The demon scrambled backward, needing distance for its massive limbs to gain momentum. Kevral moved with it, driving ever toward the center. She cut under a graceful tentacle, corkscrewed through two others, and jabbed the blade deeply home.
A scream echoed across the Westlands, discordant to the level of pain. Kevral felt as if her eardrums had shattered, and the wail set every bone to aching. The demon thrashed, curling over onto itself like a dying snake. A frenzied tentacle slammed Kevral, bowling her backward. The demon’s savage death throes stamped bruises across her flesh. She rolled, scrambling as best as her weakened arm allowed. Then, something heavy thumped against her brow, and she knew nothing more.
CHAPTER 29
Chaos-Threatened
I’ve yet to meet a creature nastier than me.
—Colbey Calistinsson
A flat plain of blackness stretched in front of Kevral, and she stood in a world empty of sight or sound, other than her own breathing. Devoid of thought or memory, she stood in silent anticipation of an event she did not bother to characterize. When it happened, she would know.
A voice wafted to her then, quiet yet filled with godlike authority. “Mankind shall never again suffer the minions of chaos charged into the control of law.” The promise seemed to echo through Kevral’s thoughts, and relief flooded her. Pain trickled into her senses, though she did not bother to contemplate its source. The wounds were old.
Colbey appeared in front of her, his sinewy form defining competence. Though scarred, his face would always remain the criteria for male perfection in Kevral’s mind. The short golden locks lay in peaceful feathers above blue-gray eyes radiating less warmth than sapphire chips. Two long swords lay thrust through his sword belt. “A second Ragnarok is coming, Kevral. One with far fewer players yet so much more at stake. I will strive to keep the devastation from enveloping man’s world, as before; yet I do not know if I have that ability anymore. The more power I accept, the more certain the destruction.”
Kevral did not understand the words, but concept came more easily. She sensed a great war: Law versus Chaos. These would clash and, hopefully, obliterate one another, leaving the world fragile. Colbey hoped the human race, anchored by King Griff, could rebuild the proper balance. He fretted for his own role, whether the forces would match closely enough to assure mutual destruction, whether balance required small amounts of both, whether his assistance would truly help or hinder. So much lay at stake, more than her mortal mind could comprehend. So she tried to understand and discarded that which went beyond her ken.
Kevral listened in silence as Colbey continued. “If law overpowers me, if demons stalk mankind again, I will not leave you weaponless.” He unclipped one of his swords, still sheathed, from his belt, and it hovered in the air beside him. “In four hundred years, I never gave away a single weapon. And now two in the space of months.” A grim, sobering smile touched his lips. Satisfaction seemed to leach from him, too, yet it had an alien quality. It felt to Kevral as if Colbey’s remaining sword took satisfaction in becoming his only weapon. Normally, she would have passed the sensation off as ridiculous. Now, ensconced in a dream world somewhere between life and death, it seemed perfectly natural for a sword to radiate envy.
Kevral opened her eyes, and the world popped into strange focus. Human forms moved around her, their conversations rumbling indecipherably. Pain seized her suddenly, starting low and general, shifting to the side of her head and both shoulders, and crescendoing into a sharp agony. She stiffened, inciting several more, though lesser, aches. Her mind waded through a thick soup that made thought and action difficult. “What’s going on?” she asked, her tongue feeling enormous and her words sounding dampened.
“She’s awake,” someone said in a hollow voice.
A face appeared directly over Kevral’s, and she recognized Charra’s gentle features and soft, dark eyes. “Lady Kevral?”
An answer seemed unnecessary, but Kevral nodded. “Where am I?”
A middle-aged man replied before Charra could. Kevral caught a sideways glimpse of bearded features and a face with wide pores. “You’re in your bed. You’ll be fine. We’re healers.”
Kevral attempted to sit, but dizziness drove her back to the bed. Her hands slid naturally to her hips. The left did not obey. The right found no sword belt or hilt. The shock of rage and worry was too diluted to drive her. “My arm.”
