Page 96 of The Orc Warrioress and the Elf Lord

The other phases were sometimes less deadly but worse in other ways. His father had eventually decided it was a mental malady, that it did not come from an outside source, but that, instead, it came from within. So, this meant that his father needed to introduce something into his wife’s body that would cure the problem. And to see what would happen, he would first experiment on other people.

It might be as simple as having them take various tonics. If these were well tolerated, his father might even give them to his wife or to his son.

But Iahir’s father also did various awful surgeries sometimes, opening people up and trying to graft various foreign elements onto their organs. These were almost always failures. Gruesome, gory failures. Often, people bled out on his father’s surgeon table.

Iahir remembered the laboratory as a nightmarish place of screams and blood and doom. He did not like it there.

But he went.

The laboratory was vast. It was all open, no demarcations of rooms, just cots and gurneys that lined the walls. Most of them were empty when Iahir got there. His father could be anywhere. He had a cart on wheels that he pushed around the place, and he would have all of his pertinent tools arrayed on that cart, so that he could take his work anywhere.

Iahir started walking. The windows here had all been covered on the inside, covered with boards, and Iahir supposed this was so people could not see in, but it meant that it was very gloomy, the only lights from oil lamps and candles. (His father had not agreed to have the castle outfitted with the new gas lamps, though the castle in Renegahan had been.)

He found his father’s cart, with a number of bottles sitting on it, but his father was nowhere in sight. Iahir turned a corner, ready to call for his father.

And there the man was, at one of the windows, pulling the wood that had been nailed up to cover it away to peer outside. The light lit up a long line of white against the older elf’s face. His hair was a pale orange color, something neither of his sons had inherited, taking after their mother instead.

Iahir should say something. He didn’t. He stood and looked at his father, looked at the light illuminating lines on the man’s face, and he was still and silent.

Eventually, his father turned away, saw him, started, and then barked out a laugh, putting a hand to his chest. “Iahir, you can’t sneak up on a man like that!” Another laugh. “You’re home.” His father looked him up and down. “Well, then, let’s go upstairs for a proper chat, I suppose.”

Iahir raised his eyebrows, surprised by that. He did not think his father had ever once voluntarily left his laboratory for him. Iahir did not think he registered to his father in that way. Only when necessary had his father taken time from his experiments to see to his son, and this had usually been because Iahir had done something wrong. He’d done a lot of things wrong, really, all manner of mischievous things as he grew. Mostly, his father had ignored those things, but occasionally—if Iahir wrecked an expensive sailing boat or if it was rumored he’d gotten some envivtain’s daughter with child (he had not, never touched the girl)—his father might leave the laboratory to set things to rights.

“Come along,” said his father, going over to retrieve his cart, which he pushed around until he came to the foot of the stairs upwards. Then, without seeing if Iahir was following, he left the cart and began to ascend the stairs.

But Iahir did follow. He was happy enough to leave the laboratory behind. “Is there no one down there?”

“I let some of them go myself,” his father said, “but the rest seem to have been set free by some of the rogue servants. You may have noticed we are bleeding servants currently? But then, I suppose this is all your doing.”

Iahir stopped on the steps, his heart squeezing nearly painfully.

“It’s a rumor,” said his father, turning back to look at him. His pale orange hair was long, pulled back from his pointed ears in the front but hanging down his back. “Perhaps there’s no truth to it?”

Iahir said nothing.

His father chuckled. “Ah, well. He really did have the most annoying laugh, I have to say. And he was destroying the entire country.”

Iahir’s heart pounded against his chest. He did not know what to say. He had not thought his father would have heard rumors. He had not expected his father to be paying any attention to, well, anything. But apparently the way to get his father to notice things was to rip down the whole world.

Well, done, then. If you wanted his attention, you have gotten it. Is this why you did it?

They climbed two levels and then settled into a sitting room on that floor. His father rang for a servant but he said that it would be just as likely no one would come. “As I say, we are bleeding servants.” He settled into an easy chair and he gestured for Iahir to sit opposite him.

Iahir did so.

“Well,” said his father, “you cannot stay.”

Iahir’s lips parted. “But I am needed—”

“If they find you, they’ll likely want to punish you in some way. I can stall that to some degree. I am still Sterlin nae Cirlahir. People still hear my name and quake. But there is little power I have now, and you must see that. Everything is in flux. It’s rather exciting, I must say. I await news from the capital eagerly. I understand some upstart revolutionaries—and they are claiming they engineered the death of the High King—are negotiating with the orcs. There may be some sort of agreement soon, and that will mean a semblance of order is returned. But it will never go back to the way it was, of course.” He sighed, scratching at the top of his head, a distant look in his eyes. “Where was I?” He cleared his throat. “Right. Why did you do it? Were you acting at the behest of…” He snapped. “What is the name? Marthlis?”

Iahir licked his lips. “Well, to some degree, I suppose, but I don’t think Marthlis meant it. They were all… playing a game, I think. It was all academic, some sort of thought exercise, and I don’t think they realized what a revolution would really do to the comforts they enjoyed.”

“No, that is the weakness of the visionary,” said his father. “The visionary sees a vision of a better future, but rarely also gets the vision of how things will be harmed when his vision is implemented. The visionary sees the destination, not the path. Sometimes that destination is impossible to reach.” He swallowed. “I know this better than most. Once I set out to do what I wished to do, I could only see that beautiful future—your mother whole, your brother taking over as competent and strong. I never saw all the things that would happen in the pursuit of it.”

Iahir was not certain what to say.

“But look at you,” said his father, smiling at him. “Look at you, taking everything into your hands, going against the High King, starting all this.” He gestured around. “You have changed the world, my boy.”