Larson met Taziar's gaze but did not attempt speech.
"You have many more enemies than you know. You have to trust someone. Despite his unusual ethics, Gaelinar has your best interests in mind." Taziar's face held a solemnity which suggested a deeper awareness.
But Larson felt too ill to question further. The fiery anger which had driven him for the last several hours had died, and he felt as spent as a used match.
Taziar would not let his point rest. He rose and helped Larson to shaky legs. Still clutching the elf's arms, Taziar met his gaze. "My full name is Taziar Medakan. I'm from a city across the Kattegat Sea called Cullinsberg. Under the alias 'Shadow Climber,' I have a price on my head which could make you rich for the rest of your life. I tell you this because I trust you not to turn me in. And I need you to trust me." Taziar's eyes probed Larson's with sincere urgency. "I can't explain why, but your life depends on trusting Gaelinar and me and no one else.''
Larson pulled free of Taziar's grip. He tried to reassure. "Of course I trust you, you little idiot. You just saved my life. What choice do I have?"
Taziar smiled, but he still looked tense.
Larson continued. "I don't believe leaving you and Gaelinar was my own decision. I think Bramin influenced me with magic. Thanks for your help. We'd better get back to Gaelinar before Bramin returns." Larson started slowly toward town. "I don't feel much like killing Hel anymore."
Taziar walked at Larson's side. "If Bramin's loose, so is Silme. You say she can find us. We may as well continue Vidarr's quest and let her come to us."
Fatigued by lack of sleep and his battle with Bramin, Larson yawned. He patted his pocket, reassured by the faceted presence of Silme's rankstone. "Shadow, you've done enough to convince me to talk Silme into taking on Astryd as her apprentice. You have no interest in Geir-magnus' rod, and my enemies want nothing from you. Why are you still helping us?"
"Allerum," Taziar replied carefully, "trust me."
Bramin's laughter haunted Larson's weary trip back to the tavern and pierced his dreams as if from habit. A rumble as mournful as surf echoed through his mind. With fatalistic acceptance, Larson's unconscious acknowledged Bramin's domination of his nightmare. The intrusions had become too familiar to resist, and Larson had learned never to trust his dreams. Too tired to fight, he accepted the scenes Bramin wound through his mind with indifference.
Again, Larson faced Bramin. But this time, Bramin's assault was a wild blur of attack. His sword thrust and parried like a live thing. Larson defended with harried slashes. Repeatedly, steel rang against steel, and Bramin's superior size and skill drove Larson backward.
Suddenly, Larson's foot fell on empty air. He stumbled forward to avoid the new danger behind him, impaling himself on Bramin's sword. The blade sank deep. Pain tore through his chest, and blood ran like spilled wine. Jarred backward, he fell through leagues of blackness, his body tumbling and wind-slashed. Bramin's challenge chased him down the chasm. "Allerum, you are only the first. I have a debt to pay against mankind. They will suffer as I did, and the gods will die with them!"
The scene shattered to evening light. Still in directed dream, Larson watched a village on the eastern coast of Norway. Fishermen in patched homespun carried split cod on poles, their stocky boats angled on the shore. From out of the darkness beyond the town, Bramin rushed down upon the populace. His face was a mask of menace, his skin black as ink. He howled with the pure joy of slaughter as his sword slashed and rent through the crowd. The fishermen grabbed up axes and staves, but their weapons did nothing to slow the half man. Bramin moved with the speed and grace of a whirlwind, leaving piles of red corpses in his wake.
"Stop!" Larson charged Bramin, grimly aware of his own blood, brown and sticky, on his hands. The world upended. The village vanished in a roaring ball of fire. A wave of heat buffeted Larson, and he dove from the path of the inferno. Flames ate men and women, huts and single-sailed boats indiscriminately, then danced like red demons into the forest. Cries of anguish rose above the sour note of the wind. Bramin's savage laughter formed melody to the background of human despair.
Larson gathered his spirit to defend himself from Bramin's threat. He plucked a picture of reality from the exploited wreckage of his thoughts: a village tavern, faithful companions, and a hearth. Bramin's fire withered, trailing smoke. Blackened, uprooted stumps softened to brown, and the green needles of pine replaced skeletal branches. Then the image of the common room filled his mind's eye. Even as Larson basked in his success, Bramin lashed out against Larson's conjured image. Gaelinar's sleeping form turned corpse-pale; blood welled from the mangled ruin of his throat. Taziar's scalp lay flayed open to the bone, and splintered, white skull poked from beneath the wound.
