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It was a role I welcomed. All my life I had been overshadowed by one man or another, so that for all my strength of body and ability of mind I had come to seem second-rate to myself. Perhaps that is a natural defect of being born a septarch’s second son. First there had been my father, whom I could never hope to equal in authority, agility, or might; then Stirron, whose kingship brought only exile for me; then my master in the Glinish logging camp; then Segvord Helalam; then Schweiz. All of them men of determination and prestige, who knew and held their places in our world, while I wandered in frequent bewilderment. Now, in the middle of my year’s, I could at last emerge. I had a mission. I had purpose. The spi
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There was a girl I kept for my sport, in a room on the south side of Ma
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There was a clerk in the Port Justiciary, a certain Ulman, half my age and clearly a man of promise, whom I had come to like. He knew my power and my ancestry and showed no awe of me over that; his respect for me was based entirely on my skills in evaluating and handling the problems of the Justiciary. I kept him late one day and called him into my office when the others were gone. “There is this drug of Sumara Borthan,” I said, “that allows one mind freely to enter another.” He smiled and said that he had heard of it, yes, but understood it was difficult to obtain and dangerous to use. “There is no danger,” I answered. “And as for the difficulty of obtaining it—” I drew forth one of my little packets. His smile did not fade, though dots of color came into his cheeks. We took the drug together in my office. Hours later, when we left for our homes, I gave him some so that he could take it with his wife.
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In the Stone Chapel I dared to reach out to a stranger, a short, thickbodied man in princely clothes, possibly a member of the septarch’s family. He had the clear serene eyes of a man of good faith and the poise of one who has looked within himself and is not displeased by what he has seen. But when I spoke my words to him, he shoved me away and cursed me with such fury that his anger became contagious; maddened by his words, I nearly struck him in blind frenzy. “Selfbarer! Selfbarer!” The shout echoed through the holy building, and people emerged from rooms of meditation to stare. It was the worst shame I had known in years. My exalted mission came into another perspective: I saw it as filthy, and myself as something pitiful, a creeping slinking dog of a man driven by who knew what compulsion to expose his shabby soul to strangers. My anger drained from me and fear flowed in: I slipped into the shadows and out a side door, dreading arrest. For a week I walked about on tiptoe, forever looking back over my shoulder. But nothing pursued me except my panging conscience.
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The moment of insecurity passed. Again I saw my mission whole, and recognized the merit of what I had pledged myself to do, and felt only sorrow for the man in the Stone Chapel who had spurned my gift. And in a single week I found three strangers who would share the drug with me. I wondered how I could ever have doubted myself. But other seasons of doubt lay ahead.