The Western Wizard

by Mickey Zucker Reichert

  “You do know him?” Ivhar shuffled forward to normal speaking distance.

  To Emerald, the Northman seemed far too close. “I know him,” she said. It seemed pointless and rude to lie. “Why?”

  Ivhar shifted from foot to foot, clearly uncomfortable. Moonlight shifted white highlights through his hair as he moved. “Lady, I-eh don’t mean to alarum you.”

  Emerald looked up, meeting sincere blue eyes, so like Rache’s.

  “We-eh fear he might be Renshai.”

  Emerald opened her mouth, but her tongue seemed paralyzed. “Renshai,” she managed. She turned her gaze to the deadfall, no longer able to meet his eyes.

  “We-eh have reason to believe he was involved in killing Northmen without honor. He-eh is old enough to have had a hand in the slaughter of Westerners.”

  Emerald became more engrossed in the bark on her seat.

  Apparently wanting Emerald’s attention, Ivhar moved closer and placed a booted foot on the deadfall. “Lady, if he is-eh Renshai, he-eh is-eh danger to you all-eh. They-eh train to kill many with few. And-they don’t spare women or-eh children since they teach their own to fight-eh.”

  Emerald continued to study the wood, her gaze tracing a dark, irregular stain. Realization struck with sudden and vivid clarity. The blood. I’ve found it. Anger accompanied the discovery. She reached out a finger and touched it, her attention swiveling to Ivhar Ingharrson. “What is it you want to know?”

  “I-eh need to know for certain. It would-eh not-eh do to harm a man for being-eh Renshai he is not.” Ivhar raised his brows, apparently realizing his construction was not quite right, yet hoping Emerald had understood.

  Emerald remained silent, deeply thoughtful. She could not help but realize the significance of the Northmen’s hatred for Renshai that one had traveled so far on rumor. Colbey’s life meant less than nothing to her. Yet she had to consider the risk to the Town of Santagithi, and to her own son, of revealing the information.

  “If-eh he is Renshai, he-eh must be executed.”

  “How?”

  Ivhar seemed confused by the question. “Legally, of course. Is that-eh what you mean?”

  Emerald nodded absently, aware Ivhar could have no way of understanding the minutiae of the question she wanted to ask. She knew it would take more than one man and a vast score of dedication to kill Colbey, and she needed to understand the danger to the boys. Her gaze strayed back to the bloodstain. Now that she knew its location and shape, it seemed huge, a cruel and ugly testament to one who murdered strangers and mutilated children he claimed to love. She looked at Ivhar again, fire in her eyes. “For the price of a promise, I will tell you anything about Colbey you wish to know.”

  Ivhar’s expression mixed hope and doubt. Clearly, he feared Emerald might ask a price he could not afford. “What-eh is the promise?”

  Emerald held the Northman’s gaze, her finger tracing the stain repeatedly, from memory. “Whatever happens and whatever you learn, my four-year-old son will not be harmed.”

  Ivhar relaxed visibly, a smile crossing war-hardened features. Surely, he never doubted that Emerald’s request stemmed only from a mother’s natural protective instincts. “Fate works in-eh strange ways, an I-eh would never-eh make a vow I could not keep. But I-eh can promise that we will do our best to keep him safe. It is not our wish to hurt anyone innocent. Will that do?”

  “That will do.”

  “And Colbey?”

  “He is Renshai,” Emerald said. “And he is every bit the killer you claim him to be.”

  * * *

  Colbey Calistinsson felt fatigue grow strong enough to dull his reflexes. Idly, it occurred to him to tap his mind for strength and clarity, yet he let the tiredness touch him instead. He had nothing to fear from Shadimar, and the story he had promised to tell would surely seem less painful when drowsiness took the edge from the memory.

  Shadimar lounged on his side, his back pressed to the chamber wall, his feet stretched across the coverlet. Despite his reclining position, he still seemed dignified. He kept his attention locked on Colbey. The wolf remained curled on the floor by the bedside, nose tucked beneath his tail.

