free fall

Disclaimer: Roger of Conté is the property of Tamora Pierce, although I like to borrow him now and then. The same goes for the world of Tortall and all the other characters in this story.

Many thanks to Sally and Fenella. Both of them did beta-duty for me on this one. I've written about Roger before but I was never satisfied with how it turned out until now. This story was written over the space of a year's time, and the backstory with Roger's mother was in my head long before I started writing. I hope you enjoy!

free fall (noun) 1. downward movement under the force of gravity. 2. rapid descent or decline without means of stopping. --The Compact Oxford English Dictionary

"The chamber was probably crying by the time Roger was through with it." –Fenella, on the subject of Roger's Ordeal of Knighthood

RRR

As soon as the door closes behind him, Roger straightens up and rubs his hands together briskly, working some feeling back into joints gone numb after a cold night's vigil. "Right. I'll just get started then," he says casually to the bare stone walls.

He stands tall and relaxed, shoulders square and feet slightly apart, hands loose by his sides as he says the words. The pendant around his neck starts to pulse gently with heat and the orange glow of his Gift. He should be scared—Gods, he should be terrified—but Roger has been hemmed in all his life, and lately it's been all he can do not to say something, anything, and risk giving himself away. What he is thinking is: finally. He's been angry for a long time now, and it's about time someone gave him some answers. At the very least, he deserves answers.

"Show yourself," he says easily, keeping the eagerness out of his voice and off his face and body, because one of the first things he learned was to never give away an advantage.

The walls maintain, appropriately enough, a stony silence.

"I have summoned you, the creature of this Chamber, according to the words long-hidden in the City of the Gods," Roger says mildly, careful to not let the memory of what he'd had to do to get the words surface and distract him. "I was assured by a more or less competent party that in accordance with the safeguards built into this Chamber when it was first created you are required to come forth at my request. Now, please," he says, a little more sharply.

The walls start to pulse sullenly with an invisible force, keeping time with his pendant, as a presence that Roger can feel but not see gathers. A voice speaks, noiseless, in a cadence that resonates through Roger's bones, and, in reaching his ears, becomes words.

You are not permitted to speak during the Ordeal.

Roger grins. "I know it's against the rules, but I've always felt that rules are for those who don't have the imagination or the courage to think beyond them."

The only thing he gets from the unseen presence is silence.

"Since I've already ruined your Ordeal by breaking silence, perhaps we can agree that it was a waste of time anyways, and move onto more important things like why I summoned you."

Roger waits out a long pause in which the chamber walls pulse steadily.

You are not permitted to interfere with the process of the Ordeal.

"Not exactly a sparkling conversationalist, are you?"

Roger doesn't get a response, but he wasn't expecting one anyways.

"If you insist on being difficult, how about we try this," he says pleasantly. "I summoned you by your name. By your name, I command you to speak. Tell me of your nature and purpose."

These matters are beyond your understanding, mortal.

"I've always been precocious," says Roger. "Try me."

I was once an Elemental. I was bound by magic within stone, and the stone brought here to form this Chamber, says the Chamber. I judge the souls of those who would give Service to the Realm, to see if they are worthy. As I must judge yours.

The last is a definite reproach. Too bad. Roger is finally onto something useful, after months of searching and planning.

"What do you mean, 'Elemental?' Are you a God?"

No.

"You're not remotely human: that I can tell. You have power of a kind. How did you get it? What are you?"

I was here before the ones you call the Gods. I will be here when they are gone. I am not meant to be bound to the service of mortals.

"Then we have something in common," says Roger, with a courtier's smoothness. "I am not meant to wait out my life in the shadows, watching others make a cock-up of what should be mine. Yet here we are."

You must submit to the Ordeal.

Roger would swear the pile of rock sounds disapproving. "You are in no position to make demands," he tells it lightly, amusement in his voice. "And what does it matter to you if I take the Ordeal or not? You just told me you are trapped here against your will. Why should you do what your captors want? What can they do if you suddenly decide you can't be bothered to sort through the boring heads of the idiots who call themselves Knights in this realm—kill you? You are a room."

Roger is at his persuasive best, which he knows is very good. He'd smile at this Chamber if he thought it would do any good, because that usually seals the bargain, unless it's Uncle, or Roald; stubborn bastards the Contés are, all of them. Although while Uncle positively enjoys denying him things, Roald always looks gently pained, as though it hurts him to deny Roger something more than it hurts Roger to be denied, but he bears the pain because it's for Roger's own good. It makes Roger want to pull out his own teeth.

