“There’re lots of sword maneuvers like that.” Rache considered, finding a new respect for archery, though he still saw no place for it in honorable combat. Colbey had taught him too adamantly. However, bows did seem to have their place when it came to hunting and coordination, and he could not help feeling proud of Sylva’s skill.
“Quit stalling.” Sylva released Rache’s hand. She pointed at the hay bale and the jutting arrows forming the shape of a sword.
Rache raised the bow. “I’ll put it in the middle of the blade.”
Sylva smiled. “I’ll be happy if you just put it in the hay bale.”
“Hey!” Rache chafed at the insult. “I’m well practiced with my hands. And my eyes.”
“No one does perfectly first shot.”
“I will,” Rache insisted. Aiming, he released the shaft. It flew in a high arc, then plummeted, stabbing into the grass halfway to the target.
For a moment, Rache stared in an unbroken silence. Suppressed laughter slipped from Sylva in a dry snort.
“You wench!” Rache dove on Sylva, feigning rage. They went down in a giggling, rolling heap, Rache pretending to pummel her but hitting himself instead. He harbored no doubt at all that he had found true love. And he liked it.
* * *
Colbey could not understand why, in his last moments of life, he smelled the perfume of wild flowers instead of the redolence of death. The vitality that had seemed so natural throughout his life, that had only become more reliable with age, that starvation and thirst had recently sapped from him, had returned. He could feel his own life and awareness, like a loyal friend. And though no stronger than in the past, he felt vibrant and significant in a way he never had before. He touched his hands to the hilts at his hips, and the presence of his swords only added to the sensation of power. He opened his eyes.
Colbey lay in a field of weeds and wild flowers. Beyond it, forest obscured the horizons. A blue sky spread above the meadow, and an edge of sun burst forth over the tops of the trees. Colbey sprang to his feet, charged with new energy. He reached for his swords instinctively, needing a practice to make his joy complete. Even as he reached for the hafts, he noticed a new addition to the rings on his fingers. A copper band encircled the first finger of his left hand, a perfect mate to the one on his right that the quaracks had given him. Apparently, someone had slipped the ring onto his finger while he had been in no condition to do so for himself.
So this is how I came to lie in this pleasant field. Colbey inched the newest ring from his finger and examined it. Inside, a single word was inscribed: “Faith.” Colbey laughed hollowly. I’ve discovered a flaw in the Tasks of Wizardry. It wasn’t faith but pride that goaded me to take my own life. Then another idea hit him with more force than the first. Did my thoughts at the time matter? In the end, I did what they wanted. Colbey guessed he had been taught a valuable lesson about leaders, that their followers responded to actions, not thoughts or attitudes. If he is good to them, subjects won’t care whether their king hates or loves them. If he overtaxes them, for good or ill, they will revolt. Another, simpler explanation presented itself to Colbey. Or, perhaps, gods can’t read minds any better than Wizards. They can only respond to our actions. Colbey returned the ring to his finger.
Suddenly, Colbey sensed another presence. The other’s hostility touched the Renshai even before his indecipherable shout rang through Colbey’s ears. “Crshtk!”
Colbey sprang aside. Only then, his gaze caught and held the other figure amid the jungle of grasses. A jagged beam of amber lanced into the circle of crushed grasses where he had stood, leaving a charred hole the size of a man’s head. Every hair on his body seemed to stand on end. The reek of ozone replaced the bouquet of the flowers.
Colbey crouched, facing a thin-lipped stranger who stood well beyond sword range. He wore a brown cloak over robes of the same color. A curly mane of gray-flecked, black hair tumbled down his back, and a matching beard nearly hid his mouth. Fleshy growths crooked his nose. Abruptly, he jerked up his hand, repeating the bizarre command. An angry electrical burst shot toward Colbey.
