Colbey prepared a retort that implied she would not best him for either reason. But before he could frame his words with the proper respect as well as challenge, awareness jolted through him. The mental images snapped out, replaced by the familiar desk and bookshelves of the Western Wizard’s cave. He lay on the same straw ticking he had used for his recovery from the kraell’s attack. A heap of blankets jumbled near his right hand, atop his swords. Part of the spread was pinned between his hip and the wall, though his body lay fully exposed and chilled. A woman scrubbed at his left arm with a damp rag.
Embarrassed, Colbey flicked the blankets over his legs and abdomen.
The sudden movement startled the woman. Dropping Colbey’s arm, she stumbled backward, then met his gaze squarely. In nearly every way, she seemed the opposite of the woman who had helped him disperse the mental demons; though, apparently, her touch had inspired the dreams. Her eyes held all the color Freya’s had lacked, coal dark and full of intelligence. Black curls fell to her shoulders in random spirals, her face swarthy and round to Freya’s ivory oval. He knew her at once as the woman who had attacked and poisoned him, the one from whose head he had expelled the seed of chaos.
She spoke first. “I’m a widow with three sons. You have nothing I haven’t already seen.” She amended. “Except the scars. Quite a collection. Where did you get them?”
Colbey ignored the question, not quite ready for casual conversation with the woman who had tried to assassinate him in his sleep and had nearly succeeded. “Who are you? And what do you want from me?”
“You can call me Kayt.”
“Why would I do that?”
The hostile response apparently surprised her. “Huh?”
“Chaos called you Kay-tah.” Colbey sounded the name out as well as possible under the circumstances. “If that’s your name, why would I call you Kayt?”
“Actually, my name is Khitajrah Harrsha’s-widow. Khita is how it’s shortened in the East, Kayt in the West.”
Colbey immediately recognized the name of Siderin’s lieutenant from the Great War, but he let it pass. It made little difference now. If this woman could evoke images of Freya in his own dreams, it only made sense that another warrior leader would have found her attractive. “Then I’ll call you Khitajrah. My people don’t shorten names. What do you want from me?”
It seemed a simple enough question, but it made Khitajrah distinctly uncomfortable. The strength of her emotion sent it wafting to him, easily read: concern mingled with regret and an unmistakable attraction to a body riddled with old wounds. “At first, I planned to kill you.” She rubbed her hands, as if to wipe away the lingering feel of the poisoned dagger.
Colbey knew enough from his time in her mind to delve for specifics. “What did chaos promise in exchange?”
Khitajrah fidgeted. Though she would not meet Colbey’s gaze, he felt certain she told the truth. “My son’s life.”
Colbey struggled to a sitting position, the blankets clutched to his lap and the movement driving dizziness through him. He waited until it passed. “How did chaos get control of that?”
“Bahmyr’s dead.” Khitajrah buried her face in her palms. “Killed protecting me. Chaos promised it could restore his life.”
“Chaos’ promises are not to be believed.”
“This time, it told the truth, I’m certain.” Khitajrah’s shoulders heaved, and a tear dribbled through a crack between her fingers.
“The dead can’t live again.”
Khitajrah sniffled, anger giving her the strength she needed to confront Colbey. “Do you think I’m some idiot weakling dazzled by chaos?”
“No,” Colbey started, “but—”
Khitajrah let him get no farther. “Do you think I gave in to its dishonor and ugliness because I’m too stupid to see through its lies?”
Colbey tried to shift the blame from a frailty in Khitajrah to chaos’ terrible cunning. “The issue—”
Caught up in her defense, Khitajrah turned her rage directly on Colbey. “My son’s life hung in the balance.” Again, she clamped her hands over her face. “But you don’t have any children. You couldn’t possibly understand . . .”
