by J. L. Doty
“He will always be my father,” Valso said unhappily. “That I cannot change. But when this is done I doubt he will be my king any longer.”
“Oh magnificent!” the Tulalane shouted. “I’ve waited for this moment for ten years, and you choose now to play your games. Couldn’t you have at least waited another month?”
“I have my reasons for doing what I do,” Valso said. “And beware how you speak to me, twoname.”
The Tulalane mocked him openly. “Oh forgive me, my prince. Did I offend you?”
“You go too far, Tulalane.” Valso’s anger formed a halo about his shoulders and back. His lips curled into a snarl, and his power came upon him.
“Not here, you fool,” the Tulalane hissed. “Not with six hundred Elhiyne armsmen waiting outside these walls. Put your petty magic away before it destroys us both.”
Valso’s confidence faltered and he allowed his magic to dissipate. He smiled. “So you fear the Elhiynes, eh?”
“I fear nothing. But I know there is a time and place for everything. And I am patient.”
Valso’s smile broadened. “Not terribly patient when it comes to your reward.”
“Only a part of my reward,” the Tulalane said, “and a very small part at that. You owe me much, and I demand partial payment now. Otherwise, I shall withdraw my services.”
Valso changed the subject. “What have you done about the whoreson?”
“Nothing. He’s not worth the bother.”
“But he’s about.”
The Tulalane smiled. “Yes he is. Lurking in shadows. But he’s not been heard nor seen. There’s been nothing since the dead guard.”
“But he’s here,” Valso said uneasily, “in the castle. I can feel him, but I can’t locate him because he’s using no magic.”
“We’ll deal with the whoreson when the time comes. For now, we were talking of my reward.”
Valso weighed the Tulalane carefully before speaking. “Very well. You will have what you request.”
“Now,” the Tulalane demanded.
Valso ignored him, turned with a flourish and walked to the door. He paused there, looked back and grinned. “As you wish.”
Morgin, huddled within a shadow in the antechamber, watched him leave. The shadow in which he hid was much closer to the audience chamber than he’d intended to come, but he’d become absorbed in the conversation within and forgotten himself. Nervously he kept an eye on the three Kull’s standing with their backs to him, standing now in the middle of the room so they wouldn’t slouch against the wall, watching the entrance through which he’d already passed. He decided to wait. There was time, several hours before dawn. It would be interesting to see what reward the Tulalane had chosen.
Earlier Morgin had moved MichaelOff to a spot closer to the occupied wings of the new castle, then gone to reconnoiter the gates and gatehouse. But while returning he’d decided to make a short side trip, because to Morgin’s mind there remained one question yet to be answered: Why had Illalla not arrived on schedule? And apparently, the answer to that question was that Valso had acted prematurely. But again the question arose: Why?
Valso was no fool; bloodthirsty yes, and vicious, but not to the point where it clouded his judgment. Why would he risk so much to gain so little? Certainly the Tulalane believed him to be a blood-crazy fool, as did almost everyone else. And that bothered Morgin, for that was exactly what Valso wanted them to believe.
Boot steps in the hall beyond brought Morgin’s mind back to the present. He checked his shadowmagic then froze.
Verk and some of his Kullish bullies entered the antechamber escorting NickoLot. In her late teens she was a women now, though she’d always been small, an almost tiny thing. She stood proudly, back straight, eyes forward, dressed in the finery of an Elhiyne lady. The effect was marred only by the silent tears that rolled down her cheeks, and the slight quiver that shook her chin. She stood scared and tiny and proud.
The Kulls halted just outside the audience chamber and Verk turned upon them angrily. “Watch her. She may be small, but she’s a witch just the same, and she has a nasty little sting.”
He turned back and entered the audience chamber. “The girl is here, my lord.”
“Then bring her in.”
Verk reappeared, motioned for NickoLot to precede him. “After you, milady,” he said, then followed her as she stepped through the portal.
On impulse Morgin stepped into Verk’s shadow for an instant, followed him in, then stepped into a shadow against a wall. He changed shadows, moving away from the entrance, then froze into stillness.
