Eresken knew better than to answer; his role as passive audience while his father rehearsed a speech was well understood. These words would be used to turn the thoughts of the lesser folk more closely to their allegiance, loyalty focused through the prism of the stones so that the power of the men who ruled them would burn ever brighter, ever more fierce.
“So we decide to turn our attention south, to Kel Ar’Ayen, the land so nearly held yet let slip by our forefathers’ forefathers. But somehow, our interest alerts the villains of Hadrumal and they are able to snatch that prize from our open hand.” The white-haired man broke off to narrow his eyes. “For the present, at least.
“So now we must answer paradox with paradox. We fight by not fighting; we make haste to our goals with painstaking slowness. We have the enchantments to carry us over open ocean yet we keep our boats safe in harbor. We bide our time, and because of that our victory will come all the swifter and be all the more complete.”
The door slammed as he left without a backward glance. Eresken sat for a moment, looking at the disarray of parchments on his table. Sorting them methodically, he restored his original piles, each aligned precisely with the edges of the table and equally spaced from the next. The growl of his hungry belly sounded loud against the muted rustle of documents, but Eresken ignored it. A passing desire for water to freshen his stale mouth diverted him for a moment, but he thrust the idle thought hastily aside. It was many seasons since he’d had proof that his sire observed him from afar but the punishments for idleness were not something he was anxious to experience again.
There would be no respite until his father took some refreshment. As hard as Eresken was applying himself, sequestered in this lofty room, devoid of anything to distract the eye or the mind, his father was working three times as hard, thrice as long, Eresken knew that. He asked nothing of his son that he did not demand of himself in triple measure.
His sire was a great man. The whole of the great, square keep knew that, down to the lowliest scullion. The grim-faced men who paced the parapets and guarded the sanctuary of the harbor knew of their lord’s commitment to their advancement. Those wresting food and necessities from this grudging land and sheltering in their meager villages beneath the ever vigilant watchtowers knew they owed him loyalty to their last breath for his defense of their pitiful lives. Beyond, past the bleak gray ridges of rock and ice, down the length of the cold sea strands, across the inlets and boundary cairns, those who enviously watched his success knew it too and gnawed their nails as they tried to outguess and outmaneuver him.
Eresken’s duty and privilege was to support and assist his sire. That knowledge warmed and soothed him. His lips moved in soundless incantation as he ran through disciplines drilled into him through endless repetition and fear of failure. Few had the stamina, the commitment, the wit to reach his mastery of these arcane truths. He owed it to those who could not to use his strength to their ultimate advantage. The common flock owed him the unquestioning loyalty that underpinned his supremacy. Determination smoothed his face into a pitiless mask.
Eresken spun his mind into the maelstrom, violence wrought to bend the external world to his will that thrilled the blood to the edge of ecstasy. Seizing the heart of the vortex, he refined silence in the midst of fury, reveling in sublime consciousness that freed him from the tyranny of the visible and tangible. From that transcendent awareness, it was a comparatively simple task to concentrate the chilling assault, the unstoppable sweeping domination that paralyzed the lucid mind and stripped naked the innermost secrets of the unconscious. The next step was the greatest challenge, the discipline that eluded all but the most adept. Eresken did not falter. He melted ice into gossamer mist, a whisper of unobtrusive charm that warmed the chill of terror into the caress of seduction. No mind would recoil from this touch, few would even note its passing, those that did would find soothing release from cares and worries ample recompense for the knowledge unwittingly exchanged.
Eresken reached for his parchments, green eyes distant and unblinking, hardly glancing at the map beneath his hands. He ran light fingertips along the length of the road running west, his mind’s eye seeing sights unknown to the lesser people of his barren homeland. He listened to the hubbub of humdrum minds, searching this way and that. Patience was what was called for. If he had to spend days in this room, seasons, mark the cycle of one year’s sun to the next with these labors, he would find a foothold in the minds of Tren Ar’Dryen. Once he had that foothold, he would make a bridgehead. Once he had a bridgehead, the invasion would begin.
Three
As the game of the White Raven is becoming ever more popular, I have included this amusing song of the Forest Folk