The Mammoth Book Of Warriors and Wizardry (The Mammoth Book Series)

by Sean Wallace

  “Does it surprise you that we know your history?” asked the Dominie. “We are wizards.”

  “Do you know everything there is to know?” asked Isrohim Vey.

  The Dominie shrugged. “I know how scared you were when you faced the demon Gorias. I know you were not scared at all when you faced Umbral; but I don’t know why not.”

  “Neither do I,” said Isrohim Vey.

  The Dominie nodded.

  “Give me the worst of it,” said Isrohim Vey.

  The next day was a running battle across the field of Aruvhossin where seven armies lay dead. In that place Isrohim Vey killed his selves that might have been. He killed Isrohim Vey, the bloodthirsty mercenary captain. He killed Isrohim Vey, lecherous sybarite and drunk. He killed Isrohim Vey, devout chaplain of the Empire Church. These and many others he killed. Savage black dogs came to eat the entrails of the dead men. They scented the living Isrohim Vey, and chased him. There were too many to kill. Isrohim Vey was brought to ground. His muscles were torn from his bones and the tongues of dogs lapped at his blood. There was no angel. Only the quiet dissolution of all the world.

  To his surprise, Isrohim Vey woke up in the Dominie’s tower.

  When the Dominie Segelius came to visit him, the swordsman said: “I died.”

  The Dominie shrugged.

  “Why bring me back?” asked Isrohim Vey. Before the Dominie could answer, he asked also, “Why make me fight? Why do these things to me?”

  “Wizards have their reasons. Perhaps we wanted to know how long it would be before you began to ask ‘Why?’ Perhaps we wanted to see what you would do now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’re free to go,” said the Dominie Segelius. “You should leave the Demesne. But other than that, you may go wherever you like. Do what you will.”

  After a long while, Isrohim Vey asked, “Why did you wait so long to find me? Why did you wait until I was so old?”

  The Dominie shrugged.

  Isrohim Vey travelled south from the Demesne of Starry Wisdom and Golden-Eyed Dawn, a long way south until the stars changed. He travelled through Ulvandr-Kathros the Confederate Empire until he reached its southwest coast, and then across the harsh seas until he reached the island of Thættir. The people of Thættir were, and are, solitary and grim, fisherfolk and pirates, often foul of temper, overall seasoned by the salt of the sea and the bitter winds that lash the island of volcanic rock and ice fields; but they work together without complaint, are very brave, and love freedom. Isrohim Vey was soon voted by them to be Lawspeaker, which meant in essence to be their king.

  For several years Isrohim Vey governed the people of Thættir wisely and well. Also in these years he organized their defenses. The Empress Adara XI had come to power in Ulvandr-Kathros; she was mad and lusted for conquest. For these reasons she looked westward, to Thættir, which had always before been too distant from the mainland to attract conquerors; it was that which had led men and women to settle on Thættir, and be free from rulers.

  Isrohim Vey led raids against the mainland, sinking ships at harbor; he concluded alliances, with other island-folk and with the races under the ocean; and he sent agents northward to Opallios to recover that whip which commanded the flood and the eclipse, along with other treasures he had discarded decades before. When all these things had been done he made further preparations, but those were for his own future.

  The night before the navies of Ulvandr-Kathros were to battle the ships of Thættir, Isrohim Vey went to the Dawn Tower, a lighthouse on the far eastern end of the island; with him was Ida, whom he trusted most on Thættir. Ida was the one he had chosen to go to Opallios. “We will win tomorrow,” Isrohim Vey said to her, looking eastward.

  “Yes, we will,” said Ida. “The whip will determine it.”

  “True,” agreed Isrohim Vey. “So there is no need of me.” He took the obsidian amulet of the Lawspeaker from around his neck. Its chain clicked against itself as he gave it to Ida.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. But she trusted him, and took the amulet.

  “I have had some men loyal to me prepare a boat,” he said. “I must go north. You will be the Lawspeaker.”

  “I am too young,” said Ida.

  “Some old men are wise,” said Isrohim Vey. “Others have only lived a long time without meeting death.”