  Resigned to a sleepless night, Colbey brushed wisps of gray-flecked hair from his eyes. “Having crossed the Northlands, I arrived at the Western Wizard’s cave in the Weathered Mountains early one morning. Actually, I was lucky to find it. It didn’t seem like the kind of place I could have stumbled upon blindly. Sunlight reflecting from the cliffs seemed to form a curtain in front of the entrance, and I felt rather than saw the opening.” He glanced at Shadimar.

  The Wizard’s head bobbed almost imperceptibly. Otherwise, he gave no response to Colbey’s revelation.

  “I was staring at the entrance, when Tokar spoke to me from inside. His voice was light and free as a breeze yet powerful as a gale. He asked for my name, and I gave it. He invited me inside. I went.” Colbey continued to stare at Shadimar for clues as to whether his story contained too few details or too many.

  The Wizard nodded ever so slightly.

  Taking this as encouragement, Colbey continued, “That was when he told me that the Northmen had annihilated the Renshai six years past. He told me I was the only survivor.” His focus on Shadimar grew even more intense as he considered a fact he had not placed into this context before. “He was wrong.” Colbey’s forehead crinkled. “I thought you Wizards have magic that makes you right all the time.” At least, you always talk as if every word that comes from your lips is indisputable fact. He kept the idea to himself.

  “Usually we are.” Shadimar did not apologize for his comrade’s mistake. “Under the circumstances, he had reason to believe you were the last.”

  “Why wouldn’t he make certain?”

  “It’s not pertinent. Continue.”

  Colbey kept his gaze locked on Shadimar, gradually raising his brows to remind the Wizard of his agreement to keep Colbey informed.

  Shadimar sighed. “If you keep interrupting yourself, we’ll be here all night.”

  Colbey did not budge. “If you keep resisting my questions, we’ll be here into next week.” He smiled. “Surprise. I can be as patient and stubborn as you.”

  Shadimar returned a grudging smile. “That’s not a thing on which to pride yourself.” He sighed again. “Very well, it’s already cost me too many words. I might as well try to appease you. To confirm facts, a Wizard has to summon a creature of magic. We call them demons. Grossly understated, that would be dangerous. Since you lived only because he called you away, and the Northmen seemed certain they had slain every Renshai on Devil’s Island, Tokar had good reason to believe you were the last Renshai.”

  Shadimar’s explanation reminded Colbey of their first conversation on the battlefield after the Great War. “You once said that the Southern Wizard probably consorted with demons to find me.”

  “True.”

  “Yet he only found Rache.”

  Shadimar nodded.

  Colbey pressed, recalling the conversation vividly, though years had passed since that time. “You told me that this Wizard missed Mitrian because early Wizards named the Golden Prince of Demons a man. But this wouldn’t have kept him from finding me. Then you said that this Carcophan probably only asked about full-blooded Renshai to sort out the children of conquerors.”

  Again, Shadimar confirmed Colbey’s memory with a nod.

  “You questioned my parentage.” Colbey’s eyes narrowed, still angered by the offense. His mother and father had both died in battle, heroes, as Renshai had been meant to die. Neither line held a trace of foreign blood.

  “Clearly a mistake,” Shadimar said.

  “You said there were other possible reasons why the ‘sources of magic’ did not identify me.”

  “A few, yes.”

  “And those are?”

  “Technical reasons that have to do with the proper way of calling, binding, and questioning demons.”

  Colbey said nothing, awaiting more details.
>
  “Will that do?” Shadimar prompted.

  Colbey considered. He realized that, if he were explaining a combat to Shadimar, he would use the vague term “sword stroke” rather than specifying the mechanics of the maneuver. He nodded. “I’ll continue my story.”

  “Please do.”

  Colbey rested a heel against the leg of his chair. “After Tokar told me about the slaughter of the Renshai, I vowed vengeance against every member of every one of the seventeen tribes that had united against one people. Eventually, they would have slain me, but I would have left many corpses in my wake.”

  “What stopped you?”

  “Tokar. First, he tried to convince me to stay. He said he had summoned me for a purpose that went far beyond vengeance. That didn’t convince me to stay. Then he lapsed into a coughing fit that did.” Colbey explained. “To a Northman, and especially to a Renshai, nothing is worse than illness. It robs all glory from death and assures an eternity in Hel. I’ve studied herbal lore; at times my knowledge has bought me a welcome in Western farm towns that would otherwise have spurned or attacked me. I believed I could help Tokar’s malady.”