The Tulalane eyed NickoLot as if looking at a meal. “Leave us, Verk. And close the door.” The Kull obeyed.
The Tulalane looked upon NickoLot for a long, silent, hungry moment. She sniffed once, but said nothing.
“You are beautiful, milady,” he said. He advanced slowly toward her.
She remained silent.
“I have been an admirer of yours for a long time now.”
She frowned, sniffed back another tear.
He stood over her. “You have nothing to fear from me. I can protect you. Valso will not anger me by touching you, not without my permission. When this is done I will be very powerful, and you can share in that power.”
Her eyes narrowed into thin, untrusting slits. “What do you want?” she asked.
“I want you, milady.”
Her eyes widened. She squeaked, took one step back. “No.”
The Tulalane stepped toward her, closing the gap between them. “My proposal is an honorable one, Nicki. I want you as my wife, not as a whore.”
She stepped back again. “No. Never.”
He advanced. “Don’t make a decision now. Think about it. You’ll die with all the rest if you turn me down.”
She tried to step back again, but found her back against a wall. Her voice filled with disgust and fear. “Never. I would rather die.” She finished by spitting a single word in his face, “Traitor!”
“So!” he said, and now he towered over her. “You would rather die, eh? Well that can be arranged. And believe me, little Elhiyne whore, the dying will not be easy. And like it or not, I will still have you anyway.”
He reached toward her, but she ducked beneath his arm and raced for the door, tore it open and shot out of the room, eluding the grasp of the startled Kulls outside.
“Let her go,” the Tulalane shouted. “I’ll take care of this myself.” He followed her.
NickoLot raced through the castle proper, with the Tulalane following her casually. His Kullish guards followed him with comments about enjoying some sport after the inactivity of the past several days, and Morgin followed in the shadows behind them.
When NickoLot turned toward the inner sanctum Morgin wanted to shout to her that it was a dead end, but it was too late so he just followed. The chase ended in the sanctum itself, NickoLot cornered within trying to close the heavy stone portal, while the Tulalane casually blocked it with the tip of his boot. “You won’t escape me that easily, my little Elhiyne whore.”
The Tulalane gave the portal a shove, forcing it open and knocking NickoLot to the floor. The Tulalane laughed, turned to his Kulls. “Wait here. I’m going to have some fun.”
As the Tulalane turned and stepped into the sanctum, Morgin slipped into his shadow and followed, then stepped into a shadow at the edge of the room and froze. The Tulalane turned, put his shoulder to the portal and closed it, sealing the sanctum. Then he turned back to NickoLot, who huddled against the far wall. The twelve-sided room was now lit only by a single dim brazier, casting fluttering shadows everywhere.
Morgin was having trouble concentrating. The walls of the sanctum were more than a thousand years old, dug up from the ruins of the Great Clan Wars, the only thing left of the old Elhiyne magic. Something there pulled at him and it frightened him.
“Please,” NickoLot pleaded as the Tulalane stood over her. He reached down with a giant paw and she trembled uncontrollably. He bent
down to bring his face close to hers. She tried to turn away, but his grip tightened painfully on her face. His lips met hers, and at the same time his free hand groped toward her small breasts.
Without warning sparks flashed between them. The Tulalane screamed and jumped back. “Elhiyne bitch!” he shouted as his hand flashed down. The room echoed with a resounding slap that sent her sprawling to the floor in a wild heap of lace and petticoats. With one hand he grabbed her by the front of her dress and lifted her up. Snarling, he raised the other hand high to deliver another blow.
Until that moment Morgin had stood in dumbfounded disbelief, but the fear on NickoLot’s face jogged him out of his immobility. He stepped out of shadow, and in the same motion swung his sword through a high flat arc. It chopped through the wrist of the Tulalane’s raised hand with a loud meaty thunk. The Tulalane’s severed hand jumped high in the air. He screamed in furious agony as it dropped to the floor, and as Morgin’s momentum carried him past the Tulalane he grabbed a hand full of petticoats and swung NickoLot into a nearby shadow, then turned to face the wizard swordmaster.