It is not permitted.

"Why?" asks Roger. It's a good question. He's been asking it since he was old enough to be self-aware.

It is not permitted.

Did the Chamber sound uncertain, or was he only imagining it?

"If you are not willing to help yourself, it is your loss," says Roger regretfully, "though I strongly suggest you give it some consideration. However, it doesn't mean you can't help me. You have power. I want answers to my questions. I want to know: what do the Gods have in store for me? How long must I wait for the throne? Why was I born on the sidelines of it all? Are the Gods testing me?"

You overreach yourself, mortal.

"Is it that you won't tell me, or that you can't," muses Roger. "Perhaps you fear the wrath of the Gods if you divulge their secrets. Perhaps being bound to stone has made your power useless, which is why you cannot escape. Perhaps you have no knowledge apart from what is inside this Chamber."

The ones you know as Gods do not command me. I know the shape of things past and present and future. I shape the future from inside this Chamber. I hold the lives of those in this Chamber in my power. I can kill you, mortal.

Roger's managed to prick the Chamber's pride—success. He ignores the threat and smiles brightly. "I invite you—shape mine. Tell me of my fate."

The Chamber takes a while to consider. Roger stares at the blank wall ahead of him, the blank wall to his side, and then for a little variety, the blank ceiling.

It will be so.

"You will do it?" asks Roger, delighted.

I will tell you what you wish to know. You will first submit to the Ordeal.

"Now you are making conditions, Elemental," chides Roger. "That is very sneaky of you. I approve." He considers the matter carefully; makes his decision. "You know what? I have no objection to taking your Ordeal. I will do it if you agree to give me the answers I want."

Agreed, says the Chamber. You must uphold the rules of the Ordeal. You are not permitted—

"—to speak during the Ordeal," Roger finishes with the Chamber. "Yes, yes, I know. You have a rather one-track mind, don't you Elemental?"

Silence.

Roger raises a brow at the blank wall. He enjoys baiting others. It's so very easy, and one of the few outlets he has. It's so simple to say exactly what he thinks, to push and pull people where he wants them to go, and then, when they start to get upset, to back off and pretend it was all in jest, and watch people smooth out their ruffled feathers. It works every time.

You must remove the pendant.

Roger's not thrilled about giving up his advantage over the Chamber, but he had a feeling this was coming. While wearing it he is safe from the Chamber's influence, but it also means he can't take the Ordeal. What is the word of an Elemental worth to a man? It's a risk, but Roger didn't get to this point without being someone who can take risks. He pulls the chain over his head, and drops it into the pocket of the white wool robe he wears for the Ordeal. He can feel the power of the spell cool and dissipate into nothing once the chain loses contact with his skin.

He crosses his arms over his chest and raises another brow at the wall, daring the Chamber to do its worst. He's fairly certain it's impossible for him to fail his Ordeal of Knighthood. The Chamber passed Padogan a fortnight ago, and the man is hopeless with a sword and unable to string together a sentence of more than four words at a time.

The Chamber, probably afraid that if it delays he'll open his mouth again, doesn't waste any time.

RRR

The flames are rising higher every minute, a roar of heat and twisting light and sound that disturbs the quiet clearing. A scream, a human one, comes from inside the cottage.

"Goddess! Mureen's still inside," shouts the sharecrofter, anguished. Soot and sweat have smudged him into anonymity.

The small crowd looks on in horror as the lintel tears itself savagely off the doorstoop and crashes to the ground, blazing fire in great streams across the entrance to the house.

The smell of burning is stinging Roger's nose and the back of his throat, and sweat has already soaked through his shirt to his tunic. When he was quite small, he used to get underfoot in the huge castle kitchen, which annoyed the cooks. The head chef in particular was a large, impatient, explosive man who worried that Roger would be burnt, or cut or made sick from eating uncooked things, and then the chef would have maimed Milady's only child and never have been able to work again. One day he grabbed Roger by the scruff of the neck and the knees and dangled him above the cooking spit, where a huge carcass was spitting fat and crisping above the flames. The chef told him that if he ever caught Roger in his kitchen again it would be Roger on the spit next. Roger had nightmares for weeks about being unable to move while the fire rose up and up, engulfing him, roasting him from the outside in until he burst through his own skin like a blackened sausage.

