by Robert Ryan
Beyond the ever-present but rarely seen extremes of Light and Shadow was the place that men must live. And what might be a dark deed to one was an act of heroism to another.
He did not know what to do, but after a moment he straightened.
A bitter brew you have mixed for me,” he said to the witch. “But I came to the table when I agreed to this quest, and now I must drink my fill, for good or for ill.”
She looked at him with hard eyes, and he thought that he detected a mixture of frustration and surprise in them. There was, perhaps, even admiration.
“Truly, you have a devil inside you. There’s just no give. Do you know what you could achieve if only you set yourself free of constraints?”
Brand shrugged. He was happy to talk. It gave time to Kareste.
“There’s no devil inside me. I’m just a simple man trying to do the right things for the people I love.”
“Love will get you killed.”
“And so might hate. Or greed. Or ambition. Or, for that matter, cowardice. And anyway, perhaps it’s better to die trying to do right, than to live knowing you’ve done wrong. What do you think?”
The witch let out a long breath and gave a slight shrug of her bony shoulders.
“I think that you are not a simple man at all. But it does not matter what I think, anymore. Events have come to a head. I will have the staff now, even if I must kill you, for others come for it, and I will have it. It is easier to take it from her now than to wait and try to take it from them later.”
Brand shifted slightly so that he stood between Kareste and the witch.
“For all your words, you still do not attack. I think you would prefer the beasts to do your work for you. But they make no move. They sense Kareste’s enchantment building, sense that she will set them free. Or can you not feel that?”
The witch turned slightly and her gaze darted to the beasts.
Brand had no idea if what he had said was true, but it sent a shiver of doubt through her, and it gave him the opportunity he was looking for.
Surprise was his friend, and he needed all the help he could get, for once Durletha turned on him, which she was about to do, he would be outmatched.
He had held the sword before him, but it was with Aranloth’s staff that he attacked. He did not doubt that he had to use it, to draw on the power that was in him, for without his protection Kareste would die and the Halathrin would be trapped forever. He would deal with the consequences later.
Bright flame, blue-white, shot from the tip of the staff. It enveloped the witch, knocked her down and sent the beasts scattering to get away from her.
A moment she rolled on the ground, and then she was up, her eyes blazing. Her hand darted forward, fingers spread. Green flame dripped from them, and then it shot in a shimmering spray at Kareste.
Brand knew the attack was directed at her, even though he stood in the way, he felt it in the driving force of the flame; it struck him, but it mostly sought to get passed him.
He felt the heat of the attack, and the grass at his feet withered and blackened. Yet a blue-white nimbus had sprung up about his body, summoned by some reflex of his mind to protect him, and it expanded and shrank, stifling the green flame.
But the witch was not done. She raised her other hand and sent a second stream of fire at him.
Brand felt the force of it envelop him. The nimbus flickered, and he sank to his knees as though burdened with a weight beyond his strength to carry.
The green flames darkened, turning near black. He felt ever greater heat from them, and the blackened grass at his feet disappeared in smoke while the very earth itself began to seethe and bubble.
Brand thought of Cardoroth. He thought of Gilhain and Aranloth, of Shorty and Taingern. He thought of Arell.
He lifted his head. His eyes blazed. There was a free and reckless surge in his spirit. It was something that he had felt a few times before: the darker the hour, the greater the light within him shone. So it felt now. He staggered to his feet, and then he took a pace toward Durletha. And then another one. He found that with each step his strength seemed to grow.
Durletha looked at him, her eyes wide. The green flame sputtered and died.
“There is a devil in you,” she said.
Brand took another pace forward, his staff held high in one hand, his sword in the other.
Durletha shook her head. “You make it hard for me to kill you, but courage is no match for skill. Of the first you have an abundance, of the latter—”
She did not finish that sentence. Instead, she made a quick gesture with her left hand. The fog that was all about them shuddered, and then like an arrow shot from a bow, it darted at Brand. As a wall it struck him, but it was no longer insubstantial.
The fog roiled and bubbled about him. It was become heavy as water, though it did not fall to the ground. Instead, it pressed in on him, forcing its way into his mouth and ears and eyes. He clenched his jaw and squeezed his eyes shut, but the water still drove into his nose.
He coughed and spluttered, lifting his arms to try to protect his face. He staggered toward Durletha, but she stepped nimbly away from him.
He could not breathe. Soon, he would choke and pass out. And then he was likely to drown, for already he felt the first specks of water in his lungs. That made him cough, but the moment he opened his mouth to do so, water forced its way in there, too.
He did what he did not wish to do: turn his back on Durletha. It left him even more vulnerable, and it did not stop the water as he thought it might. It followed him wherever he went, like someone with a pillow relentlessly trying to smother him.
He opened his eyes. The water rushed at them, yet through the rush he could still see a little of what was going on.
Kareste had not moved. She stood as she had done, but dark forces swirled around her. It was something that he sensed more than saw, and whatever she was doing occupied her completely. She could not help him, even if she wanted too. More, he sensed those dark forces reaching out to the beasts. She was binding them to her, joining with them, or the otherworldly power within them, and his heart sank.
