Mickey Zucker Reichert - By Chaos Cursed

by By Chaos Cursed (v1. 0)

  Now you tell me. Taziar tried to think of soothing words, but before he could speak them, he found Bolverkr returning his stare.

  The Dragonrank mage’s lips twitched into a frown of consideration.

  “You promised to free Astryd,” Taziar reminded.

  “Yes, I did.” Bolverkr spoke in a thoughtful monotone. “I lied. Are you surprised?” He did not give Taziar a chance to respond before addressing Astryd. “Silme once opened her mind barriers to me. I checked that link. It’s not quite strong enough to let me transport to her. But she opened herself to you once, too. Didn’t she?”

  “No!” Astryd’s denial came too quickly, and she huddled, looking even smaller.

  “Let her go!” Taziar hurled himself at Bolverkr, no longer caring about his bonds. The ropes burned across flesh, and Taziar tumbled to the floor at Astryd’s feet. Rolling, he rose to the most graceful crouch his tied ankles allowed. “Let her go! You promised to let her go!” Though Taziar knew appealing to Bolverkr’s conscience would prove hopeless, desperation pressed him to try. “You said you had nothing against her.”

  “But I do have something against her.” Bolverkr’s voice went soft, his expression pensive yet amused. “It seems she has very poor taste in friends.” Still clutching Astryd by the waist, he sheathed the dagger. Curving and opening the index finger of his now free hand, he gestured Taziar toward him.

  Taziar hesitated. “What do you want from me?”

  “Come here, and I’ll bring you with us.”

  Taziar frowned, seeing no reason to trust Bolverkr’s explanation. It seemed more likely that, once Taziar came within Bolverkr’s reach, the sorcerer would kill him. What possible reason would he have for bringing me along?

  “Come, now.” This time, Bolverkr gestured with his entire hand, easily judging Taziar’s reluctance. “If I wanted to kill you, I could do it from here. Bound, I doubt you could dodge my lightning.”

  Astryd remained still. Her eyes flickered from Bolverkr to Taziar.

  Guessing Astryd was about to attempt escape, Taziar tried to seize Bolverkr’s attention. “Why would you take me along? That doesn’t make any sense.” Taziar caught and held Bolverkr’s gaze, not liking the idea of talking an enemy out of an action that would prolong his life, yet seeing the need to keep Bolverkr occupied.

  Keen, blue eyes studied Taziar from features as craggy and timeless as stone. “I’m hardly obligated to reveal my motives to you.” He sneered contemptuously. “But it’s worth it if it’ll make you cooperate. I don’t like fighting on someone else’s territory. AHerum may have the advantage of familiarity with place and time, but let’s see him throw fire bones at me when I’ve got his closest friend tied at my side. We’ll just call you indemnity against....”

  Astryd made a sudden, wild twist that broke Bolverkr’s hold on her waist. She thrust a knee into his groin.

  Bolverkr’s expression flashed from derisive to pained. He swore, hunching and staggering backward.

  Astryd lurched toward the door. The ropes around her ankles tripped her, and she sprawled on her face.

  Equally crippled by his bonds, Taziar rolled toward her.

  Bolverkr spoke a harsh, magical syllable, then broke into ugly laughter. Straightening, he trotted toward Taziar. “Astryd, you stupid bitch, don’t you see? Run as far as you want, but you can’t escape me. I can enter your mind from anywhere.” His fingers closed on Taziar’s arm.

  Taziar stiffened, whirling toward Bolverkr, prepared to battle to the death to gain Astryd a few steps.

  Long, slender fingers gouged through Taziar’s sleeve. As the Climber launched himself at Bolverkr, the sorcerer shouted a stream of spell words as sharp as Larson’s American curses. Something unseen slammed Taziar, and he spun into a dark, whirling vortex of magic. Dazed and dizzied, he clawed for focus. The ropes chafed, and Bolverkr’s nails dug deeper into his flesh. Cut off from his other senses, Taziar focused on the pain. His being upended, suspended from any orientation to up or down, time or place. Only the pain remained constant.

  Astryd’s scream shattered the silent, lightless void, sounding muffled and far too close. Taziar’s world flared open. He found himself amid neatly ordered stripes of harpstringlike thought pathways. Light flashed and sputtered across them. Bolverkr stood beside him, eyes darting as he searched for something.

