Fiction: Son's Blood - Chapter One (Part 2)

Choosing not to dwell on problems she had escaped, Bracer made her way toward the market square. Even if the general traffic had not all been going that direction, she would have had no trouble finding her way. The city seemed unchanged, despite her thirty year absence. It even smelled the same, the manure reek of the stables near the gates giving way to the spicy fragrance of foods being prepared at the open ovens of the marketplace. She picked her way unerringly through the stalls, ignoring the calls of vendors. Foolishly, she found herself searching the faces of the street children, as though the friends of her youth might still be among them, unchanged as the city.

A cluster of these had gathered at a puppeteer's stall. With elaborately dressed wooden figures attached to sticks, he was giving the youngsters a sample of what he would show paying customers later in the day.

"Soloh, forgive me," came the puppeteer's shrill imitation of a feminine voice, "I have been wrong." The golden-haired puppet, clad in rainbow hues, was leaned forward so it looked like it bowed to the other wooden figure. As that figure was waggled back and forth, the puppeteer changed to a deep voice.

"You are forgiven, but the harm you have done cannot be easily repaired." Shefar and Soloh. Bracer knew the story, and hearing it again sent a cold shiver along her ribs. Unwilling to let childhood fears haunt her, the disguised swordswoman stopped to listen to Shefar's next words.

"I swear, great Soloh, that my children shall be the instrument of setting the world right."

Then the puppeteer's tone changed again and he let out a hideous cackle. Dogu had arrived and as the demon began to speak, she could no longer tolerated the performance.

"I will never surrender my will to you," the hideous dog-god hissed." Torture my creations if you will, it matters not. They are made in my image, not yours, and can endure all manner of cruelty."

Bracer had always hated that story. It was stupid superstition, something to give children nightmares. How could people believe in gods that were foolish and cruel?

Yet, as much as she disliked the story, she found herself recalling it as she moved passed other stalls and tents. Soloh, the one god, created mankind, then sent his two servants, Shefar and Dogu, to teach the fledgeling race themagic of sky and earth. Shefar and Dogu, though, had visions of their own grandeur. Each shared the creative power of Soloh, and each decided to designa race for their own worship. The sky teacher loved beauty, so Shefar's creatures, the Aswer, were lovely, ethereal beings, gifted with the magic secrets of sky power.

Dogu made people who were strong and brutal, able to tame the earth and use it to their advantage. These folk, the Dogutu, were as ugly as Shefar's were beautiful. To assure their dependence, Dogu made them stupid creatures who must rely on their creator's guidance. But neither Dogu nor Shefar had true creative genius. They copied Soloh's design for mankind, so that, beyond a few external modifications, all three races were much the same.

After Shefar repented, Dogu supposedly vowed to destroy mankind by means of interbreeding. No one knew exactly how Shefar's children were going to defeat him, but it was commonly believed that restoration of the world's original design could only come with the destruction of the Dogutu and Aswer.

Bracer tried to find logical origins for the legends of beautiful folk with hair and eyes the color of the rainbow, and of ugly dogmen, who lived in the wildlands to the east. True, such people existed, but she believed they were merely freaks of nature, not the handiwork of demi-gods.

It's all such foolishness, Bracer thought, no wonder I've chosen to distance myself from Bacaria all these years.

As a child, though, Bracer had found the story particularly frightening. After repenting, Shefar set apart some of the aswer. These were given coloring that was not quite so distinctive as rainbow pastels. The new hueswere taken from the things in Dogu's domain that Shefar found loveliest. Aswer with hair of gold, or silver, or copper would not have such trouble traveling among the true people. They were the arrows shot from Shefar's Bow, and through them, the promised restoration would come.

To a little girl with bright copper locks, such a story became very personal. More so because her family claimed that Aswer blood was what made them worthy to become rulers. Even as a child, she wondered why they didn't understand that the story also meant her clan was doomed.

Now, of course, she knew there were no gods. Bracer realized that her ancestors had probably never believed the story, but had used the superstition of others to gain power. Perhaps her cousin Shasteral still used it, financing the puppet shows to subtly reinforce his kingship.

Bracer noticed that she had left the temporary booths of the street market and was now wending her way through the narrow, structure-lined roads of the merchant district. The shops here were no different than the wooden buildings that filled the streets of similar districts in other cities. Most of the shops were not yet open, for it was early in the day. There was little traffic on the packed dirt road, and even less once she turned on to a wide lane with large, stately houses.

Obviously, this was still the finest neighborhood in Vastall. Were she atrue peasant, she might gawk at the stone houses. But Bracer, mind broiling with the coming confrontation, did not look up till she stopped at the large residence which was her destination.

After tying the lead rope to a post and tossing some hay from the wagon onto the ground for the horse, Bracer located the cane she'd stuck into the slats of the cart. She took that now, bending to walk with it, assuming the crooked posture of an aged woman. With her face down and shadowed by her hood, there was less chance of her being recognized.

