by Jenna Rhodes
“Your friend has some questions to answer, then.” Daravan tossed the clawed hand next to Bregan’s leg. “Take that to your guild library and see if you and your associates can identify it, and what was waiting for you. I’ll be contacting you to see what you can discover from it.”
The Kernan stared down at the grisly remain. “The two of you are bloodied.” He kicked the severed hand down into the wagon well.
“We had some opposition. They set a goodly number against you.”
He nodded. Rings upon his fingers shot colored gleams into the air as he let the brake off and regathered the reins to turn his carriage about. “Consider me in your debt, Lord Daravan.”
Daravan gave a half bow. “It cannot be ill fortune to have a family such as the Oxforts indebted to me,” he returned. Bregan gave a wave in answer and clucked to his horses, and they set off in a high-stepping trot.
Daravan waited until the sight and sound of the carriage had disappeared from their senses, hidden by the leaning ruins until the lane took him into dunes etched by wind and where scrub brush had all but swallowed the old road. “I’d heard he was still a good horseman, for all the stiffness of that leg. When did he give up riding?”
“He hasn’t. And he’s a decent off-handed swordsman now, although not as good as he was before. He had it beat into him that he could train the other hand.” Sevryn dropped his hood, relieved that Bregan had neither recognized him nor even tried to, a faceless shadow at Daravan’s elbow.
“Then he should have been riding here. Faster and easier than a carriage. ” Daravan rubbed his chin. “Saved him, did we?” he said softly, as if mulling it over. “Or had he come to a meeting, with trade goods in the wagon behind him?”
Chapter Three
ON THE BARE-BONED side of a hill, overlooking golden-brown fields where autumn harvest had reduced the crop to row after row of broken stalks which cows and goats now grazed slowly, a fortress sat watch. As weather-beaten and dun as the land about it, it hardly rated more than a glance or two, first for its sheer size and second for the broken tower at its corner, a tower not for defense or offense but for imprisonment. If not for those, it might be dismissed altogether. The sharp peaks and cuts of a hard-spined mountain range leaned heavily upon it, imposing and dangerous, an implacable wall of stone. Winter would bring snow and ice and carry the shards of it on every breeze to the tower. A wind from the twilight-colored skies caught on it now, howling and whistling as though tearing loose or perhaps tearing down the impediment to its path. An answering howl came from within before fading to a thin hoarseness and then bleeding away altogether. Hoarse, rasping words followed, piercing the veil. “I am done. Now the bright and beautiful shall fall, one by one, into ruin.” Then, nothingness.
In the silence that fell briefly over the barracks and outbuildings, no one looked up although a few shrugged their shoulders in relief before putting their muscles back to the chores awaiting them. Of little imagination, they did not hold superstitions about what they heard. They knew whose tortured throat had uttered the ululations. Their master’s hound, as they called him, had been locked up for many days now. Or perhaps, as it was rumored about the rough fortress, he had locked the others out. Their ears had not the wit to hear more, nor their eyes the sagacity to see more, though many of them held a trace of Vaelinar in their bloodline. They were the chaff of the fields, and they knew it. They would work till the last ray of sun glinted across the landscape, or their master would exact a terrible discipline from them. Soldiers made into farmhands and blacksmiths, they toiled at what they must to survive. When the wars came, then would come their glory and their prosperity. They had been told that, and they believed it. That was a soldier’s lot and they had been chosen for it. The wind picked up again after a moment, unsubstantial and wavering. The tower remained silent.
Inside the tower, in a room locked from the inside, a spare, ragged man sat, his hollowed gaze upon a row of water jugs, most full and untouched. No crust or rind of bread could be found, nor any sign of meat or fruit. As lithe as any Vaelinar could be, he bordered more on skeletal, his strength wiry at best, whatever handsomeness his features had held long ago given way to gauntness and madness. Hair that might have been a lustrous brown in his youth was now lank and gray and corded back at the nape of his neck, his eyes flat and barely showing the jeweled multicolors of his people. Yet, as emaciated as he was, the very bones of his body shouted out his breeding. No one would mistake him as any other than Vaelinar.