  “There was nothing you could do, you know.” Shadimar smiled knowingly.

  “I know that now. He was preparing for some kind of magical death. But, at the time, I decided to delay my revenge a few days longer. And Tokar didn’t try to convince me otherwise.”

  Shadimar yawned, dismissing his rudeness with an apologetic wave. “Did you meet Tokar’s apprentice?”

  “Haim. Yes.”

  “What did you think of him?”

  “Quite frankly, not much.” Colbey looked at Shadimar for clues to his response. He did not want to offend. Colbey considered trying to read the Wizard’s thoughts, but dismissed this as rude. Yet just the idea of trying brought him the faintest trace of Shadimar’s derisive mood. Encouraged by Shadimar’s own apparent scorn, Colbey continued. “He seemed frail and uncertain. He had that high-strung manner of a man who always anticipates failure, no matter how careful his preparations. He talked often, yet it rarely seemed of consequence. I don’t remember much of what he said.”

  “And Tokar? What did you think of him?”

  Colbey considered a moment, then answered honestly. “He seemed a man of great consequence, yet deeply troubled. And, of course, he killed himself before I got to know him well.” Colbey cringed. To a Northman, suicide was a grave and cowardly dishonor, assuring a place in Hel. Though he knew other cultures did not view self-slaying as heinous, that some even considered it an act of courage, Colbey could not help feeling as if he had affronted Shadimar and his colleague.

  Again, Shadimar combed his fingers through his beard. “Tell me about the ceremony of passage.”

  The terminology confused Colbey. “You mean Tokar’s death rite?”

  Shadimar nodded. “You witnessed it?”

  “I watched the whole thing.”

  “A rare honor indeed. I’m not certain any mortal has ever done so before you.”

  “Strange.” Colbey drew his other foot to the chair. “As insistent as Tokar was that Haim and I come along, I just assumed mortals were necessary.”

  “A mortal, yes. His apprentice.” Shadimar spoke calmly, but the fingers twisting in his beard betrayed distress. “Tokar asked you to watch the ceremony?”

  “I was all ready to leave.” Despite the years, Colbey could feel rage and anguish rising. “Had my people simply died in a brave combat, their bodies intact and their souls in Valhalla, I would have rejoiced and held no grudge. But the Western Wizard confirmed my worst fears. The Northmen had come at night, unannounced, like a pack of slinking curs. And they had mutilated the bodies so no Renshai could reach Valhalla, no matter how bravely he had fought.” Colbey scowled, gaze distant, arms crossed over his sword belt.

  Shadimar’s hands stilled in his beard. “Just like the Renshai once did to their people.”

  Anger seared Colbey. “Never,” he said through gritted teeth. “Never once did Renshai attack at night or without fair warning.”

  “Perhaps not.” Shadimar bore in. “But they did hack apart enemies. You know that’s how they became an exiled tribe.” A sibilance entered his voice as he added, “And though Renshai did declare war before attacking, sometimes they declared war on cities at peace so long they had no army.”

  Colbey drew breath to defend the Renshai, to remind Shadimar that the tribe had always accepted an enemy’s surrender. But the grief in Shadimar’s usually empty eyes unsettled Colbey, and he remembered the Renshai’s attack against the so-called “mages” of the town of Myrcidë. They had fought back valiantly, despite having no army, yet their visual trickery had proven no match for sharpened steel. He knew that Shadimar still lived in the ruins of that city, which had once been his own.

  From deference to his blood brother, Colbey softened his rationalization. “I admit that, sometimes, the Renshai’s exuberance for war overcame their common sense. I’m sorry about what happened to Myrcidë. That was clearly wrong, and I hope it won’t come between our friendship.”

  Shadimar’s face returned to its usual, placid configuration. “When I became a Wizard, I gave up my mortal ties. Always, Colbey, the tasks and causes of Cardinal Wizards come before anything and anyone that might have seemed important to me when my life had a visible end.” His fingers fell from his beard. “And even if I could still hold the offense against Renshai, how could I hold it against a man who was only a child then, following the ways of his elders?”

