The SteelMaster of Indwallin, Book 2 of The Gods Within

by J. L. Doty

  Beyond the kitchen servants it appeared he was the only person up and about yet, so he carefully wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his sword. Anxiously, slowly, he slid it from the sheath with the all too familiar sound of the scrape of steel against steel. He lifted the blade, held it up before his eyes and looked carefully at the runes that time had made almost invisible. They were cut into the steel in symbols unknown to him, unknown to anyone of his time, and with his free hand he reached out and touched them, touched the steel into which they’d been cut.

  As they had done before the voices came again, a great throng of them, though this time they were far in the distance and did not overwhelm him with their cries of sorrow and pain. And then one voice stood out among the rest; at first only faintly, but it grew in strength and intensity until he recognized it: his own voice. He looked more closely at the runes on the blade, and like his voice they now stood out more clearly. If he could just understand them he might control the power within the blade.

  The runes took on a life of their own, shifted and swayed before his eyes like snakes in a pit. Their shape changed and he recognized the meaning of one of the symbols, and then another. He remembered the heat of the forge, and the ring of the hammer, the calluses on his tired hands and the exhaustion of the endless centuries. But just when he was on the threshold of understanding, the thread of his thoughts snapped like the string of a bow over strained, and he staggered back to the reality of the small balcony on a cold, gray morning.

  He pulled his free hand away from the steel, looked at it carefully and saw his reflection mirrored in and about the runes. “I know you now,” he said softly. “I know you now as I should have known you all along. And though I cannot name you, someday I will. And when I do I will control you, and no longer will you feed at my soul like a pride of lions at the kill.”

  ~~~

  Rhianne awoke, conscious that something had entered her room. It emitted a fetid, disgusting smell, as if one of the dogs had gotten loose and left a mess somewhere. But this was worse, many smells all mingled together, some stale, some fresh, but all bad.

  She kept her wits about her, closed her eyes and concentrated. It took some doing, but she located the spark of netherlife slowly coalescing near the foot of her bed. She still had time so she got out of bed quickly, arranged her pillows and blankets so in the dark one might think she still lay there, then threw on a robe, and without lighting a lamp she sat down in a chair to wait for the visitation to become complete.

  She’d left her window open that night, and through it the moon lit the room nicely with colorless gray shadows. As she looked on a small figure appeared before her, about waist high and covered by filthy, disgusting rags. It moved carefully, and with much stealth it climbed a bedpost and perched atop the footboard of her bed. It arched its neck, looking fearfully at the pile of blankets and pillows, and at that moment Rhianne understood she had nothing to fear from the small child. “I’m over here, Rat.”

  The little being nearly jumped out of its skin. It flew into the air, landed on the floor and rolled into a shadow behind her dresser. It remained silent for a moment, then she heard it sniffing the air, and she saw its nose extended ever so slightly beyond the edge of the dresser. It hissed, “Is that you, Your Majesty?” Its voice was an unpleasant snarl.

  “Why do you call me that?” she asked. “I’m no queen.”

  “It is you!” it growled, and with that it sprang out of its shadow and scurried the short distance to her. It reached out, took one of her hands and began pulling frantically. “Come with me. Please! He’s in danger. You have to help.”

  Rhianne stood, somewhat repulsed by the touch of the filthy little child. “Who’s in danger?”

  “The dreamer,” the child said frantically. “He who lives in shadows and knows not the name of the beast.”

  “Morgin?” she gasped. “How is he in danger?”

  The child stopped and looked her in the face. “The one with madness hovering so near his soul.”

  “Tulellcoe!” Rhianne hissed. With that realization she pulled free of the child’s hand. “Do not touch me again,” she said, “or you will endanger us both.” Then she called forth her magic, concentrated her power within her soul, and readied herself for whatever was to come. She looked down at the little being. “Lead on, Rat.”

  It sniffed at her as if it smelled the magic about her, then it turned toward the spot from which it had emerged near the foot of her bed, and there it disappeared. She followed slowly, stepped carefully into the same spot, felt an odd sensation as if something was pulling at her soul. But nothing really happened, for the child could only be a guide, and to walk the netherworld she must do so with her own power, her own strength, her own knowledge.

  Carefully she sought out a thin tendril of her power, connected it like a lifeline to that single point on the Mortal Plane at the foot of her bed. Then trailing it behind her, she stepped beyond life wondering if she would ever return.

  She saw Morgin from a great distance. He stood on a balcony that, like the entire structure of which it was part, had been cut from the solid black rock of a mountainside, and though she had never seen it herself, she knew it must be Tharsk. He stood on the balcony in the light of dawn, holding his sword up before his face and speaking to it as if it had ears of its own.

  Oddly enough she could see through the rock if she chose, and far down in the bowels of Tharsk she spied Tulellcoe carrying a naked dagger in his hand and searching for Morgin. He stopped first in a room where several people slept, mostly servants, among them France. Tulellcoe searched quietly through a pile of empty blankets there, then stepped outside the room and closed his eyes momentarily. In her present state Rhianne saw the tendrils of his magic as they sought out Morgin on the balcony. Tulellcoe started toward him, determination written on his face and in his stride.

  Rhianne stood beside Morgin on the balcony. She shouted a warning at him, but he ignored her as if she weren’t there, and she had to remember she really wasn’t. Tulellcoe appeared behind him, hesitated for a moment in the shadows before stepping out onto the balcony itself. Rhianne tried to take Morgin’s shoulders in her hands and shake him, but her hands passed through him for she had brought no substance with her into the netherlife.

  Tulellcoe stepped out into the gray light of morning, stood now within striking distance of Morgin’s back. Rhianne had one last thing to try, a desperate, chancy venture. She stepped toward Morgin, stepped through him, made her spirit occupy the same space as his body, tried to merge with his soul, knowing if she succeeded she might very well lose herself for eternity in the netherlife.

