“My father…” The certainty faded from Mustor’s eyes and he blinked, his expression guarded. “My father lost his way. He turned away from the World Father's love.”
“He didn’t turn away from you. He gave you this keep did he not? Gave you letters of safe passage to ensure you could travel here unmolested. He even told you the most cherished secret of your family: the passage through the mountain. He did all this to ensure you would be safe. You are to be envied to have been so loved. And you repaid him with a blade in his heart.”
“He strayed from the law of the Ten Books. His toleration of your heretic dominion could not be borne forever. I had no choice but to act…”
“A strange god that loves you so much he makes you murder your own father.”
“SHUT UP!” Mustor screamed in a voice that almost sobbed with sorrow, flinging Sherin away as he advanced on Vaelin, sword levelled. “Shut your mouth! I know what you are. Don’t think He did not tell me. You are a practitioner of the Dark. You shun the Father’s love. You know nothing.”
Still the blood-song’s tune failed to change, even as the usurper’s blade came within a hand’s breadth of his chest. “Are you ready?” Mustor asked. “Are you ready to die, Darkblade?”
Vaelin noted the way Mustor’s sword-tip trembled, the moist redness of his eyes and the hard clench of his jaw. “Are you ready to kill me?”
“I will do what I must.” His voice was grating now, forced out through clenched teeth. His whole body appeared to tremble, his chest heaving, seeming to Vaelin like a man at war with himself. The sword tip wavered but did not move, neither forward nor back.
“Forgive me, my lord,” he said. “But I doubt you have any killing left in you.”
“Just one more,” Mustor whispered. “Just one more, He told me. Then at last I could rest. The Eternal Fields would finally be opened to me where I was denied before.”
From beyond the door came the first sounds of battle, many voices raised in alarm soon drowned in the clatter of iron-shod hooves and the hard ring of clashing steel.
“What?” Mustor seemed bewildered, his gaze flicking continually between Vaelin and the door. “What is this? Do you seek to distract me with some Dark illusion?”
Vaelin shook his head. “My men are storming the keep.”
“Your men?” His face took on an expression of deep confusion. “But you came alone. He said you would come alone.” His sword fell to his side as he stumbled back a few steps, his gaze distant, unfocused. “He said you would come alone…”
Kill him now! A voice shouted in Vaelin’s mind, a voice he had thought lost in the Martishe, the voice that had endlessly mocked his preparations for Al Hestian’s murder. He’s within reach, take his sword away and break his neck!
The voice was right, it would be an easy kill. Whatever madness or disturbance clouded Mustor’s thoughts had left him defenceless. But the blood-song’s tune was unchanged… And his words raised so many questions.
“You have been deceived, my lord,” Vaelin told Mustor softly. “Whatever voice speaks in your mind has played you false. I came here with a full regiment of foot and a company of mounted brothers. And I doubt my death, or any death, would buy you a place in the Beyond.”
Mustor staggered, almost falling to the floor. He froze, only for a moment, but it was a moment of complete stillness, standing as if carved from ice. When he moved again the depth of confusion marring his features had vanished, replaced by the face of a man in full possession of his faculties, one eyebrow raised in amused consternation, but the eyes cold with hatred. A voice Vaelin had heard before issued from Mustor’s lips in a tone of calm certainty. “You do continue to surprise me, brother. But this ends nothing.”
Then it was gone, Mustor’s face once again the mask of confusion from a second before. It was clear to Vaelin that Mustor had no knowledge of what had just transpired. Something lives in his mind, he realised. Something that can speak with his voice. And he doesn’t know.
“Hentes Mustor,” he said. “You are called by the King’s word to answer charges of treason and murder.” He held out his hand. “Your sword, my lord.”
Mustor looked down at the sword in his hand, turning the blade so it gleamed in the torch light. “I washed it and washed it. Ground the blade on the stone for hours. But I can still see it, the blood…”
“Your sword, my lord,” Vaelin repeated, stepping closer, hand outstretched.
“Yes…” Mustor said faintly. “Yes. Best if you take it…” He reversed his hold on the hilt and lifted the sword towards Vaelin’s hand.