  “Astryd!” Taziar shouted in agony. “Where are you? Astryd!”

  Ow! Stop shouting. It hurts. Astryd’s words came at him from all directions with the deep, enthralling delivery of a god. Her fear was tangible.

  Shocked silent, Taziar listened to the echoes of his own voice.

  You’re in my mind, Astryd explained. Careful.

  Taziar had heard Astryd and Silme’s descriptions of Larson’s mind as a snarled tangle of thought and memory full of blind loops and frayed pathways. Astryd’s mind seemed militarily well organized in comparison.

  “This way.” With magically enhanced strength, Bolverkr dragged Taziar around a woven tapestry of thought, toward a corner of Astryd’s mind.

  Taziar followed docilely, his bound ankles turning his gait into a shuffle. His thoughts raced in a wheel of futile plotting. Usually, delicate situations enhanced his clarity of mind. Now, ignorance left too many gaps for coherent, logical strategy. How do I get out? How can I resist? If I fight, will I injure Astryd?

  Anchored on his dilemma and concerned for Astryd, Taziar never saw Bolverkr’s foot lash toward him. The sorcerer’s boot crashed against the side of Taziar’s knee. Pain radiated through his leg. He toppled, his tied arms flailing uselessly for balance; he managed only to guide his fall so he landed on his shoulder rather than his head. The impact shuddered through Astryd’s mind.

  Astryd groaned.

  Oblivious, Bolverkr planted his boot in the small of Taziar’s back, pinning him to the floor. He raised a hand, chanting magical syllables.

  A faint glow rose in the darkened corner of Astryd’s mind. Gradually, it intensified, revealing a seemingly endless, thready corridor trailing off into black obscurity. “There,” Bolverkr said in soft triumph.

  Taziar wriggled, fighting the pressure of Bolverkr’s foot.

  Astryd’s discomfort and uncertainty filled her mind in waves.

  Again, Taziar entwined his fingers in the stiff tangle of ropes at his wrist, loosening a knot. Got to get free. Got to do something. Anything. And fast.

  Bolverkr ground his heel into Taziar’s spine to discourage struggling as well as to indicate his words were intended for the Climber. “I’m going to try to keep a solid grip on you. Understand this. If you fight your way free, you’ll be lost outside the fabric of time. Dead. And no one, not the entire pantheon of gods, not every Dragonrank sorcerer who ever lived, could rescue you from oblivion.”

  Astryd added tremulously. Shadow, nothing like this has ever been attempted before. I don’t know for sure, but my training leads me to guess he’s telling the truth. Be careful. I love you. Sorrow permeated her words, pure and unfiltered by distance, facial expression, or consideration. Her emotions came to Taziar directly from their source.

  “I love you,” he whispered, afraid to cause her anguish by talking too loudly. “I—”

  Bolverkr seized Taziar’s wrists and wrenched the little Climber to his feet. Pain cut the discussion short. Bolverkr raised his free hand.

  A sensation of pins and needles tingled through Taziar, then exploded to a savage rush of magic. His being seemed to swell, pulsing until he thought his skin would tear open, spilling his insides through Astryd’s mind. Then, suddenly, the force became external. He surged forward, whipping through a dark tunnel a thousand times faster than a hunter’s arrow. Wind rushed past, icy and painful to his ears. He screamed. But he never heard the noise, as if it remained in place while he charged ever onward at a speed sound could never match.

  As unnatural as the motion seemed, time accustomed Taziar to it enough to concentrate on other details. Bolverkr’s grip remained tight enough t
o numb Taziar’s forearm to the fingers. The sorcerer’s closeness became a reassuring constant, despite its potential for evil. Glitters of magic popped and sputtered through the otherwise unbroken darkness, carrying an aura of Chaos-power Taziar knew originated from Bolverkr with a certainty far beyond common sense. Yet, soon, Taziar detected another presence amid the sorceries, an almost inaudible whisper entwined with the raging, near-omnipotent bellows of power issuing from Bolverkr. Astryd. Taziar twisted, seeking some tangible evidence of Astryd’s presence.

  Bolverkr’s hold tightened convulsively.

  Suddenly, Astryd’s power guttered like a windswept candle flame. Panic spiked through Taziar, from an outside source that could only be Astryd, a terror so powerful and wholesome it scattered his wits. Taziar screamed, clawing blindly at Bolverkr.

