Eye of Darkness (Part One)

 

Eye of Darkness

 

     Master Belmok raised his head critically and scrutinized the peeled boiled egg in his hand. At his level of success, he saw no reason he should be concerned about bits of shell gritting his teeth, but the kitchen girl had been known to be careless. He picked up the monocle hanging around his neck, screwed it in around his weaker eye, and focused. Satisfied, he dipped the morsel into a dish of salt, paprika, and pepper, then popped it into his muzzle with a look of qualified acceptance. It was as happy as he ever looked. He reached for another egg from the bowl of a dozen or so and began the process all over again.

     “Oh, just eat your breakfast, Belly. You’re not buying diamonds, you know.”

     He raised one eyebrow and stuck out his underlip at the nickname.  

     “Indeed, it is more important than that, Mother,” he said drily. “I am putting it in my body.” He went back to his scrutiny.

     The old lady Morg across the table from him bridled in her seat and crunched her knife through the brittle fried fish pinned to her plate. Despite the early hour and private setting, she was dressed impeccably in a stiff wine-dark dress, her hair hanging in severe gray braids on either side. Jewels twinkled on her knobby claws as she raised the bite to her wrinkled, pressed lips.

     “Gortus would never have worried about eggshells,” she informed the fish on her fork. “He was a warrior.” Her mouth opened and shut primly, and it vanished. She ground away at it with short, mechanical bites that grumbled across the table.

     Belmok refrained from sighing, only because he knew it would cause his mother pleasure if he showed any complaint. He was used to it by now, and ready. No meal ever went by without her throwing his elder brother’s helmet on the table, as it were. Instead he merely continued his process and ate another egg.

     “Alas, yes,” he answered after swallowing. His voice was sad and sweet. “Perhaps if he had been more discriminating, he might be here today, enjoying your company, instead of my own unworthy self.” He reached towards the plate again.

     Gortus had choked to death on a pork bone at the victory party after a minor skirmish with some Ogres at Penton Relna, thus narrowly missing the qualifications of being enrolled in the Scroll of the Honored Dead. Their mother had pursued the matter of his inclusion all the way up to the King’s Court, without success. It was a touchy subject with the old lady. She changed topics with practiced ease.

     “You eat too much.” She severed another crackling bite from her fish. “What noble lady will ever look at a fat mate? You’ll fall down dead one day and that will be the end of our House.” She sniffed in displeasure. Whether it was at the thought or at the forkful of fish it was hard to tell. “Burned up like stubble in the furnace.” She raised it to her mouth.

     “Oh, I’m afraid the House is as good as extinct,” said Belmok matter-of-factly. He dabbed the egg in the spice dish. “With you as a shining example of the joys of female companionship … well.”

     “And what do you mean by that?” the old lady bristled.

     “Only that any resemblance, however close or distant, is the occasion for a divine dissatisfaction. I’m afraid our House is, technically, already as dead as a doornail.” He paused as if struck by a happy thought. “Unless you’re ready to acknowledge that by-blow of Gortus’s little indiscretion down on Accommodation Street?”

     “Certainly not!” she snapped, and withdrew in disgust at her son’s vulgar suggestion. Such bad taste, her posture proclaimed, and at the breakfast table, too!

Belmok finished the last egg, grinning internally. The conversations they had without word or sign, he thought, could fill a book. He dabbed his spotless muzzle ceremoniously with his napkin and rose in business-like precision.

“And now I must be going, madra dear. There is a convocation of the Masters to meet with a delegation from Morg City. They say they’ve brought a wizard, who has something dreadfully important to tell us.” He chuckled, shaking his head. “I hope this is not another example of King Vez’s headless chickens. You may remember that year of the drought when he was afraid that a monster was hatching out of the sun. I believe any half-plausible fakir could lead him by the snout.” He pushed his chair in and assumed a world-weary air. “Oh well, I suppose that’s why there are scholars to set him straight.”

He crossed over the table, gave his mother a dry dutiful peck on the cheek, and turned to go. The old lady watched her son leave with regret. With his pedigree, towering height, keen pale blue eyes (rare in Morgs), and head of heavy black curls, he might have made a fine warrior. Even with his growing stomach, he would still be a catch for any lady in any noble house.

For a moment, her mind wandered to the thought of a sixty-two-year-old lad, who, her steward confidentially assured her, worked in an inn on the outskirts of town, got into (and won) frequent bar-fights, and bore a passing resemblance, with his unusual blue eyes, to a certain dead soldier.

She shrugged impatiently at the thought and it disappeared.  She applied herself to the remains of her fish. That was not the Old Way.

Notes

Eye of Darkness comes rather late in the composition of my Morg stories, although it is one of the earliest tales in the Goldfire timeline. I had already introduced Belmok and Thron in their older, grouchier forms in stories concerning the later heroes of Ortha, and hinted at their connections and former careers. Suddenly (I never quite know how these things work) out of a dozen fragments of unfinished tales and disconnected lore, I knew what the story was. EoD is one of the longest of the Morg tales, almost a novella. Putting out the parts should keep things going until I feel like taking up my LOTR posts again.