The Legend of Nightfall

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Ritworth pointed a finger at the stretch of swamp between himself and Nightfall. He mumbled the same arcane syllables as previously, and the part closest to the bank froze into a solid clump. "Your master won’t get far on foot. Once I’m finished with you, I’ll kill him before he can reach Noshtillan." He stepped onto the newly created bridge and aimed the finger to craft an extension of his frozen path. "You know that, don’t you?" The nasty grin seemed to have become permanent.

  “I know you’re a murdering, conscienceless bastard.” Nightfall returned the smile, as detached as possible from emotion. "Is that the same thing?" Apparently Ritworth had bought Nightfall’s fawning, selfless squire act as had everyone else and expected threats against Edward’s life to rile him more than those against his own. That boded well for attempts to catch the sorcerer off-guard, assuming strategy mattered at all. Locked in mud, Nightfall sought a means to escape. He lowered his weight, hoping it would keep him from sinking any deeper.

  The next block of ground froze, leaving only one more area before Ritworth came close enough to easily fling spells or objects at Nightfall. "Life is what it is. If the Father intended us to respect other’s lives, he wouldn’t have made them so simple to take nor some of us so much more powerful than others." He bridged the final gap.

  Nightfall waited, coiled. Many options paraded before him, most dependent upon the sorcerer’s course of action. It would prove easy enough to freeze Nightfall’s head, as he had the horse’s; but that would kill instantly and lose him the soul he had stalked. Freezing the mud around Nightfall would almost certainly cut him in half, again bringing shock and death too quickly. Anything short of magic that Ritworth chose to throw Nightfall believed he could rebound even from his awkward position. He had no way to guess what other powers the wizard might possess and, thus, no means to prepare to counter them. His lighter form gave him more mobility, and he searched diligently for the pockets and lining of his tunic and the daggers secreted within. He doubted he could throw well enough to kill the wizard without dying himself, but a regular death seemed far preferable to the permanent hell promised by the sorcerer’s ceremony.

  Ritworth stepped closer, gaze locked on Nightfall. He knelt, scooping blue-green swamp mud into his palm, then shaping the mass into a crude figure of a man. He mumbled as he worked. He glanced at Nightfall every few seconds, keeping track of every movement though it took time and accuracy from his molding. He rose, holding his creation before him. With his free hand, he fumbled a dagger from his pocket, nearly dropping it before catching a firm hold on the hilt.

  Nightfall steadied himself, prepared. Blades, at least, he understood.

  But Ritworth had witnessed most of the battle in Grittmon’s Tavern, and he did not hurl the weapon. Instead, he scratched the tip of the blade along the figure. Apparently, some magic had gone into its crafting because it remained whole in the sorcerer’s hand and did not crumble as drying mud usually did. He gauged Nightfall’s lack of reaction, then stepped to the edge of his safely frozen ground.

  Nightfall tensed, guessing the mudman somehow represented himself. Apparently, it required construction from ground he was touching and also a proper proximity. Otherwise, he felt certain Ritworth would have used the technique on him previously. He wriggled backward in retreat, the movement maddeningly slow, adjusting his weight to find a balance between hampering and propulsion.

  The next sequence of blade through mud also tore his chest like fire. He screamed without intention, and agony forced him to catch his breath. For an instant, he felt the wizard’s presence within him, reaching for a talent driven by pain from the core. Nightfall heaved his concentration aside, focusing on whatever other issues he could dredge to mind. For no reason he could fathom, Edward’s lesson filled his thoughts, cycling endlessly. Charseusan blue-green swamp mud. That is the name of what you’re stuck in. A glimpse down his tunic showed him flesh unaffected by the magic. No blood had actually been drawn, only the pain that accompanied such a wound. He inched backward as fast as the mud allowed.

  Ritworth laughed again, the sound pitched to inspire terror. He jabbed the knife blade deep into the mudman’s gut.

  Pain skewered Nightfall, and the memories cycled, still present but no longer under his control. It’s called for the charseus plant, a blue-green grass/algae that can live over or under water. The mud’s mostly made up of dying plants and other dead things. Nightfall clutched at his gut, scarcely daring to believe his intestines still hung safely in his body. DEAD THINGS. He writhed, scuttling farther backward, and the suffering disappeared. Apparently, he had managed to work himself beyond range of the spell. Seizing the sudden reprieve, he gave another heave. His spine crashed against something solid, jarring him to the teeth. Surprised more than hurt, he glanced at the object he had hit, the bay mare half-submerged in swamp mud. The blue-green comes from the live charseus plant.