No! Larson wrenched against Bramin's hold on his mind. The vision strengthened, wavered. Abruptly, another entity crashed into Larson's mind. Bramin's scene dissolved with unnatural suddenness. The half man loosed a startled cry followed by an angry hiss.
Larson clung to consciousness with the desperation of a wounded soldier on enemy ground. The effort flung him into the tangled tapestry of his own mind. The figures of Vidarr and Bramin circled, more vivid than his grasp on reality. Bramin lunged, slicing white-hot agony through Larson's mind. Vidarr dodged, inadvertently tripping a memory of the New York skyline. Larson's anger flared against the dark elf who filled his life and mind with terror and the god who had, again, violated his thoughts. Though dizzied by Bramin's and Vidarr's battle, Larson gathered resolve and struck back.
A wall took shape, a solid bastion of brick and mortar, neatly trapping Vidarr and Bramin in a corner of Larson's mind. Surprise broke the battle. The combatants stood in shocked silence, their contest forgotten in the face of this new menace. Larson channeled his spirit against them, clinging to the image of the wall. It was easier the second time, but he did not trust himself to explore the intruders' emotions or allow his thoughts to wander from his invented vision.
Although Vidarr was more familiar with Larson's trap, Bramin recovered his senses first. He smirked, his voice echoing in the confines created by the wall. "Very pretty, Allerum. Sturdy, too. Perhaps the king might hire you as mason."
Larson gritted his teeth, mentally following Bramin's pacing. The outer edges of wall crumbled. Quickly, he turned his attention back to the structure, allowing the dark elf to wander as he would.
Vidarr remained silent, but Larson suspected the aura of hatred which tainted his thoughts came as much from the god as from the half man.
Bramin seemed more amused than thwarted. "You made a fatal mistake, Futurespawn. You trapped me here with lots of playthings."
Larson resisted the urge to track Bramin's path. He knew he had enclosed coils of recollection with Vidarr and Bramin, and the realization chilled him.
"Hmmm." Bramin spoke with exaggerated attentive-ness. "Where shall I start. Which memory will make you suffer most?"
Larson ignored the threat. He kept hold of his creation, not daring to speak or consider anything else. He needed time to think, but the concentration his trap required would not spare him.
Vidarr's voice boomed in warning. "Touch at your own peril, Bramin, and earn the wrath of a god."
Larson felt someone lurch within the realm of his trap. The scent of rain-washed evergreens filled his nostrils, summer sun glinting from droplets perched between the needles. Fifteen years old, Larson pressed his back to the trunk, his rifle clutched to his chest. Wind ruffled the treetops, showering him with stored water. The memory of a deer hunt in New Hampshire threw Larson off-balance. The bricks of his mental wall toppled to dust, and Bramin sprang for the opening.
Larson hovered on the brink of sanity. He clawed for the remnants of his previous control, just as Vidarr dove for Bramin's retreating form. The collision scattered Larson's reason. Bramin and Vidarr skidded through his mind, crashed, and tangled with Larson's memories.
Larson walked through a steamy murk of underbrush in a jungle of palm, teak, and
rubber trees so dense he could not guess the time of day. Ahead, he could hear the hushed whispers of the point men. The six soldiers around him reeked of sweat and mud. Beside him, the staff sergeant, Buck Curto, seemed uncharacteristically nervous. It was Larson's second sniper hunt, Curto's twenty-fifth. Curto was a Texas farm boy, a muscled giant who had grown up branding cattle and had spent some time on the rodeo circuit. Larson knew Curto as a hero, afraid of nothing, seven times decorated in the first six months of his shift. This time, though, Curto had a premonition. "I don't know what," he confided to Larson, his drawl apparent even at a mumble. "Something ain't right."
Nothing felt right to Larson, not the suffocating sauna of brush, not his own quiet lack of response, not even the reality of his presence in Vietnam. The scene was a blur not wholly attributable to the crushing darkness of the jungle or the fuzz of rising heat. Pressed by a feeling of alienation and fear he dared not express, he shifted a half step closer to Curto.