  The Dragonrank sorcerer swore, the sound piercing in Taziar’s ear until the wind swirled it away. Bolverkr’s other arm whipped around Taziar’s waist, crushing the Climber against him.

  The mind-shattering aura of terror snapped out, leaving no trace of Astryd’s presence.

  Astryd! Before Taziar could gather breath to scream again, he jolted to a sudden stop. Stunned by the impact, he scarcely noticed as his momentum resumed, this time, straight downward. Unconsciousness pressed at him. He tore at the rope, needing pain to revive himself. The knots gave, shearing skin from his hands with an agony that awakened but also incapacitated him.

  Bolverkr shouted something incomprehensible, his rage, horror, and desperation filling the darkness with the gripping, monster-sated reality of a child’s nightmare. The certainty of death touched Taziar.

  “No!” Bolverkr shouted, adding reckless courage to the boil of his projected emotion. Black nothingness snapped open, splintered to sudden light. Taziar landed on his feet with enough force to jar pain from soles to hips. He fell, rolling from habit, his hands free but smeared with blood, his lungs empty.

  “Astryd?” Taziar said, his voice a choked hiss. Legs still tied, he slithered to a sitting position, gaze skimming wildly over his surroundings.

  Taziar lay on a thick patch of grass behind a pair of tawny tents. Bolverkr crouched beside him, hands balled, tensed for action. In front of him, Silme stared, wide-eyed. The thud of steel on padding echoed from beyond the tents.

  For several tense moments, nothing happened. Taziar gasped for breath, trying to assuage his throat and lungs before moving. His fingers edged toward the bindings on his ankles.

  “Silme,” Bolverkr said. A grin quivered across otherwise shaken features.

  Silme glided toward Bolverkr tentatively. “How... ?” she started. “Why... ?” Then she hurled herself into his arms.

  Shocked, Taziar watched the two embrace, certain Silme must be distracting Bolverkr to give her friend time to work his way free. He struggled with the ropes.

  Distantly, steel chimed against steel. A crowd’s roar followed.

  Head cradled against Bolverkr’s shoulder, Silme fixed her gaze directly on Taziar. “Taz! Put your hands on your head and leave them there, or I’ll crush you like a gourd.”

  Startled by Silme’s unbridled hostility, Taziar obeyed.

  Bolverkr released Silme, catching her hands. Though he addressed her, he watched Taziar. “Why did you come here?”

  Silme shook back waves of golden hair. “When I saw Allerum using his technology against the dragon, I knew you’d been right about him all along. He didn’t even care if he killed his own friends.” She gestured at Taziar vaguely. “You got me thinking about how Allerum never belonged to our world. How he needed not just to die, since his soul might remain on one of our nine worlds. He needed to die in his own time.”

  Taziar let one hand slide toward his neck. This can’t be real. Silme would never turn against us. Never. No body chemical in the world could make her do that.

  Silme glared in warning.

  Taziar returned his hand.

  Apparently satisfied, Silme continued. “Then I saw Allerum about to throw one of those ...” She crinkled her nose in disgust. “... things at you. I saw a way to stop him. Fast. I took it.”

  Bolverkr smiled in hopeful triumph. “Allerum’s dead, then, too?”

  The same question plagued Taziar, but it was Bolverkr’s use of the word “too” that speared dread through him. He dared not make much of it yet, aware Silme would also want clarification. His chest squeezed closed, and breathing became a fully conscious process.

  “No,” Silme admitted calmly. “I acted on impulse. Allerum caught me unprepared. It’s been a long time since I’ve used any spell, and I’ve never used many for attack.” She paused thoughtfully, rubbing at her eyes, and Taziar saw her other hand flex around Bolverkr’s fingers then loosen again. “From today, that’s going to change.”

  Beyond the tents, something thunked against hollow metal, followed by smatterings of laughter and applause.

  Finally, Silme anchored on the final word in Bolverkr’s question. “Too? Where’s Astryd?”

  “Dead,” Bolverkr confirmed matter-of-factly. “Drained out her life energy getting us here. Almost got us all trapped outside reality and time. ...”