  Ritworth swore, then laughed again. He cast another of his freezing spells, gaining him several steps closer to Nightfall, now trapped against his beast. "Too easy." He drove the dagger deep into the mud figure’s groin, twisting as if to sever every organ.

  Spasms racked Nightfall, the pain beyond any he had known. Had the damage been real, he would have surrendered to oblivion. Now he knew only the agony, his single need a quick death. He felt Ritworth’s presence join his own, felt the other tug and pull at a mind-set flying for the surface, trebling pain that already seemed long beyond his ability to bear. He screamed again, doubling over so suddenly his face slopped into the goo. His thoughts ran without him. The live plant makes lots of air. That’s why there’re so many bubbles just under the surface of the mud. The words meant nothing now, but the desperate, gasping breaths he took to fill his lungs with mud and end his life did. Air funneled in, accompanied only by a thin stream of choking dirt. You do know how to swim, I presume?

  Somehow, Nightfall managed to suck in bubbles without choking too violently on the slime that accompanied them. His legs felt liquid, but he pressed them against the horse’s side. The torture became an all-encompassing universe, the flaying of soul and talent from body an agony so fierce it would not dull. Yet, his mind clung to the realization that distancing himself from the sorcerer would stop the pain. Using the horse as a springboard, he launched himself at an angle toward the bank. His hands and legs flailed and hunched like a frog’s. Beneath the surface of the swamp mud, he held his breath and swam, finally gasping in a lungful of bubbles when the need for air became too desperate.

  The body pain vanished first, and Nightfall felt the sorcerer’s grip slipping as his weight-shifting talent receded back toward the core. Still bound with Ritworth, he felt the sorcerer’s enormous rage and frustration as his own. The magical grip clenched tighter, clinging to the gift it almost had. Then, abruptly, the hold disappeared, and surprise replaced the anger.

  Nightfall clawed his way to the surface, gagging and sputtering on the mud he had forced his lungs to bear. He smeared stinging muck from his eyes in time to see Prince Edward’s follow-through sword stroke, an attack that had, apparently, missed its target. Nightfall had come within a long arm’s reach of the bank. Ritworth gathered power, presumably for his ice spell while the prince tensed for another attack.

  Nightfall scarcely noticed the jangle of the oath-bond, the once-excruciating pain seeming minuscule in the wake of so much more. He scrambled to shore, fighting legs that seemed too weak to carry him. His muscles did not properly obey. He tripped, falling flat on his face. Spell and sword leapt forth at once. Though surely intended for Edward, the Iceman’s sorceries struck his blade instead. Edward dropped a weapon suddenly too cold to handle. It struck the ground, exploding into splinters. Nightfall scrabbled to his feet, now seizing one of the daggers he had not managed to locate while encased in swamp. He hurled it for the back of the sorcerer’s neck.

  But mud weighted the blade, making its flight unpredictable. It struck Ritworth’s arm, dull edge leading, just as Edward bore in with bare fists
. The wizard spoke a harsh word and flapped his hands. His body rose from the ground, and he flew over Edward’s head toward the safety of the forest. The prince sprang back. Nightfall threw his last two throwing knives. The first pierced the air a split second behind the soaring sorcerer, the blade plummeting into the swamp. The second missed cleanly as Ritworth swept from sight.

  The goading throb of the oath-bond lessened to its usual tingle, and the near absence of pain seemed a joy and comfort beyond anything Nightfall had known. He headed for the pack horse, digging rope from the bundle and ignoring the flopped body of Snow. He had wanted to rid them of the gelding’s nervous presence forever, it seemed, yet never in this fashion. He could not help feeling guilty for the thoughts he had held against it in much the same way he felt his own wishes had caused his mother’s death. For now, he needed to concentrate on freeing his mount.

  Prince Edward headed back down the frozen pathway. "Are you badly hurt?”

  “No, Master. Just shaken. I’ll be fine." Nightfall continued freeing the rope as feeling returned to his body.

