Many platitudes came to Silme’s mind, but, having no interest in soothing Bolverkr, she kept them to herself. She had a reasonable idea where Bolverkr was heading, and it bothered her. Still, the topic had off-balanced him so she stuck with it rigidly. “You seem to think I have a solution to your problem.”
He squirmed with a restlessness that seemed more appropriate to a courting youth than a two-hundred-year-old sorcerer with skills comparable to a god’s. “Silme, you’re the most powerful woman in existence. You can understand the pain of people staring while they decide whether to run in fear or try to kill you for the fame. You’re driven by the same interest, the same need to create, analyze, and experience. I don’t frighten you because you know the source of my ability. It makes sense to you. It’s concrete and finite, within the realm of your knowledge and experience.” He added belatedly, “You’re also quite beautiful.”
The compliment was familiar to Silme, the sincerity in Bolverkr’s voice less so. She chose the direct approach, hoping to push him further off guard. “Are you trying to say you’ve fallen in love with me?”
“Does that surprise you?”
I would think Bolverkr would have learned the difference between romance and childish infatuation. Silme buried the thought beneath the need to win a game whose prize might include the lives of herself, her baby, and her friends. The explanation came to her in a rush. Everything Bolverkr knows of me comes from Allerum’s perceptions, love-smoothed, my shortcomings overlooked or dismissed. Bolverkr believed he gathered information, but he obtained much more. The strength of Allerum’s affection influenced him in a way words never could. Silme realized she had hesitated too long to hide her startlement. “Of course, I’m surprised. We’ve never met before.”
“It seems like I’ve known you for a long time.”
No doubt. Uncertain how to address the comment, Silme said nothing aloud. Bolverkr reached for her hands. This time, in an effort to gain his trust, she let him clench her hands between his long, delicate fingers.
Gradually, a feeling of peace settled over Silme, so comforting she did not recognize it as alien. Her aura seemed to swell, lending her a strength beyond anything she had known before. The still life of Harriman’s memory, frozen in time, spread before her, every detail solid as reality. More than just aware of her surroundings, she became a part of them. The ruddy glow of the setting sun bore no relation to the dried and spangled blood of the corpses. It seemed as though the spectrum of color had widened to admit a million shades between the ones she knew.
“Silme.” Bolverkr’s voice seemed a distant distraction. “I want you to marry me.”
“What?” Silme stiffened, the word startled from her before she could think. She embraced the heightened sense of awareness, followed every crease of Bolverkr’s face to his pale eyes.
Bolverkr’s hold tightened. “You can keep the baby. I’ll raise it as my own. Only Allerum and Taziar have to die.”
No one has to die. Silme glanced beyond the sorcerer to the milk-white aura dwarfing its owner like a soap bubble around a grain of sand. Envy spiraled through her from a source she could not place, and the unfamiliarity of the emotion jolted her back to reality. She tore her hands from Bolverkr’s grasp and sprang to her feet. “What did you do to me?”
Bolverkr smiled, indicating his aura with wide sweeps of his arms. “Be calm. I didn’t hurt you. Look, there’s more than enough life force here for two, and I’m willing to share. I gave you a taste, and already I can tell you want more.” He offered his hands. “Here, complete the channel. Open your mind barriers and take as much as you want.”
A taste. Chaos. The pleasure Silme had experienced went sour. The stuff of life, but also the force of destruction. She knew those who served Chaos, god and man, became whimsical, ruinous, evil. It had always seemed a cruel trick of nature to tie power with spite, to assure that every man endowed with life was also endowed with evil. This power Bolverkr offers comes from a source external to me. If I can grasp it before it bonds with my own life force, I might be able to tap it without risking the baby. The whisper of Chaos Bolverkr had shared was gone, leaving Silme with a hunger she could not deny. The Chaos promised a paradise, but she also knew it would claim a price. If I fail to control it, I will become a slave to it. But, without it, I have no hope of fighting Bolverkr. Silme closed her eyes, drawing on inner resolve. Slowly, she knelt and reached for Bolverkr’s hands.
* * *
CHAPTER 12 : Shadows of Doubt
Our doubts are traitors,
And make us lose the good we oft might win,
By fearing to attempt.
