Takara's look only intensified. "What failings?"
Gerrard laughed heavily, waving the question away. "You haven't time to hear all my failings." He took a long drink.
"Well, then tell me about the big one," Takara replied. "Tell me the first big mistake you made, the one that set up all the others."
"I don't know if there was just one."
"Oh, yes, there was. Every chain of misery has its first link, the one that binds you to all the others. What was it for you, Gerrard?"
He leaned back in his chair, took a deep breath and an even deeper draw, and said, "Of all the regrets I have, the deepest, the earliest, would be my father's death."
"Your father's death?" Takara said, seeming somewhat surprised and strangely angered. "What happened?"
"My brother-" Gerrard hissed- "gods, another wicked brother. He killed my father. He raised an army and marched on my father's village and killed my father and mother-the whole tribe."
Takara leaned forward, as if eager to hear the next bit. "Why?"
It was Gerrard's turn to stare into distant spaces. "He wanted to kill me. He killed the rest because he wanted to kill me… He tried to kill me. He hated me…"
Again, the single-word question. "Why?"
A bleary look was entering Gerrard's eyes, a sad muzziness that only thickened with his next drink. "Well, you see, I saved his life."
"You saved his life?"
"It was during his coming-of-age ceremony-a deadly climb up a nearby precipice. He was stuck, exhausted. He could go no farther. He was going to die. The tribe would have just let him die, but I wouldn't. I climbed up and carried him down. I saved his life."
"And for this, he hated you?"
"Well, yes, because in saving his life, I disrupted his coming-of-age ceremony. He could never be considered a full man from then on. He could never inherit the sidar's rule."
Takara's brow lowered. "Because of what you did, your brother could not inherit your father's kingdom? He could not ever rule?"
"Yes," Gerrard admitted heavily.
Sitting back in her chair, Takara took a drink, though her gaze remained on Gerrard. "I can understand his anger.
You stole his future. Whether you meant to or not, you took his inheritance."
"Yes, but after that, he came to take it back-no, not even to take it back, to destroy it so no one could have it. He murdered our father and burned the village. He took my Legacywhich was never his-and scattered it to the four winds. He joined the Phyrexians. He became Volrath-"
"Your brother… became Volrath?"
"Yes."
"And all because of you. Do you see what I mean?" Takara asked. "What you did to your brother led inexorably to your father's death and the village's destruction, to the scattering of your Legacy-even to my imprisonment in Rath, and Sisay's imprisonment in Rath, and the deaths of all those people who journeyed with you to Rath to save her. Do you see? The first link in a chain of misery. And it is a deep link, Gerrard. A deep, unbreakable link. Betrayal."
"That's enough," Karn rumbled from the window where he stood. "You weren't there, Takara. I was. You don't know what Vuel was like."
"No, Karn," Gerrard said, blinking in dread. "She's right. That's when it all began. All the misery started with that first betrayal."
With slow relish, Takara downed the dregs of her wine. She brought the bottle away from her lips. Wine hung bloodlike across them. A smile spread beneath the red liquid. "I told you, Gerrard, it was a dangerous question. Still, when you're locked away in a small room and there's wine aplenty, what other diversions are there than dangerous questions?"
Karn and Tahngarth stared intently at the woman.
Takara stood and languidly stretched. "I had better be going. I seem to have overstayed my welcome. I'll leave the wine, though. And there will be more. I see you've finished yours, Gerrard. Would you like another?"
He rested the empty wine bottle on the floor and tipped it over in resignation. "It's a bitter drink, but it's better than nothing." He reached his hand out. "Yes. Give me another."
By that evening, Gerrard and Tahngarth had each drained three bottles. As close as the space had seemed during daylight, when the windows were black and the only light came from a single candle beside the wine crate, it felt downright claustrophobic. The sheer bulk of man, minotaur, and golem put them forever in each other's way, and wine headaches put tempers on edge.
It was probably not the right time for Karn to express his doubts about Takara.
"Takara is wrong, Gerrard," Karn blurted. He plodded across the room and, knowing no chair would support his weight, knelt ponderously beside a slouching Gerrard. "You weren't the one who corrupted Vuel."
"What do you know about it?" Gerrard snapped.
"I know that after Vuel failed his test, a young, vicious, conniving man came to live in the village. I remember seeing him with Vuel. They spoke often," Karn rumbled quietly. "Do you remember?"
"Only vaguely," Gerrard replied, rubbing his temples, "but I'm not about to blame my troubles with Volrath on some sinister stranger."
"I had forgotten about that 'sinister stranger'-it had been so long-though now I recollect his face clearly. A young face, but familiar all the same."
"What are you talking about?"
"Starke," Karn said. "It was he who led your brother astray."
Shaking his head in disbelief, Gerrard said, "No, it can't have been. That's too much of a coincidence."
"There are other coincidences. Takara spoke of losing everything because of an orphan brother adopted into her family. You were adopted into Vuel's family, and he lost everything."
"What are you saying? That Starke masterminded every disaster in my life because Takara and her adopted brother didn't get along?"
"I don't know how this all fits together," Karn replied, "but I'm certain it does. And I no longer trust Takara. Why does she question you? Why does she dredge up such guilt and regret?"
Gerrard was suddenly angry. "Listen-Takara is the only reason we aren't dead now. She's our only advocate in the city. I think it unwise to alienate her." He scrubbed his head with sweaty fingers. "If you've got to talk, Karn, talk about something useful."
Karn leaned back on his heels, a sound like scrap metal settling. "Well, I suppose it is safe enough, now…" From within his chest, from the cavity in which he stored the precious elements of the Legacy, he drew forth a wrinkled document. "I found this in the city archives," he remarked. "I feared to show it to you in the dungeon, or with Takara present."
"What were you doing in the archives?"
"Studying. I wished to learn more about the history of Mercadia." The golem shook his great head. "They are not meticulous record keepers. There are a number of documents that date from a very early period of the city's existence. At least, so I was told by the chief archivist. He had little real knowledge of the treasures in his vaults, and when I bore this paper away, I daresay he did not notice."
"All right. It's a piece of paper," Tahngarth said laconically. He had no especial interest in documents, but with no other entertainment, he moved the wine crate from its low table and settled in the seat opposite Gerrard. "Lay it out. What have you found?"
The golem spread the parchment on the table, smoothing it with his great hands. Gerrard and Tahngarth bent over it, puzzling over the symbols that seemed at once both cryptic and tantalizingly familiar.
Gerrard exclaimed, "Hallo!"
"What?" Tahngarth's eyes flicked back and forth over the unknown script.
"Look at Karn's chest."
On the golem's massive chest, a trio of symbols was inscribed by some unknown hand. Tahngarth had seen them hundreds of times but had never asked Karn about them.
"I do not know their meaning," said the golem as if in answer to the unspoken question. "But I know they are in the ancient language of the Thran."