meridon?”

The other smiled wryly, closing his eyes. Weariness carved his freckled
face, his eyes sunken and shadowed, his features gaunt beneath the mat of his
beard. His arm muscles twitched and quivered as they rested on the oar handle, and his left hand, dangling loosely against the oar’s smooth grip, showed
a bloodied palm. Scarlet and brown smears on the wooden handle spoke eloquently of how the injury had been acquired.

He had been rowing recently. Which meant they were no longer in Qarkeshan.

So long did Meridon sit without moving that Abramm wondered if he’d fallen unconscious. Finally, though, he spoke again, his voice rough and harsh.
After they chained you here last night, you sat like one enspelled. Then you
fell over and nobody could rouse you, not even when we were called to oars.
I thought I shared the bench with a dead man.”

“Not yet.”

Meridon’s dark eyes opened, and he stared at Abramm blankly. Then his
eyes glazed and the lids dropped over them. “Guess they figured out who
you are. Can’t find a much bigger name than yours.” Meridon sighed deeply.
“I’m sorry, my lord. You deserved none of this.”

“I am not your lord,” Abramm said bitterly. “Not anymore.”

The dark eyes opened again, regarding him dully. “No,” the man slurred,
“I suppose you aren’t.”

Again his eyelids drooped, and in moments his breathing deepened into
sleep.

A little later the hatch shrieked open, and four dark-clad guards thundered down the companion bearing two steaming pots and some wooden
bowls. Two disappeared on the far side of the central cargo wall as the rich
scent of roasted goat and onions set Abramm’s stomach into instant ravenous
reaction.

He shook Meridon awake and shoved the bowl into his bloody hands
barely in time to catch his own as the guards moved on to the next row.

The stew’s heat warmed both bowl and hands, and his mouth watered
ferociously. He did not think he had ever known such hunger. Eagerly he
thrust his fingers into the thick brown gravy, plucked out a hunk of steaming
meat … and halted.

I will abstain from corrupt food … shunning the meat of animals…

As Meridon revived to gobble down his own food, Abramm stared at the
meat in his hand. A small enough morsel, but if he ate it, he would, for the
first time, deliberately violate a sacred vow.

And does that matter? asked a dry voice in his head. If the Mataio is a lie,
your vows are meaningless.

A moment more he hesitated, then slowly, deliberately, he put the meat
into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed. He fished out a second chunk and
instinct took over. As he scraped the last of the gravy and lentils from the
bowl, the guards returned, offering more stew-which he accepted-along
with loaves of dark, coarse bread and pots of brackish water.

Toward the end an audience had gathered near the companion, the guards
watching him with broad amusement, though he could not imagine what was
funny.

Finally, with mocking bows and raucous laughter, they departed. The
hatch squealed down and banged into place, then stillness settled over the
hold. He felt a little queasy now-payment for overeating. At least they were
to be fed well. When the time came to escape, he wouldn’t be too weak.

He looked down at his leg irons, the chain held by a stout iron pin driven
deep into the dark wood. Who are you kidding? You’re not going to escapeyou’re going to die.

He glanced at Meridon, asleep on the bench again. He’s had all he can
take, and you’re not half what he is. You probably won’t last the week.

Gillard’s laughter echoed in his mind, and Abramm ground his teeth.

No. Deep within him resistance stirred. No, Gillard had not won yet.
Each day that Abramm survived was a day he took from his brother and
made his own.

I will not give up that easily. I will not!

The next day his determination was tested to the limit. By afternoon his
back was a raging, bloody fire, the remains of his tunic hanging in ribbons
around his waist, courtesy of the innumerable blows of the oar master’s rope
quirt. His limbs felt like sodden wool, trembling perpetually now, and his
hands had cramped into claws around the oar handles. Though Meridon was
sharing the punishment for his weakness-and doing all the work-Abramm
could not force another ounce of effort from his aching, failing flesh.

When at last the beat ended, he could not even help Meridon anchor the
oar, could only sag back onto the bench. Every muscle in his body throbbed
an aching rhythm: arms, shoulders, chest, back, legs, buttocks-even his jaw
hurt. The cotton strips he had torn from his tunic to shield his hands from
the friction were soaked in blood. The decking beneath his feet was likewise
bloodied from blisters on the soles of his feet, formed and torn apart by the
constant need to brace himself as he pulled the heavy oar toward him.

He gave no thought to escape now. If they had broken his chains and told
him to walk free, he could not have done it.

The oar secure, Meridon collapsed as usual across the long grip, and
shortly Abramm fell forward likewise. His muscles continued to twitch, and
time and again he felt like he was still rowing. It was all he could do to choke down a few mouthfuls of stew-which had definitely not set well with him
last night-before he fell back across the oar. An image of his old feather bed
taunted him-a cloud of soft, clean-smelling sweetness.

He was half-conscious of someone gripping his hands, smearing something onto the ravaged palms, but he could not rouse himself enough to know
if it was dream or reality.