He put a hand up and stroked his throat. His voice, if he had one left, would be raw and ragged, but his throat felt empty, as though there were no screams left to issue forth. Narskap nodded to himself and dragged one of the water vessels to him before drinking deeply, water cascading down his chin and over his chest. He dropped the jug wearily when he’d finished with it and it rolled about on its clay side, droplets running into a meager puddle. He looked into the wetness thinking to see himself there, scarcely more than skin and bones, hair pulled back into a severe queue at the back of his neck, his forehead peaked and high, the tips of his ears elegantly pointed, the only mark upon him that could be called one of Vaelinar quality. The rest of him could hardly be said to be so. He dressed in rags, he sat in sweat and dust, the tower confining him little more than wood and a bit of mortar here and there in the more severe cracks where the elements drove themselves in. Boards in the roof overhead rattled without cause. It was shelter but only just.
He gave a shrug. Dust drifted off him, a shroud of madness and delusion, and softly swirled to the floor around him, lesser motes floating on the air to be caught and studded by rays of sunlight managing to find their way inside. With a heave he found his feet, his body wavering back and forth with effort as though incapable of staying erect. He lifted trembling hands until he curved them into a position, holding an imaginary sword, a great sword, before him. In that pose, his body steadied. He found a gravity as he molded himself into a sword warrior’s stance. His hands tightened about that which he dreamed.
It had been his burden. He knew the heft and swing of it, the runes which had engraved it, the channels carved in it for the blood to run off, the elaborate hilt, the shining length of it. Narskap knew it as well as the smithy who’d fashioned and imbued it. He knew the Demon which had sung in it. Shoulders tense and sinews straining, he went through a series of movements with it. Guard, parry, thrust, balance, slice, he glided through them all. Cerat the Souldrinker, the Demon-ridden sword which only he could wield, filled his hands. He had become one with it then and moved with it now as if it were a part of him, imaginary blade stroking the air. His exertion increased, movements quickening, until he had stepped from exercise into battle, meeting a foe. Parry, gather, lunge, block. A spray of crimson washed the air in front of him, blinding him from the last of the sun filtering in through the cracks of the weather-beaten tower. He did it all, the sword in his mind forged to thrust as well as slice, doing all while the Demon cried in a thin, high, eerie song for blood and the mortality of the flesh it carved.
At some point, he became not the man imagining the sword but the sword imagining the man. He knew the bite of each hit, the wetness of the blood splashing down it, the thrill of the death and the taking of the soul inside himself, the eating of the mortality and the fear of the opponent. He was cold metal which became warmed by the fluids of the dying and by the hands gripping it firmly, giving it freedom to attack and the strength to move. He felt the nock of each slice to the bone once armor gave way. He felt the jolt of meeting a shield or parry and finessing beyond to drink again. He bathed in the blood of his enemies, and everything which lived was his enemy. He sliced the air until his wielder began to shake with effort and then . . . then . . . he faced that which he had never encountered before. Entities which imbued the sword along with Cerat, powerful entities and souls, and a girl who bore the blade as a charge threatened his being. She carried him heedless of his bloodsong and power, she carried him to do a thing whic
h only she could do, and he unable to resist her. She a stripling yet . . . a cord, a wire . . . he could not break. She lifted him a last time and struck him across a bond of magic and stone. He let out a demonic yowl.
And shattered. His existence ended in broken shards and splinters of steel. His voice fled shrieking to the nether realms, freed and yet exiled. Dream collapsed, and the man fell in exhaustion.
His legs gave way, folding under him, and Narskap collapsed into a heap on the floor, chest heaving, his clothes sodden, his hair lank and sweat-slicked to his head. He reached for another jug of water, hand shaking wildly.
