Author: Loren Cooper

A Slow and Silent Stream/Cooper

A Slow and Silent Stream
By
Loren W. Cooper

            	Abhorred Styx, the flood of deadly hate;
            		Sad Acheron, of sorrow, black and deep;
           		   	Cocytus, named for lamentation loud,
           		   	Heard on the rueful stream; fierce Phlegethon
           		   	Whose waves of torrent fire inflame with rage. 
           		   	Far off from these, a slow and silent stream,              	
Lethe, the river of oblivion, rolls.

              -John Milton, Paradise Lost

Styx

Hate. Hate is warmth, burning and satisfying. Hate is comfort. Hate is solace. Most of all hate is pleasure. Keep your hate, feed it, let it grow, nourish it with experience...ah, it can be so sweet. Hate is not so far from love. 
Not lust. I'm not talking about lust. Lust is an itch demanding to be scratched. Lust is an unsatisfying, unpleasant sensation. But love...love is almost as good as hate. Love draws the line between lover and loved one and at the same time, brings the two close. Everything abhorrent about the beloved can be known and it will not matter. So it is with hate. All that is good, all that is evil, all that is the object of hatred; all of these things provide fuel for the fire of hate.
It has been said there is a love the object can not help but return. I don’t know about that, but I know that it’s wonderfully easy to hate anyone, at any time. The object can return your hate or can love you passionately, either of which makes the game interesting. None of it matters. Hate is such a subjective thing.
I still don’t know which is better, though. Hate...oh yes, hate has been all my comfort. But I remember love, and I remember being loved. Perhaps that’s the worst part of this endless exile: remembering love and living hate. You see, in this place, hate is all there is. 
Can you love to hate? Can you hate to love? Yes and no; the two are flip sides, two faces of the same thing. I suppose that’s why it’s so easy to hate those you once loved, or who once loved you.

But...can you love those you hate? I’m not talking about purging the hate from your soul and forgiving your enemy. That’s someone else’s line, and I’m not sure that I buy it. I’m talking about loving someone as you hate them. I’m not talking about being angry with someone, either. When you have a spat or a tiff or a disagreement with someone close to you, and briefly that person’s very features gain new clarity in a completely misanthropic vision of repulsiveness, that’s not real hate. That’s just rage, an element of hate and an important one to be sure, but not the same thing at all. 
I think it’s possible. I can love someone and hate them, all in the same breath. It’s part of that which makes us human. I can think of someone I once knew well, and I can luxuriate in the thought of that person. Just the thought, nothing else: it’s not even a memory of her presence so much as briefly revisiting transitory moments of delicate beauty. That’s all it takes, but then...I allow my thoughts to linger on her, on how easily she did betray me, and hate blossoms like a crimson flower, burning through the love.
But hate has infinite variations, and I can always turn from such ambiguity to the purity of clean hate, unsullied by complications. I taste that special hate reserved for one, sweet with anticipation, hot with untouched possibility.  I know him well, know his every action, and I know that I would cut his throat just to hear the blood bubble, and would relish the music to be ripped from his screams. That would be paradise. That would be satisfaction.
Hate’s a strange thing. I’ve walked these halls for a timeless instant, longer than I want to consider, and I’ve stared down these corridors trying to decide which one to take. But that’s just a game. I know it: the corridors know it; he knows it. I’ll never come out. As long as I stalk back and forth before the openings into reality, I exist, I am alive, I flow, I feel, and I cannot be controlled or predicted. That thought gives me nearly as much pleasure as my hate.

