Godslayer bg-1

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Kensei Gaelinar scowled in offense, but he held his tongue with the subtlety of a master. "I always do," he answered after a moment. To Larson's relief, his instructor paced to Silme's other side.

  The oracle waited until the men completed their exchange, then continued as if the disturbance had never occurred. "Your query, Dragonmage?"

  Silme's words slurred slightly, as if the mere effort of gathering breath taxed her remaining strength. "Please, lady. My question concerns Allerum's sword, a quest, and the tranquillity of Midgard. Will hurling Valvitnir in the Helspring of Hvergelmir bring rescue or ruin to the gods of law and men?"

  The oracle bent her head over the crystal, and her endless sea of hair covered the scrying stone like a curtain. Larson watched in horror as her wrinkled hand passed twice above the gemstone. He tried to loosen muscles coiled to pain by tension.

  Silme yawned and rubbed fatigue from her eyes. Larson voiced a staccato grunt and edged closer to the sorceress. The oracle sat as still as death. Minutes dragged like hours. By the time the oracle looked up from her device, Larson had nervously worked his way directly in front of Silme.

  The oracle's lips framed a smug smile which disappeared as she addressed Silme. "Have no fear, sorceress. Your quest is sanctioned. But quickly now; time runs short."

  Silme looked around Larson with newfound energy, as if suddenly freed of some grave responsibility. "Thank you, lady. Your efforts may have saved our world from Chaos. May Odin continue to grace you with his favor. "

  "And Vidarr, you." The oracle returned the compliment in kind.

  Irony made Silme wince. She turned, strode across the chamber, and passed through the shimmering curtain with Gaelinar at her heels. Larson retreated with more caution, gaze locked mistrustfully on the oracle whose lips pursed in antagonizing confidence. Wired, and eager to desert the red-haired seer who had become so abruptly lethal in his nightmare, Larson scrambled through the cloth slit. He jostled against Gaelinar in his haste.

  The Kensei rolled his eyes with fading indulgence, and followed Silme around the milling acolytes. His glares grew less tolerant when Larson twice trod on his heels in his rush to vacate the temple to Odin. Once they stepped from the grayed interior of the building to the pleasure of afternoon, Larson loosed a shuddering sigh of relief. Even the biting winds seemed preferable to another moment of emotional agitation, especially to an elf impervious to winter's chill.

  Larson and his companions mounted their horses. Ten minutes into their journey back toward the river Sylg, Larson shed the last of his apprehension and muttered to himself in triumph, "The half-breed ain't as all powerful as he thought."

  Silme caught his arm. "Did you say something?"

  Larson shook his head in denial. Then, seeing no reason to hide the truth from Silme any longer, he explained. "Bramin came to me in a dream and promised violence if we contacted the oracle. Idle threats, I'm certain, but just scary enough that I:" He broke off as Silme reined with an abruptness which sent her horse into a startled half rear.

  "I thought I sensed his presence." Silme shaped her words with a self-accusatory anger. "But I blamed it on paranoia and weakness. Quickly now.

  The oracle may be endangered." She turned her steed and kicked it to a gallop back toward Odin's temple.

  Gaelinar whipped his horse about and reined after Silme. More accustomed to cars than horses, Larson clung to saddle and mane as his mount wheeled and followed its fellows at a run. They covered lost ground in minutes. Stopping only to tether the horses, Silme rushed to the dooryard, her companions close behind. Without troubling to knock, she pushed open the temple door. Priests looked up in alarm, but the sorceress paid them no heed. At a trot, she led Gaelinar and Larson through the slit in the silver-threaded curtain.

  The oracle's chamber was as Larson remembered it from both dream and reality. Its dim, dank interior supported a marble block on which the eye-like crystal lay balanced on an edge. Gray cloth drapes covered the room's three walls. Conspicuously absent was the oracle of Hargatyr.

  Larson waited by the slitted entrance, prepared for violence. Gaelinar stood in the center of the chamber, and his eyes followed Silme's anxious path. The sorceress peered behind the marble, paused a moment in confusion, then trotted to a far corner. She peeled aside a corner of the curtain which hid the back wall. Matched, gold-tasseled cords fell into her hand. When she pulled one, the cloth parted. Beyond, Larson and his companions saw a smaller chamber.

