Bloodspate

by Frances Mason

  He stared into the gem again, and realised that he was outside the very room which the map indicated. He shuddered. He would have to enter the ghost’s lair. He considered turning back, but he had come so far, and it hadn’t been easy. He had to complete this job. He saw one of the books was not translucent. Only one. It had fallen over on the shelf without other physical books to hold it up. The shelf was at about shoulder height to Corin. He stepped into the room. The ghost ignored him. Perhaps it didn’t see him. The book lay on the shelf that the ghost always went to before vanishing. He waited until it did so again, then quickly went to that shelf and picked up the book. On its gold ornamented cover he saw the symbols that Jared had shown him.

  “There it is,” the ghost shrieked, and the sound was like the scream of a soldier slowly dying, forgotten among the corpses of a fallen army, and the caw of the crow feeding on his corpse, and the air smelled of rotting flesh and blood and faeces. Corin span around to face the dead monk. The ghost rushed at him and terror washed over him like a viscous fluid from which he knew he couldn’t escape. The ghost shrieked as it came, “there it is. Finally it is found. Finally its secrets will be known.” It reached out, as if to close its fingers around Corin’s neck, and his free hand went to the hilt of his sword. But the sword didn’t scream of blood, and he realised this ghost had no blood for it to drink, and knowing that felt the onrush of his doom.

  Then the ghost passed through him, raising goose bumps on his skin. Corin span about. The ghost continued towards the bookcase, reaching out to where the book had lain. Then, as its hand touched that now empty space, it vanished. Corin span back around, waiting for it to appear again where it had before. Would it play the same terrifying part until the end of time? Had Corin somehow increased the spirit’s torment by removing the volume? But it didn’t appear again. Corin wanted to flee but his curiosity held him rooted to the spot. He stared at the place by the table where the ghost had appeared before, and waited.

  After several minutes he was sure the ghost wouldn’t return. He looked around. All of the ghostly books had vanished also, from the shelves, from the piles, and from the table at the centre. The only book in the room was the one in his hand. He slid it into his pack.

  Even though the ghost was gone, along with the room’s insubstantial books, the whole place exuded a weird presence, as if someone was about to breathe in his ear. Though it was warm on the lake, in here there was a distinct chill, and he doubted its origin was natural. He looked once more into the gem, hoping to quickly find his way out of the Labyrinth’s unnatural maze. Only then did he realise the fatal flaw in the gem. Though it could show his current location and his final destination, it didn’t show the way back to the point where he had entered. He would have to find his way back without assistance. He cursed himself for his lack of wisdom, then cursed the old man for his equal lack of foresight. If he had known he would have paid closer attention to his path in getting here. His sense of direction was good if he bothered to pay attention, though he wasn’t sure it would have helped in this enchanted labyrinth.

  He headed in what he thought was the direction from which he had come, and hoped he wasn’t going deeper into the Labyrinth. He passed through several rooms that seemed familiar, then he reached one which he thought he had already passed through, though he was sure he had travelled a straight line since then.

  “You may not pass.” a voice growled in the darkness, and Corin froze. “I taste you, thief.”

  That, thought Corin, is the oddest warning I have ever heard. He tastes me?

  Corin couldn’t locate the source of the sound. It seemed to come from all sides, as well as above and below. He edged back towards the door through which he had entered.

  “I feel you, thief.” The floor thrummed with the deep, resonant voice, and the hairs on Corin’s nape stood on end. He darted towards the empty doorway. He rebounded from it, though it had been empty air when he had entered. The force was so great it threw him into the air in an awkward somersault. Catlike, he landed on his feet.

  “I have you, thief.”

  Corin’s hand went to the hilt of his sword, but he heard no voice calling for blood, and wondered if this was another tortured ghost. Despite this, he hissed, “you won’t skin me, monk.”

  Then the voice laughed. “Why would I skin a thief?”

  “For parchment?” Corin said, but it was more a question than a statement, and he felt embarrassed, suspecting he had stated an absurdity.

  The laughter boomed. “You would make a poor parchment, thief. Too soft.”

  “I am not soft. I have muscles like iron, speed like a mountain lion, the quickness of an alley cat.”

  “Yes, cat burglar, thief. You are as quick as a cat, but I have you all the same.”

  “Show yourself.” Corin waved the sword around.

  “Oh, you are brave, thief.”

  “Let’s see how brave you are. Show yourself.”

  “Oh, master of shadows,” the voice mocked, “see you me not?”

  “Well, obviously.”

  “Then you are a fool or you are blind.”

  “I admit I was foolish coming to this place,” Corin said then, puffing himself up, added, “but I see everything. I have the eyes of a hawk.”

  “Yes, thief, you have the eyes of a hooded hawk.”

  “Are you going to show yourself?”

  “So that you can kill me with your mighty magic sword?”

  “Well, if it comes to that. Of course you could just let me go.”

  “Or keep you here until you starve, until your bones lie beneath dust beside that legendary sword.”

  Corin thought for a moment, then said, “You said, magic sword.”

  “It seems I see more than the hooded hawk.”