There are other kinds of hate. Why, there is a hate for every day, every hour, every experience. So too with love, of course: both are things which can not be smoothly pigeon-holed. They cannot be denied, only accepted. They defy comprehension. I’m letting my subjectivity tell it all for me...but then, what’s more subjective than hate? As I’ve said before, that’s one of hate’s most pleasant aspects. It’s a tango for one, a party done solo, a furious concert conceived, written, arranged, orchestrated, conducted, and performed by yours truly. That’s a little of the satisfaction of hate. But since I’m exploring the entire thing, let’s look at the other side.
Can hate be unsatisfying? Not while it’s being experienced. In the light of cold reason, however, hate becomes something else. The subjectivity of hate becomes abhorrent, a thing as heinous to the senses as making love to a corpse.
	That not terribly pleasant image captures the essence of the disgust, which a clear, distant perusal of hate can bring. It can be intolerably ugly, particularly if it’s a hate you nurse and keep warm with you in the cold and the dark. Maybe that’s why it’s never good to get too much distance on your hate. It’s the opposite of an ugly woman: the farther away you get the worse it looks, but the closer you are...oh, yes...the more you can truly appreciate it.
	I think that with the interruption of that thought I might be going somewhere now. Something has changed if I can entertain the thought of a displeasing hate. I’ve been here so long with my bonds tight, my thoughts racing back and back again to my hate. Maybe I can go out, maybe I can be free...

	No. I won’t. I can’t. That would be too much. He would win. They all would win. I would lose. They can’t change me.  All my enemies aren’t enough to change me. Let them wait. Let him stand outside the corridors for a limitless procession of days, for a hundred years, five hundred, a thousand. Let an age pass, let eons of ages flow away like leaves in a stream. Let the earth rot away beneath them, let the firmament fall, let the sky grow dark once more, let time itself crumble away. I will remain. I will stand here and pace throughout my days. I will not falter. I WILL NOT BOW.
	The echoes come back to me in the cold like the hissing of snakes beyond measure. I laugh to myself. It does not touch me. I am satisfied. I am not cold. I am not lonely. I do not feel the ravaging chill surrounding me. I stand and pace, and I am separate from all this, and I am above all this. I cannot be lonely, and I cannot be cold, and I cannot be defeated. I have my hate to keep me warm.

 	CHAPTER 1

Tornin paused at the top of a rise, looking down into a small hollow. He could see a tremble of movement. He smiled slightly to himself as he considered the available approaches. Tornin decided abruptly and edged downward, deliberately closing himself off from sensing the stag. Since he hunted for pleasure as well as meat, honor demanded he lose his other advantages if he would go so far that he would take the advantage of a weapon. At least that’s what his uncle would have told him.
 	Tornin’s stealth, a composite of a sharp sense of balance, keen reflexes, and an intimate knowledge of the territory of his family estate, made him seem more a ghostly apparition than a large young man. Even without the senses of his spirit, the deer didn’t stand a chance.
	Tornin had already begun to taste the venison when hoofbeats reverberated through the hollow. He snarled despairingly as he saw the form of the stag briefly silhouetted against the evening rays of the sun. Then, with a thump, the stag vanished. 
	Tornin took tension off the bowstring as he crossed to the other side of the hollow in quick, long steps, holding the arrow loosely in his left hand. The road wound like a dusty ribbon in and out of the folds of earth covering this part of the estate. Unless the horseman rode like a madman he would not appear on the road visible from the other side of the hollow until after Tornin had reached it. Tornin had himself ridden that road often and knew its dangers well.
	He pushed his way through the underbrush in shock as again the sound of retreating hoofbeats came to him. Tornin managed to come into a clear space only in time to gape at the backside of a pale, sweaty horse running at a flat gallop. The horse vanished from sight before he caught any glimpse of the rider.

Tornin shook his head at the man’s careless haste and leaned back against a tree. Growing curiosity swallowed his irritation at the loss of the game. There would be other hunts, but such reckless speed was rare even in the cities, much less out here in the Border estates. He wondered if the rider had something to do with the presence of the king in Easthold.
 	Even someone as far removed from the seats of power as the son of a Border lord knew that the presence of the king of Lucia this close to the Moghan domain after the recent territorial squabbles meant more than rebuilding the winter palace. The king had established the garrison, but he wanted to remain to keep an eye out for any signs of Moghan manipulation. Faris, Tornin’s tutor in the physical side of the Haman as well as his master in the ways of power, had refused to talk about it.        
Tornin’s mother’s man, Faris, had come with her from the Moghan side of the Border strip and, like her, carried Moghan blood in his veins. The remaining family would probably have been killed off or exiled had it not been for several incidents. Tornin’s father had died fighting for Lucia in a fray too small to be called a battle, and his father’s brother had always been a man renowned for personal honor—though he had chosen to ally himself with Lucian over Border and Moghan ties. In any event, the title and the estate had passed out of normal succession to Tornin’s father’s brother, Caitrin, the present Lord Earl of Lontrain.
Caitrin bent willingly to the will of the king, seeing in him the best future of the Border, but Tornin felt more happy for his uncle than dismayed at the loss of his birthright. He didn’t want to have to swear fealty to the man who had brought his father to his death, and Tornin had always loved and admired Caitrin.

