Dark Balance

I was tired.

I didn’t know I was faint till the crown slid from my head, clanging as it rolled away in a rattle and clatter of noise.

I was falling, but a hand caught my elbow, steadied me, hauled me upright.

I knew that presence. It was most unwelcome, and I hadn’t even heard him come in. That in itself was more unnerving than all the rest.

He settled me into my ornate chair with an annoying pat. His dark eyes missed nothing – the bowl, my dripping wrists, the crown across the room, still wobbling to stillness. “Well, Brother. I came to tell you of my own disturbing oracle, but it seems that it has already come true.”

I was enraged, all in a moment. “You- you cursed me?”

“Oh, nonsense.” He huffed for a moment, looking around the room. There were no other pieces of furniture but my throne and the tripod for the bowl. He snorted, then squatted on his haunches like any peasant. “I think you’re taking your station a little too seriously. You’ve always walked around like someone stuck a spear up your anus, but really, I would have thought you understood by now, no one, and I truly mean no one, wants your title. We all know the cost.”

I tried to muster a retort, but I couldn’t.

I loathe when he stares at me like he can read my soul. Perhaps he can, because he has always known when I speak truth, or lie. Even when I say nothing, he can see. “Ah. You don’t. You never have. Brother, you didn’t know? I knew from birth I was the chosen High Priest of the Dark God. I knew you were chosen as our Priest-King, the same as our cousin was chosen to follow the War God as General of the Armies. As your eventual son will be chosen as the High Priest of the God of Light, now that our father has crossed to the blessed life. Or perhaps my eventual son. Or perhaps daughter. Those things are unknown for now. But I can see, without using my second sight, that you have lost your ability to See.”

I would have whimpered, but I was too weak.

My brother frowned, and reached for me. He touched my bare wrist. I would have flinched, but it took all my strength to stay upright. His frown deepened, realizing how much of my blood was in the bowl.

“How many times did you try the ritual? Two? Three?”

My lips formed the shape to say “four,” but I couldn’t summon enough strength to say it aloud.

But he saw. “Brother mine, you are insane. Small wonder you’re to the point of collapse. Here, you need to lay down. Let’s slide you onto the floor first, then- faugh!”

I felt the jolt that sent him reeling. Where did it come from?

He returned, panting, dark pupils dilated in dark moonlit eyes. He was staring at the throne with a disgusted look. “Brother, you must listen to me. I will grab your legs, and pull you off that throne of yours. And you must let me. And then – we shall see.”

He was using the Voice of Command, that our cousin had in great quantities. Oh, how I envied them both, for power I myself didn’t have.

“I heard that. And deny your own power, that neither of us have, and wish we did? We must remedy this. First, moving you. Here, put this pillow under your head-”

What?

I didn’t have more time to contemplate, a pillow was thrust at me, and my hand clutched at it. My brother pulled, and I slid off the throne. I wish it were as boneless as it likely looked, because I ended up hitting my head on my pretty marble floor. I found enough strength to curse, when before I could not shape words to speak.

A touch, a soothing. Damn his healing powers!

“You have them too,” he retorted. “More than mine, if you’d use them. What has gotten you so turned around, that you cannot see sense? You were not like this before we were chosen.”

We were brothers, and you were taken for the Dark God, who cannot be trusted.

“Ah. You have never realized, then, what my function as High Priest truly accomplishes? The Dark God is the god of pain, suffering, chaos, disorder. While you, of course, stand for the opposite. Did it occur to you, who are not a demigod, that I cannot be one as well? My role is intermediator. It is propitiation. It is mitigation. I do not agree with the Dark God, I must stand in the gap and prevent their destruction of the world we know. I was chosen because of my abilities, and I can look into the dark things of the world and not flinch. I can help, I can prevent pain, I can punish. Which also feeds the god, in some twisted way. They are pleased even when I thwart their plans. I do not understand, but it is what I was born to do. You stand for the people of the light. I stand by those broken by the dark. I wish you had understood these things years ago, for it would have caused a lot less pain. Truly my god is pleased by the confusion, though I am not.”

