26 #3
“Furthermore, you don’t want it,” said his father.
“You have spent all your time looking at all of it sideways, have you not? You have broken all the rules as a matter of course, which means that you have seen all the seams that hold things together, and you see that the rules aren’t real and the seams are weak and straining.
” He folded his arms over his chest. “You have an orc woman in your town house, is that true?”
“I am utterly surprised you are paying so much attention to all this gossip.”
“I always paid attention, my boy. I always had to know things. But there was no reason to waste time discussing things with you. I had more important things to do, things to think about.”
“Your vision.” The words twisted in Iahir’s mouth.
“You thought me foolish,” said his father. “Everyone did. I told myself it didn’t matter and that I would show them all. But I don’t think I shall anymore. About the orc woman? That’s true?”
Iahir nodded. “Indeed.”
“Oh, by the rosy fingers of the dawn, this rebellious streak of yours—”
“I won’t hear it,” said Iahir. “You likely shouldn’t have married my mother, knowing she was… Gathren is at least in charge of her mental facilities.”
“My boy, we don’t choose who we love.”
“Well, then,” said Iahir, glaring at him.
His father shrugged. “Have it your way. It only makes it more imperative that you leave.”
Iahir looked around. Yes, he would go, he supposed. He could not hold this place together, anyway. He was not sure that his father could, but at least the man seemed to be paying attention, at least somewhat. “I was thinking about Celedrah.” He named the summer house in the country.
“Oh, no, they’ll seek you there,” said his father. “It’s our holdings. You must not go anywhere they would predict you would go.”
“North, then?” he said.
“North seems wise,” said his father.
“And you will turn your attention to keeping everything together here?” said Iahir. “You swear that you will?”
“I must,” said his father. “It is an adventure, I must say. Perhaps I’d gotten to the point I didn’t know what else to try for your mother, anyway.”
Iahir’s nostrils flared.
“Oh, what is that?”
Iahir shook his head.
“You don’t approve of my having done it at all,” said his father.
Iahir sighed.
“You don’t even have courage to say it aloud?”
“You say you did not know that it would turn out the way it did, that you could only see some bright destination, but when you began to see what was actually happening—”
“They were just obstacles, testing my resolve.”
Iahir sighed.
“I had to try, my boy.”
“So you say.”
“Well, what was I to do? Ignore it? Ignore her?”
“Accept her as she was, I think,” said Iahir. “Perhaps there was some way to make things easier for her—”
“Well, that was what I was trying to accomplish!”
Iahir did not wish to argue about this. It did not matter.
In a way, his father had ignored his mother.
He did everything for her, but he did not wish to be near her, not the way she was.
He wanted her, but he wanted a version of her that did not exist. Until he could create that version, he spent all his time elsewhere.
“You refuse to speak against me, I see.”
“It does not matter what I think, and it never has,” said Iahir. “You have your own inner convictions and those are all that is important to you. Such is the way of being a visionary, I suppose.” There was ice in his tone.
His father’s lips thinned.
Iahir sighed again.
“I cannot find fault with what you say,” said his father.
“You are correct that I have been blind and foolish in many ways. That I have refused to see reality, but instead have focused on some pipe dream.” His father patted his pockets.
“Speaking of pipes…” He came out with one from his pocket. “Fancy a smoke, then?”
Iahir hesitated.
“We shall talk of something else,” said his father. “Something not so fraught. Tell me how you met this orc woman. I hear she was with you in the capital. Did you do it or did she?”
Iahir sat down and took out his pipe. “She was part of it,” he said. “But the actual strike, that was me.”
“Why was she part of it?”
“She is the daughter of the orc High Chieftain,” said Iahir. “Not legitimate, you understand, not important to him, but his blood. She misrepresented her value to us. She made us think that if we killed the High King, we could use her as a hostage to control her father.”
“Ah, but I imagine everything went to pieces so quickly afterward that no one knew what to do.”
“I can’t see why that happened,” said Iahir.
“Shock,” said his father. “Shock and self-preservation.”
Iahir saw movement at the doorway. He looked up and there was his brother, strands of greasy light blond hair hanging in his face. “Adalir?” he called.
“My name is Grann,” growled back the creature in the door.
Iahir tilted his head in agreement. “Grann, then. Do you wish to come in? Do you wish to share a pipe?”
“Your name is not Grann,” countered their father. “Do not set foot across the threshold if you cannot acknowledge reality.”
Adalir backed away, muttering to himself.
Iahir puffed on his pipe, regarding his father.
“No progress at all,” said his father, who looked haggard and old and tired.
Iahir did not care what the man said, he could not leave them here, not on their own. But what was he going to do?