—William Shakespeare Measure for Measure
Silme folded her legs beneath her, her fingers resting lightly on Bolverkr’s outstretched hands despite the crushing tenderness of his grip. Fear and anticipation wound her nerves into tight coils. She wrestled to lower her mind barriers, aware she would need them open to seize the first thin whisper of Chaos that touched her. Catch it, tap it, and transport. The words swirled through her mind like a chant. She lowered her head. Hair spilled into her face, and she peered through the golden curtain at the grass spears around her knees. But her mind barriers resisted her efforts; her tension kept them locked closed reflexively.
Frustration heightened every irritation. Silme flung back the obscuring mane of hair, and viciously shook aside each strand tickling her forehead. She became aware of tiny itches over every part of her body, and the inability to claim her hands fueled her annoyance. Again, she struggled against her own defenses, but the more violent the fight, the harder they opposed her.
“Ready?” Bolverkr asked.
“Not yet,” Silme snapped back. A light sheen of sweat appeared on her forehead. She called upon the meditation techniques of the Dragonrank, imagining a meadow warmed by summer sun. Stems bowed and rattled in the breeze, while sparrows darted playfully between them. The scene brought an inner warmth. And while she savored the manufactured peace of her illusion, Chaos stole, unnoticed, through the contact. As Silme built details into the picture, the earliest threads of Chaos seeped in, merged with the substance of her life aura, and magnified her serenity. The weeds muted to the hollow fronds of wheat, tufted with stiff strands of silk and deep, amber seeds. The meadow became a village striped with dirt pathways. Suffused with calm, Silme idly wondered at its immensity. Never before had she achieved such harmony. Pleasure seemed to encompass her, its source lost and lacking a physical center.
The mind barriers. Silme let her imagination lapse, but the bliss remained, strong and comforting within her. Her mental defenses responded, sliding downward a crack. Encouraged, she widened the gap.
Chaos struck with heightened force, collapsing the barrier completely. A rational thought flashed through Silme’s mind. I’m tricked! While I fought my own defenses, Chaos had already bonded. Then the idea was buried beneath a thunderous avalanche of power. Morality fled before the attack. The imagined scene returned. But, where Silme had constructed waving fields of grain, Chaos showed her the reality of a village in shambles, a wild mix of destruction and death. It twisted revulsion to elation, pity to glee, and laughter rang in Silme’s ears.
Savage with anger, Silme’s sense of self rose to battle the intruder. But Chaos surrounded her inner being, and her sensibilities fled like shadow before rising flames. Silme saw fires grasping for the heavens, red and golden and glorious. That the blaze ate cities seemed unimportant. They challenged the gods themselves and offered the strength and power of their defiance to Silme.
“No!” Silme’s cry seemed to come from elsewhere; it lost meaning before it left her throat. As if from a great abyss, her inner self rebelled, a mouse pinned beneath a lion’s paw. It roused memories of Larson wordlessly embracing her while her tears left damp patches on his tunic. But Chaos intervened, stripping emotion as completely as in Harriman’s damaged thoughts. Silme gasped, surrendering to the blissful oblivion it offered. Each mighty promise left Silme greed
y for the next. Now Chaos no longer needed to come to her; she pursued it. She shuddered. Her grip went murderously tight, and her fingernails burrowed into Bolverkr’s flesh.
Bolverkr cried out in pain and surprise. He jerked instinctively and tore partially free. In the moment of weakness his actions created, Silme’s morality launched its attack. Don’t let it have you! Look what it’s done to Bolverkr. He claims Allerum and Taziar deserve to die, yet his cruelty goes far beyond simply executing enemies. No amount of power is worth inflicting torture on the guilty or the innocent.
Chaos responded with a howling whirlwind of fury. It battered Silme’s sense of self, pounding it into a darkened corner of awareness. Her sensibilities died to a spark, but that one snippet of consciousness made its final stand. Got to rid myself of this Chaos long enough to think. Though crushed and bruised by a force far more powerful than herself, Silme deflected the energy in the only way she knew how. The world clouded to sapphire blue as she channeled all thought to the rankstone clamped between the claws of her dragonstaff.
