It was funny that his brother had the gift of managing money so easily and so well. He and his father had always seen Tyrion as the least intelligent one of them, but the truth of the matter was that his brother was much cleverer than they were about many things. As with everything he set his mind to, he did it well. He had mastered the making of money as easily as he had mastered the use of weapons, perhaps because in this day and age, the two were so closely connected.
Tyrion had made a small fortune during the raids on Naggaroth and he had invested the proceeds in some spectacularly successful trading voyages and the purchase of land which had been leased at high rents to the new breed of human trader down in the port.
Tyrion was now part owner of a number of trading ships and shared the profits of all their voyages. Having re-established the foundations of prosperity for their branch of the family he seemed to have lost all interest in the subject, delegating the management to competent retainers recruited from House Emeraldsea.
Teclis liked to think that he could have done the same, but he found the process too dull to bother with. His interests were magic and scholarship. He was grateful that his brother was generous enough to share his wealth but he resented it. It was just one more way in which he was beholden to his twin. He sometimes felt there would be no end to his obligations. His brother was an expert in using his generosity to bind people to him. Even his kindness came with invisible strings attached.
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.’
‘Well, it’s done and now the real work begins,’ said Teclis.
His father did not seem to be paying him much attention. He walked back over to the table, put down the glass, picked up the sword, partially unsheathed it and then slammed it back. ‘Just think, my son, once Aenarion held this blade in his hand. Aenarion! The first Phoenix King carried this sword through most of his early battles with the forces of Chaos.’
‘I know, father,’ said Teclis gently, now starting to get slightly worried by his father’s excitement.
‘I am holding in my hand the sword that Aenarion once held.’
‘I am sure he probably held it a lot better,’ said Teclis.
His father gave a small start and put the sword down once again as if he was frightened of breaking it. Silence filled the room for long moments until Rose brought in Teclis’s meal. She put it down on the table beside the blade. It seemed somehow sacrilege to place something so banal beside something so sacred, but it restored a feeling of sanity to the proceedings.
Both Teclis and his father laughed, much to Rose’s incomprehension. She had no idea of the significance of the sword, Teclis realised. Prince Arathion apologised for his rudeness. Teclis said nothing until the retainer had retired from the chamber.
‘You have inspected it, of course,’ said Prince Arathion.
‘I have looked at it,’ said Teclis ‘but I needed to bring it here, to have the tools I need to analyse it in depth.’
‘How long do we have it?’
‘Until Tyrion departs. It will be going with him to Avelorn. It is his.’
‘He claimed it, of course.’ There was some resentment in Prince Arathion’s voice. Teclis told him how Tyrion had taken up the blade. As he did so, it struck him that his father had never asked how it was found and was showing very little interest now. He was only half-listening, his eyes constantly drawn from Teclis’s face to where the sword lay on the table. When Teclis finished he said, ‘Very good. Just think. We have the only surviving functioning artefact of the Archmage Caledor here in our home.’
‘There is the Vortex, father,’ said Teclis, surprised to find that he was somewhat annoyed by his father’s lack of interest in the hardships that he and Tyrion had endured.
‘Of course, of course,’ said Prince Arathion. ‘I meant things created by his own hand, like this weapon, like the armour, like the amulets he is said to have made for the Everqueen’s children.’
He paused for a moment and went over and picked up the sword again. He unsheathed the blade slowly, so that the flames gradually underlit his face with ever more brilliant radiance. It made him look somehow daemonic. ‘It still works, even after all these millennia.’ He was repeating himself but did not seem to care.
‘Yes,’ said Teclis. ‘And now our task is to find out how!’
‘We had better adjourn to the laboratory,’ said his father.
‘Indeed,’ said Teclis. ‘Let me mix myself another potion. It’s going to be a long night.’
Tyrion strode into the living room and smiled at his father and Teclis. In spite of his cordiality, Teclis could sense his twin was troubled and angry.
‘Things went well with Lady Malene,’ Teclis said, knowing full well that they most likely had not.
‘Yes,’ said Tyrion with his customary smoothness.
‘That is good,’ said their father, taking things, as always, at face value.
‘You are going to Avelorn?’ Teclis said.
‘Indeed,’ said Tyrion. He looked long and hard at their father, as if he wanted to say something. Their father never even noticed.
