Lord Brother by Carolyn Kephart

Author:Carolyn Kephart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sword and sorcery, dark fantasy, epic fantasy, heroic fantasy, wizard, literary fantasy, multicultural fantasy, wysard, unconventional fantasy
Publisher: Carolyn Kephart

“’As flame burns brighter for the winds

That have its light beset;

As from the highest harshest rocks

The sweetest waters jet,

Let me run clean as highland streams,

As storm-tossed fire burn free;

To make a bright unblemished path

For darkest destiny.’

“That’s the way I wrote it when a lad, long before I ever knew I’d be one of the Sword Brotherhood.” Desrenaud had unsheathed the wysard’s blade, and now held it up to the candlelight, looking long upon it. “A sweet piece of steel, this,” he said at last. “Good runes, too.”

“I didn’t write them,” Ryel said. “They were my father’s work.”

“So you use his sword. That’s not customary, but it’d be a rank shame to let a blade this fine lie idle. Who was your Adversary at the initiation?”

“The Commander himself.”

Desrenaud gave a one-sided grimace. “You poor devil. And how badly did he cut you?”

“He didn’t.”

The Northerner gave a disbelieving frown more than half indignant. “Don’t tell me you managed to deal Roskerrek a wound.”

“Why not? Didn’t you?”

“I scratched him, and he made me sorry for it. But then again, I didn’t have Art like yours to keep my skin whole.”

Ryel bristled. “What makes you think I used my Art?”

Desrenaud filled his glass yet again. “You wouldn’t be alive and unmarked otherwise.” He gulped down the precious vintage as if steeling himself for a blow. “Enough of Redbane. Tell me about the Domina, since you move in such high circles.”

“She believes you dead,” Ryel replied.

The earl breathed in, then out, deeply. “Good. And what killed me?”

“A border dispute in Wycast. You fell with many wounds, after fighting bravely.”

“That savors of Roskerrek’s imagination,” Desrenaud said after a long silence. “Poetical.” The Northern earl took a glass of Ryel’s golden Masir, and rolled a mouthful reflectively over his tongue. “He’d tell you that this wine is the essence of Almancar. Colored like the new-risen moon, and heady as the first kiss of a doomed love. I need some air.” Rising up, he left the shelter. The wysard finished his glass of wine, and then went down to the water where Desrenaud stood facing the moon.

“I understand what you suffer, Guy.”

Desrenaud hid his face in his Shrivrani cowl, but the moon glittered in his eyes. “Begone, warlock. Leave me in peace.”

Ryel would not leave. “You have not known peace for many years.”

“You lie. I have it now, for the first time in my life.”

“What you have is sickness fully as mortal as Belphira’s.”

Desrenaud unveiled, and turned to Ryel. “Then tell me a cure, if you can.”

“She is your cure, even as you are hers. You’ve wasted far too much time here.”

Desrenaud gave a clipped laugh, harsh and scorning. “Here’s where the fun is, sorcerer.”

“Fun like this?” Ryel took the Ormalan phial from his shirt, holding it up to the firelight. At once Desrenaud snatched it from him.

“Exactly what I wished for,” he said. “You’re good, sorcerer, but I never dreamt you’d be this good.”

Ryel stared from the phial to Desrenaud. “I should have known it was a drug.

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