Colbey gritted his teeth, and the fingers of his right hand curled into a fist. Though moist, his eyes remained open, focused on his left hand’s course to the ring. In his mind, Shadimar relived the searing anguish of flesh blistering from his skin as the fire ate through vessels and nerves to tendon.
Colbey’s fingers touched the ring, and he whisked it from the fire, jerking his hand free in the same motion. The silver band rolled. It struck a granite wall, and its movements grew more awkward. It rolled, balancing from edge to edge, then lay still.
To Shadimar’s dismay, Colbey ignored his prize. Instead, he pressed his back to a corner, examining the blistered remains of his hand. The nerve endings had burned away. Surely, he no longer felt much pain. Methodically, he ripped cloth from his breeks and fashioned himself a crude bandage.
“What’s he doing?” Trilless leaned forward for a better look. “Why isn’t he putting on the ring?”
Carcophan glared at Shadimar, a cruel half-smile on his lips. “Because someone didn’t tell him.”
Shadimar ignored the Evil One’s baiting, not bothering to grace the gibe with an answer. Carcophan knew the law as well as he did, knew Colbey had no way of understanding that the gods would heal the worst of his injuries between each task. Needlessly, the Renshai suffered while the silver ring lay waiting on the floor. “I could have done nothing differently . . .” He let the thought drop as Colbey finally rose and walked to the ring. The Renshai moved with his usual imperturbable confidence, and that both pleased and unnerved Shadimar. At that moment, he was glad Colbey chose to keep his thoughts to himself.
The Renshai slipped the ring on his finger and promptly disappeared.
* * *
Colbey’s world exploded. The room shattered into gray pinpoints that rapidly acquired color. Air rushed around and through him, a swirling maelstrom of wind and darkness that tossed him like a feather and knocked him to the edge of oblivion. He tensed, grounding his thoughts on reality and self, rescuing his mind from unconsciousness. His gut lurched. He fought the waves of nausea, and they gradually settled to a dull ache within him. He found himself in a dimly-lit cavern. A sound like the buzz of a giant insect echoed through the passage.
Instinctively, Colbey caught for the hilts of his swords, and their familiar split leather grips filled his hands. Startled by the ease of the movement, he raised his hands to his face. They appeared as he remembered them from before the task of endurance: pale and scarred, but whole. A ring of copper and another of silver graced the index and middle fingers of his right hand. Relief inspired a shiver of delight, but he dared not laugh until he knew what dangers awaited him in the cavern.
Wall brackets held burning torches at constant intervals through the hallway. Moss coated the wall stones, giving the passage an eerie, greenish cast; but Colbey paid this little heed. He caught a glimpse of his own unfamiliar garments, bright gold and sewn from a material he did not recognize. A black belt at his waist held his swords. In the past, Colbey had preferred dark and neutral colors, those less likely to draw attention or to be discriminated from forest or night. But the clothing he wore now seemed better than none at all. His tunic and breeks appeared skillfully tailored, gaudy but formidable.
As Colbey walked silently through the corridor, the buzzing sound grew louder. Confidence restored by the feel of his weapons and his healed hand, he felt prepared to battle any monster the Wizards or gods could summon against him. Once again, the tasks became a challenge, rather than a burden, and curiosity replaced his need for violence and vengeance.
The corridor bent, limiting Colbey’s vision to a few arm’s lengths in front of him. The ceaseless humming resolved into mingled human voices, apparently several simultaneous conversations. Colbey could not discern individual words or topics. Without changing his pace, he continued around the bend and found himself at the doorway to a room packed with people. Men and women mingled in a press, every one with neutral brown hair and eyes and the medium-toned skin of most Westerners. Most wore clean homespun. If he forced himself to forget the Wizard’s tasks, Colbey might have convinced himself that he had entered the city of Pudar.
The conversations disappeared, and all eyes turned to Colbey. Though they watched him, the men and women seemed to take his appearance in stride. They moved aside, leaving him a pathway toward the center of the room.
