"Spare me your lies!" Braumin interrupted strongly, and when De'Unnero laughed again, he added, "And your mercy!"
Braumin started forward then to attack the monk, though he knew that De'Unnero would surely and easily dispatch him. He stopped short, though, as another figure entered the room.
"Meet your new king," remarked De'Unnero, who had not even flinched at the charge.
"Greetings, Brother Braumin," said Aydrian. "I have heard so much about you."
"Save your soft words for those who do not understand the truth of Aydrian," Braumin countered as strongly as he could manage, though he was surely shaken by the spectacle of the young king in his shining silver- and-gold armor, at the gemstones glittering across his metal breastplate, at the familiar sword strapped at his hip. "How dare you come here in conquest?"
"How dare you deny me entrance?" Aydrian calmly asked.
"If you are the rightful king, then you have nothing to fear from us, for when Prince Midalis accepts you as such, the people of Palmaris - "
Braumin stopped, unable to breathe, as an invisible hand clamped upon his throat. He could hardly believe the strength of that magical grasp, denying him breath, even lifting him up to his tiptoes.
Braumin surely thought his life would end then and there, but Aydrian's magical hand let him go. He nearly fell over, his hands going to his throat.
"Brother Braumin," Aydrian began, slowly and deliberately, "the people of Palmaris, the people of all Honce-the-Bear, will accept me as their king, or they will be put out. It is that simple."
"Murdered, you mean," Braumin managed to gasp in response.
"A king defends his kingdom," said De'Unnero.
"But you can help to prevent that tragedy," Aydrian said to him. "It need not lead to violence and death."
Braumin looked up at him, the now-former bishop's eyes narrowing. "You wish to manipulate me into approval, in the hopes of securing Palmaris against the doubts that will grow when the rightful king marches south from Vanguard," he reasoned, spitting every word with utter contempt. "I will say nothing to aid the usurper Aydrian!"
Aydrian smiled and looked at De'Unnero, then back at Braumin. His smile only widening, the young king held up a gray stone, the same color as the stone that Braumin held in his hands.
"Or perhaps Bishop Braumin will say whatever Aydrian wants him to say,"
the sinister De'Unnero replied.
PART TWO DARK FINGERS NORTH AND SOUTH That voice was with me on the battlefield, guiding my hand - the same voice that I found in the mirror at Oracle.
I still do not know what it is! The Touel'alfar taught me that humans are not immortal. I am doomed to die, in flesh and in consciousness. I and all akin to me are doomed to nothingness. And yet, at the same time, the Touel'alfar taught me Oracle, that state of meditation where I could find my way in the darkness. At Oracle, I am supposedly guided by my forebears, by Elbryan the Nightbird, my father. But if Elbryan is no more, if his consciousness is gone, rotted with his body, then how do I subsequently contact him? Or do I? Is Oracle, perhaps, merely a place where I can more deeply see that which is in my own mind? This is what I initially believed it to be. Were my instincts correct from the very beginning? There's the confusion, for I know from personal experience that Elbryan's consciousness lives on. When I went to the grave of Elbryan and claimed Tempest and Hawkwing as my own, I reached that spirit and pulled it forth! I nearly pulled it completely from the realm of death, and believe that I could have done so, had I chosen to pursue that course! Is it that the spirit lives on, but is trapped in emptiness unless brought forth by a living person, such as at Oracle or on the cold field that day by Elbryan's grave? Do we become in death huddled and trapped blurs, shadows of what we once were, and wholly dependent upon another conscious, free-acting being to summon the power to temporarily break us out of death's bondage? It is an intriguing thought, for if that is the case, then is there, within the gemstones, a way for me truly to cheat death? To live on beyond the span of Lady Dasslerond's years? To live on forever? Is there, within the gemstones, a way in which I might offer eternal life to those around me? This is what Duke Kalas believes,