Crimson Shadow, The - R. A. Salvatore Page 0,13

image of him being dragged into his father’s chambers by the ankles was not a pleasant one.

He was standing before Gahris soon after, in the study where Gahris kept the few books his family owned (some of the very few books on all the isle of Bedwydrin) along with his other heirlooms. The elder Bedwyr stood hunched at the hearth, feeding the already roaring fire as if a deep chill had settled into his bones, though it was not so cold this day. Mounted on the wall above him was his most-prized piece, the family sword, its perfect edge gleaming and its golden hilt lined with jewels and sculpted to resemble a dragon rampant with upraised wings serving as the formidable crosspiece. It had been cunningly forged by the dwarves of the Iron Cross in ages past, its blade of beaten metal wrapped tight about itself a thousand times so that the blade only sharpened with use. Blind-Striker, it was called, both for its balanced cut and the fact that it had taken the eye of many cyclopians in the fierce war six hundred years before.

“Where have you been?” Gahris asked calmly, quietly. He wiped his sooty hands and stood up straight, though he did not yet turn to face his son.

“I needed to be away,” Luthien replied, trying to match his father’s calm.

“To let your anger settle?”

Luthien sighed but did not bother to answer.

Gahris turned toward him. “That was wise, my son,” he said. “Anger brews rash actions—oft with the most dire of consequences.”

He seemed so calm and so logical, which bothered Luthien deeply. His friend was dead! “How could you?” he blurted, unconsciously taking a long stride forward, hands bunched into fists. “To kill . . . what were you . . .” His words fell away in a jumble, his emotions too heated to be expressed.

Through it all, the white-haired Gahris cooed softly like a dove and waved his hand in the empty air. “What would you have me do?” he asked, as though that should explain everything.

Luthien opened his hands helplessly. “Garth Rogar did not deserve his fate!” Luthien cried. “A curse on Viscount Aubrey and on his wicked companions!”

“Calm, my son,” Gahris was saying, over and over. “Ours is a world that is not always fair and just, but—”

“There is no excuse,” Luthien replied through gritted teeth.

“Not even war?” Gahris asked bluntly.

Luthien’s breath came in short, angry gasps.

“Think not of bloodied fields,” Gahris offered, “nor of spear tips shining with the blood of fallen enemies, nor turf torn under the charge of horses. Those are horrors that have not yet been reflected in your clear eyes, and may they never be! They steal the sparkle, you see,” Gahris explained, and he pointed to his own cinnamon orbs. Indeed, those eyes did seem without luster this August morning.

“And were the eyes of Bruce MacDonald so tainted?” Luthien asked somewhat sarcastically, referring to Eriador’s greatest hero.

“Filled with valor are the tales of war,” Gahris replied somberly, “but only when the horrors of war have faded from memory. Who can say what scars Bruce MacDonald wore in his heavy soul? Who alive has looked into the eyes of that man?”

Luthien thought the words absurd; Bruce MacDonald had been dead for three centuries. But then he realized that to be his father’s very point. The elder Bedwyr went on in all seriousness.

“I have heard the horses charge, have seen my own sword—” he glanced back at the fabulous weapon on the wall “—wet with blood. I have heard the stories—other’s stories—of those heroic battles in which I partook, and I can tell you, in all honesty and with arrogance aside, that they were more horror than valor, more regret than victory. Am I to bring such misery to Bedwydrin?”

Luthien’s sigh this time was more of resignation than defiance.

“Breathe out your pride with that sigh,” Galiris advised. “It is the most deadly and most dangerous of emotions. Mourn your friend, but accept that which must be. Do not follow Ethan—” He broke off suddenly, apparently rethinking that last thought, but his mention of Luthien’s older brother, a hero to the youngest Bedwyr, piqued Luthien’s attention.

“What of Ethan?” he demanded. “What part does he play in all of this? What has he done in my absence?”

Again Gahris was cooing softly and patting the air, trying to calm his son. “Ethan is fine,” he assured Luthien. “I speak only of his temperament, his foolish pride, and my own hopes that you will