Suddenly, a burst of gunfire from the trees ripped open one of the point men from neck to belly. Larson found himself sprawled on the dirt, not certain how he had gotten there. An answering round sounded from one of his buddies, then AK-47s opened up on them from both sides. "Cross fire," Curto yelled. "Run!" The soldier directly in front of Larson fell, the top of his head torn away. Another started to bolt, and bullets in his back dropped him to the brush.
Larson sprinted for heavy cover, M-16 raised for a parting shot. Curto followed, pausing just long enough to pull the pin from a grenade. His arm struck Larson's gun on the backsweep, knocking Larson's aim wild. The grenade bounced from the foliage. Before Curto could react, it shattered, taking his hand and most of his abdomen. Blood splashed Larson. A fragment of shrapnel ricocheted from his M-16, driving the gun into his stomach. Screams cut in over the gunshots. Larson caught a brief glimpse of flesh chewed to hamburger and a seeping puddle of blood before panic descended upon him and he raced into a deeper part of the jungle.
Larson ran until he stumbled, panting, to the ground. He sat for several moments, listening to the spattering of birdsong and the dull croak of lizards. The world seemed unreal, as if someone had replaced the trees with plastic imitations. He felt out of place and time, marked by a heavy sense of not belonging which went beyond parrying death in a foreign country. His fear seemed as watered down as his last beer. He pulled the M-16 into his lap. Grenade fragments had dented the mechanism. He pressed the button to remove the magazine, then pulled the bolt with two fingers. It resisted him, refusing to eject the round.
The gun was dead weight. Larson tossed it to the ground, fighting the swirling chaos of emotion which battered against his reason. This was no time to think, only to survive. He waited until his heart settled to its normal rate, then slipped back through the jungle, alone.
Larson chose his direction at random, moving always downhill, seeking an opening in the double-canopy where a helicopter pilot might spot him. As he walked, his identity strayed. The trees muted to the hickory, birch, and ferns of the New Hampshire autumns then gradually shifted to the mixed evergreens of a distant world and era. The ambush seemed both minutes and centuries past; dead friends and strangers mingled inseparably. His thoughts were not wholly his own.
Larson pressed through a knotted copse of brush. A lull in the buzz of flies and shrills of monkeys brought hissed words to his ears. A branch snapped with frightening clarity. He peeked through a hole in the undergrowth to see three Oriental men in loose-fitting clothing carrying battered, bolt action rifles. V.C. Larson felt his pulse quicken. Quietly, he fell back into the brush, prepared to slip away. Then, madness descended upon him.
The scene blasted to orange-red light than faded to darkness the moon could not graze. Nightmare visions rose to smother Larson's will. Before he could focus on his new surroundings, they shifted again to a tavern in an unknown city. Faces flashed through memory, too fast and blurred to identify. Recollections flurried like sparks from a campfire: people, places, things splashed across his consciousness in an endless array of color and movement. Dizzied and disoriented, Larson clung to the rough bark of a palm tree. A momentary lapse in the unseen battle in his mind allowed the reality of the Viet Cong to slip back into awareness. He saw the V.C. coming toward him through an echoing tunnel of darkness. Recognizing the need to have all his wits about him, he grasped the tree trunk so tightly its bark dug furrows into his palms. His thoughts stumbled through a fog of memory and emotion as he used the tree to ground his reason with desperate ferocity.
The sudden jolt of thought brought the jungle to vivid detail. Ripped from the battle in Larson's mind which had triggered his erratic jumps of memory, Vidarr and Bramin crouched with swords poised, inches apart. Faced by a new and inexplicable menace, they disengaged. Bramin stared at the broad-boned, muscular human form which had replaced the slight elf he knew as Allerum. Before the half man could react, the Viet Cong crashed through the brush and trained their guns on Vidarr's eight-foot figure.
For one freeze-framed moment, nothing happened. The Viet Cong seemed as shocked at coming upon a giant and an elf wielding broadswords as Vidarr and Bramin were at finding themselves hurled into a future war. More familiar with the situation, Larson responded first. "Run!" He lunged for Vidarr. His hands struck flesh immobile as rock. The force jarred Larson to the ground. Vidarr staggered a step forward as three rifles roared at point-blank range. A bullet tore through Vidarr's arm, one whined over Larson's head, and the third was lost in the undergrowth.