  Gaelinar strode around Silme and entered the room first. Larson crossed the scrying chamber in time to step around the curtain with Silme. Behind a writing desk and before a simple cot, a pallid body sprawled, face downward, on the floor.

  Red hair spread about the narrow shoulders and waist in a mass of tangles.

  "No," said Silme softly.

  Gaelinar eased the corpse to its back. The oracle's single eye was closed tight beside the massively scarred empty socket. Her breasts, thighs, and torso were violet with pooled blood. Though more familiar with rapid decomposition in the heat of Vietnam, Larson knew the oracle had been dead for several hours at least. The thought left him with a head-pounding certainty. The woman who had answered Silme's question and sanctioned their quest was not the oracle of Hargatyr.

  Gaelinar ushered his grieving companions back into the scrying room and pulled the curtain closed, leaving the oracle what little decency remained in death. Silme pressed her back to the marble table, laid her staff at her feet, and buried her face in her palms. Exhaustion from wasted enchantments and frustration preyed heavily on her remaining strength. She looked as vulnerable as a child.

  Larson lowered himself beside Silme and rested his arm across her sagging shoulders. "What now?"

  Silme sighed. "All I dare believe of the false oracle's prophecy is the value of time. We still don't know how to free Vidarr. I'm certain only that we mustn't surrender him to the Helspring." She fell silent and still. Just as Larson convinced himself she had fallen asleep, she rallied internal energy and leaped to her feet.

  Silme knocked Larson aside and paced with the steady tred of a caged tiger. "If Fates or gods know the method of breaking Loki's spell, the answer lies in the stone of Hargatyr." She indicated the crystal. "Anyone who understands its enchantments can tap its knowledge."

  "And you?" asked Larson hopefully.

  Silme paused, hands against the marble. She shook her head. "Dragonrank magic taps its caster's life energy. That's what makes it so powerful and desirable, and also dangerous. Devices like the gemstone are of no more use to me than crossbow bolts to a longbowman . I have the basic knowledge, but too many gaps exist to correctly glean information."

  "Try, at least." Larson rose.

  Silme caught his hands. Her palms left sweaty prints on the edge of the marble table. "I can do better than try. Another in this room may have some of the knowledge I need. Allerum, did Vidarr tell you why he can communicate only with you?"

  Larson tried to recall. "He said people from my world lack mind barriers."

  Silme dropped his hands, eyes widening incredulously. "None?"

  Larson shrugged. "I suppose. I don't even know what it means."

  "For now, it means a way to link myself with Vidarr." Silme's gaze dropped to the sword at Larson's hip. "Together, we may fathom the workings of the oracle's stone." Her cheeks colored slightly, but she continued eagerly. " Allerum, can you hold your mind blank?"

  "My mind? Blank? No!" He flinched back as the sorceress' request became clear. The thought that Silme might access his memories of murder made him light-headed. "My mind runs and lapses without my control. From moment to moment, I don't know if I'll find myself here or home, whether I'm experiencing reality, memory, or the inspired illusions of trapped gods and vicious warlocks. For me, Silme, blank is not a state of mind."

  Larson had quite forgotten Gaelinar stood behind him. The Kensei's husky voice made him jump. "It is now, hero. Would you have us damn the world for your reluctance?"


  Silme finished the appeal more gently. "I require only that you keep people and places from your consciousness. Concentrate on naming foods or counting twigs, anything repetitive which requires channeling thought. Will you try it?"

  "I've no choice." Larson swallowed around a lump which grew in his throat. "What do I have to do?"

  "Sit." Silme waved him to the floor.

  Larson sat, knees pressed to his chest. His hands trembled as he watched Silme reach for the crystal of Hargatyr. "Wait!"

  Silme paused.

  "How do you know Bramin hasn't tampered with the stone or replaced it with something evil?"

  Silme seized the eye-like gem with an impatient toss of her head. "This is Odin's temple. The oracle's scrying stone must be warded by Law. A simple touch would maim or even kill Bramin. It would reflect his destructive magics. Any other attempt to remove it from the temple would require him to work it past a room full of priests." Silme lowered herself to the floor before Larson and placed the stone between them. "Lay the sword across your legs."

  Larson complied reluctantly. Valvitnir buzzed slightly against him, glowing with blue light. "Silme. Shouldn't we wait until you've had some rest. "

  Silme locked her fingers between Larson's. Her voice became a low drone. "No time. Bramin can trace us through the gaps in your mind. We don't want him to know we discovered his treachery."