Roger quirks an eyebrow at the fiery cottage while the crofters wail and shout. It's not real of course, and the Chamber certainly isn't testing him for cleverness. An eleven-year-old page could discern the Right Thing To Do in this scene. Despite the absurdity of it all, Roger is honestly glad to have a challenge. No one ever gives him responsibilities to carry out—not the difficult, interesting or important ones at any rate.

Roger does not stop to make some appropriately heartening remark to the crofters, as speaking is against the rules. He wastes no time in heroically dashing through the flames into the burning cottage. It's even worse than he thought it would be. The heat is unbearable; the air is like hot, damp cloth smothering his lungs when he tries to breathe. He makes out the limp form of the trapped woman on the floor, gasping for air, and a heartbeat later he is gathering her up and running out the door. Outside, the fresh air sears his lungs as badly as the smoke did inside, and he does his best not to cough so hard that he drops the woman as the crofters cheer and cry and Goddess bless. If the woman were even ten years younger, or maybe just less sweaty and smelly, he'd accept a kiss of gratitude. He wishes she were prettier, but it's not him choosing the details.

All of a sudden a heartbreaking wail cuts through the relieved crowd. A little girl is sobbing as she points towards the burning building. "Patch!" she howls. A woman picks her up, trying to comfort her, but she's inconsolable. A murmur goes through the crowd. "Her kitten," someone says.

Roger's sense of the ridiculous is going to have him laughing in another minute. That, however, would be inappropriate behaviour for a chivalrous soul and it would break the rule of silence, so he makes up his mind even as he's still wondering if the Chamber awards extra credit for special effort.

In for a penny, in for a crown, he thinks wryly, and something vague about frying pans and fires flashes through his head as he heroically races back into the soon-to-be-incinerated cottage to rescue a small, helpless animal. As it happens, Roger runs straight into the heart of an inferno. The kitten is doomed and so is he. Roger is being cooked alive, flambee'd, agonizingly quickly and not nearly fast enough. He might be screaming, but he can't tell as his skin blackens, and his vision blackens, and everything falls apart—

RRR

-- into cool dimness and bare stone walls. Roger pants and gasps in the middle of the Chamber, his head needing time to be convinced by his body that it's possible to breathe again, to feel without terrible pain crisping his nerve endings. The stale air tastes so good he could eat it whole, in great chunks, like sustenance.

Roger calms down gradually then blinks as he catches motion out of the corner of his eye. There is nothing to see when he turns around, even when he strains his sight trying to make out objects in the black shadows that pool in the corners of the Chamber.

Sudden movement makes him whirl around, and this time he sees it. A small piece of shadow detaches itself from the corner and skitters towards him over the floor on angry little legs.

Roger hastily stamps on it before it can reach him, trying not to shudder. He hates spiders. He always gets the maids to kill the ones in his chamber for him, never mind that he knows they laugh about it among themselves afterwards. It's a small price to pay for not having to deal with all those legs.

As though reading his mind the shadows start to roil uneasily, a little at first, then with increasing menace. The whole heaving mass breaks apart into hundreds, no thousands of the little demons, and they head with single-minded malevolence for Roger. He's trapped in a tiny room with nowhere to go and they're all around him; any minute now they'll touch him; they're crawling up his legs. Roger's covered in spiders, being engulfed by a prickly, fibrous black shroud, against his skin and through his hair, and he opens his mouth to scream but it's too late—they're crawling down his face and up his neck, and into his mouth and nostrils and ears, burrowing deep inside, and he's being consumed by a living avalanche—

RRR

--until he's gasping and retching on his hands and knees, fighting the urge to tear off his clothes and rub against the rough stone floor until he can't feel the wrongness of thousands of tiny feelers prickling everywhere on his skin anymore.

Roger hauls himself to his feet, angry enough to be more or less steady. He can't speak aloud but he thinks at the Chamber as loudly as he can:

Thanks a lot! I used to have a fear of spiders; now I have a positive terror of them. And how about a little reality? Why don't you try something that actually has a chance of happening in a place other than nightmares; something that I might possibly face!

And the Chamber must agree because—

RRR

--Roger's hiding a yawn as Leighle's pretty voice rises and falls in a diatribe that he can't be bothered to listen to. Women have a tendency to fall in love with him with admirable frequency. While it can be very useful, it also makes them predictable and tiresome, especially when they inevitably decide to stop playing by the rules of the game and try to trap him with tears—the female version of manacles.

"Are you even listening to me Roger?" she says, outraged and demanding. "Say something!"