Designed to store life aura and attuned to Silme, the stone accepted the energy she fed it, brightening as the power gorged it. She felt the gemstone pulse, bloated with Chaos, as her sense of self seeped slowly back into control. Got to get away from here. How? I can’t transport. She deflected another wave of Chaos.
Power torrented into the stone. Still in Harriman’s study, the sapphire quivered, loaded with more energy than its creator had ever intended. Pain engulfed Silme’s senses, stretching and pounding from within her, driving her to the rim of unconsciousness. She struggled to retain awareness, unwilling to surrender to Chaos, feeling sanity slip away as darkness crushed in. Another pulse of Chaos ripped through her and crashed into the shuddering facets of the sapphire.
Suddenly, agony splashed Silme’s vision in a flash of blinding light. The rankstone exploded, showering fragments through Harriman’s study, a blue spray of sapphire chips rattling from the walls and ceiling. Silme screamed, instinctively tearing free of the contact. All sensation fled her, the anguish dulling to an empty ache. She sank to the ground, exhausted, feeling as cold and shattered as her stone. Then, a thought penetrated her muddled senses. The Chaos I channeled to my rank stone is free, not dead. It has to go somewhere. Realization mobilized her. Not somewhere, to someone. Her vision slid slowly back into focus and Bolverkr’s grizzled face, blank with horror, filled her gaze. Bolverkr, of course! And I’m right in its path! She floundered to her feet.
Desperately, Bolverkr raised an arm to cast a transport, his other hand groping for Silme.
Slowed by fatigue, Silme felt his fingers close about the torn fabric of her dress. “No!” she screamed. Chaos will follow Bolverkr. I can’t handle the power. If he takes me with him, it’ll destroy me and the baby. She lurched. Cloth tore. She staggered free of his grasp, tripped and sprawled to the dirt.
A storm of Chaos howled toward them.
Bolverkr shouted in frustration and fear. As he transported to the shelter of his fortress, his magic knifed power through Harriman’s mind. The chaos-force blinked out as quickly, trailing a suffocating wake of ozone.
Silme choked. Lungs burning, she clung to her life energy and dove for the only sanctuary she knew.
Al Larson crouched at Taziar’s back, his gaze locked on four cocked crossbows. “Fire!” The guard’s shout sounded thin as smoke beneath the scrambling of Taziar’s friends through the window. The bolts sailed over the heads of five kneeling swordsmen. Larson swung as he dodged. One shaft whisked through the air where his chest had been. His blade deflected the other. The bolt snapped, its pieces clattering along the corridor. Suddenly, Gaelinar’s throwing rocks at him during training seemed worth the bruises.
Fridurik gasped in pain. Larson glanced to his left. The redhead clasped a bloody hole in his thigh where one of the bolts had penetrated. As the crossbowmen reloaded, two of the swordsmen charged Larson and Fridurik. Though concerned for his companion, Larson was forced to tend to his own defense. As the guardsman rushed down on him, sword swiping for his neck, Larson dropped to one knee. His upstroke sliced open the sentry’s abdomen. He shouldered the man aside in time to see Fridurik lock swords with the guardsman’s companion. Fridurik’s injury made him clumsy. The guard’s knee crashed into the thief’s gut. Fridurik doubled over, and the guard struck for his unshielded back.
Larson lunged. His blade sheared through the guard’s chest, but the guard’s blow landed, too. Both men collapsed, and Larson found himself facing four loaded crossbows alone.
Larson distributed his weight evenly, trying to judge the paths of the bolts in the instant before their release. Compared with bullets, arrows crawl, and eleventh century bolts move even slower. Larson gathered solace from the flash of thought. The bolts whipped free. He tensed to dodge. Before he could move, something foreign crashed into his mind with a suddenness that jarred loose a scream. Pained beyond recognition of danger, he caught at his head. The edged steel heads of bolts bit through his left arm and calf, drawing another scream. His sword dropped to the floor.
Larson staggered backward into Taziar. “Allerum!” The Climber broke Larson’s fall, though their collision drove him, breathless, to the edge of the window. Dizzied and pain-maddened, Larson could not fathom why Taziar seized him by the hair and jerked him over. The pain of the maneuver seemed a minor annoyance compared with the agony in his skull, and its significance was lost on Larson. But the sensation of falling was not. Wind sang around him as he ripped through air. His composure cracked, his shocked howl vividly betraying fear.