  “But, you know this sword is magic.”

  “I know this sword. I know the river. Who better?”

  “So, you know things.”

  “I know many things. I have lived among these shelves for so many years, so many centuries. So much knowledge. So many things I know.”

  “Then you can tell me what I need to know, and then I’ll be on my way.”

  “Will I? Will you?”

  “You don’t really want to kill a scrawny boy like me, do you? What are you?”

  “Hah! At last the thief thinks. I am all around you, and yet you do not see me. Where am I? Who am I? What am I?”

  “A riddle? Hmm. You are the air?”

  The voice boomed its laughter.

  “Do you have to be so loud?” Corin asked.

  “Should I speak like this, thief?” the voice whispered, and it came from all directions.

  “You’re not in my ear when you whisper.”

  “No, indeed.”

  “So, you can’t be the air.”

  “I like you, thief. You reason well. I think I’ll keep you.”

  “So if I were more stupid you’d let me go?”

  Again the voice laughed, but quietly. “Oh, thief, I do like you. You will keep me company.”

  “And will you feed me?”

  “I cannot.”

  “Then I’ll die. Will you like me so much then?”

  “No, indeed. You will amuse me less then.”

  “If you let me go I could come back and visit.”

  “Blind you may be, but so clever. Oh, delicious. Yes, I taste you. Yes I have you, and I will not let you go. In here you will learn, all that I know.”

  “Everything?”

  “Everything.”

  “So, if I asked you anything you’d answer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Answer honestly?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do I have your word?”

  “Words are all I have.”

  “Do you swear?”

  “Fuck!”

  “That’s not what I meant. Do you swear you will tell me anything I wish to know, if you know it?”

  “If? If? I know…”

  “You know
all,” Corin droned, “yes, everything, except what I want to know.”

  “There is nothing I do not know. I know all. Ask me.”

  “It’s not important. If you don’t know, then you don’t know.”

  The voice rumbled its disapproval. “There is nothing you could ask that I do not know. Nothing that is, nothing that has been. No thought ever known of man.”

  “I don’t believe you. You say you know all, yet you won’t swear to tell me what I want to know. I don’t think you know.”

  “Try me?”

  “Why waste my time? No, I’m just going to sit down here.”

  “Ask, and I will answer.”

  “Do you swear?”

  “I swear.”

  “You swear you will answer any question that I ask?”

  “I do.”

  “Then how do I escape you?”

  For a moment there was silence, then the voice laughed again, and the sound seemed to caress Corin’s face kindly. “Oh, I do like you. Will you not stay?”

  “I have things to do.”

  “Indeed you do, he who hears the voice. The voice of blood.”

  Corin shuddered. “Is that all this sword speaks of?”

  “Only while it is polluted by foul necromancy. In its natural state it has an…interesting personality.”

  “Polluted?”

  “You are clever but sometimes foolish. It is ever so with men, even small men.”

  “So will you tell me how to cleanse the sword?”

  “You know already.”

  “I do?”

  “You know but do not know that you know.”

  “You love your riddles.”

  “You must solve this one. You are clever, for all your blindness. Think.”

  Corin made a show of thinking. “Hmm.”

  “Frowning will not show you the truth.”

  “Let me think.” The voice was silent. “Cleansing.” Corin struck himself in the forehead. “How could I be so stupid?”

  “It is the fault of many men who think themselves wise. Only I know all.”

  “The tears of the goddess tortured by the necromancer.”

  “The nymph, yes. You see, I did not have to tell you. The daughter of the river left you a gift. Cleanse the sword. Then it will never be quiet. It will babble, like the brook. Or do not cleanse it, if you prefer.”

  Corin took the phial with the nymph’s tears out of his pack and, unsheathing the sword, poured a drop on its blade. As he watched the moisture seemed to be absorbed into the blade, as he had seen blood being absorbed before.

  “Is that all?” he asked his invisible interlocutor.

  “That is enough, but it is not all that you seek, is it, thief?”

  “I seek…,” Corin considered for a moment, but he knew it was true, “I seek knowledge.”

  “As do all the wise.”

  “I want to know what this sword is. Is it cursed?”

  “It can be a curse, but a curse to one man may be a blessing to his enemies.”

  “You like talking in riddles. Can you be more specific.”

  “The necromancer’s curse is lifted. The sword has a more complex destiny. It has many names. It is Seltien. It is the sword of kings. It is Blood-spate. It is the Horn of the River God.”

  “Horn of the River God?”

  “Indeed. Step away from the blade.”

  Corin stepped back, leaving the unsheathed sword on the floor. As he did so dust swirled in the room, at first sluggishly, then more energetically. It gathered into a dust devil above the sword, and the point at the base of the dust devil’s cone touched the blade and moved along it, inscribing runes as it went, and the runes burned with inner fire.

