Though Colbey knew he could defend himself, and that little mattered but the coming destruction, he wanted the truth known. “He killed himself.”
“We saw,” Trilless said softly. Wafting thoughts told Colbey that the movements and actions they had undergone in the mind link had actually occurred in plain sight while the thoughts, battles, and mental conversations had remained private. “We loosed chaos on the world?” Trilless indicated herself, Carcophan, and Shadimar’s body.
Colbey rose, feeling obligated to reply. “Yes.”
“You championed law?”
“Balance,” Colbey corrected, wiping away tears. “But you knew that from the start.”
Carcophan and Trilless exchanged knowing glances. For an instant, their minds touched, and Colbey clearly read the words they shared:
Man now or elf
If hate turns to self
And the need to atone should arise:
Break this stone
Call justice home
And follow the path of the wise.
Without context, Colbey could not understand the significance of their words; but he placed them together with Shadimar’s momentary consideration of the blue stones and the sapphire each Wizard clutched in his or her hand.
“Now,” Carcophan said softly, and Trilless nodded. Their agreement, though quiet and friendly, seemed as horrible to Colbey as the coming War. As one, they clenched their fingers closed upon the gems; and these shattered, crumbling into azure dust. The wind swirled the glittering fragments, sprinkling them through the air until they became lost against the background of darkening sky. The first droplets struck Colbey, though whether they came from above or from the powdered magic, he could not tell.
For a moment, time stopped. Then, a rumble ground through Colbey’s hearing, and the earth quaked in rhythm with the Chaos Staff’s beckoning hum. The sky cracked open, with an explosion of thunder. Rain spilled through the clouds, and lightning etched blinding forks against the dismal expanse of horizon.
The shaking stopped, but the storm continued. Grayness bunched, as if forming clouds on the ground, and from the center of that drab configuration stepped the Guardian of the Eighth Task. He stood in a silence that seemed to usurp the crack of thunder and the steady wash of rain, broad-brimmed hat drawn low over his single eye. In each hand, he held a familiar sword. The right looped about Ristoril, the Sword of Tranquillity that Colbey had faced in the hands of Olvaerr’s father. The other held the Black Sword of Power, the one that had completed the triangle of ruin, bringing the promise of Ragnarok and Episte’s madness at once. He tossed the blades, the first landing neatly at Trilless’ feet, point stabbing into the ground. Carcophan caught evil’s creation by the hilt.
Secodon howled a third time, his voice mellow yet grating as a scream. The sound brought images of hopelessness and agony, driving Colbey to contemplate the crumbling of mankind into oblivion. The world would go on in the same primordial nothingness that it had known before Odin split the forces of law and chaos. But all beings of law, all men, elves, most gods, and their creations would disappear, swallowed by the Destruction.
*You could have prevented it,* the staff tried to convince Colbey, truly believing its claim.
Colbey knew better. *No. Odin himself could not avert this fate.* Yet even understanding that the End was imminent, and realizing that Odin seemed to have come to destroy his many creations, perhaps before chaos could do it for him, Colbey could not surrender to despair. He had only one charge: mankind. The focus might give him a means where even gods had failed.
Odin’s voice, though soft, carried over the thunder. He addressed Carcophan and Trilless. “Do as you must.”
Carcophan raised the sword, but his chin sank to his chest. He spoke words Colbey could never hope to understand, the same spell that had ended Shadimar’s life. Trilless, too, began an invocation.
“Stop,” Colbey said.
The air seemed to chill in an instant. Trilless and Carcophan obeyed, though whether from curiosity or shocked surprise at the Renshai’s temerity, he did not know.
The rain drummed on branches and deadfalls. Colbey kept his gaze fixed on the One-Eyed One, ignoring the stares of every creature around him. “Carcophan and Trilless are innocent. They needn’t die for my decision or for Shadimar’s ignorance.” He stepped around the Cardinal Wizards, approaching the AllFather, and every stare followed him. “It was my destiny to wield chaos. How can you blame these two for my decision to switch to law instead?”