Roger misses words at this moment like he missed clean baths and fresh clothes while on training missions with his Knight-Master in bandit country. Words are always his first and last weapon of choice; his facility with them confounds those less skilled and has won him more than one skirmish over the years. Words are often considered women's weapons by scornful men who would rather win their fights with force, but no one who has survived any length of time at court would disparage the power of gossip and innuendo to harm. Of course, words can only take you so far: in the end, you must always be prepared to back up your speech with action. The trick is to lay the groundwork with words. If you have done well, the action needed will often be less drastic. Roger has a subtle mind, and approaches such matters with a craftsman's dedication to excellence. Elegant and neat solutions to tricky problems please him; messes are the result of poor planning.

Back to the matter at hand, Roger sighs deeply, displeased. Faced with his apparent indifference, Leighle shifts tactics. She'll try her luck with the small crowd gathering in the antechamber, hoping to shame him into compliance.

"To make such promises that my affections were engaged, believing them to be genuine; and then to renege on them but a few short weeks later... It is no conduct befitting a gentleman!" Leighle artfully sobs into her dainty lace handkerchief, careful to not smear her exquisite make-up.

Roger thinks the tears owe a great deal more to vexation than to genuine desolation. Leighle is not the first woman to try to trap him into marriage based on a superficial romance. He suppresses a yawn of pure irritation. This woman's tears have no effect on him whatsoever. He knows her claims have no basis, because His Majesty has made it abundantly clear that Roger will not marry without his consent, and that consent looks to be a long time in coming. The phrase "pigs might fly" is crude, but accurate for the situation. Uncle is uneasy at the thought of Roger producing Royal issue when his own heir has yet to have a child. His Majesty means to disadvantage Roger, but aside from the obvious insult, Roger considers it a favour. He is by no means ready to be tied down or to limit his future with an imprudent early alliance.

The watchers murmur and whisper their disapproval like a swarm of flies at a fresh carcass, gathering in momentum and volume, but Roger is immune to public shame. He spots a young Knight glaring as though Roger has done indecent things to his sister,—Oh, wait!—and Roger identifies the man as Hyam. The pretty features, blonde curls and the homicidal expression in the blue eyes give him a remarkable resemblance to Leighle.

Roger strides forward to Hyam, yanks the shocked man's face up to his, and plants an entirely inappropriate kiss on his mouth. He has just enough time before he is yanked away to hear Leighle's shriek of outrage—

RRR

--before he is grinning at plain stone walls.

Come now Elemental, he thinks teasingly, eighteen-year-old men are expected to behave as boors to women. I do so hate to disappoint. It's…un-chivalrous.

Roger suspects the Chamber would like nothing more than to crush him between its walls right now. He can have that effect on people. Perhaps it is unwise to keep baiting the thing. Yet Roger can hardly help that he hates to lose... No matter, he is already beginning to know the feeling that signifies another shift, a sudden dissolve in sensation—

RRR

--and he is walking in solitude down a winding Palace corridor. The manservant who passes him glances at him, gulps, and hurries quickly away, making the sign against the Evil Eye behind his back. What on Mithros' shining shield?

Roger continues the walk to his chambers. In that time, a serving-girl screams a little and drops her tray on seeing him before apologizing profusely, nearly tripping in her haste to run away and get cloths to clean up the mess. A Healer with a strong stomach gravely shakes his head and says, "It's a shame, but nothing to be done now," and a small child who looks at him actually bursts into tears. Its mother glares at him as though he hit her brat, and hurries the child away, keeping to the very edge of the corridor, so as not to, what?—be infected by Roger's loathsome presence?

Roger is not a stupid man. He arrives in his chambers, dismisses his man, who will not quite look him in the eye, and heads towards his wardrobe. It's an excellent piece: large, with a tasteful amount of gilt and a charming pastoral fresco of shepherds and maidens in a field. Next to it, there is a large, full-length mirror of good Tusainie glass mounted on a rosewood stand. He takes a steadying breath and then steps fully in front of the mirror's radiant face: 'till now it has been his always-honest friend.

It is much as he expected. A sword-scar mars his face from top to bottom, starting at the temple and crossing diagonally over an eye, down one cheek, and splitting his lips and chin. The eye is intact, but the scar has healed badly—the wound must have been gotten far away from any decent Healer—and the edges are puckered and do not meet. It is angry and purple, though fully-healed, and it twists his handsome features out of shape into something less-than-human. He is hideous.

Roger stares evenly at the face in the mirror, determined not to break. He will not let this twisted pile of rock and spirit get the best of him, and he is damned if he will look away in this weird contest of wills, he will not give the satisfaction—

RRR

--and the Chamber must concede defeat, because he is back in the tiny stone room. A victory, or at the very least a draw.