Durletha may have been right in what she claimed before. Or not. Brand had no time to think, to get a true feel for what Kareste was doing. There was little time left for him, and he must soon discover a way out of the witch’s trap, or die. Instinct had saved him the first time, but now, if he was to save himself again, he must draw on some knowledge or skill.
He fell to his knees. Not because he was quite incapacitated yet, but because it would assure Durletha that her attack was working. That might encourage her to just keep on going as she was. He did not need a knife in the back as well.
Out of the corner of his eye he saw some of the beasts. They howled, heads lifted up, snouts pointing to the sky, but he could hear nothing except the rush of water in his ears.
At least they were not attacking. Even if Kareste was binding them to her, it was helping him just at the moment. For if they attacked him now there was nothing he could do about it.
Blue-white fire still sputtered on Aranloth’s staff. And where the rushing water touched it wisps of steam rose into the air. He stared at it, and then, dimly, an idea came to him.
He coughed and spluttered, feeling water reach his lungs, and with it a cold rush of heart-pounding panic. Yet he drew his will together and concentrated. It was harder than it had been before, much harder, for it was not instinctive. Yet the blue-white nimbus sprang to life about him once more.
This time he did not use it as a shield. Nor did he attack with it. Instead, he joined his thought with the water that surrounded him, and the lòhrengai he had summoned followed wherever his thought went.
Nothing happened. But he was not done. Having joined his lòhrengai with the witchery, he began to will the blue-white nimbus to grow hot. And hot it grew.
Steam sizzled through the air. Immediately he felt a lessening of the pressure of the water. He opened his eyes, stood, a
nd faced Durletha.
He could not see her properly for all the steam and fog and light that surrounded him. But he saw enough to bring confidence to him. Her face showed surprise. She had thought him beaten, and he was not beaten. He stood taller.
The last of the water evaporated into the air. Still, he coughed, and each breath he drew felt as fire. Yet he looked at her with determination in his eyes, and he sensed her chagrin.
“Well,” she said. “Aren’t you just full of surprises? But I have the skill to play this game all day. Do you?”
He grinned at her. “Perhaps you do. But I know now that mine is the greater strength. Leave now, while you can. Give up the staff – it is not for you. It is a thing of the past, and it has no place in the world of today. Its evil will be destroyed.”
“No,” she said. “I’ll have it. Though I don’t see why you would try to stop me. What difference does it make to you if she has it,” the witch pointed to Kareste, “or me? In either case, it will never be destroyed.”
“But it will,” he said. “The difference is this – I trust her. She will destroy it. And you never would.”
“Fool!” Durletha hissed. “No one can wield such sorcerous power as she now does and not succumb to it. The staff will own her, if it does not already. Had you ever met its maker, had you ever met Shurilgar, you would know how great he was, and how strong his will. And his will lingers in the staff.”
Brand winked at her. It was a gesture so out of place that it surprised her. And his following words threw her off balance even more.
“You know much, and you guess more. But you do not know all. When first I came to Cardoroth I met Shurilgar, or the spirit of him that haunted the dark woods of Lake Alithorin after his death. He turned his will upon me, and I survived. I defeated him, and set him wailing away in the dark. I do not fear him, and I fear you less. And as for Kareste—”
He ceased speaking and struck. All the while that he had been talking he had heard the crows caw and flap in the willows by the tarn. He took that sound and drew it together with his will, sending it as a spear at her.
Durletha flung up a haggard old arm, the rags she wore billowing with the sudden movement. But she moved with speed and confidence that bellied her looks. The driven sound struck her, sending he reeling back, but a shield of green flickered to life around her arm, and then she steadied herself and smiled at him. Her grin was gap-toothed. Her hooked nose twitched, and then she flung his own attack back at him.
But he was ready. With a wave of his sword, now flickering blue-white with lòhrengai, he knocked it to the side. The blade rang with a strange sound, and then he advanced.
Both sword and staff flickered with lòhrengai. She retreated. The beasts howled behind her. They trembled and shook and bit at their own tails. Whatever magic Kareste was working on them was having an effect, and he saw a glint of desperation in Durletha’s eyes. She stopped her backward pacing.
Brand felt her thoughts reach out, out to somewhere behind him. He sensed the darkness of the deep tarn. Or did he sense her sensing the darkness of the tarn? Lòhrengai was a tangled web, but he had no chance to untangle it now.
Shadows flocked about him with a thousand wings. He perceived that her mind had taken the willow leaves and the black water and transformed them into this attack, this thing that pummeled and struck at him like a host of hawks, their wing-beats fierce slaps of shadow that shattered light into fragments and sent them spinning away until there was nothing but dark.
It was darker than the deepest cave. It was blacker than a moonless midwinter night. It was more shadowy than the dim flicker of long lost memories, and as memories could be lost, so too he began to lose a sense of where he was and what he was doing.
The will of the witch was on him – strong, soothing, blotting out all of the world except her own smothering thoughts. And she thought of death, and the long dark peace of the tomb.