Charra patted Kevral’s hand comfortingly as the man spoke. The conversations disappeared around them. “Can you move it?”
“No.” Watered down panic touched Kevral, barely.
“Shoulder’s badly swollen,” he explained. “Nothing seems broken. Likely, the use will return as the swelling subsides.”
Kevral latched onto the uncertainty, wishing her mind and emotions would function fully. “Likely?”
“Likely,” the healer repeated. “Time will tell.”
The terror remained, too weak to drive Kevral, yet punishing with its constancy. “I have to know now.”
The healer rolled his eyes. “Then pray. Only the gods know the future.”
A stifled twitter followed from the other side of the room. Kevral did not bother to see who voiced it. Better she never knew. “My head’s not working right either.”
“That’s the pain medication,” Charra said before the man could say anything sarcastic about the previous sanity of one who would leap into battle with a demon.
Kevral licked parched lips, despising the inability to concentrate. “No more. Please.”
The male healer snorted. “You’ll change your words when this wears off.”
“I doubt it.” Kevral attempted to emulate Colbey’s icy stare. She did not think the pain could worsen much, and she wanted her thoughts clear. “Where are my swords? Is the demon dead?”
“The creature is gone.” The male healer gestured to others Kevral could not see. The door opened, and she heard their footsteps filing into the hallway. “Your weapons.” He pointed to a heap on the chair that represented her sword belt and weapons, then to the desk where a lone sword lay in a battered but well-oiled sheath. Kevral studied it in the glaze of twilight that her partially open curtains admitted. Though nothing about it appeared special, its foreignness alone explained its origin. Colbey’s sword. The urge to leap out of bed and test the weapon became an obsession she could not currently satisfy. Tripling her current level of pain seemed well worth the opportunity to savor her gift from the greatest of all Renshai, the one after whom she had built her entire life.
“I’d like to be alone,” Kevral said.
The healer nodded, heading after his entourage. Charra hesitantly shuffled after him, then stopped, turning Kevral an imploring look.
Even through the fog, Kevral could tell the pregnant healer needed to talk. Doing so might pass some time until the painkiller wore off enough to allow her to fully appreciate Colbey’s sword. “Stay behind, Charra, if you would, please.”
A lopsided grin split the woman’s face, and she hurried back to Kevral’s bedside. The door clicked closed behind the healers.
Kevral shifted into a sitting position again, back braced against the headboard. Vertigo struck like a hammer blow, and she fought through it without following her own movements. Gradually, the whirling spots receded, and she met Charra’s glance.
Tears dripped from the doelike eyes, and Charra clutched her bulging abdomen. “They found out about the baby.”
For a moment, Kevral worried over her secret. Then logic intervened. Charra referred to her own. “What happened?”
“Ridicule.” The tears quickened. “They made me feel worthless. Stupid. Maybe I am.”
“You’re neither,” Kevral assured.
Charra would not accept the support. She heaved a deep sigh, the tears slackening slightly. “I shouldn’t have done what I did, my lady.”
“You did it for love.”
“Can’t you see, Lady Kevral, it doesn’t matter?” Charra sat on the edge of Kevral’s
bed. “If I was a moral person, I wouldn’t have done it anyway. And if he really loved me, he would have married me first. I shouldn’t have let this happen.” She rubbed her abdomen. “I am wanton and sinful.”
“Stop saying that,” Kevral insisted, fighting the fog that made finding the right words an impossible chore. The differences from her own situation seemed obvious: Ra-khir had requested her hand, and she believed Tae would also if he thought she would accept. Yet shame still welled within her. The fact remained that she had slept with a man before marriage. She had slept with two different men, and she had done so four times. She could justify the first as desperation in the face of death, but the others could not be rationalized so innocently. A new thought struck her, raising an icy wave of guilt. I talked Ra-khir into abandoning his honor. If I come home with his baby, will he lose his knighthood? The idea struck as hard as any blow of the demon. Becoming a Knight of Erythane had meant as much to him as her Renshai coming of age did to her.