Odin’s head swiveled to Colbey until the single eye seemed to pierce him with all the sharpness of the spear in his hand. “Destiny?” He laughed. “What do you know of destiny, Kyndig? I created the system of the Cardinal Wizards. I determined that the Western and Eastern Wizards would, one day, champion law and chaos. And I chose to make Western stronger than Eastern precisely because he would wield the more important of the powers.” A smile curled from the edges of the god’s cheeks, forming so gradually it seemed as if it had been there all along. “It was your destiny to wield the Staff of Law, exactly as you did.”
Annoyance prickled through Colbey from a nameless source. Something about the gray god’s smug talk of destiny and fate irritated the Renshai. He would and had served the gods gladly when the choice had been his own; but no deity, Wizard, or man could turn him into an unwitting pawn.
The rain quickened, lightning striping the clouds in irregular pulses. Odin continued, gaze still locked on Colbey. “The system of the Cardinal Wizards has grown obsolete. You know that. And it has to end before I can set the new order in motion.” He made a disdainful gesture of dismissal at Carcophan and Trilless, not bothering to glance toward them. “Carry on.”
Colbey pinned the god’s fiery stare with his own, two eyes to one giving him the advantage. He could meet Odin’s gaze squarely, without need to flicker from eye to eye. “Why bother with a new system? Mankind is doomed, as well as most of the gods; and your own destiny won’t spare you. How can a dead god oversee the balance?”
The grin seemed permanently lodged on the gray god’s face. “First, Kyndig, the new balance will hinge on a son of Thor. And they, as you know, will survive the Ragnarok.”
Colbey knew Odin expected him to keep that balance, and the realization that he had already dedicated himself to that cause enraged him. Once again, his actions would fall neatly into Odin’s design.
“Second, unlike the other gods, I have managed to avert my fate.”
The aristiri shrieked, fluttering to the ground. The feathers fell away in folds, gracefully revealing Freya’s natural form. Golden bracelets, necklace, and threads from throat to heel squirmed and glittered with every angry breath. “You traitor! You pretended not to care. You sat in silence while the others tried to stop the Destruction, stating only that gods would die. You made us believe our fates could not be avoided.”
All mortal eyes jerked to the goddess in wonder. The Wizards lowered their weapons, for the moment reprieved.
Thunder crashed in Colbey’s ears, accompanied by a jagged slash of lightning that spidered between both horizons. Odin shrugged, the smile still in place. “My nonchalance was not an act. I knew from the start that some of us had to die, and since Kyndig’s birth that I would cheat the Fates. What others chose to make of my silence was their own misperception.”
“Bastard!” Freya hissed, the vehemence of her curse making even Colbey cringe.
Odin’s massive shoulders rose and fell again. “What matter to you, Lady? You’ll survive and your lover with you, your future bratling one of the few to repopulate the heavens. With Kyndig on my side, I’ll defeat the Fenris Wolf; and I’ll live on. If the others wish to survive the Ragnarok, they can find their own Kyndig.” The matter finished in his mind, Odin once more returned his attention to Carcophan and Trilless, quoting the first prophecy created for the Cardinal Wizards:
“A Sword of Gray,
A Sword of White,
A Sword of Black and
chill as night.
Each one forged,
Its craftsman a Mage;
The three Blades together shall close the age.
“When their oath of peace
The Wizards forsake,
Their own destruction they undertake.
Only these Swords
Their craftsmen can slay.
Each Sword shall be blooded the same rueful day.
“When that fateful day comes
The Wolf’s Age has begun.
Hati swallows the moon, and Sköll tears up the sun.”
Odin finished, “You brought your wyrd upon yourselves. The time for payment has come.”
Colbey did not turn to see the reaction of Odin’s command, nor did he attempt to defend the Wizards again. Since the start of the system, each Cardinal Wizard had chosen his or her time of passing. Their lot did not concern him. They would have to champion their own fates now.
Yet for whatever reason, each chose not to try. Magic prickled at Colbey’s back, tainted with threat aimed only at themselves. The Wizards’ presences winked out of Colbey’s mind-sense, and two more corpses joined Shadimar’s on the ground.