Roger is greatly tempted to touch his face, to reassure himself that his features are his own again and whole. Of course he does not. It would be admitting to a weakness. Instead he affects his most confidingly sincere expression; the one whose bare-faced insincerity he uses to drive his teachers to absolute distraction.

I know very well I'm vain, Roger thinks, and Elemental, I'm telling you—you would be too if you looked like me. He follows his confession with a blinding smile that contains too many good, white teeth.

You know, he finishes, gently patronizing, if you really wanted scare me, you could bring back that particularly awful shade of cat-sick yellow that was fashionable last year. I thought I was going to have to put out my own eyes.

Ha! Best that, he thinks in private triumph.

RRR

The people going by take no notice of him at all. Roger shifts in discomfort, stiff from sitting too long on the cold, dirty stone. He raises a grimy, rag-clad arm and holds out the bowl, mutely begging. His voice gave out several hours back, a side-effect of the hacking cough that will not leave his lungs. Sleeping outside in the winter and a poor diet no doubt have as much to do with his affliction as not being able to afford a Healer.

Passers-by rich, poor, young, old, skinny and fat hurry by his street corner, the need to make a living pressing them onward. They avoid making eye-contact as though his sorry state is infectious; something to be caught, like an unwanted disease, should they get too close. Roger's stomach feels as though it's trying to eat itself in the absence of anything nourishing; his limbs and thoughts are jerky and nauseous from hunger. Hours pass, and the only ones who bother to even glance at him are the children—too young to know any better. A gang of bored youths, apprentices loafing when they should be on errands, decide it would be funny to beat up the useless beggar; too stupid or lazy to work for a living. He struggles weakly, but they get in some kicks that feel hard enough to break his ribs before a shouting stall-keeper disperses them.

The streets start to clear of people as dusk sets in Corus. Roger is alone. He has no friends or family who will receive him; no home, no wealth, no status. He is ignored, despised, forgotten, unimportant— the lowest of the low. There is no one who will bow to his orders or be swayed by his words. He will never shape the world or the men and women in it according to his design. No one will remember him when he dies. He has no future, for there is no way out of the gutter into which Roger has fallen.

Roger is a bruised and stiff statue except for the shivering he cannot control. Above, bone-white stars freeze him with their chilly light. Yet the stars and the dark bring a kind of clarity that hunger and illness have kept from his mind. Roger looks around him, and thinks: This is wrong.

The conviction grows within him, and settles deep into his bones, nestling in cozily with his growing disdain.

Please.

He knows this will never be his fate.

RRR

The funeral is held in the desert.

Roger is fourteen years old. The dark stone interior of Fief Meron's mausoleum is cool compared only to the baking heat outside; the air is stifling. It's been eight years since Roger left, and this place is no longer home. He's forgotten how to live here. It astonishes him to think that he never noticed how awful the temperature was when he was small. The heat is unbearable and the dull, unrelieved same-ness of the desert is oppressive after the colour and variety of Corus— its profusion of vegetation, animals and people, the changing seasons, and the lush hills, farms and forests that surround the capital city. After the constant hum and bustle of Corus, the desert feels empty and silent. It is too stark and terrible, and it makes Roger think uncomfortably that the Gods neglected to dress these ancient bones in rich soil-brown flesh and leafy green finery when creating the land.

Fief Meron is far smaller than his childhood memories led him to believe, and after the Palace, it is ugly, lacking the small graces that herald civilization. It is a rough backwater of a place, newly built and hastily erected. It is also armed to the teeth, reflecting its inhabitants' uneasiness in their security on the very edge of the Great Southern Desert, so recently conquered; not yet pacified. The servants in the castle are entirely Tortallan, but Roger has seen the local Bazhir who come to the castle to trade on their small, graceful horses. To his surprise, he actual remembers a few basic words of the desert tongue. These Bazhir are the ones who acknowledge the rule of King Jasson, but their dark eyes are far from friendly under their head-coverings. Roger does not wonder at the uneasiness of the Merons.

He stands with the Family in front of the casket, yet he is not one of them. Eight years away, and Roger is far more Conté than Meron. From the Lord of Meron on down, they are without exception lanky, straw-haired, pale-eyed and somewhat stiff and formal. Roger is a Conté through and through: tall and well-formed, even at fourteen, with dark brown hair and eyes, and an easy, graceful carriage even under such somber circumstances. They have little to say to him, and he to them. Lord Martin of Meron stares fixedly at the casket. He looks to have aged rapidly despite being a relatively young man: there are long furrows etching his forehead and bracketing his mouth. It also seems like he has entirely forgotten how to work the muscles that produce a smile. Roger wonders if he is glad she is dead.