  ~~~

  Something made Morgin think of Rhianne, even while looking at the blade in his hand and leaning against the stone of the balcony rail. And then that same something made him think of Tulellcoe, and he knew in that moment Tulellcoe had approached behind him. He also sensed the tears in Tulellcoe’s eyes, and the sorrow in his heart, and it all came together then, and he knew Tulellcoe’s purpose.

  Morgin lowered the sword, though he did not turn about to face Tulellcoe, and he spoke softly, “Have you come to kill me now, uncle?”

  The strain in Tulellcoe’s voice cut through the air like a knife. “Could I succeed if I tried?”

  “No,” Morgin answered flatly.

  “The sword, eh?”

  Morgin shook his head. “No. I doubt the sword would stop you. It comes only when it chooses, and rarely to my benefit. It is I who would stop you.”

  Morgin waited for a reply but none came. Then he waited for that faint sound he’d hear as Tulellcoe made his move, but that too did not come, so he turned slowly about and found that Tulellcoe had gone and he now stood alone on the balcony.

  Some instinct made him look up and to one side, and on a balcony high above he saw Tarkiss looking down at him, and he wondered how much the young Rastanna lord had seen.

  ~~~

  The whip-crack sound of a hand striking
her face. The blow was brutal and hard, but Rhianne felt nothing.

  “Snap out of it, girl.”

  Rhianne opened her eyes to find that she stood at the foot of her bed looking down at her own body where it had lain all along. Olivia and AnnaRail leaned over the bed, AnnaRail holding her body up while Olivia’s hand arced high over her head, then flashed down to strike her face again with that same whip-crack sound. Her head rocked to one side, but again she felt nothing.

  Blue white bolts of lightning struck outward from her body, but the two older witches deflected it with their own power. AnnaRail looked up. “She’s in the room somewhere. I can sense her.”

  Olivia turned, and her eyes slowly scanned the room, then settled knowingly on Rhianne standing at the foot of the bed. “You’re lost, child,” the old witch snarled. “Stop fighting us.”

  Rhianne wanted to give in to the old woman, but something kept pulling her back, something she could not resist.

  The old witch turned back to her corporeal body lying on the bed and struck her again, and this time she felt just the faintest bit of stinging on her cheek. Olivia slapped her again, and again, and each time she felt more and more of the pain. Then she lost her balance and fell. But the fall didn’t stop when she reached the floor, and she fell on and on and on. She started screaming and thrashing about. Her face burned and her head hurt, and someone held her arms pinned, preventing her from striking out. And then all of her strength left her, she could fight no longer and she collapsed.

  “She’ll be all right now,” Olivia said.

  Rhianne’s face burned with a slow fire, but her head rested against her pillow. She felt AnnaRail’s fingers gently brush the tangled locks of her hair out of her eyes, then AnnaRail’s lips on her cheek for a short, soft kiss. “Sleep now, child. You did a very brave thing.”

  “Yes,” Olivia barked. “And a very powerful thing too. This girl has far more potential than we’d originally thought, but I doubt that cow of a mother of hers trained her properly. We’ll have to correct that.”

  Rhianne wanted to open her eyes and argue with the old woman about the unkind reference to her mother, but she was too weak to do even that, and sleep took her long before the two older witches left the room.

