Kingdom's Fall

The Whispering Halls

The following short story is set immediately after the events of Kingdom's Fall, and precedes the sequel, Empire's End. 

Selar Hain scrubs his hands under the watchful eye of an acolyte. There was a time he would have managed on his own, but old age has taken so much from him. His grip is weak where once it was strong; his fingers tremble, his whole hand shakes; his eyes can barely focus on the task he performs. He is not willing to risk missing a speck of blood for the sake of pride. He scrubs hard with the brush at the base of each fingernail, then dunks both hands into a second bowl to rinse them. The water is cold, drawn fresh from the mountain spring that runs into the courtyard, and the numbness stills Selar's hands for a moment. He holds them out to the young man at his side.

"Immaculate, Master Hain." For all that he has a man's growth, Tybal's voice is high and thin, the last vestige of boyhood still lingering. While Selar does not doubt the judgement given, his tendency towards sycophancy grates the old man's mood.

"Clean will do," Selar says, spreading his fingers as wide as he can manage and waiting as Tybal crouches to inspect them more closely. They no longer spread wide, fan-like, but tilt away in unison like the feathers of a half-crooked wing. Would that I could fly with them, Selar thinks. Would that not be a gift for an old man?

"You washed with oil, once, I heard." Tybal says, standing close. Selar can feel the acolyte's keenness coming off him like heat from a fire, and not for the first time he wonders if he had made the right decision in accepting him. Always so eager to know of the old ways, of what it was like before. Selar had tried from the very beginning to help him understand that they had not lost their wealth or their status, but they had been given up willingly; that glory was to be found in paying the price, and knowing that it had been the right thing to do.

But then Selar was an old man begging for the help of young eyes to help him wash his hands. For all the compliments that Tybal heaped on him, Selar knew that the young man did not respect his voice. He would have thought the same, were he his age. All he could do was hold his course, and hope that the young man might outgrow his ambition. If he did not, Selar could not risk another schism. There was no telling how much damage the others had done, how much power they still wielded. There had been two rituals that he had detected, two drawings of the Earth. Both had been minor, but then Selar was weighing by a different measure. Minor could still mean the death of cities, or black skies for a year. Tybal would master himself, or Selar would be forced to kill him.

"Oil?" Selar worked his mouth a moment, feigning the act of recollection. His mind and memory, unlike the frail frame that carries them, remains as strong as it has always been. Stronger, even. As his movements have slowed, he has found more time to consider things, to turn them over in his head and test them. "Yes. We used oil to scrape ourselves clean. The spring still ran, of course, but we found oil better."

"Was it to collect the blood?"

Selar frowns at that. Too perceptive, even for a clever young man. He makes a note to check the scrolls and books in his chamber later. "No, no. Not to collect it. We did think for a time that it would work, that the residues left could be saved. It did not work." Selar lifts his hands and rubs his fingers together with a sound like the rasping of dry paper. "But it did leave us with such soft skin." He laughs, and Tybal joins him, a dissatisfied echo of the noise. Selar gestures at the murky waste water. "Throw in the powders. What's left there is not worth saving."

Tybal takes a scoop from the tall jar by the basins. It is full of a blue-white powder that fizzes angrily when tossed into the water. Selar can feel the blood in the water changing, the traces of ancient power torn apart as the powders do their work. Boiling would do just as well - the powders are costly and their proportions must be mixed with precision - but there is a chance that Tybal might take some water, might hoard a scrap of power for himself. If he were to channel it, let it take hold in him, then he would become more than ambitious. He would be an enemy.