Again, the Renshai sprang aside. The bolt crashed to earth where he had stood, grounding into the dirt until it disappeared. The pain of concussion slammed Colbey’s side, nearly stealing his balance. Every instinct screamed at him to charge the other man, but logic told him that the wizard could drop him with enchantments before he significantly narrowed the gap between them. And, if I rush him, I won’t have the momentum to dodge. Colbey’s mind raced. To hurl a weapon meant showing it disrespect as well as disarming himself. Renshai saw any weapon that did not require constant skill and direction as cowardly, yet he might not survive long enough for a direct conflict. Still, Colbey knew that he would never abandon honor, even to spare his own life. Though his enemy had chosen to fight a coward’s battle, Colbey would not. A code of honor lost all meaning when a man expected his enemies to also adhere to its tenets. Unable to attack, with weapons or with magic, Colbey sought information. He thrust a mental probe into the wizard’s mind.
. . . not fighting back, and he seems so calm. What’s he planning? No matter. Let’s see him avoid this. All thought fled the wizard, replaced by an orderly string of bizarre syllables and gestures. Colbey could not comprehend their meaning, but he found that he could use the wizard’s understanding to fathom pronunciation and gesture.
There must be a way to use that knowledge. The answer came to Colbey with the thought. When the wizard began his chant, Colbey mimicked it. At first, he said each word an instant behind the other, slowed by inexperience. Then, as he caught the pattern of thought to action, he let his superior quickness and agility take over. As fast as the wizard could think the phrases and gestures, Colbey spoke and performed them, until he had become the faster of the two.
The wizard faltered. Same spell. He’ll finish first!
In the moment of hesitation, Colbey drew his swords and charged.
Desperately, the wizard began a new spell, presumably a shorter one. Even as he shouted the first command, razor-honed steel met his neck, cut, and retreated. The spell became an incoherent shriek. He collapsed to the ground, his blood staining the grass the deep purple-red of a bruise.
Dead. Colbey kicked the corpse. Though trained to kill and skilled in war, he had always hated slaughter without cause. I have no idea why, but you started this fight. Sheathing his sword, he searched the dead man’s body for the ring he needed to continue his tasks. He found it amid bits of gemstones, which he kept, and vials, powders, and feathers, which he left. He also took a pack of rations and a wineskin. Removing the wizard’s cloak, he cleaned his sword methodically, sheathed it, then covered the body with the cloth. Finding a quiet space amid the wildflowers and away from the corpse, he crouched and studied the silver ring. The engravings on its inner surface read: “A power has no power until it destroys another power.”
Colbey frowned, pondering the words. My power comes from practice and from within, not from other men. He glanced at the horizon. The sun had risen over the trees and beamed its radiance on the wildflowers. Colbey knew now that placing the silver ring on his finger would take him to his next test, but he savored the moments of peace on this world whose task he had already completed. He drew Harval, launching happily into one of the devil dances that had spread his name throughout the Westlands. He felt at peace, swelled full of joy for the first time since well before the tasks had started.
The heady aroma of the flowers, the warmth of the sun, and the beauty of the sky only enhanced the wonder of a perfect spar/prayer. Alone with his weapons and thoughts of his goddess, Colbey practiced with a flawlessness and a passion few could match. His body and every extension of flesh or steel became a weapon of unequaled lethality. The splendor of the slim, pale Renshai and the two swords that sang about him was rivaled only by the radiance of the rising sun: two golden giants shedding glory on this world between worlds.
Strengthened by exhilaration, Colbey felt in
vincible. Finished with his practice, he ran a hand through his hair, feeling the soft, thick waves he had known in his youth. Startled by its fullness, he caught a lock between his fingers and rolled his eyes to examine it. It bore the solid, goldenrod hue of his younger years, freed of the gray-white that had started with a few strands, then had gradually taken over until little of the yellow remained. Surprised, he seized another clump, equally devoid of signs of aging. Colbey stared at his hands. They still bore the deeply etched calluses that had become as familiar as his fingers, but the skin at his wrists and forearms had tightened like the flesh of a younger man.
The discovery gave Colbey another thing to ponder, and he did so over a meal of jerked meat and water scavenged from the wizard. Repeatedly, he turned the fifth ring over in his hands. Apparently, the task had been designed to prove that he, as those before him, was more capable than the best mortal mage the gods could place before him. The causes and reasons for the change in his hair and skin remained more elusive. Colbey guessed that it had come about before he had battled the wizard, rather than as a result of that test. Forced to guess the timing of the transition, Colbey placed it at the moment he had met the woman he believed to be a goddess.