  Edward drew closer, glancing around for Ritworth’s return.

  Nightfall did not trouble himself to do the same, trusting the trained perception that came from years of living on the street to alert him to danger. Never again would he allow illusion, excitement, and frustration to blunt that necessary sixth sense he needed for survival.

  The prince drew up beside his squire. "Why does a sorcerer want your soul?”

  Nightfall coiled the rope, forming a loop to catch the bay mare. He glanced at Edward, knowing the prince had grown up with a sorcerer as his father’s adviser and certain even this sheltered youth had heard rumors. Denial would gain him nothing, only distance him from the trust he had sought to gain and mostly succeeded. The sorcerer’s claims had already revealed too much. "Master, I didn’t mean to hide anything from you. The fewer who know about my ability, the better. A word in the wrong place . . . if a sorcerer overheard . . . or one who would sell information to sorcerers . . ." He rolled a sad gaze to Edward, continuing his work with the rope but letting the thought trail. "I’ve never told anyone before." Except a vicious, back-stabbing whore who sold me to your father.

  Prince Edward fell silent for several moments, absently looping the extra rope, assisting his squire unconsciously. "I understand." He frowned. "So who told this sorcerer?"

  "No one," Nightfall admitted. "He watched me closely enough to figure it out on his own." He tossed the loop, missing the horse by a hand’s breadth. In response, the mare resumed her struggles, battering at the mud with hooves exhausted from the fight. He wound the rope back for another try.

  "It doesn’t matter, you know." Edward continued his search for the returning sorcerer. "Servant or equal, I’m not going to abandon you when the next sorcerer comes either."

  "Thank you, Master; but your life has to come first. If I thought others would come, I’d leave you." Nightfall threw the lasso again. It landed just in front of the animal’s ears and around the back of her head, and he coaxed it to slide along her nose. His own loyalty made sense. He little understood Edward’s, however. Any other noble would have sacrificed his squire to preserve himself without need for a moment’s consideration. Why did he come back? What does he hope to gain from me? "At the least, sorcerers have to compete too much to discuss their quarry with one another. We may see the Iceman again, but I don’t think others will attack."

  {The rope jerked into place around the horse’s neck.

  Edward considered. "Now that I know, what is this talent of yours?"

  Nightfall concentrated on the rope, believing the prince had earned the right to know but hedged by the memory of Kelryn’s betrayal. "It helps me ride horses," he said, not quite lying. He tugged at the rope, aware he did not have the strength to pull the beast free himself yet wowing better than to request the aid of his master.

  Prince Edward came over to help anyway.

  Chapter 13

  He feeds on elders and children,

  On soldiers, kings, and beggarmen.

  He never stops and never slows-

  Darkness comes where Nightfall goes.

  —"The Legend of Nightfall"

  Nursery rhyme, st. 13

  A multicolored wash of dancers frolicked through the muted lantern light of Noshtillan’s stage, their many and varied steps weaving into beautiful patterns of flash and movement. Prince Edward and Nightfall sat on one of the scattered benches, a crate just taller than knee-height supporting their drinks, its weathered wood still tainted by the mixture of spices it once held. It was not the best of the furniture in the performance room of Noshtillan’s dance hall. The central, more populous area contained some real tables and larger crates, but concern drove Nightfall to keep their backs against the wall and away from windows. He doubted the self-proclaimed Iceman would attack them in a crowd, even in a place where propriety and law deemed they remain unarmed; but paranoia would not allow him to drop his guard for a second.

  Prince Edward and Nightfall had traveled as swiftly as the pack horse and the mud-caked mare could carry them, Nightfall surrendering the superior mount and his sword to his master. Ritworth had not bothered them on the journey, perhaps as shaken as his victim by the failed assassination. More likely, Nightfall suspected, the sorcerer was biding his time, waiting to catch his quarry in another indefensible position.

  Nightfall had no intention of allowing himself to become vulnerable ever again. This excessive alertness had wrested sleep from him when they arrived in Noshtillan in the wee morning hours. Sheer exhaustion had eventually stolen consciousness from him, a dream-gorged slumber filled with chases, threats, and embarrassments. Even then, every sound had jarred him awake, and he harbored vague recollections of some dank corner of his mind processing and dismissing each normal city noise. He had sneaked his daggers, well-hidden, into the dance hall, preferring to risk arrest over being cornered without defenses.