The Tulalane trembled as he crouched purposefully, grasping the stump of his sword arm with his good left hand. He shook with fury and pain, and glared at Morgin with malevolence. But then slowly his quivering shoulders calmed, the grimace left his face and was replaced by a half snarl, then an evil grin. He stood up straight, concentrated on the severed stump he held before him, and miraculously the spurting blood slowed, then ceased altogether. The stump began to glow, at first faintly, then with a ghostly intensity, and as the glow increased in strength and size, it took on shape. Detail came slowly, an eerie process of solidification that progressed until the glow disappeared and a phantom hand remained, visible only by a vague, shimmering outline.
The Tulalane’s grin broadened. He flexed the phantom fingers carefully, then reached down with the unreal hand and drew his sword slowly. It hissed with the scrape of steel as it slid from the sheath. His grin turned into a snarl of delight. “So the boy thinks he is a man,” he said through the grin, then flashed his sword right and left to test his new hand. “Well this is going to be your last lesson, boy. A test, your final test, you might say. We’ll see how much of a man you are, and then we’ll see how well you die.” The Tulalane growled, lowered into a crouch and advanced purposefully.
Morgin crouched also, holding his sword in front of him, facing the Tulalane and backing away. Not in his wildest dreams would he have considered facing the Tulalane so, but when he’d seen the pain in NickoLot’s face, and realized the rape that was intended, his sword had leapt in his hands as if it had a mind of its own.
The Tulalane struck his first blow, and again with a mind of its own Morgin’s sword leapt to meet it. Sparks shattered the darkness as the two blades rang together. Morgin gripped his sword with both hands, and at the next stroke he felt the crash reverberate up his arms, numbing them to the elbows. Instinctively he deflected the next blow, then disengaged and back-stepped several paces.
“You don’t like that, do you boy?” the Tulalane said confidently. He closed the gap between them in a single bound, swung his sword in a long sweeping arc.
Morgin ducked, barely able to elude the blade as it hissed past his nose. He met the next blow, the steel in his hands screamed and he felt the clash in his shoulders. He retreated desperately, back-stepping again, hoping to escape the wizard’s bloodlust.
Like Morgin the Tulalane gripped his sword in both hands. And each blow that Morgin met cost him dearly as he staggered under its impact. The Tulalane grinned evilly and toyed with Morgin, played with him like a cat playing with a mouse. Then he batted Morgin’s sword aside and raised his own well above his head for the easy kill. Morgin, his guard open, his numbed hands barely able to hold his own sword, watched the Tulalane’s blade descend in an agonizingly slow arc. But in that instant lightning suddenly flashed from the other side of the sanctum, crackled and sizzled against the Tulalane’s back. The long forgotten NickoLot had joined the battle.
The Tulalane stumbled. His blow faltered. Morgin seized the opportunity, ducked beneath it, turned, and melted into the shadows that lined the walls. He changed shadows quickly, then froze into stillness. The air smelled of burnt flesh and singed hair.
The Tulalane raged, stood in the light cast by the single brazier and swung his sword blindly about. But then he calmed suddenly, and his attention settled on the shadow where NickoLot hid. He slapped the only table in the room aside as if it were made of paper and not heavy wood, then advanced.
Morgin moved quickly, circling about the edge of the room, sliding easily from one shadow to the next, creating shadows of magic where those of the mortal world did not exist of themselves.
The Tulalane stopped, stood over NickoLot’s shadow while she uttered a childish whimper of fear, then raised his sword. In that moment Morgin plowed into him at a full run, and as they both went down he made sure that his own weight landed full force on the magician. They hit the stone floor heavily. The Tulalane grunted as Morgin bounced off him, and Morgin scrambled quickly to his feet. He stepped into the security of the nearest shadow, changed shadows several times, then froze. And but for the Tulalane’s groan, and the scrape of his boot on the rough, stone floor as he rose slowly to his feet, the room held a silence as still as impending death.
“Bastard Elhiyne!” the Tulalane screamed, staggering about the room. “Stand out here and fight like a man. Whoreson. Coward.”