The casket itself is closed. The custom is for it to be open until the very end, so that the deceased may be viewed, but the desert heat spoils a body far too rapidly for it to be a good idea here. Mother would have hated it—being denied a last chance to outshine everyone else, even in death. She was nothing if not someone who knew how to make an impression with her beauty.

Roger keeps his eyes on the casket as the priests intone the death rites, surrounded by strangers, and has absolutely no desire to cry.

The gathering afterward—not a party, that would be unfitting, though there is food and alcohol and mingling—is something of an ordeal. Roger grows tired of having to accept false condolences for a mother he hasn't laid eyes on in eight years, of the polite dislike of the Merons, of the hypocrisy of it all. He grabs a drink and disappears into an alcove sheltered by a hanging tapestry. It depicts a hunting scene with some glorious ancestor or other sticking a giant spear down a boar's throat. The sounds of the gathering are still clear though his separate corner gives him the illusion of distance.

"What an appallingly dreadful place!—No disrespect meant to our hosts, of course. It's not as though they chose the desert as their fief when His Majesty ennobled them. How on earth did she stand it all these years, coming from the Palace?"

"My dear, it's not as though she had a choice. From all accounts, His Majesty couldn't wait to send her as far away from Court as he could at the first opportunity. She was quite headstrong,—it seems to run in that family—and His Majesty could hardly take drastic measures with his own sister."

A nervous titter. "Hardly! It must have driven him mad. He is not a man known for his easy temper. But what did she do to cross him? I should not have dared if it were me!"

"Oh, there were rumours of lovers—a poet in particular, if I remember correctly. This was all some fifteen years ago—old gossip indeed. Some people said she flaunted her affairs just to spite His Majesty. If she did, he certainly made her pay for it: exiled to this huge fief in the Gods-forsaken desert. I daresay His Majesty thought he was favouring the Merons with a Royal marriage they hardly deserved, but it looks as though he did them no service; the first Lord of Meron dead—they say he died of shame from all the times she cuckolded him—and his brother looking much the worse for the wear for being her second husband. His Majesty married her straight back into the family almost as soon as the first brother was laid to rest. He badly needs the Merons to pacify the Bazhir for him. Doesn't want to admit it might have been a mistake to conquer the desert."

"What about the son then? So handsome! He must take after his mother."

"Indeed. The only child. He's her son by the first Lord of Meron—though who really knows with that one. He favours his mother's line entirely, except that the Conté eyes are always blue. Neither Merons nor Contés are brown-eyed. Peculiar, is it not?"

"Stop speaking ill of the newly-dead! It brings bad luck." A new voice, reproving. "You should know better than to spread such old gossip to young minds. Nothing good will come of it."

"Your pardon, Baroness. I should hate to think that anything I said might have given offense. How does this sad day find you?"

"I must admit I am most eager to return to Corus. The desert does not at all suit my health. I should not have come had not His Majesty been most insistent that his sister be seen off in the style suited to her blood. It was quite unexpected that she died so suddenly of lung sickness; she was by no means old. It must have been the will of the Gods."

Behind his curtain, Roger sympathizes with the Baroness. He wants to go home too. The desert does not suit him at all.

He escapes to his old room, his feet remembering the way, even though if you asked, he wouldn't be able to tell you where it was. It's a long way, and the steps are much too tall to climb easily, but eventually he is reaching up to the doorknob, standing on tiptoes to twist it open. Mama is inside, tall and very beautiful. Her blue eyes are angry; she gets upset easily, and she's yelling: he's leaving her, he's a bad son; ungrateful, like his father. He tries to tell her he's not a bad son, getting a little teary-eyed, but she doesn't listen. She slaps his face. The loud sound shocks them both, and then Mama is crying—she didn't mean to hurt him, she loves him so much; he's her only child and they're taking him away. Her hug is crushing him; he can't breathe properly, and he struggles free and darts away while she sobs and commands him to come back. He runs down the corridor as fast as he can on short, sturdy legs, and the corridor starts to crack; small fissures widening and tearing into new, larger ones; the walls are beginning to shatter. He scrabbles at them with his hands like a desperate animal, trying to get out—

RRR

--until he's panting and wild-eyed in the Chamber of the Ordeal.