Another set of hoofbeats churning down the same road interrupted Tornin’s thoughts. He pulled himself away from the tree with a start and looked down to see five cloaked and hooded horsemen ride into view. The cloaks did not obscure the heavy armor and weapons they wore. They rode at only a slightly more cautious pace than the first rider, and pulled up in the road while the lead rider bent to study the tracks. He straightened abruptly, looked up, stared directly at Tornin’s position in the trees, then barked a quick command to the last and smallest rider. The other four spurred their horses down the road, but the last horseman swung up the incline and drove his horse through the undergrowth.
Tornin’s training took over. He had the bow up and an arrow nocked before the rider had approached to within twenty feet. When the other had reached that distance and had no brush around him to obscure a shot, Torin called out to him in a casual voice. “That’s far enough.”     	The rider stopped the horse, giving Tornin time to look both over. A small, wide-chested roan, it had the clean lines of a burly little Border horse. Tornin remembered the relative size of the other horses and smiled at the thought of one of the large Lucian thoroughbreds on rough terrain like this. Small wonder the others had stayed on the road. 
A sudden movement brought Tornin’s wandering attention back to the rider as he threw off his shrouding cloak. The heavy black armor and multiple weapon sheaths tugged at Tornin’s attention, but he had eyes only for the rearing white horse on the rider’s black surcoat and the black wolf’s head worn on the left shoulder against the blazing white patch. Tornin let the bowstring slacken as a hollow feeling crept into his belly. The man in armor chuckled and slid off his horse. “I knew that you were a rebel, Torn, but I never thought that you’d go so far as to shoot a king’s man, and an old friend at that.”

Tornin relaxed as he recognized the rider’s voice. He slid the arrow back into his thigh quiver and shouldered his bow reflexively despite his own surprise. He laughed in a deliberate effort to hide his surprise. “Well, Cally, I never expected to find you working as a wolfshead. I didn’t think you were all that faithful to the king.”
Cally unbuckled his helm, and lifted it free of his head to reveal tousled brown hair and the frowning face of young man of an age with Tornin. “I was never a traitor...”
 	Tornin held up one hand. “I never accused you of that. But you, even more than I, blamed the king for what he did to the Border.”
 	Cally nodded. “True. But I’ve found an alternative which allows me to fulfill my duty to the Border without having to swear to the king himself.”
 	Tornin frowned. “But I thought...”
  	Cally shook his head. “Lord Scaon of Northolm remade the wolfshead regiment. The bodyguard of the king wears only the white horse now, not the wolfshead. The wolfshead company swears only to Lord Scaon himself. Each man must be landless, but his rank, while a wolfshead, is that of a personal emissary of the king himself. You see, Lord Scaon has sworn himself to the person of the king instead of through the land as tradition demands. The wolfsheads, serving Lord Scaon, serve the king. But they serve only through Lord Scaon, and Lord Scaon has been given personal charge of all matters of high justice in the kingdom. Particularly treason.”

