An echo came to him, words spoken by Alfred during the confusion of Hugh’s drunken swoon, words probably heard only by the dog and transferred dutifully to the master.
“They thought they were gods. They tried to do right. But somehow it all kept going wrong.”
51
“Papa, I’m going with you to Drevlin—”
“No, and stop arguing with me, Bane! You must return to the Mid Realm and take your place on the throne.”
“But I can’t go back! Stephen wants to kill me!”
“Don’t be stupid, child. I haven’t time for it. In order for you to inherit the throne, Stephen and his queen must be dead. That will be arranged. In essence, of course, I will be the one who is truly ruling the Mid Realm. But I can’t be in two places at once. I will be on the Low Realm, preparing the machine. Don’t snivel! I can’t abide it.”
His father’s words sounded over and over again in Bane’s head like the screeching of some irritating nighttime insect that will not permit sleep. I will be the one who is truly ruling the Mid Realm.
Yes, and where would you be now, papa, if I hadn’t shown you how!
Lying on his back, stiff and rigid in the bed, the boy clutched handfuls of the fleecy blanket that covered him. Bane didn’t cry. Tears were a valuable weapon in his fight against adults; he had often found them useful against Stephen and Anne. Tears, alone, in the darkness, were a weakness. So his father would think.
But what did he care what his father thought?
Bane gripped the blanket hard and the tears almost came anyway. Yes, he cared. He cared so much it hurt him inside.
Bane could remember clearly the day he had come to realize that the people he knew as his parents only adored him, they didn’t love him. Having escaped from Alfred, he was loitering about the kitchen, teasing the cook for bites of sweet dough, when one of the stableboys ran in, wailing over a scratch from a dragon’s claw. It was the cook’s son, a lad not much older than Bane, who’d been put to work with his father—one of the dragon tenders. The cut wasn’t serious. Cook cleaned it and bound it with a strip of cloth, then, taking the child in her arms, kissed him heartily, hugged him, and sent him back to his chores. The boy ran off with a glowing face, the pain and fright of his injury quite forgotten.
Bane had been watching from a corner. Just the day before, he’d cut his hand on a chipped goblet. There’d been a flurry of excitement. Trian had been summoned. He’d brought with him a solid silver knife passed through flame, healing herbs, and cobweb to stanch the bleeding. The offending goblet had been smashed. Alfred had come near being sacked over the incident; King Stephen shouted at the poor chamberlain for twenty minutes running. Queen Anne had nearly fainted at the sight and been forced to leave the room. His “mother” had not kissed him. She had not taken him into her arms and made him laugh to forget the pain.
Bane had derived a certain satisfaction from beating up the stableboy—a satisfaction compounded by the fact that the stableboy had been severely punished for fighting with the prince. That night Bane asked the voice of the feather amulet, the soft and whispering voice that often spoke to him during the night, to explain why his parents didn’t love him.
The voice told him the truth. Stephen and Anne weren’t his real parents. Bane was just using them for a while. His true father was a powerful mysteriarch. His true father dwelt in a splendid castle in a fabulous realm. His true father was proud of his son, and the day would come when he would call his son home and they would be together always.
The last part of the sentence was Bane’s addition, not I will be the one who is truly ruling the Mid Realm.
Letting go of the blanket, the boy grasped hold of the feather amulet he wore around his neck and jerked hard on the leather thong. It would not break. Angrily, using words he’d picked up from the stableboy, Bane pulled at it again—harder—and succeeded only in hurting himself. Tears came to his eyes at last, tears of pain and frustration. Sitting up in bed, he pulled and tugged, and finally, after costing himself more pain by getting the thong tangled in his hair, managed to drag it up over and off his head.
Alfred was passing down the hallway, searching for his own bedchamber in the confusing, forbidding palace.
“Limbeck is falling under the sway of the mysteriarch. I can see the bloody conflict into which the Gegs will be drawn! Thousands will die, and for what—to gain an evil man control of the world! I should stop it, but how? What can I do alone? Or maybe I shouldn’t stop it. After all, it was attempting to control what should have been left alone that brought tragedy on us all. And then there is Haplo. I know for certain who he is, but, again, what can I do? Should I do anything? I don’t know! I don’t know! Why was I left by myself? Is it a mistake, or am I supposed to be doing something? And if so, what?” The chamberlain, in his aimless ramblings, found himself near Bane’s door. His inner turmoil made the dark and shadowy hall swim before his eyes. Pausing until his vision cleared, wishing desperately his thoughts would do the same, Alfred heard the rustle of bedclothes and the child’s voice crying and cursing. Glancing up and down the hall to make certain he was not seen, Alfred raised two fingers on his right hand and traced the sign of a sigil on the door. The wood seemed to disappear at his command, and he could see through it as if it were not there.
Bane hurled the amulet into a corner of the room. “No one loves me and I’m glad of it! I don’t love them. I hate them, all of them!” The boy flung himself down onto the bed, buried his head in the pillow. Alfred drew a deep and shaking breath. At last! It had happened at last, and just when his heart was despairing.
Now was the time to draw the boy back from the edge of Sinistrad’s pit. Alfred stepped forward, forgetting the door, and narrowly missed bumping right into it, for the spell he had cast had not removed it, merely let him see through it.
The chamberlain caught himself and, at the same time, thought: No, not me. What am I? A servant, nothing more. His mother. Yes, his mother!
Bane heard a sound in his room and promptly shut his eyes and froze. He had the blanket pulled over his head, and he hastily dried his tears with a quick flick of his hand.
Was it Sinistrad, coming to say he’d changed his mind?
“Bane?” The voice was soft and gentle, his mother’s. The boy pretended to be sleeping. What does she want? he wondered. Do I want to talk to her? Yes, he decided, hearing once again his father’s words, I think I do want to speak to mother. All my life people have used me to get what they wanted. Now I’m going to start using them.
Blinking sleepily, Bane raised a tousled head from the depth of the blankets. Iridal had materialized inside his room and was standing at the foot of his bed. Light slowly began to illuminate her, shining from within, and casting a warm and lovely radiance over the boy. The rest of the room remained in darkness. Looking at his mother, Bane knew, from the pitying expression that swept over her face, that she saw he had been crying. This was good. Once again he drew on his arsenal.
“Oh, my child!” His mother came to him. Sitting down on the bed, Iridal slid her arm around him and drew him close, soothing him with her hand. A feeling of exquisite warmth enveloped the boy. Nestling into that comforting arm, he said to himself: I’ve given father what he wants. Now it’s her turn. What does she want of me?
Nothing, apparently. Iridal wept over him and murmured incoherently about how much she had missed him and how she had longed for him to be with her. This gave the boy an idea.
“Mother,” he said, looking up at her with tear-drenched blue eyes, “I want to be with you! But father says he’s going to send me away!”
“Send you away! Where? Why?”
“Back to the Mid Realm, back to those people who don’t love me!” He caught hold of her hand and hugged it tightly. “I want to stay with you! You and father!”