By Isha, he was in a sour mood tonight. He took another sip of the wine. It tingled on his tongue. He knew he was simply a little depressed. The great Lustrian adventure was over and he was back in Lothern with work to do and all the tiny, encroaching obligations that entailed. He should start inspecting Sunfang but at this moment he struggled to find the energy.
It was a mental thing not a physical one. Drugs, diet, sorcery and a regime of exercise had done much to compensate for the weakness and physical handicaps the diseases of his youth had caused. None of these things could rid him of the mental lassitude he now felt, nor make him any less of an outsider in society. All of them still looked at him sidelong, with secret contempt. He was sure of it. They had done ever since he was young, and would do so until the day he died.
In Lustria, with Tyrion and the humans, he had felt at ease. His brother had never held him in contempt and to the humans he was just another elf, a blessed immortal. If anything, his magical talents had made him seem even more god-like than Tyrion to them.
Perhaps that was why his initial reaction on his return was to come back to this house and lock himself in. He wanted to keep himself from view. To be out of sight of other elves. He let out a long breath. He was back and he had work to do.
A sound in the doorway alerted him. He looked up to see his father standing there. Prince Arathion looked older and even more decrepit than Teclis remembered him. His cheeks were sunken and hollow and his eyes had a bright mad gleam to them.
‘I heard you had returned, my son,’ he said. The voice at least was the same as Teclis remembered it. Light, aristocratic, a little sad, with something of the fussy air of the life-long scholar. ‘I came back as soon as the news reached me.’
‘It is good to see you, father,’ said Teclis. It was too. He had always been fond of his father, who was one of the few elves who never seemed to judge him, who, if anything, judged in his favour.
‘Do you have it?’ his father asked. The excitement was unmistakable in his voice. There was no need to ask what it was. Teclis nodded. He gestured to the table on which the blade rested.
His father crossed the distance in two strides and lifted Sunfang. He was getting weak in his old age, and needed the use of both hands to do so until the magic of the sword took over. He unsheathed the blade, and flames danced along its length. The brilliance of the illumination sent shadows skittering away to the far corner of the room. His father smiled and in that moment, Teclis found that all of the hardships of his long quest were repaid. A look of combined awe, wonder and pure unalloyed happiness passed across his father’s face.
He twisted the blade back and forth in front of him, inspecting it from every angle. ‘Astonishing,’ he said, at last. ‘Absolutely astonishing. I would not have thought it possible after all these years but you did it. You found it!’
‘Indeed we did, father. There were times when I did not believe we could.’
Prince Arathion looked as if he wanted to jump for joy. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other as if he wanted to dance. ‘It still functions,’ he said, as if he could not quite believe it. ‘The fires of Vaul’s Anvil are still bound within it.’
There was something about his excitement that was contagious. Teclis found himself nodding enthusiastically. His father sheathed the blade and placed it reverentially back on the table. He looked at the glass of wine in Teclis’s hand, nodded and poured himself one. He drank it down in one long gulp, and the poured another glass which he just held in one trembling hand, as if he had suddenly forgotten all about it.
‘I can’t believe it,’ he said again. He sounded as if he wanted to cry. He placed the glass down, walked across the room and ruffled Teclis’s hair. Teclis recoiled, surprised and embarrassed by the physical contact. His father had never been the most demonstrative of elves and they were not the most demonstrative of families. ‘I can’t believe it.’