  ~~~

  As nothing more than hired help, Morgin and France were served a simple breakfast of boiled wheat and honey and steaming hot tea. But warm and nutritious, it took the chill out of their bones, so they ate their fill and enjoyed it thoroughly. Half way through the meal they received word from Tulellcoe to eat quickly and prepare to leave as soon as possible. They bolted the last of their food unceremoniously, then asked a servant to show them to the stables.

  Maintaining the pretense of hired help, they saddled their companion’s horses as well as their own, then loaded the two donkeys and checked their harness. When they led the animals out into the open air of the castle yard Morgin noticed the snowfall had thickened. The flakes were large, wet, and heavy, and as they tumbled out of the sky they melted almost as soon as they touched the hood and shoulders of Morgin’s cloak, or the ground at his feet. A miserable day for travel, the going on the mountain trail would be difficult, though anything would be better than another night spent among so many Kulls.

  While Morgin and France waited for the rest they busied themselves making last minute adjustments to the donkey packs and checking the harnesses of their horses. But while doing so Morgin caught the sound of the hooves of a large number of horses clopping on the stone ground of the fortress. He and France looked up at the same instant; their eyes met and silently they agreed to take no action, to wait and see.

  The sound grew quickly louder, then Tarkiss emerged from the fortress interior leading his horse and about four twelves of Kulls and their horses. Mortiss and the other horses grew skittish as Kulls and their mounts surrounded them, and Morgin and France struggled for some moments to calm them.

  Tarkiss gave the reins of his horse to a groom and approached Morgin with a rather satisfied swagger. “Well now, Tosk,” he said arrogantly. “It seems the presence of so many Kulls bothers you.”

  Morgin shrugged. “The presence of so many Kulls bothers most men, yer lordship.”

  Tarkiss nodded. “Aye. That they do. But not those of us who command them, eh?”

  “And beggin’ yer pardon, yer lordship,” Morgin added, “but I ain’t no Tosk.”

  “Ah yes!” Tarkiss said. “You’re not a clansman.” He looked Morgin up and down suspiciously. “I forgot that for a moment, didn’t I?”

  “And thankful I am I ain’t no clansman,” Morgin said enthusiastically. “No disrespect meant, yer lordship, but that magical stuff would likely be too much of a burden fer a common swordsman like meself.”

  Tarkiss smiled, not a pleasant smile. “But then if the burden was yours to bear, you wouldn’t be that common, would you, swordsman?”

  Morgin wrinkled his brow, pretended to consider the thought carefully as if such an idea were a bit beyond the simple mental capacity of a hired swordsman, and he was pleased to see a momentary flash of doubt in Tarkiss’ eyes. But then Oubba and Carri diverted Tarkiss’ attention as they escorted Tulellcoe and Val and Cort from the fortress proper.

  Morgin didn’t like the look on Tulellcoe’s face, an impression that Tulellcoe confirmed a moment later when he tried to conceal his unease with an unhappy smile. He looked about at the Kulls that surrounded them and announced, “Lord Oubba has kindly provided an escort to guide us down out of the mountains.”