The words angered Colbey as no others could. This time he shouted over her. “Damn it, Khitajrah, my seed doesn’t have to course through a womb for me to know what it feels like to love, or to lose a loved one. I had a son who died. The fact that I didn’t sire him made him no less mine by emotion, his or my own. Blood’s just a liquid that leaks from wounds, and the mystical connection between it and love is contrived. A mother can lose each of her children only once. A barren woman or sterile man mourns a child with each empty attempt to conceive. Don’t tell me what I can or can’t understand. At least you had a son, three sons if I heard you right. It sounds as if this one died in battle, defending his mother. What finer death could a mother wish for her son?”
Colbey’s fire only fueled Khitajrah’s own. “Good mothers don’t wish for their sons’ deaths at all.”
“You would have them live forever?” Finally, Colbey thought to look for the aristiri, gaze first sweeping the bookcase, then falling to the desktop. The hawk watched the argument with silent intensity. Beside it, the red falcon that served as the Cardinal Wizards’ messenger preened its feathers, patiently awaiting its turn for the Western Wizard’s attention. The staff stood, propped against their perch.
“I would, at least, have them outlive me. Every one of my sons died in battle. And my husband.” Khitajrah choked on the final syllable, the sobs coming too hard and quick for her to talk around them.
Remorseful for his harshness, Colbey placed a comforting arm around Khitajrah, reminding himself that his own upbringing gave him no right to belittle the customs of others. He had simply grown tired of people thinking he lacked emotion because he chose to keep his loves and sorrows private. And he knew Khitajrah had to work through the guilt of her own actions. “I’m sorry. I know you’re not weak or stupid or gullible. I was in your mind, remember? The core of honor I found there seemed rock stable, and you’ve got more inner strength than most of the warriors I know. I’ve got a fair idea how chaos seized its hold, and I’m certain you gave it a heroic fight.” His clarity of mind after coma surprised him, although he still sensed a weighty ponderousness about his movements that would soon pass.
Embarrassment wafted from Khitajrah. Clearly, she did not feel she had battled enough. The tears stopped, and she wiped her eyes with her fingers. “I couldn’t let go of Bahmyr, and I didn’t really understand the extent of chaos’ bargain. I should have and could have fought harder.”
“When it mattered most, you fought.”
“It mattered from the start.” Khitajrah settled into the cleft between Colbey’s arm and shoulder.
Khitajrah’s closeness alarmed as well as excited. Decades had passed since Colbey had allowed himself to become intimate with any woman, and Khitajrah seemed so unlike what he would have chosen. Still, he had not lied about her inner strength, and her ministrations had given him visions of the most desirable of all goddesses. That seemed like a sign too obvious to ignore. Many things remained unanswered. “How did I get here? How long have we been here? And how did I survive the poison?”
Khitajrah took the questions in random order. “Two days. Your bird tried to get me to take you here from the start, I think; but I insisted on finding a healer in Pudar. He described an herb and how to use it, but he only had a little of it. When the hawk found a huge beakful but wouldn’t let me have it, I had no choice but to follow wherever it wanted me to go. It brought the food and supplies. I administered them.” Khitajrah placed a hand, with feigned casualness on his knee. “It seemed the least I could do. The very least. I’m so sorry and ashamed for what I’ve done. And so glad to have had the chance to make things right. I’ll never forgive myself the pain I caused you. And others, too.”
Colbey freed her from obligations to him, at least. “I forgive you. But not chaos. If you fell to its in
fluence again, knowing what you do now, then I wouldn’t forgive.”
“Never.” Khitajrah stroked his knee through the blankets, not quite absently. “Now there’re things I’d like to understand.”
Colbey met her gaze encouragingly. “Ask.”
“Are you really seventy-seven years old?”
Since Colbey had become a Wizard, the significance of age had dwindled. The question scarcely raised a twinge of annoyance, easily suppressed. “Yes.”
Khitajrah nodded, clearly impressed. “You’ve kept well.”
“I’ve kept myself well,” Colbey corrected, “and not without effort.” He ran a hand through his yellow locks, aware he had not maintained his youth wholly without help. He saw no reason to mention his encounter with gods to a woman he knew well only because of an excursion into her mind after she tried to kill him.
Khitajrah fidgeted, her next query apparently disconcerting to her. Although she held his gaze, she looked as if she would have preferred to avoid the cold blue-gray eyes. “Is it true you’re a Wizard? And a Renshai?”