Roger stills, stunned that the Chamber could so easily burrow in his mind and make him forget himself. The damned thing is chiseling away at him a bit at a time until he crumbles. He thinks silently, grimly at it, That was below the belt.

Weary but determined, Roger wonders what will come next. His back prickles uncomfortably, and the bare nape of his neck, and he turns around. He is not alone in the Chamber.

Uncle is staring at him from the corner, silent and brooding. Everything about him is heavy and dark; his eyes, his brows, his colouring, his temperament. Roger knows the weight of this particular look very well. He named it when he was thirteen: the Would-Anyone-Notice-If-I-Had-Him-Killed-And-Hid-The-Body?Look. He's seen it on many occasions: whenever he fought well, excelled at his lessons, practiced training his Gift, spent time with Roald, or said something clever or witty that attracted favourable attention from others.

Roger bares his teeth and glares back at King Jasson with all the animosity stored in his soul. He has no fear, only contempt. Hurry up and die, Old Man, he thinks, slowly, ferociously. You're a bad-tempered bastard and a lousy king. You think that warring with your neighbours and keeping your nobles scared and subdued is an adequate way to rule a country. Once you're gone everything will be different, and you know it. There's not a damned thing you can do about it, so do us all a favour: hurry up and die.

They stare from opposite sides of the Chamber, neither one backing down. If he could, Roger would take this opportunity to laugh in Uncle's face. He can never show the extent of his distaste for the man in real life. It seems a shame that the rules of the Ordeal forbid it now.

In the end, what it comes down to is this: Uncle may disapprove of his heir's opinions and character, but Prince Roald has the same Conté stubbornness they all share. And Roald has always loved him, when by rights he should have wished Roger hundreds of miles away or dead.

RRR

The day is sunny; warm and bright. Roald and Lianne make a pretty picture as they ride in on the large grey hunter and the smaller chestnut lady's mount. It is their custom to take their morning exercise together and, cheeks flushed from their gallop, they look like marital bliss itself. Roald catches sight of him in the courtyard and waves; his dark head bends down to Lianne's fair one as he murmurs in her ear and they ride up to greet Roger.

Roger isn't allowed to speak. Instead, catching their high spirits, he plays the clown. He gestures extravagantly, miming an awe-stricken, lovelorn subject, as he offers to help Lianne dismount. Lianne is beautiful in a way that makes Roger think of fine needlework,—very proper and a little dull—but Roald waited patiently through a long engagement of ten years for her, and he is besotted. Lianne blushes, embarrassed but not displeased, as she takes his arm and he hands her with the most painstaking care to the ground. Roald quirks a brow at Roger while the corner of his mouth curves, amused at the antics.

"For once you are speechless, Cousin," Roald says dryly. "I am shocked." He jumps down and takes Lianne's hand, smiling gently at her.

Roger shrugs elaborately: Who, me?

Lianne laughs. "Perhaps he has taken a vow of silence, Roald."

"I would be very surprised indeed if Roger had made such a vow, my dear," says Roald in good humour, "but if he had, I have no doubt his reasons would be excellent."

"I must say that Roger never ceases to surprise me," says Lianne.

Roger is beginning to become impatient that he cannot converse with them; how ridiculous it is to be stuck with silent mime when you are the third member of a conversation. He would prefer to leave farce to the Players.

"It's as well we met, Cousin," says Roald. "Lianne and I have good news we wish to share with you."

Lianne smiles, beautiful with bright joy as she gazes down at the baby in her arms. Roald places a careful arm around her slim shoulders. His expression is tender and proud.

"Is he not marvelous, Roger? Your new nephew!"

If Roger were allowed to speak at this moment he would not have a word to say. He is speechless with horror. They've been three years married with no child, and he thought—he'd let himself think—one day...

Roger backs away from them; they are surprised but still happy. He turns and runs until he is outside the Palace walls and in the street. When he looks up, he can still see the three of them outlined above the wall, a tight-knit triangle, leaving no room for him.

Suddenly Lianne screams. She's been pushed, and the baby flies from her grasp. It starts to fall, a slow arc over the wall, and Roger can see the horror in Lianne's eyes—it's terrible to watch. He's not far; if he runs, if he tries, he can catch the baby; he can save Roald and Lianne's son. But Roger doesn't run. He doesn't try.

He stands as though rooted into place while the white-blanketed bundle falls almost gracefully for two stories and hits the ground.

