Prince of Demons

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  Griff needs me. The realization lent Ravn courage. I hope you appreciate the pain I suffer for you. Without further consideration, he charged Colbey Calistinsson in a bold frontal attack befitting a Renshai. “Have at me, old man!” His swords rasped free as he ran.

  Colbey seemed to take no notice of the attack, continuing his svergelse. Yet as Ravn’s right-hand scimitar swept for his head, he parried deftly, in time to rescue his chest from his son’s second strike. Even as he defended, he sheathed Harval, fielding two blades with only one.

  Ravn bore in, his only defense a frenzied web of attack, as Colbey taught. He swept in with a high arc while his second sword tore low, seizing the advantage of his extra weapon. Colbey dodged both easily, returning an attack Ravn jerked in both blades to defend against and then, only barely. Colbey’s blade rang musically against his block, immediately withdrawn and rethrust before Ravn could muster another offense.

  Self-directed rage flared, even as Ravn deflected the assault and managed a stiff riposte. Colbey redirected, feinted low, then high. The maneuver drew both Ravn’s scimitars in defense and left him nothing when the elder Renshai bore in for a gut slash. Damn! Ravn leaped backward. The long sword followed him, and only a frantic sideways dive saved him from a deadly strike to the head. He flung up both swords as he rose. Luck as much as skill hammered Colbey’s onslaught aside, and Ravn managed to regain his feet. Realigning left him no time for anything but defense. He missed three openings, but the delay placed him firmly back into the battle. Only then, he wove a savage offense designed to exhaust his father’s single sword arm.

  Colbey met every attack with a casual defense that never seemed to tax him. I might as well batter a brick wall! Frustration fueled Ravn’s already raging battle madness.

  “A brick wall doesn’t hit back!” Colbey violated his own rule about conversation in battle. He allowed this fault when it properly demoralized an enemy.

  This time, it only served to further enrage Ravn. “Damn it, Father!” His looping cut gained power. “Get out of my thoughts.”

  “I can’t help it.” Colbey diverted the scimitar with a dexterous flip. “You’re radiating them to me.”

  “Read this thought . . .” . . . you irritating bastard. Ravn knew better than to swear at his father aloud, though Colbey’s invasion of mental privacy allowed it. The elder stuck solidly by his vow never to violate the mind of one he respected, yet intense emotion and thought wafted to him without intention. Momentarily, Ravn wondered how much of his desperation touched his father’s senses as well.

  The longsword swept under Ravn’s guard. The tip slid between his crosspiece and index finger, hammering steel. Swearing, Ravn winched his hand closed, too late. The scimitar tumbled from his fingers.

  Ravn sprang for the errant weapon, aware courtesy would force Colbey to do the same. Ravn’s hand closed over his father’s fingers, already around the hilt. He shouldered in, using his superior size and strength to attempt to off-balance his father. His second sword thrashed for Colbey’s head.

  The elder Renshai ducked, still clutching the scimitar’s hilt. Ravn’s second sword tangled, then severed strands of yellow hair. Got him. Ravn savored rising triumph only a moment before Colbey’s longsword slammed against his groin.

  Agony lanced through Ravn’s body. Losing control of his legs, he plummeted, instinctively clutching one scimitar as he released the other to his father’s care. Unable to escape incapacitating pain, he rolled erratically on the grass, feeling nothing less substantial than the deep, dull ache in his gut.

  After an eternity, Ravn managed to wrench his eyes open. The sun flashed rainbows from streaks of tears clinging to his lashes, and Colbey stood over him. Ravn tensed for a lecture. As one type of suffering faded, another would surely begin.

  But Colbey did not scold his son. He simply sheathed his sword, held the scimitar nonchalantly in one hand, and reached to assist Ravn with the other. “Are you all right?” He sounded genuinely concerned.

  Ravn accepted the assistance, still sore. “As long as you and Mother don’t expect any grandchildren.”

  Colbey stifled a smile, badly. He handed back the second scimitar.

  Ravn inspected it routinely before returning it to its scabbard. He sighed, disappointment a heavy ache across his shoulders.