Tornin leaned back against the tree trunk and considered the reference to Lord Scaon. He had heard his uncle speak of the man in less than favorable terms. Scaon had surfaced and wormed his way into favor with the king about midway through the Border disputes. That would have been about the time the king of Lucia realized he was only dealing with a part of the ancient lands known collectively as Moghan. But even that didn’t explain the amount of power the new Lord Scaon had been able to gather around himself in such a short time.
 	Cally had the right of it about one thing, Tornin mused. It did provide a perfect opportunity for utilizing the younger sons of Borderlords with no inheritance prospects who had questions of honor when it came to personal service for the king. In retrospect Tornin saw this could very well be the reason for such supposed power. Obviously the independence of Lord Scaon would be a useful illusion. “That explains the rumors of the new activities of the wolfshead guard.”
Cally nodded enthusiastically. “We serve now as an elite force, specifically empowered to root out Moghan influences and other treasonous activities.” He suddenly stopped. “Damn, I’ve stayed talking with you too long. I was only supposed to make sure you weren’t our quarry before following after. I’ll have to ride hard now to catch them.”
 	Tornin stepped forward as Cally swung himself up into the saddle. Cally shook his head and turned his horse. “Can’t talk any more. But if you want to get together again, come out to Easthold one of these days, visit the summer palace, and look me up. It’s been too long since we’ve had a chance to relax and talk about the old days.”

Tornin watched as Cally settled his black helm back into place and rode down to the road and vanished at a full gallop. He looked around at the rim of the sun disappearing behind the not‑ so‑ distant mountains and sighed. He would catch all hell for arriving home as late as he clearly would. He closed his eyes briefly before heading back into the brush. The sooner he reached the manor, the sooner his lecture would be over.
 	As the sun set, the forest took on a new appearance, shadow and contrast blurring the solid outlines of the land, until every hollow became an inky pool of darkness waiting to snare a casually placed foot. Tornin navigated through the growing darkness like a shadow himself, easily as familiar with this aspect of the land as he had been with the forest in daylight. He had roamed his estate since his childhood, and hunted it since he pulled his first bow at the age of six. Even without the training that Faris had painstakingly drilled into him, Tornin could have walked that place blindfolded.
Fortunately the night sky had cleared to a ragged curtain shot through with traces of light, so he did not need the care the journey might have required under the cover of flat darkness. He jogged easily through the darkened streets of the small, neatly built tenant village. From here he could easily see the dim bulk of the sprawling manor house, visibly lighted only at the front gate. 
Due to the clarity of the evening sky, he arrived at the manor just before the stars began to come out in full force. Georg, a stocky, older man who had served his family as an armsbearer in wartime and a cupbearer in peace, met him at the gate. Georg alone remained of the household guard. Those who had not died with Tornin’s father, had sworn to the new Lord of Lontrain and occupied Caitrin’s estates, crouching on the other side of the Lontrain land, closer to the Lucian king’s rightful territory.
Georg shot a wickedly amused glance at Tornin as he pulled the heavy iron gate back far enough to let the younger man slip through. “You’re timing has been better. She nearly had me and Faris beating the bush for you.” 
 	Tornin grinned. “Has she been that bad?”

 	Georg returned the grin, his scarred face giveng his expression a particularly evil cast. “Confidentially...”
 	The hand on Georg’s shoulder cut him off more rapidly than the coolly controlled voice of the man who appeared behind him. “Let’s just say that the lady has not changed in your absence.”
 	Tornin’s grin slipped away, unnoticed. “Still mad.” It was not a question.
 	The muscular man with ageless eyes nodded. “Still mad.”
Tornin squared his shoulders and inhaled deeply, an angry light kindling in his eyes. “I haven’t forgotten this morning either, Faris, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let my own mother badger me. She’s not going to push me into trying to usurp my uncle’s position.”
Faris’ expression remained neutral, as always, but Tornin could see a slight set of disapproval on his lips, and glinting in his dark eyes. Tornin deliberately ignored him, occupied with renewed anger, and stalked past him. Faris fell in behind Tornin noiselessly as Georg closed and secured the gate behind them. Faris kept his voice low enough so that Tornin could just hear it. “Don’t provoke her, don’t try to argue with her. Just let her speak. Let it slide past you.”
Tornin didn’t turn to face him and didn’t lower his voice. “That’s all well and good with a physical attack, but in a battle the key to winning is in the response. You taught me that.”
 	Faris’ tone hardened slightly. “That’s correct, but this is not the kind of battle that anyone wins.”
Tornin ignored him as they passed the torch‑ lit threshold and the entrance hall beyond. He knew she would be in the dining hall where she could receive him like a queen in state.