  At first the runes burned brightly, then they evaporated in a puff of steam, obscuring the blade. But the steam cleared. Beneath it the sword was transparent, like water, flowing in a circuit, from hilt to tip down one side and back along the other. Along its length runes of fire formed in the water and fought against its flow to retain their form and the flow tugged at and deformed the fiery runes into a glowing steaming stream as the water in turn wrote transparent runes that evaporated in the fire. The only constant in the runes was change, so that it could never be seen clearly whether fire wrote on water or water on fire. Two elements eternally at odds, impossibly bound together.

  “Thus we see the sword’s true nature,” murmured the voice. “Here you read the First Language. The language of creation, full and complete. Men only know fragments and faded marks of the beginning, but here you see it whole and clear, as the gods wrote them, as the gods read them, as they were at the time of creation, and ever will be as long as the gods live.”

  “So what is it?” Corin asked.

  “It’s the horn of the river god, or rather, was fashioned from it. Seltathra has ever been a fractious vassal of his lord, Sedthra, god of the seas. At the beginning of things the river locked horns in his estuary with the sea. Sedthra defeated his vassal, breaking one of his horns. Sedthra gave the horn to Fulkthra, so that Seltathra might be tamed at his source, in these mountains, which is beyond the sea’s reach. The smith god forged the sword in the fires of his own heart, for of all the gods he is most akin to fire. In the pommel of Seltien Fulkthra set a piece of his own heart, so that fire might rule water. Even without the Heart of Fulkthra it is a powerful sword. With it, it can command the river himself. You have seen some of that power in the tower of the necromancer. As you know Blood-spate can command the daughters of the river god even without his pommel stone, at least with the aid of powerful magic to command the sword.”

  The runes on the sword began to fade. The brightness of fire and the vigorous tides of water became less distinct.

  “The twins…two old men you don’t know…”

  “Jared and Javid. I know them well. I wish them well. They are my old friends.”

  “How did you know…?”

  “Know that they sent you? How did I know of the nymphs and the necromancer?”

  “I didn’t think of that. Let me guess. You know all.”

  “And I know what the twins fear. ‘When the lost are found the old age will end.’ It is an ancient prophecy. Blood-spate had been lost for many an age, at least in mortal terms.”

  “And you aren’t mortal?”

  “Not as you would understand it.”

  “So will the old age end?”

  “An age is always ending and another always beginning, just as every moment men die and babes are born. Change has no calendar. But an alignment of the heavens does approach. At such times the old gods are weakened. New gods may arise. Mortals become immortal and even gods may die. It is a time of great forces contending, and none may know the outcome in advance. It is what those with a shorter perspective would call ‘the time of change.’”

  “The goddess who saved me from the lake said the time of change is at hand.”

  The runes on the blade had faded to nothing now.

  “Yes. And Blood-spate is now found, even if it was only one of the lost. There are many other lost relics of the gods. Perhaps even as many as there are gods, and the number of the gods is unknowable.”

  “Something you don’t know?” Corin mocked the voice.

  “Something that is beyond knowing, even to gods.”

  “Like you?”

  “I am a servant only. The greatest servant of knowledge.”

  Corin picked up the sword. It murmured in his hand, and in his head he thought he heard a voice, though it was faint, like a conversation heard through a wall. He felt the burning in his heart once again, but a coolness flowed from the hilt of the sword, up his arm. Just as the runes of water had battled those of fire in the blade, the coolness seemed to battle the fire in his heart.

  “If you know all, do you know what I feel?”

  “I have spoken to the nymphs. I know what ails you. I know the fire that burns in your heart.”

  “The nymph told me that only Blood-spate could undo
the harm.”

  “Only when it is complete. Find the Heart of Fire. Complete the sword of kings.”

  “And what is the Heart of Fire?”

  “You have touched it. You know it in your heart. It burns you, does it not?”

  “The ruby?”

  “It may seem such, but it is no ordinary gem. It is a fragment of the heart of Fulkthra. In the beginning the god of fire and the god of sky fought. Fulkthra roared in fiery fury, and his lashing arms of lava seared the sky, tearing out the eye of the god of sky. In stricken rage Saruthra shouted thunder and cast his lightning bolt at his brother, shattering Fulkthra’s heart. Dalthi, great fecund mother of gods, gathered the pieces of his heart and put it back together. But her tears for the harm her sons had done each other blinded her, and she missed a piece. When Fulkthra had recovered from his injuries he searched across the earth. He found the missing fragment and fashioned a beautiful gem from it, the Heart of Fire. Within shines the fire of the Primal Dragon, who raped the earth, fathering Fulkthra. He who possesses it is said to be immune to the injurious effects of fire. When Fulkthra forged Blood-spate he cast the gem as the blade’s pommel stone, so that fire might rule river ever after. Within it resides the balm to soothe your pain.”

  “But the ruby caused the pain.”

  “Because you touched it without the blade. The two elements of fire and water are balanced in the sword made whole. The blade is of the river. The stone is of the mountain. Water and fire; fire and water. Endless conflict, but balanced. The runes I inscribed on the blade substitute an ephemeral fire and waken the river, as does the fire in your heart. That is why you feel less pain when you hold the sword. The river fights his adversary within you. But the fire must be drawn from your heart if you are to be truly healed, and that can only be done if blade and stone are brought together.”