  Colbey examined his son with evident curiosity and an unmistakable fondness. Ravn believed he read some pride in his father’s icy blue-gray eyes as well, but he attributed that to hope and his own imagination. “To what do I owe the honor of a spar?” Colbey’s grin emerged freely now. “And a haircut.” He shook back his locks, and they fell into well-cut feathers around the familiar, ruthless features.

  Ravn lowered his head, unruly bangs the same straw-yellow as his father’s falling into his blue eyes. Though wiry, he had also inherited some of the musculature of his god ancestors. He had outgrown his father, in height and breadth, a year earlier. “Griff needs me.”

  “And?”

  Ravn met his father’s gaze, surprised by the need for clarification. “You let me comfort him the last time I bested you in spar. I thought that offer might still stand.”

  Colbey made a thoughtful noise that neither confirmed nor denied the assumption. “Go ahead.”

  Ravn drew in a deep breath and held it, knowing his father too well. “You mean ‘go ahead’ and try to best you?”

  “You may,” Colbey said, his tone implying the possibility of other actions. “I’d like that. Or, you can go comfort Griff.”

  Ravn blinked wordlessly, scarcely daring to believe he had heard his father correctly. “I can go?”

  “Yes.”

  The urge seized Ravn to charge for Midgard before Colbey changed his mind, but suspicion held him in place. “There are conditions, right?”

  “Of course.”

  Ravn nodded, indicating that his father should continue.

  Colbey shook his head, clearly baffled by Ravn’s need for clarification. “Nothing new. Don’t harm any humans or elves. Use subtlety. Try not to interfere more than necessary. Don’t tip the balance so we all topple irrevocably into oblivion.” He stated the last as matter-of-factly as the others, his facetiousness obvious. He added more seriously, “I thought you’d learned all of that. If I believed otherwise, I would never have agreed.”

  Ravn rushed to assure Colbey. “Of course I’ve learned all that. I guess I’m just stunned by the ease with which you agreed to let me do this after forbidding me before.”

  “You hadn’t learned before.” Colbey placed an arm on Ravn’s shoulders and led him across the field. Despite the obvious significance of the topic, the eyes of father and son swept the glory of Asgard’s aqua sky, snared joy in the blue-green beauty of the grasslands, and reveled in the emerald bounty of leaves on flawless trees. At the edge of a pond that had become as much a sanctuary to father and son as the Grove had once been for Griff, they sat. “Ravn, the balance is in grave danger.”

  Ravn nodded his understanding. The gods had twice met to discuss the situation, and many disapproved of Odin’s choice for Keeper of the Balance.

  “I may not save it.”

  Ravn’s trust in his father was unwavering. “If you don’t, we will all die secure it could not be saved by anyone.”

  Ravn believed he saw a smile crease Colbey’s face before he turned his head to hide it. “Most do not share your faith.”

  A shrug demonstrated Ravn’s contempt for those Colbey indicated.

  Colbey paused, displaying more patience than most gods believed him capable of, presumably to regain his composure. When he looked upon his son again, the smile had fully disappeared. “If I do, there will come a time when I hand the charge of balance to you. If you take some responsibility in handling this matter now, you’ll have the experience to do so on your own.”

  Ravn met his father’s hard gaze, trying to find some logic to a dictum that made no sense. Finally, he laughed, an action that deepened Colbey’s sobriety to a frown.
“You’re thinking like a human again. You’re immortal, remember? You don’t have to pass on anything you don’t want to.”

  “Maybe,” Colbey said carefully, “I want to.”

  Icy terror prickled through Ravn, and he felt as if someone had hurled him into Northern waters. “Are you talking about suicide?”

  Colbey shook his head, then finally allowed a smile. “No more than usual. If you believe the people of my day, I was—”

  “The Deathseeker,” Ravn interrupted.

  Colbey stiffened, and Ravn took pleasure in the motion. Rarely did he have the opportunity to startle his stoic father.

  “Captain, the elf, got me started. I’ve done a lot of research since then.” Ravn tried to embarrass Colbey. “You never told me you were a hero. Sixteen years, and I have to find out from strangers.”

  “A hero, huh?” Colbey laughed. “Three hundred twenty-odd years is a long time to rewrite history. Hero.” He laughed again. “Maybe to Renshai. Even most of the gods and prophecies called me the Golden Prince of Demons. Not exactly a term of endearment.”