He stayed his hand as a cloud coalesced from the jugs in front of him. His arm shook wildly. A mist of fine drops ranged upward, becoming a spray, then a dense fog and then . . . a being. She hovered in front of him, silver and blue and gray, with wings of dark marine blue spread about her form, or perhaps it was a massive cloak unfurled. Power radiated from her, and the room chilled with her presence. The lumber bones of the tower creaked heavily as if they fought to contain her, dry wood hit with a burst of sudden moisture. She brought with her the smell of summer rain on heat-baked stone and the burning odor of fresh struck lightning. Dampness surrounded her, made the air heavy to breathe almost as if he were underwater. Her eyes held the deep blue of a bottomless mountain tarn and they were fixed on him. Her hair cascaded about her, colored like many waters. She did not smile as she beheld him.
Nor did he express awe or fear as he looked upon her. He merely reached for a clay jug that her presence did not affect, drawing it close and draining it. He cradled the empty jug with one hand. “Goddess,” he acknowledged. “Although not of me and mine.”
“Man who dreams of being a sword and sword who dreams of being a man,” she answered. Her presence spread until it flooded the room save where it reached him, and then it was as though his body dammed her from reaching farther. The cloak curled like whitecaps cresting on a wind-blown lake but stayed a finger’s breadth from touching him. Dewdrops as bright as jewels dappled over his sweat-stained skin and clothes. Behind him, the wood stayed as dry and dusty as it had been although he had the sense it would have gulped her down if it could have, wood that had once lived and ached to do so again. She beckoned. The mists about her rippled. Her face stayed smooth and her godly beauty did not change its mask, but Narskap thought a mortal disappointment might have lanced through her eyes for a moment. “Which are you?”
“One might as well be the other. Both are tools.”
“Does a tool live? Does it feel, inhale, stretch its soul toward the unknown? Does it talk with a God? Does it know worry and fear?”
“I exist. As for the rest determining what a man is, even the smallest animal in the field goes to sleep at night, worrying that it will hunger when it awakens in the morning.”
She looked down on him. “You hunger.”
“In a way that no Goddess can fulfill.” His fingers tightened momentarily on the empty jug he held.
“There is nothing I can offer you.” Neither a statement nor a question, bordering on both.
“Nothing that I would want from you, no. You do not exist to me.”
“It is not wise to disbelieve in the Gods. Or to argue with them.”
He cut the air between them with the side of his hand. “You can always leave.”
“I came to look at the being which caused me distress.”
“Both your observance and revenge could have come from on high if you are as you believe yourself. The omnipotent do not need to visit their targets.” He seemed unperturbed.
“But not as satisfying.”
Narskap grunted softly. “Nothing gets satisfaction from me.”
“I will.”
“To do that, you would have to exist.”
“Do you think existence depends upon you and your recognition?” The Goddess made a scoffing sound. “You don’t have to will it, for it to be so.” Her image gathered a bit, becoming more solid, her eyes growing icy and her face sharper. She almost looked as if she were a Vaelinar herself with her expression so planed. “You wait for your partner, but I tell you the Souldrinker is blocked from leaving the nether planes again. You wait fruitlessly for Cerat. Even your years will not extend long enough for such a thing to happen.”
He blinked. “A concerted effort. The world must be ending if the Gods align.”
“We often agree on the important things,” she said in a cold fury. The winged cloak about her unfurled and rippled as if in a distressed wind, a wind that howled both inside and outside the tower. The clapboards rattled around him, although the floor he sat upon seemed solid enough. Dewdrops and condensation ran off him in chilled rivulets.
“You will wander the earth as lifeless and soulless as you profess to be. That of you and yours will not be satisfied until quenched by the blood of destiny.” The voice of the River Goddess rose strongly as she spoke, and when she ceased, the room fell into an absolute quiet broken only by the sound of droplets hitting the floor.
The wind began to howl again. “You have cursed me,” Narskap observed mildly. “Even worse, with nonsense.”
“Or blessed you. As for the nonsense, time will give you proof.” A ripple like that which moved across water ran through her. The wind growled louder, a storm moving across the land. The apparition spoke again. “I know that which can destroy you.” She shrank yet again, growing more solid, more mortal-sized, and ever more threatening. She loomed in front of his face, her cloak-wings wrapping about him, and she leaned down to whisper a word or two in his ear. His pale skin grayed further. Then she drew back and flung her arms out, her presence once again billowing forth and claiming all of the tower that she could. “You will never touch one of us again,” she told him.