It's a busy street. There are many men on the Palace walls. Everyone saw that Roger let the baby die, and they are staring at him in condemnation. All these people are witness to Roger's shame. He wishes that he could go back in time and save the baby. He wishes it had never been born. He wishes that he could die. But all of that is nothing to the moment when Roger reluctantly looks up and sees the absolute betrayal on Roald's face.

Roger knows he doesn't deserve mercy, but he is thankful all the same when the Chamber takes him back to the stone room and he doesn't have to see Roald anymore.

RRR

The Ordeal is over and Roger almost doesn't want to even know the answer to his question; except that he does.

"Well, Elemental," he says dully, "I held up my end of the bargain. It's time for yours." It's immeasurably strange to be able to speak again after what feels like days?—years? of enforced silence.

Do you truly want to hear your fate?

If he says no, this will all have been for nothing.

"Yes."

Very well. You will never be King of Tortall.

Roger doesn't know what he is feeling, but something is building inside of him; something big.

"You're lying," he says calmly.

I do not lie.

"Then what you showed me, the baby—that's all true? There's going to be a boy?"

Some truths are absolute while others are merely possibilities.

"Then why am I here? Why was I even born?" asks Roger. "Was it so the Gods could have a good laugh at my expense? Are you finding this funny, Elemental?" He is slowly identifying the thing inside him as rage.

I do not make jokes.

"Yes, you do Elemental, because this entire Ordeal has been a joke! I come here for answers, and this is what you give me? I want a different one!"

There is only one answer I have to give you, Roger of Conté, and you have heard it. The terms of our bargain are fulfilled. It is time for you to go now.

"NO!" shouts Roger. "I didn't mean it—about the baby. I would never really do that. You have to know that! It wasn't real." He is furious beyond anything in his experience.

The choice was made,says the Chamber, pitiless. And it somehow throws him outside the room, slamming the door immediately closed behind him.

Roger would have fallen on his face if not for the strong hand that grabs his arm. He is braced against a broad shoulder, and Roger looks up into Roald's eyes, Conté blue and full of quiet concern.

"Steady now Cousin," says Roald, voice calm and reassuring. "You look somewhat worse for the wear."

Why didn't it kill him? Roger thinks. The Chamber. It knew and it let him go. There have been others who went in and didn't come out alive. Why isn't he dead?

"Roger?" questions Roald.

His first memory of the Palace is of Roald. His mother had brought him, as commanded, to the audience with King Jasson, who had looked him up and down like he was something fit for the muck pile. His mother had been pale with tightly-held anger and the air thick with nasty remarks flying back and forth between her and the King. While they fought, the Prince had quietly, without a fuss, removed Roger from the audience hall and taken him to the kitchen for a hot sugared bun. Roger hadn't known until later that he was to stay and be raised at the Palace while his mother went back home.

Roald was the one who taught Roger to ride his first pony; who took him around the Palace and into Corus until Roger stopped being so lost. He smoothed Roger's path in innumerable ways that Roger didn't realize until much later. He sought out Roger's company; laughed at his jokes, and never gave any indication that the presence of a somewhat spoilt boy ten years his junior could become wearing. His gentle criticism of Roger's behaviour got more and more irritating as Roger got older, but Roger never doubted that it was meant with good intention. Many people were surprised at Roald's continued favour of Roger; His Majesty was at first scornful, then furious, then increasingly alarmed. Roald, stubborn idiot that he was, gave Roger nothing but affection and trust. How could a man be so blind or stupid that he thought the world would arrange itself to his liking, just because he thought that was the way life should be? Things would be so much simpler if Roger could only hate Roald.

Roger has no idea how much any of this shows on his face right now: from the way Roald hasn't let go of him yet, it is far more than is bearable.

"Cousin," says Roald, and he is speaking very gently, "the Ordeal can be quite a trial, but what happens in the Chamber is not something you need ever speak of to any man or woman. What you experience in there can seem very terrible for a while, but I have been through it also; and I promise you, it will pass with time. You need only wait."

Roger straightens up wearily, taking his own weight, and Roald releases him. Roger rubs a hand over his face and it comes away wet. He is shocked to realize that the salt on his lips is from tears. He looks his cousin squarely in the eyes and lies:

"You're right, of course. No doubt it will pass."

-Fin-
A/N: To see pictures of the Contés in this story-- Roger, Roald, Lianne, Jasson and Roger's mother-- click on the drawings/photos link in my profile and choose CASTING CALL: CONTES. They are a very pretty family.