I couldn’t stop the tears. I wanted to believe.

“But, for the problem at hand. Here. You must drink this to restore your health, and you must trust me to not poison you. Take comfort that if I meant your pain or death, I could have done so by now. But you are my brother. Here. Drink.”

I wanted to refuse.

“Drink.”

Damn him. So I drank.

I did feel better within moments. I could sit up, take the bottle, finish the contents.

Meanwhile, my brother was inspecting the throne with a distasteful curl to his lips. “Where did you get this monstrosity? Without the pillows, this thing looks as uncomfortable as sitting on a thorny bramble. Why did you get rid of father’s chair?”

“Uh. Um. Well, it didn’t seem grand enough, after the last caravan brought those rich merchants. I had it made with foreign gold beaten over imported sarran wood. Same as my crown, gold from over the sea.”

“Hunh. Normally gold is protective, but…” He drew his dagger, made from ore he mined himself, forged himself. He slowly pushed the point forward. Right before touching the gilt arms, a spark arced. He held the knife, but there was a scorch mark through the beaten gold into the wood. A spicy, but acrid aroma, followed.

His eyes slid over to mine. “Never thought to have the throne checked for curses, did you? I’m right here, you know. Part of my profession, even. Hmph.”

He stood up, paced over to the crown. Same gesture, same spark. Back to me, to my clothing. Same result.

He cursed under his breath. “Brother, why have you surrounded yourself with things foreign to our land? Even the marble slabs under our feet are from distant places. Small wonder the rituals no longer work for you, if you cannot even touch your native land during it!”

I could see the logic of his words, even though there was still fog in my mind.

“Well. I may not be Priest-King, but it is time to make some changes. Come.” He lifted me to my feet, and I steadied myself against him like we would as children. We passed through a hidden door I didn’t know he knew about, and he settled me – somewhere. Secret, and safe. And then left.

I head him shouting orders in the Voice of Command.

My poor servants were not used to my brother in full fire. They scrambled to obey, and things were changed. Foreign clothing? Burned. Marble floors? Immediately ripped apart, taken away to be sold elsewhere. Foreign trees chopped down in the gardens and courtyards, replaced with the rare and exquisite blooms and fruits of home.

He even returned to strip me bare, and clothe me in homespun made by the oldest of women in the city.

And damn him if I didn’t feel better.

I could feel the power swirl, shift, return. Through the soles of my bare feet, in contact with the soil of my land that I loved.

I had forgotten.

I had lost it in the search for new and different.

By next morning, my brother had found some princeling to the north somewhere to buy the marble slabs. Nothing wrong with being foreign, but it wasn’t for me and my brother. Not any more.

He’d taken my throne and crown. Broke the curses, chopped them up, burned the wood and rendered the gold and jewels. The latter were back in my treasury.

He also took the bowl. I had heard he hesitated, staring at the dark liquid, and chuckled, shaking his head. He disposed of it properly. I should know, since it was still mine. But I can forgive him, because after all, he is the High Priest of the Dark God. Temptation comes with the title.

At his urging, I made my own leather crown from one of the old bulls from the sacred herd. I swear the poor thing was waiting for me, because he toppled over as soon as I came to the field. After soothing many, many distressed priests, we made many sacred things out of its hide. The meat, though tough, was turned into a feast for the whole city.

Cleansing rains bathed the land. Things bloomed again, out of season, but beautiful all the same.

My brother faced me across the table again, in the changed palace. Or in his temple. Or at other places. If we are to be the balance, like he implied, then balance we shall.

The bowl was returned, and I purified it as soon as I could. It sits behind me in the throne room. The wooden floor is now striped tanas wood, from the mountains surrounding the city. The throne is rare therata wood, from a secret source only I and a few others know. Prized, but more importantly, ours.

I can stand in the sun now, and not feel the cold.

And my brother, lurking in the dark shadows, is pleased.