THE FATE HEALER
by Noel Coughlan
THE FATE HEALER
Copyright © 2016 Noel Coughlan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except in the case of a reviewer, who may quote brief passages embodied in critical articles or in a review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Edited by Finish The Story (https://www.finish-the-story.com/Editing.htm)
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Published by Photocosmological Press (https://photocosm.org/)
Epub Edition: ISBN:978-1-910206-10-2
Build: A2
I
In frustration, Draston slapped the moldy tome shut, catching his long, wiry beard. With a snarl, he tugged it free. His research had reached another dead end. It might lead to his own dead end very soon. It wasn’t easy being an ambitious tyrant’s personal genealogist. Hamvok’s self-proclaimed epithet was “the Merciful,” but he had either chosen it ironically or he didn’t know what the word meant.
The door of Draston’s study swung open, and the self-made King of Hamvoksland swaggered inside, red-faced, his lips pressed together into an uncompromising line. He leaned over the table and glared. “So, Draston, have you made any progress?”
Draston couldn’t think. “Eh, eh, eh.”
Hamvok slammed the desk with his fists. “So, you have failed me again.”
Draston pressed a tremulous hand to his forehead. “Perhaps the kings of Kalidoon—”
Hamvok’s lower lip pushed upward as he shook his head. “You tried to link me to them six months ago and failed, as you failed with the great earls of Freeg, the high lords of Pharmus, the princes of Melior, and a dozen other noble lines.” He pounded his chest with his fist. “I am obviously of royal blood. Otherwise, how could I be such a natural leader of men? How could I win victory after victory against my less noble rivals?”
Draston nodded with wide-eyed enthusiasm. Please, don’t pull me up by the beard this time.
Hamvok’s bobbing head mocked him. “And yet, you have failed to associate me with the pettiest of noble bloodlines!” he roared. “Something that even the poorest apprentice in your profession could do in an afternoon!”
Draston’s gulp hurt his dry throat. Hamvok’s recorded ancestors were all pig farmers. They had never strayed from their mountain village. Nobility had never sneezed on them, much less married into them.
Draston raised his trembling palms in a placatory gesture. “I have another lead, a strong one. I didn’t want to bring it up because…” Why? Why? Why? Damn it. It was so hard to think beneath Hamvok’s brutal gaze. “I wanted to complete some preliminary research first before I mentioned it to you.”
Hamvok’s scowl deepened.
“But the evidence I’ve found so far,” Draston hastened to add, “while circumstantial, is extremely positive.”
“What house is it this time?” Hamvok grunted, rolling his eyes.
Draston’s mind blanked. His genealogical lore evaporated in an instant. Sampton, God of Wisdom, save me from this monster.
Draston raised a finger. “Something far better than nobility. Descent from a god.” He smiled in triumph.
Hamvok frowned and rubbed his belligerent jowls. “Which god?”
“Sampton,” Draston said. God of Wisdom, forgive me.
“Hmm. When will you have conclusive proof?” Hamvok asked.
“I should have it in a few days,” Draston said, haphazardly rearranging the scrolls piled on his desk.
Hamvok’s mouth split into a threatening grin, his eyes sparkled with rapacious delight. “Take a month.”
Draston took a deep breath as Hamvok lumbered toward the door.
The tyrant paused and looked back over his shoulder at him. The smile had vanished. “This is your last chance. You’ll not get another. Don’t disappoint me.”
“I won’t, I won’t,” Draston promised.
With a grunt, Hamvok stomped out the door, leaving it ajar. As his plodding steps down the stairs faded into the distance, Draston took a deep breath. He swept a little space on his desk and repeatedly banged his head against the bare wood. What had he done?
II
Draston banished all visitors from his study for the next month. He never left the chamber, either. His impudent apprentice, Ericarl, delivered his meals and emptied his chamber pot without ever entering. Draston was terrified someone might snoop around while he wasn’t there. Nobody must have any inkling of his experiments in forgery. He had always been an honest man and a conscientious scholar, but now truth had failed him. He could only save himself by turning a lie into incontestable fact.
In retrospect, he should have manufactured Hamvok’s aristocratic lineage long ago and avoided this greater sacrilege, but he no longer had the option. Dazzled by the prospect of divine ancestry, Hamvok wouldn’t be satisfied with kinship to some obscure family of minor nobility.
Forgery wasn’t a simple business. Hamvok might want more than anything to believe Sampton was his forbear, but even he would not accept obviously falsified documents. And the evidence had to convince not just laymen but also the learned genealogists serving Hamvok’s rivals and allies.
In matters such as this, less was better. A single stroke of the quill was harder to challenge than a fabricated document. After a great deal of painstaking research, Draston found exactly what he needed. The name of one of Hamvok’s male ancestors, Vilorn, could be transformed by two simple strokes into the hero Valarn, popularly remembered as the Cantankerous, a descendant of the god Sampton. Fortunately, Valarn the Cantankerous had mysteriously vanished, presumably murdered by one of his many enemies, while nothing was recorded about Vilorn other than his name. It was conceivable that Valarn had secretly taken refuge from his foes in Hamvok’s ancestral village. For the dates to work, Valarn had to be siring children in his nineties, but descent from a god made anything possible.
Two strokes—their combined length less than the width of the nail on Draston’s little finger—were all that separated him from salvation. And yet, it remained a terrible distance. Those two strokes would be the most important that he ever made. They had to perfectly harmonize with the dry ink already on the page.
He had tested dozens of recipes to find a match. After two weeks of experimentation, he found a blend indistinguishable from the original ink. He had practiced the two strokes over and over. They had to be perfect. A slip, a wobble of his hand, would damn him.
The time had come. He could delay no longer. He cleared his desk of everything except his quill and inkwell, a candle, and the dreaded record. He couldn’t afford the slightest distraction.
He cupped his hands around the candle’s heat to warm away the stiffness from his chilblained fingers. He lifted the quill and carefully removed the excess ink. He held his breath as he made the first stroke. He studied it. It looked all right. He drew the second line. It, too, was perfect. He returned his quill to its well and vented his stale breath.
He paced to and fro while the ink dried. Terrified of smudging the lines, he waited for longer than should have been necessary. He gently picked up the book and brought it over to the window. Sunlight provided a more damning test than any candle. He had kept the window shuttered, afraid that somehow someone might wi
tness his criminal endeavors through the thick, knobbly glass. Draston angled the page so the wedge of light passing between the shutters fell across the modified lettering. Oh no! The new strokes were slightly darker than the original letters. The difference, though subtle, would be enough for a keen eye to detect.
Sampton, save me! What am I going to do?
Perhaps if he left the page in the sun for a while the new ink might fade a little. He opened the shutters, plonked the book on the table beneath the window, and resumed his pacing.
After the bells announced evening, he examined the book again. The new ink had faded to the point that it was indiscernible from the original.
He clapped his hands together. “Thank you, Sampton!”
To make absolutely sure, Draston rubbed a little dust onto the page. He sat back and examined his handiwork anew. Those two lines looked as though they had been on the page since the first day a quill touched it.
He closed the book and hugged it. He must show it to Hamvok immediately. He raced out of his chamber, down the spiral stairs to the king’s private quarters. Hamvok often supped there alone when he had no occasion for a banquet.
As Draston entered, the welcoming smell of cooked food made his mouth water. The dining table was festooned with pies, breads, roasted fowl, and hocks of ham, but the seats were empty.
Draston turned to the servants patiently waiting beside the table. “Where is—?”
The