  “You can stay,” said Ida. “Lead us further. If we break the navy of the Confederate Empire, we can raid inland – we could take the Pelian Isthmus, starve the city of Carcannum – you could topple the Empress, rule half the world.”

  “I could, old as I am. I choose not to.”

  Ida set the chain about her neck.

  Suddenly, Isrohim Vey said: “You can escape destiny. Change your fate. The world’s fate. If you choose to. If you know that, then you may not need to.”

  Below them, the waves of the sea crashed against the mossy black rocks of the island of Thættir, as they always had.

  “What will I tell the people?” asked Ida.

  “Tell them I have finally gone to the Angel of Death.”

  “Death. This will be difficult for them to understand.”

  Isrohim Vey said, “Death is simple.”

  Isrohim Vey did not know that the night he arrived in Vilmariy for the third and last time in his life was also the night of his sixty-first birthday; nor, if he had known, would it have mattered.

  It was the night of the Grand Masque, when all things were upended.

  Isrohim Vey walked through the city, past satyrs and devils and Kings of old time.

  He asked a watchman for directions to the home of Reivym Shoi; whether this was truly a watchman or not did not matter. The man told the old swordsman where to find the estate of Reivym Shoi, heir to the line of Eblinn, and that was enough.

  The house was dark and silent. Isrohim Vey walked to the front door and pounded on the solid wood. When no one came after a minute he pounded again; and then again. And eventually the door opened, and Reivym Shoi stood before Isrohim Vey.

  “The servants are gone to the Grand Masque,” said Reivym Shoi, who seemed not to see the man before him. “I am the master here. Who are you, and what do you seek?”

  “I am Isrohim Vey, the death-bound swordsman. I carry the sword called Azrael’s Word, which some say is the Nameless Sword. I seek the Angel of Death.”

  For a moment Reivym Shoi did not move; then he sprang back into the shadows of the house. Isrohim Vey followed, more slowly, and drew Azrael’s Word. Then Reivym Shoi came at him, sword in hand, and the two old men fought.

  Reivym Shoi’s eyesight had faded with the years, but in the dark of the house Isrohim Vey found this gave him no advantage. But the wound he had given Reivym Shoi years ago on a ship still seemed to trouble him. Isrohim Vey drove him back across an old entrance hall. Then Reivym Shoi ducked into a shadowed archway, and turned and ran. Cautiously, Isrohim Vey gave chase.

  He ran through dark room after dark room. Ahead of him, in the moonlight filtering through high windows, was always the form of Reivym Shoi. As fast as Isrohim Vey ran he could not gain ground, and for the first time in his life he felt truly old. Sometimes Reivym Shoi would shout and guards would come.

  Isrohim Vey killed them. Reivym Shoi came to a flight of stairs and paused; a light flared, a lantern in his hand. Reivym Shoi ran down the stairs. Isrohim Vey followed.

  The diagonal of the stairs ran a long way into the dark. Then there was a landing, a switchback, another long diagonal. Another landing, another switchback. And again. Isrohim Vey would catch up to Reivym Shoi during the long descents; then Reivym Shoi would turn a corner and without the light of his lantern Isrohim Vey was forced to slow down.

  The stairs seemed to continue endlessly, past walls of old stone, then past no walls at all, into a vast cavern, then through a close arched shaft of rock carved with old runes. The stairs were pitched at an odd angle, and were of varied heights, as though to fit the strides of creatures with sev
eral sets of legs and a variable length of stride. Isrohim Vey and Reivym Shoi were by this time far far below the city of Vilmariy, farther below the earth than the deepest tunnel of the Hideous Prison Illullunor, farther below than the Deep Dark where Isrohim Vey had spoken to the Svar smith Einik.

  As they raced down the stairs in their weary old-man’s hobble, both men became aware of a third presence with them; and Isrohim Vey remembered the Dominie he had spoken to almost four decades past saying, “There are angels everywhere.”