Colbey hesitated, studying the crowd before glancing down the path they had created. He saw no evident weaponry, and his ability to assess movement told him that no one in his field of vision had half his agility or weapon skill. The pathway led to the center of the chamber where a man sat in a plain wooden chair. He wore robes of tan and brown. Sand-colored hair hung in tangles around his face. His eyes were deeply set and dark with intelligence. A purple cloth covered a low table before him, and a clear globe of crystal rested upon it.
“Welcome,” the seated man said. “I am the seer.”
An uncomfortable hush fell over the spectators. They widened the walkway.
Colbey approached, eyes on the speaker, though his peripheral attention did not leave the press around him. An attack would not catch him by surprise.
“Your name?” the seer demanded in a monotone.
In the past, the pronouncement of his name in Western towns familiar with the Great War had induced fear and awe. “Colbey Calistinsson.”
The seer’s milk white hand passed over the globe once. It poised in the air, then returned delicately to his side. He stared into the crystal, nodded, and looked at Colbey. “Which is your tribe, Colbey Calistinsson?”
Poised for action and certain he was missing something significant, Colbey grew irritable and bored with the questioning. “I’m Renshai.” He glanced from face to face, awaiting the violence or panic that usually accompanied such an admission. In much of the West, it was considered a cardinal offense even to speak the name; and the Northern tribes had found being Renshai enough reason for coldblooded murder of the entire tribe.
But these spectators watched curiously, their expressions unchanging.
Again, the seer made motions over the crystal. “How old are you?”
The query brought rage. Colbey’s callused fingers caressed his sword hilt. “The Wizards who trapped me here know my age to the day. And they know it irks me.” His hard, blue-gray eyes went lethal. His words echoed through the vast hall. “The warriors of my tribe were never meant to live to half my years. How old am I?”
The crowd backed away further, leaving Colbey more than enough room to swing a sword, if such became necessary.
Colbey continued, “Nearly fifty years older than the next oldest Renshai.”
The seer made several grand gestures over the crystal, and Colbey saw that the man wore a gold ring that matched the silver and copper ones on his own hand. The seer’s smile went sober as he gazed within the orb, but it was still a smile. “Who are your parents?”
Still annoyed by the previous question, Colbey scowled. The tedium of the seer’s interrogation wore on him. “My parents are dead. In Valhalla, where Renshai belong.”
“Their names, please.” The seer persisted.
Believing he had blundered into the task of tedium, Colbey responded with a sigh. “Calistin the Bold and Ranilda Battlemad.” Probably a test of patience. He swallowed his rage; he might be answering questions for days.
The audience remained hushed, shifting restively.
The seer gave a routine nod and sought answers in the crystal globe. Suddenly, his eyes widened. His chair toppled backward, shattering on the granite floor and spilling the seer to the stone. He jumped to his feet, sputtering. An instant later, he vanished, along with the ring of Wizardry that Colbey needed to complete the task and return to his own world.
The room went painfully quiet. The crowd stared, their silence becoming so complete, a background ringing filled Colbey’s ears.
“Where did he go?” Colbey asked the spectators, his voice thunderous in the too-quiet room.
&
nbsp; His words reverberated, without reply.
Colbey circled the table, hoping to find an answer in the globe that had condemned him. He saw only a smoky haze. Stung to fury, Colbey reached for the crystal.
Terrified screams broke the silence in a wild alarm that came too late. As Colbey’s hand closed around the crystal, a bolt of amber split the room, lancing through Colbey’s chest. Agony slammed him, his nerves seizing into a tight convulsion against his will. Glowing shards of crystal fell from his hands, stained crimson with blood. Darkness enclosed him. Colbey collapsed, writhing, pain wrenching gasps from him despite his efforts to contain them. The sound of running feet grew increasingly distant. His mind foamed madly, utterly beyond his control. The thud of enormous paws filled the room, and Colbey could direct neither his mind nor his body to identify the sound. This time, he could not stop darkness from overtaking him.