‘Then your brother and I had better get started on Sunfang. You’ll be wanting to take it with you, of course.’ Father sounded hopeful that Tyrion would say no. Teclis already knew the answer.
‘Of course,’ said Tyrion. ‘I wish you good luck with your researches. I am going to change and then I am going to visit the taverns.’
He swept out of the room. Their father smiled. ‘Always the carefree one,’ he said, almost fondly.
You just don’t understand,
Teclis thought. He said, ‘Let us get down to the laboratory. We need to map the spells on the sword and get the notes down in record time.’
‘Let’s get started then,’ his father said enthusiastically.
With his twin’s departure, Teclis set to the serious business of really examining the ancient blade. He and his father went down to the laboratory in the basement. He made sure that there was a plentiful supply of parchment and ink and then began.
He set the blade on the floor and inscribed a chalk circle around it. Swiftly he inscribed runes around the edges of the circle, making the signs of Isha and Hoeth and numerous minor deities of knowledge. He relaxed and began to chant. His heartbeat slowed, his breathing deepened, his spirit hung loosely within his body. He inspected the aura of the old sword.
And it was
old
, he realised, an artefact of the ancient time when mortal gods had walked the Earth. It had been made when magic flowed much more strongly through the world. He could tell from the brutal strength of the spells, so difficult to replicate in the modern era, that magic had been more abundant when this weapon had been made. The world had been fundamentally different.
Slowly, it seeped into him, the realisation that his father was right, Aenarion had held this blade. He had fought and killed with it. He had trusted his life to it. It was a weapon intended to be wielded by a hero, one touched by the power of the gods. He was not sure that his brother would ever be able to use its full power. He did not lack the heroism. He simply had not passed through the Flame of Asuryan as Aenarion had.
Teclis had touched the Flame, using his own magic, during the final battle with the Keeper of Secrets. He could sense resonances of it within the blade, most likely simply traces of the fact that Aenarion had handled it. There had been a direct link between the Phoenix King and this weapon. Echoes of Aenarion’s blazing ferocity could be felt by someone sensitive enough.
Beneath that there were echoes of another personality, one of more interest to Teclis. The presence belonged to one infinitely sadder, wiser and far less bold, the first of the true Archmages, Caledor. He too had handled this blade and he had done so before Aenarion. The spellwork flowing through it was his.
Teclis looked at it, fascinated. It was as individual as hand-writing. That was always the case. Two mages could cast the same spell and it would look and feel different to the knowledgeable observer. It would flow in a different way, be cast with different levels of energy, sometimes would get different results. Magic was always personal in that way.
What could he tell about Caledor from his work?
The elf had been meticulous– the runes on the blade had been inscribed with care, and the flows of fire magic through them were still bound as tightly today as they were the day the sword had been forged.
He had been strong-willed. No one could have bound one of the Elemental Spirits of Vaul without being so. He had not been at all artistic. The magic was utilitarian. There was none of the florid scribblings of trace energies that many mages used to leave their own mark on spells and artefacts. The elf that had made this sword had been grimly determined to create the most powerful weapon he could for his friend. He had not been concerned with imprinting his own personality on it.
And, of course, that single-minded determination had left the strongest mark possible. Now he had a sense of the wizard as if he had been standing in the same room with him, of the indomitable will, the desperate courage, the despair.
Caledor had not been a warrior. He had never wanted to fight. It was not in his nature. He had been driven to it. He had been a maker where Aenarion had been a destroyer. He had made even this sword with reluctance, but having been driven to it he had made it to the best of his ability. He had put all of his genius into the creation of something whose purpose he despised.
We live in the shadow of titans
, Teclis thought. We live in the world that destiny-cursed pair created. This sword is like the whole history of our people. It bears the stamp of Aenarion and Caledor.
He thought about the Vortex, which, even to this day, protected and maintained Ulthuan, channelling its magical energies, keeping the continent above the waves, draining the fatal power of the winds of magic from the world. Caledor made our land, in the same way as Aenarion shaped our people. The whole continent was part of his vast geomantic design.
Teclis considered the scope of the mind that could do that – plan and execute the most powerful spell in the history of the world in the midst of fighting the greatest war ever. The same elf who had forged this blade had forged a continent. The world had been fundamentally different when Sunfang had been made, and Caledor had been the one who altered it when he created the Vortex.