The transparent barrier that segregated the Renshai tribe disappeared. Cautiously, Mitrian, Rache, Tannin, Modrey, and Tarah approached their friends, the latter carrying the sleeping toddler in her arms.
Colbey watched them walk, their movements crisp, agile, and wary. He reveled in their martial knowledge, finding their potential staggering. The idea of losing them rankled, and a new anger swept him that went far beyond becoming Odin’s chosen toy. Whatever hand the AllFather had played in Colbey’s development from birth to Wizardhood had ended. Whatever else happened, Colbey would find a way to preserve mankind. Loki had convinced him gods’ deaths were an inevitable necessity. That mankind would die, even with the understanding that it would start again from a first man and woman, seemed a travesty he pledged himself and his sword to prevent.
Having spoken his piece and seen to the necessary, Odin turned his attention to what remained. His gaze fell first on Dh’arlo’mé. The elf stood apart from the conflict, attention on the sodden bodies of the Cardinal Wizards he had chosen to join. To Colbey’s surprise, Dh’arlo’mé met the god’s eye and his fate bravely.
Yet here, Odin tempered his judgment with mercy. He raised his arms, and the two Swords of Power flew back into his hands:
“Wizard only in name,
Your Mistress to blame
Her bones rightfully soon entombed.
Go back to the one
Who calls you her son
Alfheim is already doomed.”
As Odin spoke the final word, a slit appeared behind him, a glimmer of light that only brought emphasis to the gloom. Colbey caught a momentary glimpse of bulbous trees and aqua sky before it seemed to swallow Dh’arlo’mé, returning him to his rightful place on the world of elves. As the rent closed, restoring the continuity of ground and sky, Odin clapped the swords together. They seemed to melt, turning liquid before Colbey’s startled gaze. Then they came together again into a single, larger blade entity. That, too, lasted moments. The conglomeration disappeared, leaving the gray god’s hands empty.
Something stirred at Colbey’s hip as a presence winked to life in the sheath that had once held the soulless steel servant that had represented neutrality. Harval seemed to take on a life of its own that fused all the forces of the universe. Yet the image Colbey gained without tapping his mind gift told him it would remain only a tool, a container for powers that had no skill but that given by their wielder, serving the new entity that Odin had selected to guard the balance. Trapped into a role he had already taken willingly, Colbey felt his annoyance flare to rage. Still, he remained silent, ideas swirling through his mind while Odin worked.
Odin chanted again:
“Send mankind home
Where they may roam
Until their fate destroys them.”
Another hole appeared in the fabric of place and time, tearing at those remaining on the Fields of Wrath. The force grew stronger, sucking grass, downpour, and sky through the rift, as if to consume them. Colbey held back, letting the others precede him, fighting the whirlwind of god-created magic for as long as possible. At length, when no others remained and even the edge of forest had been tugged into the void, Colbey calmly entered the gate, eyes shut tight against the flash of light he knew would come. Odin’s smug assessment trailed him through:
“Always the last
Even your die is cast
Your skill at my side in the War.”
EPILOGUE
Harval felt strange in Colbey’s hands. The hilt seemed to vibrate as the worlds’ powers settled into a wary compromise, and a high-pitched ringing hammered Colbey’s ears until pain knifed through his head. He scanned his mind gift, finding a level at which the resonance of the sword matched that of his thoughts; and the noise faded to silence. The world seemed to gain new focus. As he glanced about the Fields of Wrath, he found color in air and rain. Trees, sky, and people gained a spectrum he had never known existed; and tints he had always believed solitary and solid separated into an assortment whose scope he would never have thought to imagine. The forces of the world had become his to command, the world’s balance a burden he had willingly accepted.
The staves lay abandoned on the Fields of Wrath, their menace a ceaseless prickle against Colbey’s skin. Rain continued to pound from the sky, though the thunder faded to a distant rumble and the lightning etched its patterns only intermittently against the gray backdrop of sky. The horses left by the magical gate had returned to the fields to graze. After a friendly reuniting with his master, even Frost Reaver had left to join their quiet meal.
