As he'd predicted, Thaddeus was back on his feet in two days. The rest of the army didn't recover so easily.
The Heterodyne forces hadn't taken such a mauling in a very long time. Thaddeus was quick to notice, however, that even while mourning their fallen fellows the jägers were being quite careful to look after him. He hadn't seriously considered running, but the jägers' attitude made it clear that no such attempt would be successful.
Thaddeus had no illusions about himself. He knew his spark was weaker than his brothers' or sister's. For pure intelligence though, he had them all beat, and he knew how to play to that advantage. His study of history had begun precisely because few sparks were interested, but he'd later developed an interest in history for its own sake. As he did the work that only a Heterodyne could do he reviewed the family history, seeking something that might allow him to survive the coming months.
It was the byzantine-educated Vlad who founded the Heterodyne family. While in Byzantium he had discovered a way to enable the injured to survive otherwise mortal wounds, but the church had labeled those survivors "monsters" and called his system "a blasphemy of true resurrection." Fleeing Byzantium the renamed Vlad the Blasphemous found a more receptive audience in the pagan Avars, and created his own little domain in the process. The Heterodynes had suffered ups and downs since that time, but it was the jägers, as Vlad the Blasphemous's creations came to be called, that granted the Heterodynes an unheard-of degree of protection and stability.
Strong, adaptable, and fast healing the jägers were also uncorruptably loyal to the Head of the Heterodyne line. Their only problems were a distinct lack of initiative and a sometimes inappropriate instinct to react violently. These problems had kept the Heterodynes from conquering a larger territory, but the jägers virtues assured that most Heterodyne children survived breakthrough, and that no internal plot against the head of the family would succeed.
The founder's system had been refined and improved over the centuries, Thad reflected, and remained a secret known only to the Heterodynes. Thaddeus knew parts of the formula, but the whole was only known to the head of the family. There was a written copy, but it was held and protected by the jägers themselves, who would give it to the head of the family only upon his ascension to power.
Hence the custom of The Challenge.
Thaddeus hadn't expected the Challenge to come for years yet, and he'd expected to be facing at least one of his brothers when it happened. He'd reached a tentative agreement with his sister that they would consider their older brothers the primary targets, and now he'd have to face her alone.
As the army limped homeward, Thaddeus created ever more elaborate plans, only to discard them as unworkable. He kept coming back to plan, nearly idiotic in its simplicity, whose only virtue was that it might work.
All too soon the army had returned home and Thaddeus stood in an alcove of the Chamber of Challenge making his preparations. A messenger had been sent ahead to warn his sister a give the castle jägers and servants time to prepare the chamber. As the countdown came and Zog made the final preparations, Thaddeus realized how much he'd miss Pilar. The captain had been one of the originals, and Thaddeus's guardian for as long as he could remember.
With a CRASH, Zog smashed the pottery plate in the door to the main chamber. He hurried to the door to the outside which closed behind him with a THUMP, followed by a CLANG as the outside bolts assured that Thaddeus would not be leaving that way.
His preparations complete, as sand dropped from the portal Thaddeus reflected on its mechanism. All the alcove doors were connected to a single counterweight. As the sand packed in the doors drained out the doors would lift, but even if one of the heirs found a way to jam the doors it would do no good, since all the doors lifted together.
Finally, it happened. The door lifted, revealing the heirs to other. In her alcove, Thaddeus's sister had built a small bunker, which might conceal nearly anything. In his own empty alcove, Thaddeus stood completely naked, hands over his head and spread apart.
| The author is a member of |
This page was created by Jefferson Wilson using the Programmer's File Editor (PFE) by Alan Phillips, and with the assistance of the Web Design Group's HTML 4.0 Reference. | Validated to |
| © 2005 by Jefferson Wilson. All rights reserved. This page last updated October 9, 2005. Contact Jeff_Wilson63@bigfoot.com with suggestions or problems. |