  Silme let her eyes fall shut. Her head lolled forward.

  "Silme?"

  "What!" Impatience made her curt.

  "What if I can't control my thoughts?"

  Her voice assumed a hiss of dry warning. "Let's just hope you can."

  Her reply did nothing to reassure Larson. Near panic, he chose to conjugate verbs from his high school French lessons. Je suis, tu es, il est: Twin presences pressed against his mind with the banding grip of a headache. Vidarr and Silme scuttled without direction, silent as mice in the jarring loops of Larson's flawed thought pattern. God and sorceress probed blindly for one another, and Larson felt all too aware of their locations.

  Nous sommes, vous etes, ils: ils sont: Gradually, Silme and Vidarr closed the distance between their mental presences. Their union broke to a dazzling explosion of light, sparking one of Larson's frayed memories like a dried piece of kindling. Hurled into flashback, Larson stared at a mine crater the size of his bedroom back in the States. Then a barrier snapped into place with a force which broke the illusion. Threat carved into focus. Hold your thoughts! I've no power to rescue you again.

  J'ai, tu as, il a, nous avons: Larson plunged into his studies with desperate passion. The combined essence of Vidarr and Silme wove drunkenly through his brain. A flurry of enchantments battered through consciousness unsteady as fever.

  VOUS AVEZ Will hurling Valvitnir in the Hel spring of Hvergelmir bring rescue or ruin to the gods of law and men? Silme's question echoed through

  Larson's mind, pulling him from his furious attempts at conjugations.

  Smoke eddied like car exhaust. The fused presence gasped in triumph, then hissed in fury as the haze peeled away, like scalded wax, without answer. Je vais, tu: Frustration settled in Larson's mind, dimmed to resolution. Silme/Vidarr gathered energy, unwittingly tapping him in the process.

  Reference folded in nightmare as magics enwrapped him in drugged awareness. Fog thick as earth warped vision. Another alien presence winked to life in Larson's already overcrowded mind. Destroying the sword heralds Vidarr's death. Beware! Such an action will doom the world to Chaos.

  Sanity flickered. Tu vas, il va, nous allons, vous allez, ils allont! Emotion pervaded him in a perfect mixture of outrage and concern. Silme/Vidarr coiled like a cat prepared to spring. Magic formed a tense ball in Larson's mind, crushing aside fragile circuits of memory. Pain blurred thought to blackness. Jefais, tufais, ilfait : Rationality exploded to madness.

  A painted forest replaced the emptiness of Larson's eye-closed world. He walked between Silme and Vidarr beneath a mercilessly hot sun. Blue haze ringed the sorceress, and the god shone with a golden glory. Where the hell? thought Larson. Oh: a: nous faisons. The syllables warped to nonsense. Suddenly, a woman tall as a watchtower stepped from the brush, directly in his path.

  Larson recoiled. The life auras of god and sorceress fused to glaring green. "Who are you?" demanded Silme boldly.

  "I am Skuld, Future." The giantess' voice rattled trees. "In what cause have you summoned me, Silme Sapphirerank?"

  "The cause of men and gods." Silme replied nearly as loud. "Should Chaos claim this world, there shall be no Law nor time nor knowledge. You and your sister Fates would perish." Her entreaty rolled like thunder through the silence of the forest. "How must we free Vidarr from imprisonment?"

  A breeze rose and fell, rose and fell again. Several seconds passed before Larson recognized the wind as the breath of the giantess Skuld. "Your fears are founded, Lady Silme. Your quest is honorable, though it brings doom upon others, men and women of my domain, those ruled by one of your companions and beloved by the other. It is not my place to judge your task nor prevent it. The answer to your question lies with my sisters." Skuld marched back into the forest, trampling trees like matchsticks.

  The giantess' prophecy sounded strange to Larson's numbed mind. How could rescuing men from Chaos doom them for the future? Before he found time to ponder the question, another woman shouldered between the trees. She looked sufficiently like Skuld to be her sister, yet not similar enough to be a twin.

  "I am Verdandi," the giantess said, though no one asked her name. "I hold title to the present. Your query has gone beyond my realm to the past. I can tell you only that your quest stands contested by a god and a half-breed with the power to destroy you." Swiftly, she returned to the forest.