Sterrane’s body sprawled across gingerly placed stones, Mar Lon guarding him now in death as he had in life. Arduwyn, Sylva, and Rache gathered and shaped wood for a box. They would need to carry the king back to his city for a proper and fitting send-off. Having been introduced, Khitajrah and Mitrian chatted, too far away for Colbey to overhear their discussion. Although Freya seemed to have disappeared, Colbey could feel her presence nearby. Even with the Ragnarok inevitable and her brother’s and colleagues’ lives soon to be forfeit, she had not abandoned Colbey.
Tannin approached Colbey boldly, his gait still stiffened from Wizard-inflicted injuries. “Torke, I can think of nothing I would appreciate more than a spar and lesson from you. Would you grant me that honor?”
Colbey lowered Harval, now fully in tune with its grip and balance. He relished the chance to assess Mitrian’s teachings, and he would never deny the Renshai what might become their last spar. Soon, the Great Destruction would begin, if it had not already; and Surtr’s fire would scour heaven and earth in a conflagration that would leave no man alive.
Tannin proved only the first of many spars, as every Renshai clamored for one more chance to pit his or her sword against the master swordsman, to get one more teaching session from an unmatchable torke. Colbey liked what he saw. Every one of the Renshai had improved, their boldness giving him matches that would have sent him into a crescendo of excitement if not for the responsibilities thrust upon him, the understanding that they would all soon die, and the tantalizing promise of myriad mock battles with Freya. Still, the ceaseless action cleared his mind, twisting reality into new perspectives. By the time Arduwyn’s box was completed, Colbey had discovered the answer he sought. And in every way but one, it pleased him.
Respectfully, Colbey joined the gathering around the piled stones. Mar Lon, Arduwyn, Tannin, and Rache had hefted the king’s body into the box, using the stones as a dais for the coffin. For several seconds, no one spoke. Nine adults studied the corpse, the face as childlike as the simple wisdom he had embraced and the judgments he had rendered. The royal crest gleamed in branching flashes of lightning, and rain drummed varied pitches on wood, stone, and metal. Every eye added its moisture to the rain-soaked figures huddled around the Westlands’ king. Even Colbey c
ould not hold back the tears.
Mar Lon unslung his mandolin, sliding it into playing position. Chords pealed forth, as sorrowful as the gathering yet strong as the ceaseless cascade of rain. Notes slurred into one another, the bard’s usual crisp style lost to grief. Clearly, he created the words as he went, the rhyme scheme, intentionally or purposefully, emulating Odin’s chants. The trip back to Béarn would give Mar Lon a chance to perfect his talent before playing at the king’s final rest. But the Renshai and their friends shared the bard’s grief in its raw innocence, undulled by consideration or time:
“All bow your head
The king is dead
No peace left for the world.
His bodyguard
The only bard
In shame his failure hurled.
“He died for naught
No solace bought
The Destruction still a-brewin’
His life could make
Great peace awake.
But now there’s only ruin.
“Good-bye Sterrane
All loss, no gain
We wish our king the best
The king is dead
The king is dead
No hope left for the West.”
Obediently, all heads dipped low in a silent moment of respect. Colbey felt Khitajrah’s approach, and it bothered him. Though she had far less at stake here, in friendship or patriotism, he had expected her not to shatter the tribute.
“I need your help,” Khitajrah whispered in his ear.
Without raising his head for a glance, Colbey waved her silent.
“I need your help,” Khitajrah repeated softly. She touched his hand with cold steel.
Colbey glanced downward. The flat of Mitrian’s sword lay against his fingers, the wolf hilt in Khitajrah’s grip.
Colbey inclined his head away from the gathered mourners to indicate they should talk elsewhere. The two moved to the edge of the woods where their conversation would not disturb the others. “She let you borrow it?” Although Colbey had suggested as much to Mitrian during her lesson, he had not expected the Renshai’s torke to hand her weapon away.
Child of Thunder (Renshai Trilogy) Page 63