“I lost my position as healer, my lady.” Charra spoke so softly, Kevral had to strain to hear. “And my welcome in Pudar’s castle.”
“What?” Kevral tried not to move too swiftly, wishing Charra had sat nearer her right hand. The need to comfort made her all too aware of the arm that did not function and might never again. “They can’t do that.”
Kevral’s obviously false statement did not elicit a response.
“Let me talk to them. The king owes me a meeting at least. I believe he’ll let you stay on if I intervene.”
“No.” Charra lowered her head almost to her lap. “Please don’t do that, Lady Kevral. Please. I want to go.”
“You do?”
“I can’t stand the accusations of those I once trusted. I don’t know them anymore, and it hurts too much to remember how they once were. How I once was.” Charra covered her face. “I don’t know how to explain it, my lady. I can bear, even dismiss, the taunts of strangers. But that look in Tanna’s eyes–I’ve lost his respect, and I’ll never truly have it again. It just hurts too much.” She shook her head. “Lady, when your condition becomes apparent, they’ll know why you helped me. And you’ll pay for the kindness.”
Kevral smiled. “I can handle them. No one will say anything disparaging to me. Not if he expects to ever speak again.”
Charra sighed again, raising her face to reveal smeared tears. “Lady Kevral, I don’t know how to make you understand. I know you believe violence can handle anything, but killing the speaker isn’t going to make the truth hurt less.”
How do you know? Kevral kept the thought to herself. She would not add to Charra’s burden. “Where will you go?”
Charra shook her head wordlessly.
Taking that response as hopeless uncertainty, Kevral volunteered, “Family?”
“Like this, my lady?” Charra winced. “No. No family.”
Kevral did not request elaboration. Whether Charra had no one at all or simply no one who would take her in under the circumstances did not matter. “I can give you some money. Not a lot, but enough to rent a room in the visitors’ quarter.”
Charra peeked at Kevral through the fingers in front of her face. “Lady Kevral, your kindness is appreciated, though I can’t accept it. I would feel better . . . well . . . finding my own way.”
Kevral tried to interpret the words as the veil gradually lifted from her thoughts. It seemed as if Charra wished to undergo the hardships thrust upon her, and Kevral guessed it had to do with shame. Either Charra believed she deserved the punishments heaped upon her, or pride would not allow her to accept Kevral’s charity.
Charra explained. “Lady, I made a mistake. If I don’t suffer for it, I might repeat it. Or worse ones.”
Kevral did not believe that to be the case, but she did not have the strength, or the words, to argue. “So you’ll live on the streets?”
“Until I find a job.”
Tae had detailed some of the trials of street orphans, and Kevral doubted Charra truly realized to what she had committed herself and, eventually, her child. She sought a compromise. “How about if I treat you to dinners? That way, I still get to see you, and I know you and the baby are getting one good meal a day.” And I’ll know if anyone bothered you so I can keep it from happening again. Kevral kept the thought to herself, certain Charra would not appreciate it. “You’ll have news of the castle and also know how to contact me if you change your mind.”
Charra hesitated.
“It’s not just you I’m worried about. The baby is innocent.”
“I’d like that, Lady Kevral.” Charra managed a smile. “The dinners, I mean.”
“Meet me after practices.”
Charra nodded. She wiped away the tears and turned, one leg tucked under her, to face Kevral directly. “My lady, there’s an innocent inside you, too. You should be more careful.”
Kevral did not see the pregnancy as an issue here. “Had I not fought that demon, many innocents would have died.” She pointed at her belly. “Including this one.”
“I just think you should slow down a bit.”
Kevral dismissed the possibility. “Renshai women have been fighting wars and having babies for centuries.”
Charra made a throwaway gesture. She might disagree, but she would not argue the point. “My lady, if you had not called out for me where you lay in the dirt, I would already have been driven from the castle. They tolerated me helping you because you asked for me. And, Lady Kevral, because I was there, I could direct which herbs they used. If you’re injured again, who will choose the ones that won’t harm your baby?” Suddenly, she laughed, the sound strained and unnatural after so many tears. “Not that that will be a problem much longer. Soon, my lady, everyone will know.” She clasped her arms in front of her to indicate a grossly swollen womb.