  Colbey did not tell Shadimar that, in the Renshai culture, a child became an adult the day he first blooded his sword nor that he had found the same thrill in the war against Myrcidë as his elders. Only as he had aged did he see the folly in the Renshai’s war indiscretions, and he did not mean to push Shadimar’s forgiveness too far. “I appreciate your benevolence. Many men would hold such a grudge. That’s one of the things that made me choose your cause over that of most Northmen. To the good, evil must be destroyed, and life is simple. They see the world in absolutes: good and evil, right and wrong, white and black. They miss all the shades of color in between. That which doesn’t conform exactly to the concepts they see as right, like the Renshai, must be destroyed.” He looked directly at Shadimar, finding an expression of surprise. “The Myrcidians were too different. They could never have survived in the Northlands.”

  Shadimar studied Colbey as if seeing him for the first time. “I’m impressed.”

  Colbey smiled insolently. “I can spell ‘sword,’ too. Now, do you think I’d make a suitable champion?”

  Shadimar sucked in a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “Yes. And no. The age thing is still a problem, and remember what I said about giving up mortal concerns. Since you’d be a Wizard’s champion, not a Wizard, you wouldn’t have to surrender your ties. Currently, they’re not a problem. But if for any reason the Renshai turned against neutrality, you would have to work against them. Could you do that?”

  Colbey did not hesitate. “No.” He added, “But I can’t possibly see that as even a potential problem. I’m training all of the Renshai with the same loyalty to one another as I have to them. And they’re all Westerners, which gives them a natural bent toward neutrality.”

  “Likely or not, it’s still something to think about.”

  Colbey nodded, having serious doubts about his offer, despite the bond he had willingly formed with the Wizard. He hoped Shadimar did not see something he had missed. From birth, his loyalty to the Renshai had never wavered or faltered, and he would rather die in withering agony, his soul condemned to Hel, than bring ruin upon his own. If it became a problem, I could kill myself. The idea seemed foreign, so against the tenets he had lived for so long, the glory in battle he had sought above all other things. Yet, if it became necessary, Colbey knew he could force his hand.

  Shadimar’s voice penetrated Colbey’s brooding, seeming horribly misplaced. “You were about to tell me about Tokar’s ceremony of passage.”

/>   Colbey felt as if he were awakening slowly from a nightmare and tumbling into a second, equally vivid. With effort, he drove his mind backward, to a day a decade past that he would as soon forget but remembered as clearly as yesterday. “You want details, I presume?”

  “As many as you can remember.”

  “I agreed to watch the Wizard’s ceremony with the condition that, when it finished, Tokar would let me treat his illness.” Colbey cringed at the memory of the old Wizard’s hacking cough and the blood that stained his teeth and beard. “So, late that evening, Tokar led Haim and me along a rocky trail in the Weathered Mountains. The sky had gone gray, yet there was not a hint of rain. It seemed more as if the clouds had drawn together to form a veil. I felt a sensation I can’t describe well, a certainty of impending crisis, as if gods struggled beyond the curtain of clouds. Silence seemed to hang, more like a void than an absence of sound, and only bird trills broke it on occasion. I remember wondering why birds were out in the gloom. As to us, we made no conversation. Tokar’s face held a look of pain, which seemed natural because of his illness. But he also looked uncertain.”

  Shadimar’s expression turned dubious, his features nearly matching Tokar’s, though surely for different reasons. “Uncertainty? Purpose, perhaps.”

  “Uncertainty,” Colbey clung to his description. “I sensed it, though I spent most of the walk gathering herbs. Haim was sweating so badly, his clothes were soaked. I thought he might have wet . . .”

  “Uncertainty?” Shadimar clung to the question.

  Colbey laughed at Shadimar’s tenaciousness. “I was absolutely certain. So I asked if something troubled him. And if I could help.”

  “What did Tokar say? Exactly.”

  “Exactly?”

  “If you can remember.”

  Though ten years had passed, Colbey recalled every word. “He said, ‘Renshai, the most important decision I will ever make confronts me at a time when I thought I had already made my final choices.’” Colbey assumed the Western Wizard’s graveled tone. “‘And I have only moments to make it.’ Then he turned to Haim. ‘How do you make a decision?’” Colbey paused, his memory failing here. “I’m sorry, Shadimar. I can’t remember Haim’s reply.”