  That name Ravn had not heard. “Why Golden Prince of Demons?”

  Colbey rolled his eyes to regard the sky as he remembered facts long buried. “Renshai were pretty universally hated in those days, especially in the West. Some towns and villages put people to death merely for saying the word. So most Westerners called us ‘the golden-haired devils from the North.’ Though never an official leader, I was probably the best known Renshai, so I became the Golden Prince of Demons.”

  “Shouldn’t it have been the Golden Prince of Devils?”

  Colbey shrugged. “I didn’t make it up. I didn’t care much for it. And, by the way, I didn’t answer to it.” He paused a moment as another recollection came to mind. “In fact, if I remember correctly, the name originally came from a prophecy written by a Western Wizard millennia before my birth.” He tapped his fingers on Ravn’s shoulder, thinking. “In an Age of Change/When chaos shatters Odin’s ward/A Renshai shall come forth . . .” He paused, the rest eluding him for several moments. “. . . Hero of the Great War/He will hold legend and destiny in his hands/And wield them like a sword./Too late shall he become known to you:/The Golden Prince of Demons.” Colbey removed his arm and turned to face Ravn. “That’s close.”

  “Hero of the Great War,” Ravn repeated.

  “Well, all right.” Colbey shrugged, never one for false modesty. “If you took a vote at that time, more people would have called me a lunatic than a hero. I’m not fond of the prophecy either. Both gods and Wizards used it as a reason to try to destroy me.”

  “Why?”

  “They said it heralded the Ragnarok, and I’d have a hand in it.”

  Ravn recognized the irony. “It did. And you did.”

  “True,” Colbey conceded but did not surrender the point. “But I was the one trying to keep balance. I didn’t cause the Ragnarok, I only changed the course of it. For the better in my opinion.”

  “Everyone’s opinion.”

  “Not everyone’s. Remember the meeting?”

  Ravn did. Many of the gods appreciated Colbey rescuing Frey and, subsequently, mankind from annihilation; but a large group believed he should have assisted Odin at the Ragnarok, as the AllFather had planned.

  “All of which,” continued Colbey, “has absolutely nothing to do with my point. I expect you to take over for me because, eventually, I’m going to get too far removed from my mortality to influence affairs on Midgard without disrupting the balance myself.”

  Finally the pieces fell together. “And you want me to take your place then.”

  “Right.”

  Ravn weighed his need to assist Griff against making a point that might influence eternity. Dutifully, he chose the latter. “Father?”

  “Yes, Ravn?”

  “I was born less mortal than you’ll ever become.”

  Colbey’s brow crinkled. “What do you mean?”

  Ravn stared, certain his father made mockery of a concept so obvious it did not require speaking. “I mean I’m the son of a goddess and a half god, born and raised on Asgard. Everything in my life has been perfect, the best. My mother is the female ideal; my father’s very name means skill. The trees, the air, the water.” He made a broad sweep to indicate the entirety of his world. “You can and have taught me to appreciate it, but that doesn’t mean I can imagine living with less.”

  Colbey stared. “You’re sixteen. I’m damn near four hundred.”

  Ravn made a snorting noise of dismissal. “I’ve started taking Idunn’s youth apples. In four hundred years, I’ll be about.” He calculated swiftly. “Maybe sixteen and a half!”

  “Your point?” Colbey pressed.

  Ravn rose. “Four hundred years is nothing for a god. Father, you still think like a mortal. You’re thinking like one now. But I’ve never been mortal.” Recollection crowded in of the one serious conversation he had carried on with a mortal. “I did spend some time talking to Rantire. A Renshai.”

  “What did you think?”

  “Her philosophies?”

  Colbey nodded.

  “Nonsense. Totally insane. Like you, most of the time.”

  Colbey managed another smile, though it seemed strained. “Now you’re talking like an adolescent.”

  “I am an adolescent,” Ravn reminded him.

  Colbey loosed a noise that sounded like a muted chuckle. A moment later he started laughing in earnest.