Kevral gave no reply. She had much thinking to do once the effects of the drug dissipated.
“Please, Lady Kevral. If not for yourself, think of your baby. Find a man, any man, and marry him before that child’s birth. If you don’t, it won’t matter how wise or powerful he or she becomes, people will see him always as ‘that bastard child.’ Even among royalty, this is so. In Béarn, illegitimate children of the king do not exist for ascension purposes. In Pudar, they do, but the result has always been disastrous. The kindest king cannot get past the circumstances of his birth.”
Too tired to argue, Kevral only listened. She could feel doubts hovering, clamoring for an attention she could not afford them now. Regaining the use of the arm, Colbey’s sword, and her job took precedence. Worries about the baby and its future would have to wait a few days longer.
* * *
Colbey wandered the worlds of chaos freely, creating scenery with deft flickers of thought that now required only the barest concentration. The random swirls of light and color had always seemed boundless, yet Colbey knew otherwise. If other worlds existed, this one had to end. Choosing a level at random, he walked onward, seeking edges he could not find. For hours that passed like days, he sought walls that seemed not to exist in scenery that changed as swiftly as he focused on it. Sanity no longer required order, and the ceaseless tide of chaos soup did not hinder his search. But the lack of finality did.
Colbey stopped, needing a practice. More from habit than need, he dedicated his sword work to his goddess, Sif, strengthening mind as well as body. The Staff of Chaos sang around him, slicing curled chips from the jumbled nothingness that replaced substance on chaos’ world. He remained whole because he pictured himself that way. The staff held sword shape because his thoughts maintained it. Demons could not exist without a seed of law to hold them into a form, no matter how malleable. The answer came a moment later. The framework of the world existed wherever he placed it. Without the assistance of law, it held no solidarity.
Colbey threw himself into a frenzied session of slash, parry, and cut, wholly devoid of pattern. Law had selected a magical champion and so much of its power came of constraining chaos. Now, Colbey r
ealized, he needed to become the opposite. He had to learn to use his physical presence as a weapon for chaos. A touch of law inflicted on chaos. The idea pleased and worried him at once. If law could use chaos for its magic, the reverse should also prove true.
Colbey ended his practice, scarcely winded, the air ceaselessly changing density and temperature. Once, that strangeness had made his lungs ache. Now it seemed natural and normal. He lowered his head, squaring off lines in his mind’s eye. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, gradually, chaos conformed, like water, to the shape of his container.
At first, Colbey noticed only that he had finally discovered/crafted the periphery. He studied the new walls, finding the gaps that allowed chaos to leak inexorably onto man’s world, the same through which those of law could summon demons. Colbey set his sights on these, weaving tight patches over the openings with a focus he had never dedicated to anything but his swords. Honed as a needle, his thoughts punched through the dense fabric he had created to repair holes not of his making.
The Staff of Chaos tapped at Colbey’s barriers. The intensity of his concentration did not allow him to notice until he mended forty of the sixty-three flaws. By then, the staff was flinging itself against his mind with a force that made his shields quiver and threaten to shatter. Pain hammered and howled through his skull, but he showed no physical sign of the torment. He would not give the staff the satisfaction, nor reason to attempt something more violent. Reluctantly, he shoved aside his project and opened a pinhole into his psyche.
The Staff of Chaos arrowed through the hole, its sudden presence filling Colbey’s head like a shout: *WHAT IN COLDEST HEL ARE YOU DOING?*
*Isn’t it obvious?* Colbey returned with a calmness that made the Staff of Chaos seem like a frantic civilian caught in war.
*You’re sealing in chaos.* Its manner changed from accusatory to nasty. *Trying to. It won’t work. Even Odin couldn’t wholly contain chaos.*
Colbey tossed the mental equivalent of a shrug. *I’m not trying to contain chaos. I’m protecting demons from summoning.*
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