* * *
Shadimar poured fragments of shattered Pica Stone from his hand, watching the last bright traces of magic fade from the shards. Disbelief stunned him to a silence that he could not seem to break. Trained through centuries, his mind remained clear, yet his body did not weather the shock quite as well. His lips pursed, but no words emerged. Because it involved chaos, magic was unpredictable, even in a Cardinal Wizard’s hands. The simplest spells did not always take shape exactly as the caster expected, and items imbued with chaos rarely remained reliable or consistent with time. Since the inception of the system of the Cardinal Wizards, the Wizards had avoided using their power as much as possible. When necessary, they employed brief spells. Shadimar could count magicked items, through the millennia, on the fingers of one hand. The Pica was the oldest and most powerful. Now, it lay in pieces on the Meeting Room’s table.
Carcophan broke the hush, uncharacteristically stating the obvious. “He’s dead.”
“Who could have guessed,” Trilless added. “The easiest task of all. The one of truth.”
Mar Lon remained still and silent in the corner, all but invisible.
Secodon rested his chin on his master’s thigh, sharing his concern.
Shadimar tented his fingers in his beard, certain he could never find another mortal with enough skill and guile to pass the Tasks of Wizardry. He felt cheated. As far as he could determine, Colbey had told only the truth. Yet somehow he had failed the test, destroying the Pica Stone and the seer’s crystal along with himself. I have to find another, and quickly. Knowledge crushed all hope. But there’s no one to fill the position of the most powerful of the Cardinal Wizards, even if we had the collective consciousness that Tokar and Colbey sacrificed. Shadimar knew Trilless and Carcophan would help him search; the Cardinal Wizards’ vows bound them to it. But, in the meantime, Shadimar’s loss would become their gain. Without the Western Wizard, neutrality would weaken until no barrier stood between good and evil.
For the moment, Shadimar did not waste time mourning his lost friend. Driven by need, he set to the task of finding another Western Wizard.
CHAPTER 6
The Woman of Gold and the Shape Changer
The Eastlands’ flat, eroded fields provided Khitajrah with little cover between the dwindling patches of forest. Spring winds hurled nutrient-poor topsoil into her eyes, and weeds rolled and tumbled across the flat lands. Waleis’ boots clomped, too large for her feet but necessary protection from stones and debris. She kept Diarmad’s cloak wrapped tightly around her, her face lost in the shadows of its hood, her hair tied and hidden beneath the folds. She hoped that the over-large cloak and the sword at her hip would convince anyone she saw that they looked upon a boy or young man rather than a woman on the run. Loneliness ate at her. One by one, she had lost every member of her family, and she clung to chaos’ promise regarding Bahmyr.
Khitajrah pulled the cloak more tightly about her, protecting her cheeks from the battering sand. A week had passed since she had slain the veterans in the graveyard, and guilt had flared to an all-consuming fire that filled her conscience and ached constantly through her chest. Each night, she sought the comfort of a sheltering woodland or rock formation. Then, doubt, self-hatred, and regret would war within her, holding sleep at bay. When she finally slept, her dreams came in wild, incoherent snippets that enhanced her sense of dishonor and lawlessness. She punished herself for the same crime a thousand times, and still it did not seem enough. She awakened with an anxious tingle in her chest that reminded her she had matters to mull, and those matters occupied her mind throughout the day. In the moments her thoughts let go of the crime, she wept for her slaughtered son.
Chaos had lain low since identifying itself in the graveyard, yet Khitajrah could still feel its hovering, animal presence within her. It lay dormant. Waiting. At times, she found a guilty pleasure in its presence; her aloneness drove her to find company and solace where she could. Other times, she contemplated its being, considering ways to expel it from her life and from her mind, its ugliness too horrible to support. Yet, always, her thoughts brought her back to its promise. She would pay any price to get Bahmyr back. And by breaking the Eastlands’ laws, she had already.