Bolt actions snapped as the Viet Cong prepared for another round. Pain seemed to enrage Vidarr. As the enemy finished reloading, he sprang. He caught one man by the throat. A flick of his wrist snapped the man's neck. The gun spun away into a circle of ferns and orchids, and Larson dove after it. He rolled to his feet, gun in hand, as Vidarr tossed the corpse into a companion. The soldier collapsed beneath the weight of his dead ally. Larson trained his rifle on the third.
The scene registered dimly in Larson's mind. He saw the remaining V.C, finger tensed on the trigger of a rifle aimed at Bramin's chest. Ignorant of its firepower, Bra-min was rushing the soldier with his sword. Larson acted without thinking. He shot first. A tiny hole appeared in the soldier's chest, and his answering bullet flew wild. He tottered, hand fumbling over the mechanism. Bramin hesitated. Larson slammed his own bolt home and fired again. The slug split the Viet Cong's nose, driving his head backward. He crumpled to the ground.
Mechanically, Larson chambered another round. Vidarr had killed the last of the V.C. There's only one enemy left. He turned the sights on Bramin. Immediately, a presence brushed the edge of Larson's mind. He fought against it, slapping a concrete wall across the remembered location of the entrance to his thoughts.
Bramin recoiled with a hiss. Seconds later, Vidarr's mental probe met the same barrier. The god exclaimed in surprise. "Allerum, what are you doing?"
Larson held the rifle in place, aware that every moment of delay would give Bramin a chance to weave his sorceries. "No one leaves until I get some answers." His own words sparked understanding. I need Bramin alive to tell me what happened to Silme. Reluctantly, he lowered the gun.
Bramin's confidence returned. He baited Larson. "Fine, Allerum. Leave me here. Your people have no mind defenses. I'll rule them as I please. I've read your thoughts and seen your family. The tortures I'll bring down upon them go beyond your imagination."
Larson forced himself to think. Of them all, he was the most eager to depart. But he knew he might never have the chance to trap Bramin and Vidarr again. "We have a magic called 'technology' which makes your sorceries look like a stage magician's tricks. You wouldn't survive a day here." From his memories of his original encounter with this sector of the jungle, Larson recalled a nearby V.C. encampment. The radio man from his own patrol had also escaped the ambush and, wandering in the same direction as Larson, had called a fire strike down upon the enemy. "In fact, none of us is going to survive the next few minutes if we don't move quick
ly. Those gunshots'll bring more V.C, and, this time, they'll bring automatic weapons instead of toys. Come on." Still clutching the rifle, he sprinted into the jungle.
Carefully, Bramin and Vidarr followed.
Larson chose his course with quiet deliberation. He wanted to put some distance between himself and the battle yet remain within sight of the napalm. There was no longer any reason to find a helicopter. The pilot would as likely shoot as save the monstrous trio, and Larson knew escape back to Norway lay only through his own mind. Unable to hold his mental barrier more than a few seconds at a time, he remained alert to Bramin's or Vi-darr's further attempts to enter a deeper layer of his thoughts.
At length, Larson stopped and dropped to a crouch, bracing the rifle against his knee. "Now, Bramin, talk."
Bramin kept a respectable distance between Vidarr, Larson, and himself. "I'll kill you."
"Go ahead," Larson challenged. "But brazen as you are, I believe you're wise enough to realize my death would trap you here forever."
Bramin shrugged, eyes blazing red hatred. "No matter. It's men I despise. I can take my vengeance against your people as easily as mine."
Larson sought words to convince the dark elf of the folly of his decision. Vidarr's hand kneaded the hilt of his sword, but Larson felt uncertain whether even a god could stand before Braffun's magic, or whether the sorcerer could stand against a gun. Before Larson could settle on a reply, he heard the distant roar of jets banking for an approach. A smile twitched across his features. "Suit yourself," he said softly.
The noise of the jets disappeared, then returned as a high-pitched whine. Bramin hesitated as the phantoms screamed overhead, visible only as paired red lights through the leaves. Five hundred yards away, a section of jungle burst into flame. Fire leaped toward the heavens, wound through with smoke and the gasoline reek of napalm. Even as the trailing rumble of the jets faded, a second round approached with the same earsplitting shrill of sound.
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