“Are you my fate?” the ruffian asked, as he scooped up the ebony casket with a sneer.”

“I am not,” I said, “but I assure you most solemnly that your fate is at hand.”

His fist closed tighter about the alabaster casket and he turned toward the door.

The Prince of Exile stood before him.

For a moment, I thought he would lay the casket aside. For another moment, I thought he would try to bluster or to conceal his intentions, but the look on the Prince’s face put him to shame.

He drew his sword, and the Prince copied his action, two smooth swinging arcs of steel coming up bright and ready from their sheaths, two smoothly functioning warrior’s bodies coming into tension, poised to guard or strike. The ruffian lowered his blade and moved forward on cat feet, pressing the point toward the Prince; not lunging, but testing his resolve. The Prince in turn lowered his blade fractionally and gave no ground. Their points touched at long reach, and the Prince said, “You can still withdraw. Set aside the casket and you may leave unharmed.”

“How often does a man like me see a treasure like this for the taking? I will not give it up.”

There was a sound like wind. I knew that sound.

“Is it a finer treasure,” the Prince asked softly, “than sunshine after a rain, or the warmth of a bedmate at day’s end? Is it a treasure you would die for?”

T’slalas had thought there was innocence in the Prince’s face; now this ruffian thought he saw weakness there. He laughed coarsely and said, “Die for it? I might kill for it.”

The sound grew louder, like the moaning of an animal in pain. It brought uneasiness to the ruffian’s face, and he cast his eyes around, seeking its source.

The sword in the Prince’s hand began to quiver and twitch with a life of its own. It shied away from contact with the ruffian’s blade, and as the Prince brought it back into line, it sobbed.

The ruffian began to look strained about the eyes, but he had gone too far to back away.

Nothing kills more surely than pride.

Now the Prince had lost all aspect of softness. His face had hardened, and there was neither jest nor yielding in him.  “It is a strange, unhungry sword,” he said. “It hates me when I compel it to its duty.”

The ruffian swallowed hard, and would have spoken, but the Prince was done with talking. “You have made your choice,” he snapped, “now back it up, or go away to become a different man than you have ever been. Do as you will, but do it now!”

The swords drew light from the dying fire, and gave back the reflection of blood. The ruffian dropped his point fractionally, as if in indecision, then thrust. The Prince turned the blade and wrote a penstroke across the ruffian’s face from brow to cheek, cutting to the bone. He screamed and leaped backward, one eye split and useless, the other staring at death. The Prince paused, his eyes empty. He said, “The choice was yours.” Then he moved again, snake quick, and skewered the ruffian with such force that the blade went through him and into the door frame. The dying man quivered for a heartbeat then went limp and hung from the sword like an empty coat nailed to the wall. more tomorrow