Son of the Hero

"Of course, Your Majesty. He knows nothing of our country."

"I don't like this one bit. Turning a stranger loose on such a perilous mission." Pregel stared at me. "I don't like risking my heir like this."

I looked from him to Parthet. Neither was paying any attention to me at the moment. His heir?

"The lad hasn't proved himself," Parthet said. "Much as I like him, you can't know that he will be the heir you need."

"He is my heir," Pregel said firmly.

"You know, Your Majesty," I said, just to remind everyone that I was still in the room, "I still don't know what the hell anyone's talking about."

Three pairs of eyes turned to me.

"You are my only direct male descendant," the king said. "Heir apparent to the throne of Varay."

I don't think anyone heard the muted "Holy shit!" that I just couldn't restrain.

4 – Chamberlain

Pregel groused and pouted by turn. His face got red. He left food on his plate, shoved it away, got up and went to one of the four tall, narrow windows in the room. I got up from the table with relief, Parthet with reluctance. We waited for His Majesty. Baron Kardeen remained as he had been. Waiting seemed to be his natural function. The wait wasn't long, but as usual in uncomfortable situations, it seemed eternal.

"We have to do what we can for my grandson," Pregel finally said without turning away from the window. "I won't risk him alone on this."

"Your Majesty, delay might put my parents at greater risk," I said.

"I know. Don't worry, we'll get you out of here quickly, as fast as may be. I think we can still find horses."

"Yes, Your Majesty," the chamberlain said. Neither of them bothered to ask if I could ride. Maybe they took it for granted, or maybe my parents had talked about my riding-sometime in the past I knew nothing about.

"A page to attend him and at least one soldier," Pre-gel said, his voice starting to sound almost bitter. "The heir of Varay need an entourage, poor though it might be. And perhaps you can spare an hour to brief the prince and equip him properly."

"At once, Your Majesty," Kardeen said.

We waited some more. "Then get about it, man, while I dress," Pregel said. He came over to me. "When this is over, we'll have to spend some time together, get to know each other while we may."

"I hope to have that opportunity," I said, meaning it.

"I'll see you in an hour then, in the throne room."

I nodded, and the king left the room alone.

There was a moment of silence and then Parthet looked at Kardeen and said, "His health seems much improved."

The baron nodded. "When I told him his grandson was here, he virtually leaped out of bed." Kardeen smiled wanly. "It feels wonderful to give him good news for a change. He's been so besieged by worry lately, especially since the young Etevar seized Castle Thyme."

"If we've only got an hour, shouldn't we get busy?" I asked. I was getting increasingly a

"You're right, of course," Kardeen said easily. "Let's go down to my office."

It was quite a walk, down the stairs we had come up, along the broad corridor past the great hall, through a left turn and along a short corridor, up a shorter flight of steps, thirty yards along another corridor, up another short flight of steps into yet another-but much narrower-short corridor. By my reckoning, we had left the keep and had to be in what I had thought was just a curtain wall, or maybe we were in the large tower at the southeast corner of the courtyard. We went through one office where a clerk was writing-using a long quill on a sheet of parchment the size of a Monopoly board-into a smaller office with a large desk and several chairs. Kardeen indicated chairs and seated himself behind the desk. When he rang a bell, his clerk raced in from the outer office.

"I need the Master of Pages and the guard commander, as quickly as possible," Kardeen said. "Also the armorer." The clerk bowed and left.

Kardeen stared at me. I stared at him. He was just under six feet tall, about my height, and built solidly enough to be an athlete or warrior. He looked to be in his late thirties, but by that time I didn't put any trust at all in age estimates. Age was apparently a very nebulous quality in Varay. The baron was clean-shaven, had inky black hair with just the slightest trace of gray, and had deep-set black eyes, a hooded look. His desk was large, unpolished. There were a number of scrolls on it, rolled-up, held by ribbons or rubber bands. A desk set held a pair of felt-tip markers.

"I think that the first thing I need is basic data," I said. "Background information. How big is Varay? How far is it to Castle Thyme? What's the trouble in the north that keeps the army busy? What's the basis of the current dispute with the Etevar?" I could have asked questions all week and still had more waiting, but that wouldn't do much good, so I wrapped up the abbreviated recital with a reminder. "I don't know anything at all about this place."

"I know that your parents pla

"Varay is one of seven buffer kingdoms that lie between the domains of Man and Fairy. This is a particularly narrow place in the zone, with the unscalable Titans to our south and the Mist, also called the Sea of Fairy, and the Isthmus of Xayber to the north. Xayber is the only land passage to Fairy. We have often stood at the van in struggles with the elflords. Dorthin lies to our east, and Mauroc beyond it. Belorz is our western neighbor. Both of our immediate neighbors are much larger, more populous, and stronger than Varay-mostly because we are always the first to feel the wrath of the elflords of Fairy. Belorz has given us no trouble in many generations, but Dorthin is a recurrent plague."

"Just where in the world is Varay located, though?" The time difference would seem to put it on the west coast of the United States or Canada, and while it wouldn't surprise me to find something as screwy as Varay in California, I didn't think it was there. Somebody would have mentioned it.

"It isn't located anywhere in your world, or in the world of Fairy either," Kardeen said. "The buffer zone partakes of both but is part of neither."

"I don't understand," I said, "but go ahead. We can't waste time on details now."

"Logic and science contend with chaos and magic in the seven kingdoms," Parthet said. "Logic and science don't always win. Perhaps that is essential. The worlds balance each other across our fulcrum. Neither side can be confident of victory in any particular clash. The rules are liable to change without notice."

"In Varay, and to some extent in the other kingdoms, we stand between the forces of the two polar realms, mortal and Fairy," Kardeen said. "Walking the edge of that precipice is our key to survival. Tradition is our only measure. In the buffer zone, neither mortality nor immortality can be taken for granted. A gain in strength by one side calls forth renewed efforts by the other, trying to redress the imbalance."

"Complete domination by either side would likely de-stray both," Parthet said. "And any major swing in either realm is reflected all too quickly here in the center. Jerked back and forth like a pull of taffy."

"And your army is tied up by trouble with Fairy," I said, trying to direct the conversation to more practical considerations.

"Off and on for decades now," Kardeen said. "And whenever our troubles, in the north increase, the Etevar of Dorthin tries to take advantage."