Only the Bold

Now his father’s smile became a laugh that echoed around the open space of the clearing, scattering the few deer that had started to return to it.

“It doesn’t work like that, either,” his father said.

“Then how does it work?” Royce asked.

“The mirror doesn’t give you wisdom, it shows you possibilities,” his father said. “So many that it is impossible to hold them all. Your mind picks out some of them, but what you get is what you bring to it. Barihash, the thing there, must have been suspicious before he looked, so he latched onto those possibilities that showed him being betrayed.”

That made a lot of sense to Royce. He had seen those possibilities, been able to start to pick through them. He’d picked out the one shining strand of things that might work, and even now it stood out in his mind, while the rest of it was impossible to hold.

“There was a… man,” Royce said. “I showed him the mirror in the moments before he was going to kill me and he… stopped. He begged me to kill him.”

“The gray man,” his father said. “The Angarthim.”

He didn’t say more for a moment, obviously struggling to find the words.

“What is the most horrifying thing that you can show a man who has been brainwashed all his life? You can show him the truth. And what possibilities will his mind have shown him, a man who has been shown only fragments before?”

Royce couldn’t begin to imagine it. More than that, he didn’t really want to imagine it, because there were too many possibilities already in his head without imagining more than that. He’d seen some of what could happen if he did anything wrong here, all the ways that the world could turn to blood and death and horror. He had to cling to the path through all that he’d seen, the only way it could turn out well.

“Why didn’t it turn me mad?” Royce said.

“Because you are strong enough to see it for what it is,” his father said. “Or because you were strong enough to pull back when you needed to. I got a glimpse. I could have fought Barihash for more than that, but I knew that I could never contain all of it.”

“I killed Barihash,” Royce said. He felt a flicker of guilt admitting that to his father.

But his father nodded. “Good. Sometimes evil must be fought. He was a thing of pain and hate and suspicion, who could never bring anything but hurt to the world. It is the same with King Carris, and the war that is to come. There will be violence, but it is needed violence.”

Royce could understand that. He’d fought against the old duke for exactly those reasons, had fought against Altfor and his uncle and everyone else who had come at them. He’d hoped that he could make everything better if only he could defeat them.

Now, the possibilities his brain could barely contain hinted that there needed to be more even than that. The clarity that the mirror had given him, the ability to look at the world and simply see, had shown him that there needed to be more than just the violence. Plunge only into that, and there would be nothing but years of death.

Of course, the balance to that was that if they didn’t fight at all, then things would continue as they were, with all the cruelty that came with it. The way between those two things was so narrow that it felt like a precipice, with danger far below.

“I’ve walked precipices before,” Royce said to himself.

“What’s that?” his father asked.

“I’m just trying to work out what to do next,” he said. That seemed wrong somehow. “Even with everything the mirror showed me, I still have to work it out.”

“The mirror doesn’t tell you what you ought to do,” his father said. “That’s the most dangerous mistake there is with it. You still have choices. You always have choices. Everyone does.”

That made more sense than Royce could have believed it would. He didn’t want to destroy the choices of the people who came with him; even asking the others to trust him enough to come here, he wouldn’t have forced them to do it, had only been able to hope that they believed in him enough to come here.

Now, he had another thing to ask.

“Father,” he said, “I’ve hunted for you across the sea. I found the mirror in the Seven Isles, but I was looking for you. I came here because I wanted to find my father, and because I believe that the kingdom needs its king.”

His father stood there for a moment or two, then shook his head. “I’m not sure I can do that, Royce.”

The disappointment that shot through Royce in that moment was absolute.

“But I’ve come so far!”

He could hear the pain in his own voice, and it mirrored that on his father’s face.

“I looked in the mirror,” his father said. “I saw myself here, not returning to the kingdom.”

“But that was so long ago,” Royce said. “Things have changed, Father.”

His father shook his head. “You know that there are things I can’t say.”

Things that he’d seen, Royce guessed. That gave him an idea, though. He reached for the pouch by his side.

“Will you look again?” he asked. He held out the mirror.

“You know the dangers there,” his father said, obviously concerned. “A man shouldn’t look too often, because of all the things it might change.”

“Please,” Royce begged.

His father hesitated, then nodded. Slowly, cautiously, he looked into the mirror. He seemed to stare into it forever, for so long in fact that Royce thought about pulling it away, hiding it from view so he wouldn’t have to look any longer.

Finally, his father closed his eyes.

“It seems that the kingdom will have its king,” his father said, with an expression that Royce couldn’t read. It said there was more that he had seen, things that Royce hadn’t. “And you shall have your father.”

That part, at least, made Royce’s breath catch.

“Then you’ll return to the kingdom with my friends and me?” Royce asked, barely daring to hope.

“I will,” his father promised. He went into the hut for a moment or two, collecting a small sack of belongings almost identical to the one Royce had found on the first of the Seven Isles. That seemed to be all that he wanted to take with him.

“I don’t have your armor or your sword,” Royce said. “I lost them back in the Seven Isles.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” his father said. “I saw… no, like I said, it doesn’t work like that.”

Royce knew better than to ask what he’d seen, but it was difficult as they set off through the trees on the edge of the island not to wonder about it. It was also hard not to wonder at the fact that he had finally found his father. The man who had left so long before was here, walking along beside him with Gwylim while Ember flitted through the trees.

The walk to the beach didn’t seem to take as long as the journey to the interior of the island. They covered the ground quickly, and soon, they were staring out at the spot where the boat lay anchored. His friends were still there waiting in the boat when Royce and his father returned to it, but they quickly leapt down to meet them when they saw that Royce was there with someone. They rushed to the beach, standing there expectantly.

“A Picti, a peasant girl, and a fighter from the Red Isle?” his father said.

“My friends,” Royce replied. “There was also a knight, but Sir Bolis died back in the Seven Isles, saving all of us.” He stepped forward to them, ready to introduce them one by one. “Everyone, this is my father, King Philip, the rightful king. We’ve found him.”

His friends reacted with surprising deference. Mark bowed, Matilde curtseyed, and even Neave managed a respectful nod.

“Father, this is Mark. He helped me to survive the Red Isle, and he’s my closest friend.”

His father took Mark’s hand. “A man who has saved my son’s life has my gratitude.”