Colbey finished his meal. He gained a vague, defiant sense of satisfaction from making the beings responsible for the tasks wait for him for a change, gods or not. He lay back, watching the sun hover, unwinking yellow against blue, while the food digested. Then, comfortable and charged by his practice, he placed the silver ring onto the middle finger of his left hand.
CHAPTER 8
Spawn of Fenrir
More accustomed now to the wild flashes of color and the spinning motions of the magical transport between tasks, Colbey staved off travel sickness. As his vision cleared, he found himself in another stone room, far different from the last one. Some craftsman had carved and painted the walls until none of the granite showed through. Despite the possibility of enemies and danger, Colbey could not keep his eyes from straying repeatedly to the masonry. Caution did allow him to tear his attention away long enough to ascertain that he was alone in the room and to locate the exits, three doors along the same wall, each as competently decorated as the walls. Colbey gratefully let his gaze fix on the carvings.
The stonework depicted tales of the Northern gods, illustrations of characters and stories he had revered since childhood. The colors ranged from the subtle grays of Odin the AllFather to the bold and glittering golds of wanton Freya. The figures appeared so stark, Colbey’s mind sensed movement repeatedly, and it took an effort of will to keep his hand from his weapons to counter imagined attacks from the artwork. His instincts and scrutiny told him that he was the only living creature in the chamber, and he trusted those far more than tiny flashes of vision. Still, the tide of Aegir’s ocean seemed to surge and recede. Thor’s hammer appeared more than capable of smashing the giant that the god of law and storms faced.
One figure held the Renshai’s gaze longest, a wiry male clothed in reds, tans, and black. Colbey recognized the carving at once. Loki, the Shape Changer, the god destined to betray his peers in the Ragnarok, looked oddly familiar, with an unrealistic, hazy quality that made Colbey wonder if he had seen a similar picture with the god in the same pose. He supposed that the flashy red and black silks he had chosen to wear at the beginning of the Tasks of Wizardry did resemble the Shape Changer’s garb. Suddenly, the quaracks’ misunderstanding seemed to make more sense.
Colbey found his own patron on the left-hand wall. Sif sat, her flowing hair crafted from metallic gold. The painting had captured the color perfectly, and Colbey wondered if the artist actually used gold plating in his colors. He did not check, however. To chip at such a masterpiece seemed foolhardy as well as sacrilegious. Other goddesses filled the scene on this particular wall. He saw Idun with her magical apples of youth, Odin’s wife Frigg, and the three Norns: past, present, and future. He followed the painting to Freya, and he averted his eyes, guilty over the thought that the woman he had met between tasks put even her beauty to shame.
Colbey found the others on the right-hand wall. He looked first for the Renshai’s other patron, Modi. He found the sons of Thor together, Modi and Magni, wrath and might, watching their father battle the giant. They seemed happy, perhaps because of their destiny to live through the Ragnarok, when most of the other gods would perish. The other survivors stood nearby, casually involved with their own works, a subtle grouping by the artist. The symbolism intrigued and horrified Colbey, and he stared from one to the next: Vali and Vidar, two of the AllFather’s sons; Hod and Baldur, also Odin’s sons, who would rise from the dead at the war’s end; and long-legged Honir whose wisdom would guide the new age. On other parts of the wall, Colbey discovered more of the gods who had filled the elders’ stories, like Frey, Tyr, and Heimdall.
A click echoed through the chamber. Colbey whirled, hands falling naturally to his hilts. His right palm found leather-wrapped metal. The other met nothing. Ire flared, then quickly dissipated. When Colbey traversed the limbo between tasks, he apparently fell to the mercy of his testers. Once before, they had taken both of his weapons, and he drew solace from the one blade they had left him. From its position, apparently they had even let him keep Harval.