  Nightfall had mentioned the dance hall in the hope of discovering whether or not Kelryn still lived and, if so, where she had gone. He had not expected Edward to jump so enthusiastically on the idea, his verbalized intention to find an activity to soothe both of their jitters. The attention Edward lavished on the show revealed another motive, unconscious or just unspoken. Edward’s manners made him appear older and his innocence far younger. Yet, when it came to women, he seemed every bit the eighteen-year-old male he was.

  Nightfall remained still, hiding nervousness behind a casual aloofness broken only by an unconscious fondling of the glass swan through the folds of his pocket. Though irrational, he could not wholly suppress a superstitious belief that its presence might draw the woman who had previously owned it. Once a token of his love, it had become a symbol of his hatred and need for vengeance.

  The current show ended, and male and female dancers exited the stage. Prince Edward sipped his beer. "Wonderful, wasn’t it?"

  Nightfall could not recall the last time his master had remained quietly awake so long. "Yes, wonderful.” He watched as the serving girls rearranged the stage lanterns, bunching them toward the center. Experience told him the more erotic dancing would start now, progressing from suggestive to pornographic by evening’s end. He smiled, suspecting Edward would now see a display unfamiliar to him, one he would likely enjoy if he did not become too flustered to watch. He savored the opportunity to see his sometimes tyrannical master transformed into a squirming teen. Nightfall vowed to observe closely for more reason than entertainment. If anyone would know of Kelryn’s whereabouts, these girls would prove the best informants.

  The music began, a sultry and original song performed by a three-man band at the far side of the stage. Four girls clad in silky dresses slunk onto the stage from the sidelines, their movements sinuous. Prince Edward stared, the beer in his hand forgotten, his gaze leaping from one to the next in a dazzled circle. Nightfall froze, his eyes riveted on only one, the last to enter. He recognized the body first, outlined
in perfect detail against the shimmering, clinging fabric. He knew every muscle and curve too well not to recognize Kelryn. The short white locks and plain features only clinched her identity. Kelryn. Nightfall might have remained stuck in Charseusan blue-green swamp mud for all he managed to move. Emotion came next, in a frenzied rush that left him breathless. Attraction rose, unbidden, beaten down by a rush of rage and hatred that made his entire body feel on fire. The beer churned in his gut, and he was glad that they had not yet eaten dinner. As it was, the last remnants of their morning meal sat like lead.

  Nightfall found himself aimlessly rubbing the swan through the fabric of his pocket and forced his hand still.

  He stood. "Excuse me for a few moments, please, Master."

  Without taking his eyes from the performance, Edward nodded.

  Nightfall hurried from the room, not bothering to detail his intentions further, glad for the distraction that made a no explanation necessary. Probably, Edward would assume he’d left to relieve himself.

  Once through the double doors of the performance chamber, Nightfall entered the main corridor, glancing right and left to judge the location of the dancers’ rooms as well as get a general feel for the layout. Dance hall workers wore red shirts and pantaloons or dresses with black trim, making them easy to spot amid the rabble. Most of the milling folk in the corridor consisted of men who knew when the style of showmanship changed, now headed into the hall. The others seemed mostly family groups, leaving for the same reason. Nightfall blended into the latter, his sharp gaze discerning a guard stopping people who meandered down either hallway rather than directly outside or into the spectators’ area.

  Perhaps because Nightfall believed Prince Edward wholly secure in a crowded public place, the oath-bond remained passive at its tingling routine. Afraid to stir it, Nightfall reminded himself repeatedly that he intended no specific, Nightfall-like action, only minor spying and climbing. As much as he wished to reveal himself before slaughtering the woman who had betrayed him, to let her fear and understand her mistake, he knew he could not do so. Never before had he wanted to draw attention to his work in any way. The straightforward simplicity of Nightfall’s crimes had made them easy to copy, thus causing many more than he committed to become attributed to him and making him seem to be in many places at once. Those things had much to do with the demon’s name with which the masses had burdened him. Yet, this once, he wanted the satisfaction of a victim’s understanding. He wanted revenge.