  Oubba happily added, “There are no bandit hordes in these mountains large enough to challenge four twelves of my Kulls. You should all be quite safe.”

  Tulellcoe and Val must have done everything possible to turn down Oubba’s aid. But Tarkiss was suspicious of something, and all they could do now was hope his suspicions were a result of his general nature, and not based on something specific.

  With the Rastannas and their Kulls and servants all present, he had no opportunity to discuss the matter with any of his companions. Standing in the wet snowfall they took swift leave of Oubba and Carri, and following Tarkiss they all led their horses out through the portcullis, the small courtyard beyond, and into the tunnel. The series of portcullises at the end of the tunnel were already up, and so their passage back out onto the mountain trail was much quicker than their entry the day before.

  Like the trail from the west, that going east had been cut from the solid rock of the mountain. But that lasted for less than a league, and they quickly found that the wet snow had turned the hard ground of the trail into a slippery and often treacherous track of ankle deep mud. The conditions often forced them to lead their horses on foot rather than risk a fatal fall should the animal lose its footing, and so the going was slow through the entire day.

  But the weather was not the worst of it, not when compared to Tarkiss and his Kulls. Morgin too often was forced to ride surrounded by Kulls with the nearest of his companions several positions up or down the trail, and each time they stopped for a short rest he found it impossible to speak to any of his friends in private. He watched carefully through that afternoon, and noted his companions were kept isolated in the same way. Only Tulellcoe, under the pretense that Cort was his wife, and by constant and tenacious insistence, managed to stay close to her.

  The snow let up late that afternoon, but the trail was still a mess and their mood didn’t improve. During the last hour of the day Morgin noticed his sword had slid a few inches out of its sheath. He pressed it back into place, assumed it had simply been jogged loose sometime during the day.

  As they set camp that evening an incident occurred that bode ill for them all. Morgin had been out gathering firewood and was returning with his arms full when one of the Kulls stepped in his way and stopped him. The halfman growled, “I’ll take that.”

  Morgin hesitated, ready to do almost anything to avoid a fight. “Beggin’ yer fergiveness,” he said politely to the Kull, “but this wood belongs to me mas
ter and it ain’t mine to give. You’ll have to ask him if you want some.”

  “And who’s your master?” the halfman demanded.

  Morgin spoke carefully. “You know who my master is. His lordship there. Lord Vergis.”

  The Kull let him go, but Tarkiss stood nearby and had watched the exchange suspiciously. His lips stretched slowly into a broad, satisfied grin, and Morgin noticed that again his sword had come loose in its sheath.

  That night he and France shared a makeshift lean-to. And as they crawled into their blankets Morgin whispered quietly, “They suspect something, don’t they?”

  “Aye, lad,” France answered. “That they do. Let’s do everything we can to travel together tomorrow, eh?”

  Morgin nodded, a useless gesture in the dark. “Agreed,” he said without further comment. He rolled over on top of his sword and slept that way, not a terribly comfortable way to sleep, but at least the sword would go nowhere without him.

  ~~~

  The next day broke clear and dry, though the air had cooled decidedly and small patches of ice now floated in puddles of water along the trail. A hard, frozen crust had formed on top of the mud; the hooves of their pack animals and horses no longer sank in so deeply and they made better time. By midday they were out of the rockiest and steepest parts of the pass, and moss and lichen and grasses bound the ground of the trail together, so they were hopeful they’d left the mud behind.

  When they came across a small stream they stopped for a short rest and something to eat. Morgin sat down on a small boulder and chewed on some journeycake. He watched the Kulls eat in silence.

  “Eh, lad.” France nudged him out of his thoughts. Morgin looked up to find the swordsman standing over him with two water skins draped over his shoulders. “Let’s go fill the water skins, eh?”

  “Right.” Morgin stood. France tossed him one of the skins, and the two of them walked upstream a short distance, found a stretch of moderately calm water. They squatted down on their haunches and began filling the skins.