“I should never have been able to touch one of you before,” he said dryly, reminding her of his ability.
Lightning struck once, very close, followed on the heels of the blinding flash by thunder which shook the entire fortress with an ear-shattering rumble.
And then she was gone.
Narskap sat very still for a moment or two, counting his heartbeats. It might have been raining outside, he was not certain, for his ears still rang with the boom of the thunder, and the heated smell of lightning filled his nostrils. When he recovered, he reached forward, sweeping over four of the clay jugs, revealing four very sharp arrowheads chiseled and struck from a jewel of red-gold.
“Interesting. She did not sense me.” Quendius stepped forth from the tower shadows at Narskap’s back.
“Indeed, Master.” He picked up an arrowhead, cradling it carefully. “An important bit of knowledge. As for the omnipotence of godliness, she is wrong on several counts.”
Quendius reached his side. He wore his long ivory fleece vest over dark leather pants, as supple as the well-muscled legs they covered, his ash-gray skin looking as though he had been dusted lightly by the fires of the forge he commanded. His dark eyes narrowed as his gaze examined the object Narskap held up for him. “Well shaped.”
“Cerat cannot leave the planes whole. But his essence, quartered, can. We have achieved what he wished, even under the nose of the River Goddess. She came to advise us of triumph, already too late to know she had been defeated.” Narskap tapped each of the four arrowheads. “He has already imbued that which I have shaped for him.” A loud hum began from the arrowheads as if awakened to his thump. Quendius knew that hum, knew the impatient song of a Demon whining for obedience.
“And what now to finish them?”
“Aryn wood for the shaft.” Narskap looked into his master’s face. “If you would procure that for me, you will have an arrow that armor cannot turn aside. Even flesh and bone will not stop it, until it has taken the blood and soul it wishes, and then it will return to the archer’s hand. Your quiver will never be empty as long as Cerat is thirsty, and he is never sated.”
Quendius smiled briefly. He shifted his weight to bow over the arrowheads. “Aryn wood.”
&nb
sp; “Bistel Vantane guards his aryns as a Kernan guards his daughters. But I have faith that you can secure wood for the shafts and a matching longbow. Once I’ve strung the longbow, all you need is to be bonded to it.”
“And yet you call me master.” Quendius put a fingertip to the arrowhead held by Narskap. He could feel the heat within it, hear the buzz like that of an angry hornet. He trusted that all was as Narskap told him, and that Cerat had divided himself to enter the plane of mortals which fed him so well before. “It will return to the archer,” he repeated.
“Once the bow is made and strung and initiated, yes. It will drill through flesh like a hot dagger through freshly churned butter.”
He grunted in satisfaction before remarking. “I will presume the ritual involves blood.”
“With Cerat, there can be no other way.”
Quendius removed his finger from the arrowhead. “I’ll see to it.” He withdrew to the door, unlocking the four locks which secured it, each a thick and heavy dead bolt. As ramshackle as the tower looked, it was not. The timber shaping it was thick and solid. Its cracks might let the elements in, but it would never allow its occupants out.
Narskap heard him leave. He did not for a moment wonder how his master had gotten into a tower locked from the inside nor why the Goddess had not sensed him. Had Quendius even been there? Perhaps not; his master had left days ago on another mission. He knew, better than Quendius even, that the weaponsmith could step through dark spots in the otherwise bright firmament of Kerith. He’d been at Quendius’ side when it happened. A day or more might have been lost or gained, but shadow swallowed Quendius even as madness swallowed Narskap. Or perhaps it was only his madness that made him think Quendius could travel through shadow. It was not a Talent or a magic that the Vaelinar held. It was more like a blight on the world and Quendius a worm who could wiggle through the corruption. Narskap shivered. His thoughts turned to the problem at hand: getting past Bistel to harvest the wood from the famed Vaelinar trees known as aryns. Nothing less would suit his purpose.