 	He felt more than heard Faris drop further back as he turned into the short walkway leading to the hall, the heavy doors flung wide to receive him. A tall woman, hair still dark, face lined more with character than age, stood up slowly from a high‑ backed ornate chair.
 	Tornin stopped and waited, watching her warily as her gaze flicked expressionlessly over him. “You did not have a successful hunt?”
 	He deliberately kept his voice as neutral as hers. “I trailed a stag, but the light was failing and I had promised to return by nightfall.”
 	Normally he enjoyed telling her about the details of the hunt. She hunted herself and had always seemed to take pride in listening to his exploits. Now he could feel the distance that had been established in a single day, in but a few words. For the first time he had truly challenged her, and that had been too much for peace to return soon.
 	He took his seat silently, at the opposite end of the long table. He could see the shift in her expression as she noticed the move to his father’s old place, away from his customary place at her side. They ate in near silence. Always Tornin could feel Faris behind him like a threatening shadow. As far back as he could remember, Faris had always been there, but only now did Tornin feel menace implicit in his tutor’s presence.
 	At the end of the meal, as Georg cleared the last of the dishes away, she looked up and met his gaze squarely. “I have a message for you to take to your uncle tomorrow. He’ll be in Easthold for the next few days talking to the king.”

 	Tornin’s lip curled, but he bit back a sharp retort. Back again to the bone of contention. Ignoring the words that yet lay between them, she still wanted him to try to have his uncle declare him heir since his uncle’s wife had died without giving him any children. Tornin wasn’t interested in the title. He fiercely hated the vulture’s role she wanted to assign him.
He opened his mouth to answer but felt another part of him, a more cautious part, a part reminiscent of Faris, counsel against his words. He thought of the bond that he and his mother had always shared and decided that a long talk with his uncle, and some time away from the house, might not be a bad thing. “Yes, mother. I’ll leave early in the morning.”
She smiled but her eyes didn’t relax. “Fine. I have a sealed letter which Faris can carry with him...”
 	Tornin’s blood surged, his teeth grinding almost of their own accord. “Mother, if you’re sending Faris, then send Faris. If I’m going, then I’ll take the letter.” In afterthought he amended his statement, attempting to soften his words. “I would not leave you completely alone. Besides, at the age of seventeen I hardly need a keeper.”
 	Her eyes narrowed and her voice flattened. “Fine.” She stood abruptly, turned, and walked away from the table without a backward glance. Tornin felt a periphery of the psychic communication which flashed between his mother and Faris, and felt him turn and follow after her.

 	He sat for a short time, staring coldly across the empty table, riding the tide of swelling rage. Finally, he rose from the table easily and caught Georg as he walked in to begin clearing the table. “Georg, would you pack my saddlebags with light provisioning and, say, twenty silver deneg. I’d normally have you ask one of the tenant servants to do it, but I want to leave earlier than they’ll be starting the day’s tasks. Would you mind?”
 	Georg frowned, running thick fingers across the gray stubble dusting his chin. “No...but twenty deneg? Are you sure?”
 	Tornin nodded. “I could be staying a while.”
  	Georg shook his head as realization moved over his blunt features. “I don’t mind, but I don’t think this is the best...”
 	Tornin stopped him with a raised hand. “Don’t worry about me. Take care of the place while I’m gone.”
  	Georg’s lips thinned but he shrugged, nodded, and started clearing the table. 
 	Tornin headed straight for his rooms. He passed no one in the now empty hallways of the manor. Since the king had consolidated the estates under Caitrin, all the bustle of a busy manor had shifted to Caitrin’s keep, Evensward.
 	Tornin gathered the clothes he would take together in one corner and carefully stacked his weapons. He considered his armor for a moment before discarding the idea. Tornin had always preferred to ride light and, like his father and Faris, reserved heavy armor for formal battle. A sword, long dagger, and holdout knife in one boot were sufficient protection for any man in peaceful, or even relatively peaceful, times. He removed the top of one bedstead carefully and pulled out a small velvet bag. He considered briefly his father’s gift of a gemstone and a soft gold securion, then laid the bag on the pile of clothing. After barring the door and climbing into bed, he mused over the resolution that had crept upon him, the decision to leave which had taken him unaware, and he nodded to himself. It was definitely the time for change.