Chapter 17 Perl #2
His father had told Perl he had come for him.
Perl’s place was elsewhere. He explained in a garbled, desperate manner, a demon, a mission, a desperate quest to save the world.
And that Perl was part of it. Perl existed only to save the world from Ur-Durik.
In the same moment Perl had discovered that his existence was a great and terrible shame, he had learned it had to be this way.
That he had been brought into this world for a reason.
Perl had learned all of this, lying in his bed, only recently released from the iron collar of his year-long punishment, neck still raw and the shame of it still bright.
His father reeked of corrupted magic, dripping with it. His eyes wild. And although Perl had never seen him before, he did not doubt who he was or any part of his story. His father had created a blood door with Perl as its anchor.
But Perl hesitated. If he had not, perhaps there would have been time to escape back through the blood door. For while he was staring agog at his broken father, the doors to his chambers burst open, wards shattered by an alert of a threat to Vylenor. And his father had been seized by fae guards.
Krem had been there. Perl remembers Krem’s tender, worried expression. Krem had been the one who had taken Perl from his bed and brought him with the other guards and his father to the Ice Hall.
He’d stood there and watched it all. The Ice Hall had been so bright that night.
Only then, had the horror of his fate consumed Perl’s father. But Perl knew now that his father had known his path. He had come back to Vylenor to die.
The cage was raised to the ceiling and ignited with white fire. The eternal death, reserved for traitors. And Perl had been left with the realisation his father’s mission was now his.
Perl stares at the cage for some time. What manner of creature must his father be after burning in white fire for a hundred years?
His wings burst from his back, as if in answer: go and find out.
He doesn’t even have to think. It might have been over a hundred years since he’d used his wings — and when he had claimed to Exeinil that he meant to fly, he’d had no intention of truly doing so — but lifting from the smooth white floor takes no more thought than walking down a corridor.
He cannot tell for sure if this act is his own will or something outside of him.
He rises through the air, feeling the strange, old feeling of his wings moving.
He cannot deny the thrill of it. A deep, intense feeling of pleasure like the stretching of muscles after a long sleep.
He’d been eighty turns when his wings first emerged, only a decade late to bud.
His wings had been the source of much speculation when he was a young fae growing up at Vylenor.
They had been inspected, measured and plucked.
Fae elders had questioned whether he would be able to lift with them as they were under-sized, but eventually pronounced them acceptable.
A little smaller than average but large enough for a fae of his status.
Although Vane had muttered that a high fae with wings the size of Perl’s would be burned as defective in the Timeless Court.
When he is of a height with the cage that he can feel the heat from the white flames. He looks up at the golden bars. He cannot get closer, but he is close enough he can see the figure inside. His father, trapped in the perpetual death. The body inside is wisened and charred.
Is he truly alive? He moves, but perhaps he only moves as the magical flames move. He does not look at Perl or even seem to notice him. Perl had known his father for such a short time. And yet, that time had changed everything, had set him on this path he has been following for a hundred years.
“Why did you ever come back here?” Perl hisses to the figure in the cage. “Why did you do this to me? Why did you leave me to build a life here then return to take it from me?”
The figure in the cage does not respond. Why would he? Perl knows the answers to these questions. Perl knows his fate was written long ago, before he’d even been sired.
But he does have another question. His father has seen the future. Seen all that will come. His father knows how Perl survives this. How he protects Kerik. “How do I save him from the pit?”
But is his father still truly there? Can he answer?
The figure inside the cage seems to move.
Perl blinks. Is it just the oscillating, mindless movement the figure makes in its perpetual death?
Perl isn’t sure for a moment, but as he watches, the figure’s head turns.
His eyes lock with Perl’s. Perl is certain he cannot be imagining this.
Kerik Darekul.
The response is not spoken. It is words in Perl’s own head.
“Father? Is that you? Are you answering me?”
The figure stares at Perl.
He must believe. Make him believe in you.
“And how do I do that? What does he need to believe?”
But the figure only looks away and returns to his strange writhing.
“Please,” Perl says, “tell me what to do? Am I doing the right things? The Shard said bringing him here was right, but I have put him in such danger. Please. Help me.”
But there is no reply.
“Tell me what to do,” Perl shouts. This cannot be it.
He reaches out for the cage, forcing his arm through the white fire.
It burns, but he grasps the cage’s bars.
It hurts. The white fire and then the fierce magic of the cage.
Perl screams. His body goes tense with agony and he drops, wings limp on his back. And he is falling.
He must save himself. He must use his own power and believe. Give yourself to him.
Down and down to inevitably slam into the stone floor of the Ice Hall.
But he does not hit the floor. His fall is broken by something. A mysterious invisible softness, as if he has fallen into a pile of pillows. He looks up. On his back clasping his burnt arm to his chest.
Above him, leaning over, stand Vane and Diamanda.
Vane smiles, “You're welcome.”
Perl sits up. He examines his arm. The black leather of his jerkin is burned away on one sleeve, the pale flesh beneath, glistening and red.
“Family can be so tricky,” Vane says.
Perl gets to his feet. “I was simply…”
He trails off. Unsure how to explain. Diamanda says, “Perl, no matter. You must come back to the parlour.”
Vane smiles, clearly amused by what he’s seen. “Queen Exeinil bid the princess and I fetch you. She wishes to send the torments and, for extra amusement, have us present them. I, the first, Diamanda the second and you, Perl, will go last.”
“Very well,” Perl says. He received nothing of use from his father. He chides himself for ever expecting such. And now it is time for the torments. But if he is to present one of them, at least that will mean he will be allowed inside the ice cell.
“Let me fix that for you, Perlash,” Vane says, waving a hand towards Perl’s injured right arm.
Perl gasps at Vane’s healing magic, surprised by the generosity.
Perl’s skin is soothed and his sleeve repaired in moments, but in addition the suppressor is back on his wrist. He feels the dull sting of it and the strangely disorientating sensation of having his magic held from him.
Perl looks at Vane.
“Prince Vane!” Diamanda says, sounding quite shocked.
Vane only laughs.
Placing a suppressor on another fae is a great transgression. Exeinil placing one on Perl for the purpose of the tests was within the usual protocol of such things. But Exeinil is Queen.
And Vane is still smiling, quite delightedly. “Now, we must make haste. She will not wait.”
He marches from the hall. Perl looks back at the suppressor on his wrist as he turns to follow Diamanda.
They arrive in the Pink Parlour to cries of delight from Exeinil. A page is already handing Vane a fur cloak. The first temptation.
Perl watches with his heart beating hard. Vane smiles at Perl before he walks over to the ice cell, opening its door with his will.
“This should not be the second trial,” he says idly, and partly to himself. “It is too much.”
Diamanda, still standing beside him, says,“It is. But Exeinil is suspicious of you. For all her protestations of caring for you deeply, she fears she may have made a mistake. It haunts her.”
Perl looks at Diamanda’s sweet, pretty face. “She will kill my thrall to prove me true?” Perl says.
“I do not think she wishes to kill it. Only to test it harshly, prove you a strong Master and herself right.”
“I do not think he can resist the temptations. He will be half frozen to death in there.”
“It looks strong.”
“He is, but I do not know if he is strong enough for this. What mortal would be?”
But he is no simple mortal. He is the Magician.
Diamanda says, “Some years ago I put my own mortal thrall Pamilia through the tests. Cold was the fourth. It failed, accepting the second temptation and Exeinil had it sent to the pit. It never returned. But I have seen how the test of cold will go. If your thrall can resist the first temptation, we can help it with the rest.”