  Ravn could not help joining his father’s mirth, though he had no idea of its source. He regained composure first and waited for Colbey to do the same. At length, he asked, “What was that all about?”

  “You think I’m insane now? Just wait until I’ve survived three thousand years with a son in his teens.”

  The humor was lost on Ravn. “See, that’s what I mean. A mortal joke. I don’t get it.”

  “Neither would Freya,” Colbey said, but that did not keep him from another round of uproarious laughter.

  Eager to comfort Griff, Ravn found the lapse irritating. “Fine. You’ve had your fun with me. Twice now.” His hand slid naturally to his gut, where the pain had turned to a nausea immediately behind his navel. Remembered agony made him cringe, and he accused, “You could have pulled that blow.”

  Colbey did not deny the allegation. “Then you wouldn’t have learned the lesson.”

  “Which lesson is that?” Everything of value Ravn had learned, he had learned from his father. Full understanding and grudging appreciation usually came months after the event, if ever. “Castration? Not to interrupt a Renshai’s practice.”

  “I hope that’s not the lesson I taught.” Colbey surely referred to the second possibility. “For a rousing battle, you may interrupt my svergelse any time. The lesson is: It is an honor to die delivering a killing blow, but don’t drop your guard just because you believe you did.”

  Ravn conceded Colbey’s point. He had believed his head strike fatal; in a different mood, his father would have given him the match as a win. Having been granted what he sought, he kept that thought to himself, along with the realization that he had not intentionally opened himself to counterattack. “I believe you could have made that same point more delicately.”

  “True.” Colbey acquiesced again. “But would you remember it as long?”

  Ravn had to admit he wouldn’t.

  * * *

  Ravn found Griff sprawled across his massive, decorative bed, his arms thrown wide and his snores saturating the king’s chamber. Despite the noise and his size, he looked innocent, like a sacrifice staked out for some monster’s repast. Ravn could not help smiling at the image. He took one meaty hand in his, and the fingers curled naturally around his own. He smoothed back coarse, black hair from youthful features a year older than his own. Fuzzy stubble coated Griff’s chin and cheeks as he worked at growing the standard, Béarnian beard.

  Something disembodied brushed Ravn’s mind, and he stiffened. The strangeness of the touch se
nt chills jangling through him. “Father?” he tried, hoping Colbey had not contacted him to keep him from awakening Griff. If his father expected him to learn the ways of mortals, he would need to do more than observe one sleeping. The sensation continued, as if a distant or weak presence attempted to judge him beyond the range of its ability. Ravn concentrated on it, unwilling to dismiss it as harmless so long as it remained in his mind.

  Eventually, the presence faded into oblivion. Ravn waited a few more moments to assure himself of its disappearance. Then, with no more idea of its source, he returned his attention to Béarn’s soon to be crowned king.

  Whatever had touched Ravn had not disturbed Griff. He remained asleep, raucous breaths stirring the covers and rattling the windows.

  “Griff,” Ravn hissed, immediately feeling stupid. If those snores did not awaken his friend, a whisper would accomplish nothing. “Griff,” he said louder, directly into the Béarnide’s ear. He shook the huge hand in his grasp.

  The snores broke into a series of snorts. Griff curled onto his side but did not awaken.

  Oh, for . . . Ravn threw up his hands in surrender, then committed himself fully to the job. “Griff!” He shook the king violently. “Griff, wake up.”

  Griff stretched, sucking in a deep lungful of air. As he settled into a new position, Ravn growled in frustration. Only then, he found deep brown eyes regarding him from a web of red vessels. “Ravn?” A smile split Griff’s face, and he launched himself suddenly at the young deity. “Ravn! You’re here.”

  Scooped into mammoth arms, Ravn allowed himself to get squashed for several moments, his cheeks scratched by Griff’s wild hair.

  “You’re here. You came.” Griff finally released Ravn enough to allow a peek at the gentle features.

  “Of course I came,” Ravn said. “You needed me.”

  “I needed you an hour ago.” The heir’s expression melted from excitement to a curiosity tinged ever so slightly with accusation. He withdrew from the embrace. “What took you so long?”

  Ravn laughed, aware Griff intended no malice. “I had to get permission from my father. I’m here, but it may have cost me my manhood.”