Crown of Shadows - C. S. Friedman [4]
But the figure stopped, as if knowing that another step would be one too many for Andrys’ frayed nerves. “He knew the truth. ” The figure indicated Samiel. “The firstborn has always known the truth. That was one of the conditions I set for this family, when I first decided to let the line continue. And when he placed the coronet of this county on his head, when he laid claim to the title that wasn’t his to take, he knew what the price of that would be. ”
It took him a minute to understand. To believe. “Is that it?” he choked out at last. “All this ... because of that? Just for a title?”
He could sense anger stirring within that dark, faceless form: not hot, like human rage, but as chill and as biting as an arctic wind. “I gave this family life, ” the figure pronounced acidly. “And I dictated the conditions under which it would be permitted to endure. I spared your ancestor when it would have been just as easy to kill him, not out of human compassion but because I was curious to see what the descendants of my blood might accomplish. And so I left you my lands, my keep, my wealth, my library—whose true value is beyond your imagining—all these things and more, a treasury beyond measurement. Only two things were forbidden to you ... and one of those you insist on claiming. Eight times now. ” A sweep of one black-cloaked arm encompassed the carnage. “Consider this a reminder.” “
“You killed them all for that?” he whispered feebly. “Because of Samiel’s mistake? All of them?”
For a moment the dark figure regarded him in silence. Andrys was acutely aware of the filth that soiled his shirt front, the urine that had plastered one pants leg to his flesh. Shame flushed his cheeks, hot blood suffusing death-white flesh.
“His mistake was defiance, ” the figure said coldly, “which I will not endure. As for my methods ... I find that the harder the lesson is driven home, the longer it is likely to last. Remember that, when you raise your own heirs. ”
Heirs? For a moment he couldn’t remember what the word meant, or how it might apply to him. His heirs? He had no children yet. And never would, if this creature killed him—
Then it sank in. All of it.
Images of the Survivors rose up before him. Haunted figures whose biographies were shrouded in mystery, who had survived to continue the family when all others died of sickness, or in war, or (the records were unclear) in some terrible accident.
Or were slaughtered.
Like this?
Oh, my God, Andrys thought desperately. Let this be some drunken dream. Let me wake up in the back room of some tavern to discover that I passed out and had a nightmare, just a nightmare, please, God, just that....
“I see you understand, ” the figure observed. “I trust you will not be so foolish as to repeat your brother’s mistake. ”
He turned away from Andrys then, meaning to leave him alone with the carnage. To make his peace with his fate, if he could. But as he turned, a shaft of moonlight fell across his features, illuminating them. Illuminating a face—
“No,” he whimpered. “No!”
Illuminating a face so like his own that he screamed, he screamed, he started screaming and he couldn’t stop, because suddenly he understood—he understood—he knew what kind of dark vanity might drive a man to murder his entire family except the one child who was most like him, knew it without being able to put a name to it, knew it even though his soul burned from the understanding of it. And he knew that every time he looked in the mirror from now on he would see that face, not his own, that those eyes would stare out at him from his own reflection, terrible empty silver eyes so like and unlike his own, eyes that had looked out upon the vast expanse of Hell and found its terrors wanting—
Moaning. Weeping. Balled up in a tight little knot, tears streaming down his face. Crying uncontrollably,