“Yes, regrettably, and yes, proudly. Who told you these things?”
“Chaos,” Khitajrah admitted. “And the Béarnian king’s personal bodyguard.”
Colbey studied Khitajrah carefully, certain she still had not come to the part that made her nervous. “What else did Mar Lon tell you?”
“He said you champion chaos.”
“Did he now?” Colbey smiled, amused by Mar Lon’s impression. He gave the bard credit, at least, for not claiming Colbey served chaos.
“Do you champion chaos?” Khitajrah remained relentless.
“No. I champion balance.”
“Balance?”
“Balance, yes. And proper equality between the higher forces that define and oppose one another. Perhaps if we had balance, those forces wouldn’t have to war against one another with such a frenzy.”
*An interesting and simplistic interpretation.* The staff touched Colbey’s mind for the first time since his awakening. True to its vow, it remained at the edge of his thoughts, without challenging barriers or defenses.
“And the other three Wizards?”
“Believe they champion law.”
“Do they?”
“That remains to be seen.”
“Oh.” Khitajrah fell silent for the moment, but there was a tenseness about her that defied completion.
“You have another question,” Colbey prompted.
“Well . . .” Khitajrah considered momentarily. “. . . yes. Yes, I do. Since you’re a Wizard, you do know something about magic?”
Colbey laughed. “You’ve probably picked the one Wizard in history who doesn’t.” He gathered from her manner and radiating thoughts that her current flow of ideas had some relation to chaos’ promise. Intrigued, he encouraged her. “But ask me anyway.”
Khitajrah’s hand stilled on Colbey’s knee. “Chaos claimed that the power to restore life came unexpectedly, when a specific item instilled with magic became broken.”
Colbey’s brow furrowed. “If that’s true, the object shouldn’t be hard to find. There’s no more than one or two that could fit the description.” He considered. As far as he knew, aside from the Wizards’ individual sanctuaries, the only magical items were the Swords of Power, the Pica Stone, the Staves of Law and Chaos, and the gems in the hilt of Mitrian’s sword. “Did it say the item was already broken or that the power would come once it broke?”
“Broken already.” Khitajrah twisted in his grip to face him fully, her excitement tangible. “Do you know what the item might be?”
Colbey dodged the question. “Did it tell you anything else about the item?”
“Just that the life-restoring property would only work on a single person. And only once.” Khitajrah caught one of Colbey’s hands, chalky against her darker skin. “Do you know?”
“There’re two possibilities I can think of.” Colbey recalled the dullness of the Pica shards, doubting any of its magic remained, even if he could find the pieces. But the cracked gems in Mitrian’s sword apparently still held enough power to keep the blade sharp.
“What are they? Where? Tell me!”
Colbey shook his head. He had no means to direct her to the location of the Pica remnants. As to Mitrian, finding Arduwyn and Frost Reaver gave him reason to visit her side of the world as soon as possible. It made little sense to send Khitajrah there by herself. Soon enough, she would discover that the woman who could restore life to her son was also the one who had killed her husband. Although he had no reason to believe Khitajrah meant himself or Mitrian harm any longer, Colbey thought it best not to send a woman blindly among Renshai. Besides, he would enjoy seeing his students, kin, and followers once again. “I’ll do better than tell you. I’ll take you to it.”
Though Colbey had not answered her question fully, Khitajrah seemed too elated to care. She threw her arms around Colbey’s neck, planting a kiss on his lips with such fervor it sent an involuntary shiver of desire through him.
The aristiri screeched a sudden, high-pitched note that shocked Khitajrah and Colbey. It swooped from the desk, talons slamming into the side of Khitajrah’s head, one wing buffeting Colbey across the face.
Khitajrah reeled back with a cry of pain. Instinctively, Colbey leapt to his feet, prepared to do battle, though he had no intention of harming Formynder. Apparently finished, the aristiri flapped back to its perch, a few strands of dark hair wound around its claws. It fluffed up its feathers, making the vertical belly stripes stand out in bold relief, then it preened as if nothing had happened.