As though from afar Brand heard the howl of a wolf. It brought back a fleeting image of Kareste, alone and imbued with eldritch power. Was she bending the beasts to her will, her first step in becoming a force of darkness on the earth? Or was she reaching out to them, becoming one with them so that she might break the sorcery that bound them?
Why should he care? The thought was overpowering. It was so much easier to drift back down into darkness. But he did care.
And because he cared, he fought. He struggled up as though he were at the bottom of the dark tarn itself, launching himself toward the surface. But he could not get there. That, he knew instinctively. No matter how hard he tried, he would never reach freedom. But if not that way, then how?
His mind drifted, and he saw many things. He saw the face of the usurper who now ruled the Duthenor, saw his father and mother holding hands, saw them dead, saw the moonlit night where he swore vengeance and struck fear through the usurper.
He saw his coming to Cardoroth, and Shorty and Taingern. And he saw Arell: quick-witted, skilled, quiet, brimming with compassion that she kept hidden. He saw Gilhain and Aurellin. He had learned from them all.
And he saw Aranloth. Older than the others, burdened by years beyond count and responsibilities so heavy that few men would have the will to bear them, and to endure their bearing, down through uncounted centuries. And he saw him atop the Cardurleth, sending his spirit into the elùgroth tent, worried that perhaps the task he had set himself would kill him and his soul be lost. He heard his words in the hollow dark that pressed about him. Use your sword and prick my flesh, even to the point of drawing blood. That strengthens the tie between spirit and body, and should pull me back.
Brand now knew what to do. Even as he thought of it he felt the hilt of the sword in his hand. It felt like a tongue of flame, and when he brought it to bear against his leg it whipped him with fire.
His eyes sprang open. The dark was gone. The world rushed upon him, brilliant and full of light and sound and life.
He stepped toward the witch. The sword in his hand burned, for he could fill it with lòhrengai just as easily as the staff.
Durletha looked at him. Surprise and fear was on her face. She began to shimmer, her arms lifting up, and he knew she was changing form.
Brand ran her through. The sword passed into her flesh as though nothing was there. The blade flared. Fire surged. Her arms dropped, and her body grew limp. It was heavy now, and it seemed to fall from the blade. She collapsed to the ground. Once she blinked, her hand reaching out to him. And then she who had endured as long, or perhaps even longer than Aranloth, died.
The Halathrin-that-were-wolves howled. The crows in the willows beat their wings in madness.
Brand reached down and with his palm closed Durletha’s eyes. He had not wanted to kill her. But he killed her because he had to. Not just to save himself, or for Kareste, or for Cardoroth. But for all Alithoras.
He sensed now why he had the power that he did. He sensed that it came, as all power ultimately did, from the land, from whence he was born and to where he would one day return. He perceived his responsibilities and purpose, and did not know whether to shrink from them or embrace them. The second he was fearful to do, for it would change his life beyond the grasp of his imagination.
At least, he could not embrace it yet.
He turned to Kareste. The spell she wrought was at its peak. Shurilgar’s broken staff was like a rent in reality. It was a thing of power, not truly belonging to this world, and it bridged the gap between this world and others. Nor did it belong to this time. It reached back into the distant past, sustaining itself on enchantments that were made long ago, and yet had not died with their maker. Shurilgar was gone, but his will lived on.
Force roiled through Kareste. Her ash-blond hair trailed in the wind, though no air moved. She shivered. And then she groaned. He could see that she was in agony. Or perhaps it was ecstasy. He could not be sure what she felt.
Suddenly, she stiffened. A wordless cry burst from her lips. She lowered the staff, and the pow
er from it flickered and subsided.
The beasts howled again, and when he turned to look at them he saw that they were beasts no more. A score of Halathrin stood around him. There was anguish on their faces such as he had never seen.
There was a cry behind him, and he turned again. Kareste had fallen to her knees. Her head shook from side to side and she convulsed, her eyes rolling in her head, and then went still.
He ran to her. He turned his back to the Halathrin and ran. Kareste needed him, if it was not already too late. She needed him, and he would be there for her. Though what she would do if she recovered, he did not know.
Still less did he know what he would do if she died.
Thus ends Defiant Swords. The Durlindrath trilogy continues in Victorious Swords, where Brand learns more of the threat to Alithoras and faces his greatest challenge yet.
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Encyclopedic Glossary
Note: the glossary of each book in this series is individualized for that book alone. Additionally, there is often historical material provided in its entries for people, artifacts and events that are not included in the main text.
Many races dwell in Alithoras. All have their own language, and though sometimes related to one another, the changes sparked by migration, isolation and various influences often render these tongues unintelligible to each other.
The ascendancy of Halathrin culture, combined with their widespread efforts to secure and maintain allies against elug incursions, has made their language the primary means of communication between diverse peoples.
For instance, a soldier of Cardoroth addressing a ship’s captain from Camarelon would speak Halathrin, or a simplified version of it, even though their native speeches stem from the same ancestral language.