Morgin held his breath, pressed his spine hard against the stone wall. But suddenly his back tingled with power and he shivered at the thought that he might have discovered some magic waiting in the stone. He tasted it, realized it was everywhere, almost alive in its own right, comforting in its heritage, menacing in its strength, permeating everything about the sanctum, waiting, watching, hoping.
Morgin changed shadows, tried not to think about power. But the stone itself was tainted with it, and it called to him, a beckoning desire that he feared he could not withstand. It was his heritage as an Elhiyne, his ancestry as Shahot. It was more than a thousand years of the exercise of power, waiting to be used by whoever had the strength to contain it.
He reached out tentatively, touched it with his magic, picking at it gingerly as one might pluck a single grape from the vine. But the entire vine came unbound, falling forth in a cascade that overwhelmed him. He fought it, gasping for breath as it tried to sweep him away, reeling, power flooding through every thread of his soul, he barely had the presence of mind to duck as the Tulalane’s sword screamed past his face. He staggered into the center of the room.
“Your family’s power won’t save you now, boy,” the magician growled, then lunged at him.
Morgin swung his sword desperately outward. It met the magician’s blade with a screaming shower of sparks and drove the twoname backwards. The Tulalane back-stepped, surprise written across his face.
Morgin’s first inclination was to retreat into shadow, but he’d gained some advantage and pressed it now by attacking. He swung his sword with both hands, backing the Tulalane across the room, their battle no longer a test of physical strength, but now of magical power.
The Tulalane halted, stood his ground, brought forth the last of his power in an effort to overwhelm Morgin, who staggered under the force of the attack and fell back, his own sword seemingly working against him. It pulled at his grip like a wild animal striving to break free. He stepped into a shadow, changed from one to the next, stepped out at the Tulalane’s side. He gave his sword its own head, swung it with all the power at his command.
The magician, taken by surprise, parried the stroke clumsily. Morgin saw an opening and brought his sword viciously upward. It bucked in his hands wildly, then bit into the Tulalane’s side, cut relentlessly into the magician’s chest, crunching ribs, stopping only when it came up against his spine.
The Tulalane froze with his sword high above his head, Morgin’s sword buried to the hilt in his chest. They bo
th stood surprised and stunned, eyes wide in amazement, as the Tulalane’s half severed torso began to flow red with blood. The phantom hand disappeared; his sword clattered to the floor and the stump of his wrist once again spurted blood.
The Tulalane looked calmly down at his chest. He concentrated, and the blood welling from the mortal wound there suddenly slowed, then stopped altogether. His grin returned.
Morgin screamed “Noooooooooo!” He raised his boot, planted it squarely in the center of the wizard’s chest, and gripping the hilt of his sword he pulled with all his might and kicked out.
The Tulalane staggered backward as the sword slid from his chest. His concentration broken, his magic slipped away. The blood flowed once more from his wrist and his chest, and slowly, with a look of complete surprise, the magician toppled forward like a great tree axed down in the forest. He landed on his face, bounced once, dust scattering in all directions. And with the passing of Lord Hwatok Tulalane, silence reigned in the twelve-sided room.
~~~
Morgin reeled with the Elhiyne power flooding through him, and stared dumbly at the dead Tulalane. A noise startled him. He spun to find Verk, the Kull commander, standing at the open portal, eyes wide with amazement. Morgin’s sword leapt for the Kull’s throat, but Verk moved quickly, ducked and backed out of the room, pulling desperately on the door. Morgin slammed into the portal, leaned heavily against it, heard Verk scream, “Get reinforcements. It’s the Elhiyne wizard.” Then the door closed with a heavy thud. Morgin pounded the latch in place with his fist, and again silence filled the room.
“Oh Morgin!” NickoLot cried tearfully. She jumped to her feet and ran to him, buried her face in his tunic, wrapped her arms around him and sobbed uncontrollably. “I was so afraid, Morgin. I was so afraid.”
Morgin shook with power, kept it barely contained, could do no more than pat the back of her head comfortingly. Suddenly she stopped crying. She pulled her face away from his chest and looked up at him, staring at him as if it was he she now feared.