Still, it was not until Khitajrah passed the city of LaZar and headed toward the passes through the Weathered Mountains that would take her to the Westlands that she found the will to question. She stood, staring at towering forests of oak, hickory, and white mirack, the hulking, dark shapes of the mountains filling the horizon, and a sudden fear clutched her. She remembered her mother’s stories of the Westlands, a vast territory crammed full of apathetic peoples of all shapes, colors, and backgrounds. Unlike the Easterners, they followed few causes and never with the fanatical honor of the Eastlanders. They worshiped a diverse pantheon of gods, each specialized and, thus, far weaker than Sheriva.
Yet Khitajrah remembered positive things about the Westlands as well. Their forests and farmlands flourished, easily supporting their myriad and diverse cities. Though they did not stand together as one people, that might work to Khitajrah’s advantage now. Offending one Westerner would not necessarily make her an enemy of them all. And their varying backgrounds might make them more accepting of an Eastern stranger, even only a decade after the Great War.
Still, Khitajrah hesitated. Born and raised in the Eastlands, she had never expected to leave. Now, in her forties, she wondered if she had become too old to try to start a new life in a strange country whose language she did not speak.
*You know the common trading tongue. That is enough. Go.* Chaos sent its first words since the graveyard. *You’re not safe in the Eastlands any longer.*
Confusion blossomed into rage. Chaos spoke the truth, yet it had little significance now. *You promised me my son’s life back.*
*Yes.*
Khitajrah’s anger and fear retreated slightly before a growing trickle of hope. *Where is he?*
*Dead.*
Khitajrah fumed, not gracing the cold joke with a reply.
Amusement flickered through her, wholly foreign, its source the chaos-being within her. *There is a way to bring him back to life.*
*How?*
*I never promised to tell you that.*
“Yes, you did!” Anxiety and fury drove Khitajrah to shout aloud. “You specifically said that if I lived, you would tell me how to bring him back.”
*No, I didn’t.*
“Yes, you did!” Khitajrah’s voice rose in octave and volume. “Damn it, you did. Don’t you think I’d remember every word of such a thing? You said, ‘Live, and I will tell you how to bring Bahmyr back to life.’”
*No, I didn’t.*
*You did. You said it exactly like that.*
*All right. I did.*
Joy replaced ire. *So what do I have to do?*
*I’m not telling.*
“What?” Khitajrah roared.
*I’m chaos. That’s what I do. I break vows. I lie. It’s from whence my power stems.* A flicker of cruel satisfaction touched Khitajrah’s mind. *If I’m even telling the truth now. How would you know?*
*Qu
it playing with me.* Warm tears stung Khitajrah’s eyes. *You lied from the start. There’s no way to raise the dead.*
*Actually, there is. That time, I was telling the truth.*
*But you always lie.*
*Not true. If I did, I’d be as dull, predictable, and static as law.*
*Sometimes you tell the truth?* Khitajrah tried to hold her emotions in check, with little success. Her heart pounded, hard and fast, with anticipation. She tried not to hope too hard about Bahmyr.
*Usually, I tell the truth. It lulls people into a false sense of security, so my lies and tricks catch them completely off-balance.*
Khitajrah frowned, hating the sound of chaos’ technique.
*Guile is the key to power. See how I got what I wanted from you, and it wound up costing me nothing? Imagine how rich, happy, and important a woman could become with that technique. You could be queen.*
*I have no wish to be queen. I just want my son.*
*I can tell you how to get him back.*
*But you won’t.*
*Maybe I will.*
Khitajrah threw up her hands in frustration. *I don’t care if you are more powerful than gods. You’re wasting my time. Either tell me or don’t. Then go away.*
*Is that what you want?*
*Yes.*
*Then you didn’t love your son much, did you?*
Again, anger stabbed through Khitajrah. *More than anything in the world. How dare you . . .?*
*If you loved him, you would deal for his life.*
*You’re not dealing. You’re just running me in circles. I won’t have my hopes lifted and dashed again and again. It’ll only drive me insane, and that won’t bring Bahmyr back.*
*What if I promised that, if you bond with me, I’ll tell you how to raise your son? In detail.*
Khitajrah did not fall into the trap. *I’d assume you were lying. Again.*
Child of Thunder (Renshai Trilogy) Page 10