  Taziar caught nothing more of Bolverkr’s explanation. Grief snuffed his hearing to high-pitched ringing, and he saw Silme through a curtain of spots. Years of living on the streets had taught him to read motivations through expressions. He thought he saw a fleeting glimmer of horror on Silme’s face, but it disappeared so quickly he could not tell whether her emotion or his imagination had conjured the image.

  Astryd’s dead. Astryd is dead! Without her corpse to confirm it, the certainty could not register. Taziar had suspected Astryd’s death from the instant panic had overtaken her and her presence had disappeared from her own mind. So far, he had concentrated on his own peril, shoving the realization of Astryd’s death from his mind, dismissing it as a misinterpretation of magical events he had no way of truly understanding. Now he could no longer deny it. Astryd is dead. Her body is lost in the fabric of time. Bolverkr killed her, and I sat back and watched it happen. His promise reverberated through his ears, a vow so easily shattered by circumstance. Repeatedly, he heard himself say, “I’ll get you out of this. You know I will,” followed by Astryd’s confident, “I know” in a voice he would never hear again. Astryd. He sank to the ground in a hopeless fit of apathy, not caring if Silme killed him for the transgression.

  Gradually, Taziar’s iron will kicked in, reminding him of responsibilities he needed to attend to before he could allow sorrow to paralyze him completely. I can’t surrender. There’s too much at stake. He listened to the indecipherable hubbub of voices beyond the tents, interspersed with the thump and chime of swords against padding or metal. There’s another world here, hordes of people helpless against Bolverkr’s magic and mental manipulations. If what Allerum has said is true, there’s more innocents in New York City than in my entire world, and every one of them lacks the mind barriers to protect themselves from Bolverkr. Taziar shoved aside his own sense of loss for concern over the millions of people occupying Larson’s era. I can grieve later, but I’ll dishonor Astryd’s memory if I let sadness conquer me. For her and her causes, I have to fight.

  Despite his bold attempt to wad the realization of Astryd’s death into the depths of remembrance, Taziar’s will felt raw, his heart like a granite boulder in his chest. But the deafening ringing became familiar enough for him to listen through it, and Silme’s muffled voice wafted to him.

  “... strangest thing. It seems to be some sort of fighting tournament. But their weapons are crude and unedged. Their style is ponderous. And I’ve never seen two soldiers battle so fairly. Not a single kick, no strikes to the head. It’s weird.” Silme shrugged, rolling her eyes at the oddity of it all. “Their dress looks a lot like our own, though I’ve never seen such clean, tiny weave and straight stitching. I guess this is the rich side of the world.”

  “Their army?” Bolverkr guessed.

  Silme frowned, shaking her
head. “No. I’ve seen war in Allerum’s world. This just doesn’t fit. From probing minds, I’ve gathered this is some sort of recreational group. Their language seems to be an unpolished derivative of several tongues, mixed with bizarre idioms and slang. I’ve been ignoring words and gathering meaning through light mind probes.”

  Taziar curled like a fetus, pretending to be fully unmanned by grief, quietly inching his hands almost imperceptibly toward the ropes around his ankles.

  This time, Silme did not seem to notice. “This particular group called themselves ‘Sca’ which seems to translate nearly into ‘play group with imagination that supports anachronisms.’ Something like that.”

  Bolverkr’s jaw fell, revealing a straight row of teeth. “They have entire organizations to stand behind time traveling world wreckers?”

  “I don’t think so.” Silme’s gaze went solidly to Taziar, and she examined him with suspicion. “As far as I can tell, their mission isn’t to protect anything. It seems to have more to do with recreating and romanticizing the past.” Silme added pensively, “Our time. And later.” Her tone softened, and uncertainly tainted her usual strident confidence. “We don’t belong here.”

  Taziar froze.

  “Yes.” Bolverkr released Silme’s hands. His arms dropped to his sides, fingers twitching with anticipation. “That’s why we need to take care of our business and get out of here.” He clasped his hands, as if to still them.

  Silme turned her attention back to Bolverkr. “So you know a way to get us back?”

  Bolverkr hesitated, apparently caught off guard by the question. His brow crinkled.

  Taziar seized the moment to pull his hands to his lower legs.

  “I came through Allerum’s mind. That route won’t exist any longer. You say you used a double link from our world to me. Now that we’re both in the same place, we can’t use that either, especially now that Astryd’s dead.”