The days that followed were an unending nightmare of straining, agonized muscles and blistered, bleeding flesh pitted against wood and water,
driven on by the throbbing drumbeat and the merciless quirt.

After a time that quirt hovered over him of its own power, its wielder
unperceived, only the knotted rope and the stinging pain. Later the hand that
swung it returned, and at times that hand was Saeral’s, or Brother Cyrus’s, or
his father’s. Most often, though, it was Gillard who drove him, laughing and
mocking. As the days passed and the pain and exhaustion mounted, it
became for Abramm a battle of wills-Gillard striving to push him beyond
what he could endure, Abramm refusing to give up.

Day melded with night. Pain and Gillard and the motion of rowing
became his only realities. Even in his sleep he rowed and felt the quirt and
heard his brother’s laughter, the mocking high-pitched sound setting his teeth
to grinding.

He wondered occasionally if he were going mad, muttering a litany of
determination under his breath in time to the beat. I won’t give up. I won’t
give up. It became his personal rhythm, driving him on and on and on. Survive
for just another day. Endure for just another hour… .

Then one morning he noticed the pain had lessened. That Gillard no
longer held the whip, nor did he command the drummer. His hands and feet
were healing, calluses thickening where blisters had been. His breath no
longer ravaged his throat with each exertion.

Best of all, he received only four blows of the quirt that day. There came
a time soon after when he received none at all. Each new day brought a significant reduction of the pain, and in its absence his thoughts returned to
rationality. Eventually he realized he would survive, and the knowing filled
him with wonder.

One evening he sat with his back against the deck walk, chewing the last
of a piece of bread with an almost giddy sense of success. Meridon faced forward, eating as well. Since the first day they had spoken not a word and hardly even glanced at one another, each occupied with his own private torments. Even so, Abramm felt a powerful bond with the man, forged of shared
misery and the need of working together in constant synchronous rhythm.
More than that, Meridon represented the only link with his past. Abramm
could speak to him in his own language, and the Terstan would understand
him.

Suddenly that was important. Suddenly he wanted very much to hear
Kiriathan. To be understood and answered, as if in doing so he could lay hold
of that which he had lost.

“What were you doing there that night?” he asked abruptly. “In the Keep,
I mean-how’d you know where to find me?”

Meridon’s beard bristled slightly, as if he were clenching his teeth, and
Abramm realized he had asked the wrong thing.

The Terstan sipped deliberately from his water cup, then said, still facing
forward, “I knew where they were likely to be holding you, though not the
exact cell, so I was searching, hoping to find you before it was too late.”

He fell silent, a hardness settling around his eyes.

Abramm studied him, surprised by the depth of his own compassion.
“Ray was your friend.”

Meridon looked down at the wooden cup in his callused hands. “Or so I
thought.”

“You know he probably wasn’t involved in this. Gillard lies as easily as he
speaks.”

“He was involved,” Meridon said flatly. “It was likely his idea.”

Abramm frowned, watching an orange cat slink down the companionway
and disappear around the bottom rail post into the darkness. He glanced at
Meridon again. “Granted, I didn’t know my brothers well, but Raynen was
always an upright sort. It was important to him to do the right thing. I can’t
believe that-“

“He was afraid,” Meridon said bitterly. “And I was a threat. To him it
would have seemed the only thing he could do.”

`Afraid?” Abram’s voice rose with incredulity.

For the first time Meridon looked at him, pain, and now anger, in his eyes.
“Do not judge him too harshly. He was under pressures you know nothing
about.”

Abramm held the man’s gaze evenly, but somehow he felt reproved.

The Terstan looked away. After a moment he sighed, drained his cup, and
passed both it and his bowl to Abramm, who set them with his own on the
central walkway.

Above, the men laughed and jeered at one another.

Presently Meridon spoke again. “He had the potential to be one of Kiriath’s finest kings. But he never got over watching your father die.”

“You speak of him as if he’s the one dead.”

Meridon snorted and bent to pull the canvas flap across the oar slot,
blocking the flow of chill night air. “He may be. In any case, the man I knew
most certainly is. You’re right. He did have a fine sense of duty. Now he has
only the fear.”

“Of Saeral?”

And Prince Gillard.”

“Gillard?”

Meridon met his gaze again, the hard light back in his eyes. “Gillard wants
the throne and always has. Raynen wears a Terstan shield and suffers from
the sarotis. By now that fact has certainly become apparent-to Gillard, at
least, if not to the realm at large. With you out of the way, he is the undisputed heir. It is only a matter of time before he convinces Raynen to abdicate-or the Table of Lords to remove him.” He sighed. “The worst of it is,
Gillard’s more vulnerable to Saeral than Raynen.”

Abramm remembered the spell Saeral had cast over him-the trusted
face, the quiet lake, the sense of utter security. And into that, the promise of
the fulfillment of his most cherished dream….