  Cold sweat ran down Larson's back, and he shook with chills despite the heat. The third sister of Fate glided from the tangled brush. Vertigo transformed her to a blur which sharpened slowly to detail. She was obviously the eldest of the giantesses, smaller, withered, face puckered with burdens transferred from her sisters by time.

  "I am Urdr, keeper of the past and the understanding of Odin. It was I who added the final provision to Loki's spell, and I who shall reveal that knowledge to you. To free my lord, Vidarr, the elf must claim Loki's life with the blade Valvitnir."

  Shock battered Larson, obscured Urdr in glare. Silme's scream pierced his mind like a spear, jarring loose a wild memory. The sound transformed to the shrill whine of jets. Even as Larson located the blood-red afterburners of the paired phantoms, he recognized his surroundings. He traveled a familiar road in the Mekong Delta. Some distance ahead, a dozen buddies in cammie paused in horror as they discovered the jets' target was the same village which had, moments before, been their destination.

  The lead jet passed over the village. A raging column of flame consumed grass huts and villagers without mercy. Panicked screams made Larson cringe. Even as the gasoline fumes pinched his nose, he realized he was neither in flashback nor alone. The dry crackle of gathering magics made him whirl toward Silme and Vidarr. "Oh my god! Silme, no!"

  His warning came too late. Sorceries howled past his ear with all the inhuman speed of the phantoms. Bluish magics impacted the trailing jet and broke to a savage explosion of emerald. Shards of twisted steel rained to earth. Larson's sinews went taut with shock. He could only suppose Silme saw the jets as dragons swooping upon an innocent town. Ahead on the road, the camouflaged men dropped, as one, to the ground. Suddenly,

  Larson knew he and his otherworld companions had become the enemy.

  "Down!" hollered Larson. He dove into the roadside ditch. Gunfire popped and sputtered around him, sounding oddly impotent after the scourge of napalm and the thunderclap of Silme's spell. With no means or desire to return fire on his buddies, Larson flattened to the dirt without recourse. What have I done? Worried over the ignorance of his alien companions, he forced his gaze toward the road. Vidarr and Silme stood behind a shimmering curtain which reflected bullets like a wall. />
  The oddity of their magical defense was not lost on the Americans. One yelled. "Holy fucking god!" Silme began a new incantation. Dark mists broiled from her fingertips. A graying glow flickered around the enchantress and winked out like a spent candle. As Silme drained her life energy, she fell in a soundless faint.

  "Silme!" screamed Larson. The sorceress lay still within her magical shield, but her final spell was cast, Wizardry rolled along the road like a living ball of fire. The men in cammie dodged from the path of the sorceries with startled cries. And, from over the burning village, Larson caught sight of the returning phantom. Faster than its own report, the jet glided toward them in vengeful silence.

  "No!" Larson hollered. Smoke from the smoldering village swirled like ghosts into the phantom's twin intakes. Larson lay frozen in terror. A rocket dropped from beneath the jet, plummeted, then shot forward with a speed which outdistanced the plane. Before Larson could scream, the missile crashed to ground with a blast of red-orange. Its explosion seemed to shatter earth. Though the magical shield contained most of its impact, force crashed against Larson's head and knocked him to oblivion.

  Larson awakened to utter darkness. Screams of terror ripped from his lungs and reverberated like distant answers. Throat raw, he fell to silence and recognized the slosh of running water. The rasp of a sword scraping from its sheath restored his rationality. Larson struggled to legs stiff with disuse. His hand closed about Valvitnir's hilt. "Gaelinar?" he whispered hopefully.

  Gaelinar's gruff reply had never seemed so welcome. "I should have known it was you, hero. How do you feel?"

  "Shaky," Larson admitted. "And blind." A scene threaded through his mind, the memory of Silme lying still as death on a road in the Mekong Delta. "Where's Silme?"

  The sorceress called over the bubbling of the river Sylg. "Here. The real question, Allerum, is where was Silme."

  Larson groped toward Silme's voice. "My world. I'm sorry. I tried to control my memories, I swear I did, but:" Silme caught his arm. It occurred to Larson with frightening abruptness that the surrounding darkness was too complete for night. He finished with an anxious whine. " Dammit, why can't I see?"