Larson’s back hit the moat with a stinging slap. Water smothered him. Dazed and aching, he clawed for the surface. His fingers struck something solid. He grabbed for it, but his frenzied strokes churned it deeper. As the pain in his head died to an ache, sense filtered back into his consciousness. My god, I’m drowning Shadow.
Quickly, Larson disentangled from Taziar. His head broke the surface, and he gasped air deep into his lungs. A moment later, Taziar appeared, choking and sputtering, beside him.
“Shit,” Larson said. The curse seemed so weak in the wake of near death, that, despite pain, he could not keep himself from laughing in hysteria.
Apparently, Taziar did not find the humor in the scene. He clapped a damp hand over Larson’s lips, stifling his laughter. “It’s day, and the night sentries will have gone to sleep. But we still have to get by the gate guards.” Taziar released his grip and swam toward the far bank with long, steady strokes.
More guards. Larson groaned, following with an ungainly sidestroke that allowed his injured arm and leg to drag. All this, and it’s still not over. He stared at the wake of blood trailing him through the murky water. His wounds made his limbs ache worse than anything he had known since a college football player put him through a weight training workout in junior high. Then, the ache of tortured muscles had forced him to spend the following morning in bed. He watched Taziar pull himself to shore, shivering as the chill air touched his sodden clothes and skin. I may not be able to walk, let alone battle through more guards.
The pain in Larson’s head had faded, leaving a foreign presence huddled in a corner of his awareness. It confused him. In the past, when sorcerers and gods had penetrated his thoughts, they had done so without causing him pain. Except one. Larson recalled a stroll through a forest in southern Norway when someone or something had entered his thoughts with a violence that left his head throbbing. Right after it happened, I started recalling sailboating on Cedar Lake, details of the past, and Taziar’s stories of Cullinsberg. Larson reached for the brittle grasses overhanging the bank. Apparently, the pain comes when the sorcerer breaks in on me at warp speed. Larson crawled from the water, for the first time sorry his elf form made him impervious to cold. The discomfort might have numbed or, at least, drawn attention from the agony of his crossbow wounds. Still, despite its desperate entrance, the presence in my mind doesn’t appear to be trying to hurt me ... yet. It lay unmov
ing. Larson had discovered he could muster only one form of mental defense against intruders: trapping them in his mind. Quietly, he built a wall around the interloper. Too much to do now. I’ll deal with it later. Larson ripped strips from the hem of his cloak to serve as bandages.
“Here. Let me do that.” Taziar offered his hands to help Larson to his feet. Fearing for his injuries, Larson passed the cloth but waved his friend away. Instead, he clambered to his feet, stiffly guarding the torn, clenched muscles of his arm and calf. With nearly all his weight shifted to the right, he managed to stand.
Taziar knelt. His skilled fingers seemed to fly as he tightened a pressure dressing over the scarlet-smeared hole in Larson’s breeks, then rose and tied another on the elf’s arm.
The pain of walking proved tolerable if Larson used a pronounced limp. “Now what?” he whispered.
Taziar glanced around hurriedly. “It’ll take time for the surviving sentries to get word of our prison break from the tower to the gate guards.” He tapped his fingers on his knee as he considered. “I have an idea. Allerum, when you and Silme came to speak with the baron, how many guards stood at the gate?”
Larson considered. “Two. The gates were open, and a lot of people milled around the grounds.”
“The holiday will keep the peasants away.” Taziar traced some object through the fabric of his hip pocket. “Get everyone together.” He pointed vaguely at the trees, benches, and gardens of the baron’s courtyard, and Larson noticed the dripping prisoners crouched behind various plants and ornaments. “Lead them behind that clump of bushes.” Taziar made an arching motion to indicate a huge copse of grape and berry vines toward the front of the keep. “Quietly,” he warned. “When I yell, have everyone run through the gate. Tell them to scatter around the city. We’ll meet at the back door of the whorehouse.”
Mickey Zucker Reichert - Shadows Realm Page 29