Practicing her role, she hobbled up to the doorstep, then paused to gather her thoughts. If all went well, she could be on her way out of the city before midday. But getting an old peasant woman in to see the Chancellor of Bacaria would be tricky. She would have to lie skillfully.

Bracer rapped the door with her knuckles, then, remembering her role, lifted her cane and knocked with it. After a moment, a servant opened the door.

The man took one look at her and sneered. "What are you doing at the front door? If you must beg, go round back."

"I bring word of Lord Alonder's eldest son," she told the door steward. The man, pompous beyond his position, sniggered.

She glared at him menacingly, and lifted her walking stick just enough to be sure he noticed her knuckles tightening about it. This was a man whose demeanor said he could be easily intimidated. Bracer did not recognize him, so she was not concerned about revealing a little of her real strength to him if it helped her cause.

"I've come a long way, young man. At least tell your master I'm here."

As the man eyed the stick, a slight tremor overtook him and he backed away. "Wait here," he told her.

Returning moments later, the steward beckoned her with a mixture of caution and annoyance. "All right, old woman. He'll see you."

His arrogant expression faded to one of perfect respect as he turned toward the door of the room that had been used as a sewing room by Alonder's mother. By the change in the man's manner, she knew the chancellor must be inside. The steward bowed, to his master, not to Bracer, then with a wave of his hand, gestured for her to enter.

As she obeyed, Bracer lowered her head with apparent respect, but from below the hood, her eyes took in every aspect of the room. Once Alonder's mother had spent afternoons here sewing while one of her maidservants played a lap harp. Now the room was starkly masculine. Several high-backed chairs were set around a large, drawered table. Much of the chancellor's work was probably completed in this very place.

Alonder sat in one of the chairs, his head bent over a document which was spread out on the table. When, at last, he looked up, Bracer quickly dropped her gaze. What if Lon recognizes me?

"Who are you?" he demanded. His voice was not rude, but it held the impatience of a busy man who did not like interruptions. "What is this information you claim to have?"

"I come from the plains of Jabboth," Bracer tried to speak with the thin crackling voice of an old woman. "It's there that King Rasperd put down the rebellion of Lord Hordavan."

"This is no news to me," Alonder said curtly. "We've heard of Hordavar's fall. You told the steward something about a son of mine."

"Well, you see, after one battle," she hoped her slow choice of words would be perceived as a symptom of age, rather than caution, "I nursed a captain of the Hordavan army. He claimed to be your elder son, dispossessed by the children of your second wife." She stopped, realizing he might take the words as an insult.

"Beg pardon, Sire, but that was how he put it."

"Describe this man," the chancellor instructed.

She looked up quickly. Lon had changed so much over the years. Would I have known him on the street? she wondered. His face was broader, lined and wrinkled, and now partially covered by a neatly-trimmed beard. His beard and once-dark hair were gray. His posture spoke dignity and self-confidnece. Nothing was left of the ambitious yet uncertain man she had once known.

"He was a little taller than you, my lord," she said, realizing too late that Alonder was seated and that a stranger would have no way of guessing his height, "with a similar build." Not wanting him to notice her blunder, she blurted out the rest of her description. "Had dark brown hair and blue eyes."

"Come closer," Lord Alonder commanded. She took a few steps toward him, then stood still as he studied her shadowed face. At last, he asked, "Did this man send you here?"

"No, Lord, but," she found it hard to get the words out, "he died. Had I a son, I'd want to know his fate. I thought it only right to bring you word of his death."

"This way," he urged as he rose from his chair. As she followed him, Bracer noticed how his body had thickened with the years. She was practiced in visually taking stock of a man's fighting potential. He was still strong, and able, in spite of his age. This man was not one who stayed at his desk. He must still be leading the armies in the field.

Alonder led her to a side corridor where the walls were hung with family portraits. He waved his arm out into the hall. "Show me this man."

Carefully, knowing she must act a stranger here, Bracer scrutinized each painting. Many had been added since the last time she'd walked down this hallway, proof of Alonder's continuing prosperity. She did not recognize any of the women and children in the newer portraits, but others she did recall. Seeing those faces brought back sharp and bitter memories.

She moved quickly past them, hoping deep in her heart, that the face she sought would not be here. If she believed in a god, Bracer would have prayed for it to turn out that the dead soldier was not Alonder's son after all.

When she came to a portrait of Alonder, done perhaps twenty years earlier, when he was a young man, she had to stop. There was a small resemblance between the likeness on the wall and the features of the dead man. If Lon had looked thus at thirty-five, so might his son. But Lon had brown eyes, the soldier did not. Hoping the Chancellor did not notice how long she had studied his portrait, Bracer moved on to the next painting.

In it, a fair-haired woman satsurrounded by four youngsters. The three younger children had golden hairmatching their mother's. The older son, standing behind them like a sullen shadow, had his father's dark hair. He also had blue eyes.