While Colbey watched, the central of the three doors opened, cutting the carving of the Midgard serpent into halves. A stranger stood in the doorway, backlit by daylight. Beyond him, Colbey believed he could see cottages, roads, and buildings. Before he could focus more closely, the other stepped into the room, closing the door behind him. The serpent re-formed, and the room returned to the dingy grayness that Colbey had been too distracted by the artwork to notice.
The stranger stood taller than Colbey. Though medium-framed, his stomach bulged. He sported the white hair of a man who had been blond in youth, and he wore a pair of doeskin breeks. His fine silk shirt was midnight blue, like his eyes. A lavender cape hung from sagging shoulders. He carried no evident weaponry. He seemed to take no notice of the carvings. His gaze riveted on Colbey, and his person radiated doubt, hope, and fear. “Kyndig?” he asked carefully, giving it the proper Northern pronunciation: Kawn-dee.
Politely, Colbey kept his hand from his sword. “I’ve been called that.”
“Praise Odin.” The man smiled, his aura transforming to one of pure pleasure. “The legends grow old. I—”
Disdainful of uncontrolled excitement, Colbey cut to the heart of the matter. “Who are you? And what test must I pass to escape this room?”
“Escape?” The man regarded Colbey curiously. His joy faltered. “You only need to exit through the door.” He gestured at the portal behind him, sandwiched between the other two. “It’ll take you to our town, Asgardbyr. I’m King Sivard. I’m not holding you hostage, Lord Kyndig, but there are the legends and we do need you.”
Colbey attributed little of significance to these stories. It made no sense that a town created strictly for testing Cardinal Wizards would have legends and history. “Why do you need me?”
“To kill Fenrir’s spawn. He’s plagued my people for decades. But now, it’s worse. Beyond that door . . .” He indicated the exit to his left, “. . . lies our temple to Thor. The great lord Thunder god Justicekeeper placed his hammer, Mjollnir, in our keeping. Fenrir’s spawn fought past my guards and stole the weapon.”
Colbey could not suppress a chuckle at the thought of Mjollnir entrusted to humans, though stranger things had occurred in recent days. Tired of gods’ games, Colbey searched the king’s mind directly. Aware that the invasion would cost him physical energy, he kept his exploration brief, and it revealed that Sivard believed every word that he had spoken. Still, this attested only to his honesty, not his veracity or sanity, and Colbey seriously questioned the latter.
King Sivard continued. “Of course, no one but Thor has the strength to lift Mjollnir, so the spawn of Fenrir was foiled. Still, it apparently decided that, if it can’t wield the hammer, neither will Thor.” The king press
ed thick fingers to his temples, as if to staunch a headache. “The creature has killed all the champions we sent to slay it.” His voice fell to a whisper, as if he feared the beast might hear him through a forearm’s thickness of granite. “And without Mjollnir, I’m not certain even Thor can best the monster.” He shivered, lacing his fingers, and his voice grew higher in pitch and volume. “Oh, how the god will rage when he learns of this. I’m so glad you’ve come to help us, Kyndig.”
Colbey scowled. He turned, finding the image of Thor and Mjollnir on the painted walls. The golden hammer gleamed, its handle disproportionately shortened due, according to the legends, to one of Loki’s tricks during its forging. “The great wolf has a spawn?” Memory crowded upon him, mothers’ stories of hybrid monsters created to frighten children into behaving. He shook his head to clear it. Too much that he had attributed to tales had recently proven truth. Weeks ago, he had met an elf. Within the year, a demon that he had dismissed as country legend had all but lost him his hand.
“Fenrir’s spawn. By his own mother!”
Colbey puzzled the pedigree. Grandson of the god, Loki, son of a wolf and a giantess. The king’s sanity fell further into question. “What’s it like?”
“It has the head of a wolf, the body of a man, and the strength of a rampaging boar.” The description sounded rehearsed. “It rips my townsfolk apart and feasts on them.” He shivered, his voice shaking with impotent rage. “And it waits beyond the door for the death stroke your sword must deal.”
Colbey’s cold eyes held the king’s, until Sivard turned his gaze to his feet uncomfortably. There followed a long silence.
At length, Colbey broke it. “This beast has terrorized your people for some time?”
Child of Thunder (Renshai Trilogy) Page 13