Khitajrah rubbed at the wound, then stared at the tiny smear of blood on her fingers. “What’s wrong with that damned bird?” She held pressure against the scratch.
Colbey shrugged, rubbing an eye grazed by a wing feather. Despite the Western Wizards’ supposed bird rapport, he seemed unable to read anything of the aristiri’s intentions. “I guess it’s the only way it has to remind us there’re other matters to attend.” Casting about, he located a pair of britches, pulled them on, then turned his attention to the messenger falcon. “Swiftwing?”
The falcon squawked. It unfurled long wings.
Before the bird took flight, Colbey rose and covered the distance to it. The one other time it had brought him a message, it had driven its talons through the skin of his arm, accustomed to the Cardinal Wizards’ imperviousness to injury, a quality he did not share then or, apparently, now. As expected, he discovered a strip of parchment bound to its leg. He peeled it free.
Though Colbey knew the Western, trading, and Northern languages, the grand strokes and spirals of this hand remained illegible. He recognized only the single rune that represented Shadimar’s signature.
“What’s it say?” Khitajrah came up beside him.
“I have no idea. It’s not in any language I’ve ever seen.”
Khitajrah glanced at the note over his shoulder. “It’s not Eastern.”
Colbey consulted the staff. *Can you read it?*
*It’s an archaic tongue. If you had your collective consciousness, you could read it.*
The use of such a language confused Colbey. *Shadimar knows I don’t have the Western Wizards’ memories. Why would he send such a thing?*
*They sent it. All three Wizards. Clearly, they didn’t want you to read it.* The staff’s response seemed condescending as if the answer should have been obvious.
Still, Colbey pressed. *Why would Wizards who claim to hold the knowledge of the universe send me a letter they knew I couldn’t read?*
Colbey sensed the staff’s rigid patience, like a mother explaining a straightforward concept to a dim-witted child. *Clearly, they didn’t want you to read it.*
Colbey ignored the staff’s tone. *Then why send it at all?*
*Law, propriety, and convention. They only have to send you the invitation. Nowhere does Odin specify the language.*
*Invitation?*
*To meet the other three Wizard
s’ successors and to attend their attempts at the Tasks of Wizardry.*
*How do you know that?*
*I DO read the ancient tongue.*
It seemed to Colbey that Shadimar, Carcophan, and Trilless should have presumed the staff would interpret their message for him. Still, despite all of their knowledge, they had no more experience with the Staves of Law and Chaos then he did. He crumpled the parchment, waving the messenger falcon away to indicate that he would send no reply.
Swiftwing flapped into the air, winging from the room and toward the cave mouth.
Khitajrah looked horrified by Colbey’s destruction of a note not yet read. “Don’t you think it might be important?”
“No,” Colbey said. “I don’t believe it is.” Turning, he gathered blankets, sorting clothes from among them. “Pack what you have. I’ve got a long overdue practice, then it’s time to get started traveling.”
Khitajrah laughed. “Don’t you think we should wait until morning?”
Colbey fastened his sword belt around his waist. Until that moment, he’d felt naked despite the britches he had previously donned. The candlelight in the main chamber had given him no indication of time of day, but that did not concern him. “What makes you think I’ll finish my practice before dawn?” Without awaiting a reply, he trooped through the familiar corridor and into the night.
The cold air bathed his skin, aching through the massive scar across his chest, a relic of his last stand with General Santagithi against an army of Northmen. Santagithi had died, and Colbey would have also if not for a personally forced march and Shadimar’s healing magic, magic now aimed only against him. The moon and stars jabbed glittering lines and pinpoints along the Weathered Mountains’ crags. Pausing only to mentally dedicate his sword work to Sif, he whipped both blades from their sheaths and threw every shred of his being into perfect cuts, arcs, and dodges. Other concerns fled, mind and body locked into the flawless steel dance of his swords. Nothing mattered but the eternity of battle and the patron goddess who ruled the Renshai.
Child of Thunder (Renshai Trilogy) Page 43