  Then they were out of the tunnel, still upon the stairs, but the stairs now circled a curving stone wall; a great circle of stone, like a vast cup or cauldron on a scale fit for gods. Isrohim Vey heard a crashing and a pounding from below, and as he ran downwards he realized there was a fountain at the base of the cauldron, like the fountain under Umbral’s glacier, but much larger. He could see the waters seething and frothing, raging and white; could see, at the edge of the light of Reivym Shoi’s lantern, a fine mist of spray that seemed to take an infinity of forms. And those forms persisted when the light had moved on, so that in the darkness were all things made.

  At the base of the long, long stairs there was a stone path like an isthmus or bridge leading out to an island in the middle of the fountain; like an image of Vilmariy, which was an island city built upon a mountain rising from a great river. Reivym Shoi hastened along the path. Isrohim Vey followed, slowly now as there was no other way off the island.

  Finally, deliberately, Reivym Shoi set down his lantern and turned and drew his sword. “Do you know what this place is, Isrohim Vey?” he cried. “This is the Fount of All! Here all things come into the world! Here all things begin! So it must be here that all things end!”

  It was at this point that Isrohim Vey understood that the years had taken Reivym Shoi’s reason as well as his sight. Nevertheless the man attacked, and Isrohim Vey drew Azrael’s Word for the last time in his life.

  Isrohim Vey and Reivym Shoi battled for a long time on the island at the heart of the Fount of All.

  It seemed to Isrohim Vey that every move he made he had already made, many times before. That his life was a circle and that all things in it had come round again.

  Then he battered down Reivym Shoi’s sword and kicked it away across the island. And he raised Azrael’s Word; and brought it down; and Reivym Shoi’s collarbone was crushed as the sword sank into his chest.

  And then there was a light on Reivym Shoi’s face, and his eyes were focused on something far away, and Isrohim Vey turned, knowing what he would see.

  And there was Azrael, the Angel of Death; and the angel was smiling.

  And for the third and last time of his life Isrohim Vey spoke the Word of Azrael.

  And, knowing that Reivym Shoi had still several moments of life left, Isrohim Vey deliberately let his sword fall from his hand; and this, the last decision in his life, was made in acceptance of his destiny, which, he understood now and for the first time, was only the beginning of himself and not the summation, just as he was defined not by the nature of that destiny but in how it was met and fulfilled.

  And so Isrohim Vey moved beyond both destiny and free will.

  And then Reivym Shoi took up the Nameless Sword which Isrohim Vey had called Azrael’s Word, and, falling forward, with the last of his life drove the point of the sword through Isrohim Vey’s chest and on into the heart of the Angel of Death.

  And all Isrohim Vey knew was the smile of the angel. And the smile hurt with a sweet pain that grew until it was all he knew, and he knew everything and nothing. And Isrohim Vey felt his lips curve and pull back from his teeth, and felt his blood surge, and knew a rare warmth.

  And Isrohim Vey smiled the smile of the Angel of Death, and all things were upended, and the world turned upside down.

  Such is the end of the story of Isrohim Vey, as the Dominies tell it, and the keepers of the truths of angels. And all of them have since debated the fate of the soul of Reivym Shoi, and of the Angel of Death called Azrael, and of Isrohim Vey.

  As is the case with most souls, however, their destiny remains unclear.

  LADY OF THE GHOST WILLOW

  Richard Parks

  The remnants of my saké cask, like my sleep, had not lasted the night. Having no further resources to drown my nightmares, I rose, dressed, and went out into the streets of the Capital. The night was at its darkest, lost like me in the time evenly split between dusk and dawn, when ghosts and demons came out of hiding and walked freely about the city. I had no care for that possibility, save that I could have used the distraction.

  So when the shining figure with the appearance of a lady approached me, I was more curious than worried.

  I stood at the highest point on Shijo Bridge. It was a good spot to view the moon, if there had been a moon to view at that hour. It was a decent tactical location in case of trouble, with only two directions to defend. She came out of the darkness and stood on the eastern end of the bridge in the direction of the place where cremations were done, beyond the city walls and the clustered temples specializing in funerals.

  She was not a ghost, though someone less experienced in these matters could easily mistake her for one. The glow around her was very faint but easy to see, and there was a slight flutter in her step that gave her away. Not a ghost. A shikigami, a magical creature with little more reality than the scraps of paper used to create her and no independent will save that of her master, whoever that might be. Still, the person who created her had done a superb job.

