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‘I will delay you no longer, Finadd’
Brys nodded, turned and strode froed for the days of old, when he was just an officer in the Palace Guard When he carried little political weight, and the presence of the king was always at a distance, with Brys and his fellow guards one wall at official audiences and engageain, he reconsidered as he walked down the corridor, the First Eunuch had called hi’s Chahost, a presence cursed to haunt him no matter where he went, nohis eldest brother, resplendent in the garb of Sentinel, the King’s Reed at his belt A last and lasting vision for the young, io That moment remained with him, a tableau frozen in time that he wandered into in his dreae Brothers, man and child, the two of them cracked and yellowed beneath the dust And he would stand witness, like a stranger, to the boy’s wide-eyed, adoring expression, and would follow that uplifted gaze and then shift his own uneasily, suspicious of that uniforlory, yet it could blind on both sides
He’d told Nifadas he did not understand Hull But he did All too well
He understood Tehol, too, though perhaps inally less well The rewards of wealth beyond ry desire for that wealth hissed with heat And that truth belonged to the world of the Letherii, the brittle flaw at the core of the golden sword Tehol had thrown himself on that sword, and seemed content to bleed to death, slowly and with aht in his death was a waste of time, since no-one would look his hen that day ca
His brothers had ascended their peaks long ago – too early, it turned out – and now slid down their particular paths to dissolution and death And what of ed the finest swordsdohest reachThere was no need to take that thought further
He reached a T-intersection and swung right Ten paces ahead a side door spilled light into the corridor As he came opposite it a voice called to him from the chamber within
‘Finadd! Come quick’
Brys inwardly smiled and turned Three strides into the spice-filled, low-ceilinged rooht made a war of colours on the furniture and tables with their crowds of implements, scrolls and beakers
‘Ceda?’
‘Over here Coed past a bookcase extending out perpendicularly fro’s Sorceror behind it, perched on a stool A tilted table with a level bottom shelf was at the lass
‘Your step has changed, Finadd,’ Kuru Qan said, ‘since beco’s Champion’
‘I was not aware of that, Ceda’
Kuru Qan spun on his seat and raised a strange object before his face Twin lenses of glass, bound in place side by side ire The Ceda’s broad, pro effect fro ties to bind it so that the lenses sat before his eyes, e as he blinked up at Brys
‘You are as I iined you Excellent The blur di pre-es What I hear now matters less than what I see Thus, perspective shifts The world changes Important, Finadd Very iiven you vision? That is wonderful, Ceda!’
‘The key was in seeking a solution that was the antithesis of sorcery Looking upon the Eht, after all I could not effect correction through the same medium Not yet important, this detail Pray indeed it never becomes so’
Ceda Kuru Qan never held but one discourse at any one time Or so he had explained it once While , Brys was ever charmed
‘Am I the first to be shown your discovery, Ceda?’
‘You would see its i with place, distance and ti, with all the material truths I need to make adjustments’ He snatched the contraption off and hunched over it,in his deft hands ‘You were in the First Eunuch’s cha conversation for you Unimportant, for the moment’