  I had seen shikigami that seemed little more than poorly manipulated puppets, but this one could easily pass for human. From the number of layers of her kimono down to the precise cut of her hair, she appeared exactly as one would expect of a well-born attendant to a noble family. Not that such a one would ever be abroad this time of night, and certainly not on foot and alone.

  I turned my gaze back over the water, though I kept her image in the corner of my eye. “What do you want?”

  She bowed to me then. “I am sent with a message for Yamada no Goji. I serve Fujiwara no Kinmei.”

  The name was familiar. A high-ranking deputy to the Minister of the Right, if I recalled correctly. I had heard Prince Kanemore speak of him, and never disparagingly. Which was remarkable, considering His Highness’s general opinion of the Fujiwara. My curiosity was piqued.

  “I am Yamada. How did you or your master know I would be here?”

  She bowed again. “We did not. I was on my way to your lodgings when I found you here instead.”

  That was plausible, since a Fujiwara compound was located in one of the southeastern wards not far from Gion. “I will hear you.”

  “May I approach? I do not wish to share my Master’s business with others.”

  “Very well, but not too close.”

  The last was simple caution. While this particular shikigami might resemble a delicate young woman, I had dealt with such before and knew better. She could very well have been an assassin, and such a charming one would have very little trouble reaching her intended victim under normal circumstances, but my instincts told me that this was not the case. I trusted my instincts . . . up to a point.

  She approached to within ten feet and bowed again. I looked over her shoulder. “You have a companion.”

  The shikigami frowned. “I came alone.”

  “I don’t think this person bothered to ask permission.”

  She followed my gaze. A rough-looking samuru was approaching behind her, his hand on the hilt of his sword. I sighed. It was ever thus when more than one or two of the provincial lords and their retinues were in the Capital on business. Many of them kept well-disciplined attendants, but not all. And many of those were not above a bit of nocturnal enrichment or forced pleasure, at opportunity. The shikigami and I must have appeared to represent both potentials. My long dagger was well concealed but within easy reach. I only hoped the ruffian was no more skilled than he appeared.

  He spoke to the messenger, thou
gh his eyes were on me. “Woman, behave yourself and nothing too unpleasant will happen to you. I must deal with your friend first.”

  The shikigami smiled at me as the man pushed past her. “Please, my lord. Allow me.”

  I grunted assent and the samuru’s eyes grew wide as he felt himself gripped from behind. In another moment he cleared the bridge railing like a drunken crane who’d forgotten how to fly. I counted to three before I heard the splash. The shikigami held the samuru’s sword in her hands.

  “What shall I do with this?”

  “A poor-quality blade,” I said as I eyed it critically. “He may keep it.”

  Soon there was another, smaller splash. The messenger then turned back to me and spoke as if nothing unusual had happened at all.

  “My master wishes your assistance in a rather delicate matter. He believes a friend of his has been cursed. His own arts have proved ineffective, and even the priests have been confounded. My master does not know where else to turn. Will you speak to him?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said, “I believe I will.”

  My surmise about the location of Fujiwara no Kinmei proved accurate. According to the shikigami, he currently held sole possession of the mansion in the southeastern ward, as his uncle Fujiwara no Shintaro was away on a diplomatic assignment to the north. She brought me to the north gate where I stated my business to the old man who kept watch there. I heard a faint rustle beside me and the messenger was gone. All I saw was a piece of folded paper that quickly blew away down the street on a freshening breeze.

  The servant escorted me into the compound. He barely spoke at all and made no comment on the disappearance of my companion. I imagined that such sights were not unknown to him.

  Lord Kinmei was waiting for me in the main wing of the house. At that hour there was no one else stirring, no doubt part of his intention in sending such a late summons. We had never met before, so we took a moment to study each other. I could only imagine how I must have appeared to him, in my threadbare robes and ungroomed state. For his part he was elegantly but simply dressed. I judged him perhaps thirty years old, handsome, but little else seemed there to read. He offered me saké, which I refused, though it pained me to do so. Considering my reputation, I expected him to be surprised, but if so he didn’t show it. He beckoned me to an empty cushion and sat down himself.