She saw my reaction and her caress changed, stroking more firmly where she had previously teased. She traced a path along my torso that followed my ribs and hips, ignoring the bear’s gouges. My breath deepened. She moved her hands along my hips, and I sighed.
“You like that?” she whispered.
“Very much.”
“Concentrate on the sensation.”
“I doubt I could concentrate on anything else.”
When she smiled, I noted her slightly protruding front teeth and thought them surprisingly attractive. She saw something in my expression and said, “You feel stronger?”
“Yes,” I replied, though what I felt was closer to lazy comfort than strength. My muscles, answering her ministrations, relaxed. I forgot my wounds in the pleasure of the moment. I was not reminded of pain until she touched the lowest gouge in my chest, and I gasped.
“Think of warmth,” Naiji said. “Think of strength.”
“I’m thinking of razors,” I said, “and sea water poured on open sores.”
“Think of warmth,” she repeated. Her hand moved down to circle my navel. One finger left a trail of sticky, drying blood.
“Warmth.” I sighed and closed my eyes. My hands lay limp on her shoulders. Then something cold and slushy slapped against my stomach. Shocked, I jerked forward.
She was washing me with snow. “Warmth,” she said, admonishing and amused.
The hand that cupped snow cleaned my chest. No blood flowed where her fingers passed. She said, “You’re stronger than you think, Rifkin. Use that strength,” Her hands followed the paths the bear had carved. My wounds felt like a track for fire gods.
The magic almost fled when I realized that someone watched us. I knew this suddenly, without knowing how I knew. I scanned the bony shadows of the trees. No one was there. I thought of a witch watching with mindsight, and I thought I concealed my fear.
Naiji said, “Something?”
The notion was ridiculous. The bare elms hid no one. My exile had made me too suspicious. The distraction brought back hints of pain and cold, and I prayed the interruption would not end my healing. “No.”
“Find the warmth, then,” Naiji said. “Don’t forget. The warmth!”
“Yes,” I said, suddenly breathless. I felt heat across the wounds in my chest, heat about my entire body as though I had been transported to the beach at Loh in a summer afternoon. As Naiji massaged me, the places of heat grew closer to each other. I wondered what would happen when my entire body seemed consumed by fires of magic.
“Now!” Naiji said.
“Now!” I cried aloud, echoing her as, for a long moment, we shared something more intimate than any pleasure-making between friends.
Sometime later she laughed, then stood and gathered my clothes to throw them at me. “I’ve chosen well.”
“I’m glad you think so...I think. For what?”
“You’ll learn soon enough.”
“I’d like some answers.”
“You’ll have them soon enough, my Rifkin. Dress yourself.”
It was not until I began to fasten my shirt that I noticed that all signs of my fight with the bear had left my body. Only the scars of older encounters remained to say that I had ever been wounded in battle.
I dressed quickly, and was trying to rub the bloodstains from my clothes with a handful of snow when Naiji said, “Follow.” Without a backward glance at me or the bear’s corpse, she strode off on a deer trail that appeared to climb the nearest hill.
“Where do we go?” I said, hurrying after her. Night was upon us, and only a faint band of pink remained in the western sky to salute the coining evening.
‘To Castle Gromandiel.“
“The road doesn’t pass it?”
“Not close. This is faster.”
I tried to accept the oddities of the north, but I was suspicious of any castle so insignificant as to be bypassed by a merchant’s route. I looked back at the bear’s pale form and thought of other things that might stalk the woods at night. “The road would be safer.”
Naiji halted and laughed. “No place in this valley is safer than with me, though that may not be safe enough for either of us.” She turned on her heel and set off into the trees.
We walked in silence for half an hour or more. Her night sight was better than mine, or else she had memorized the path’s features. She never faltered or stumbled. I tripped in holes and over branches more times than I would care to count, but I had learned to catch myself quickly when I was a novice in the ways of the Art. As we hiked through the barren trees, the moon rose, missing only a tiny sliver of his full self. A wolf barked four times from far away, and Naiji turned so quickly to glance for it that she almost fell. I reached to steady her, but she pushed me away and said, “You’ll treat me as your master, except when I say otherwise. Understand, Rifkin Boundman?”
“No. I swore to serve you, Naiji Gromandiel. I never swore to obey your whims.”
“What?” She glared at me, then grinned. “I’m bringing my brother a lawyer, not a fighter, I see.”
“You’ve brought your brother no one, Lady. I swore to serve you, not him.”
“Among the Kond, Rifkin, the vow means—”
“Along the Ladizhar, a vow means what it says. And no more.”
She tapped my chest with her index finger. “You’ve traveled far from that sea, Rifkin.”
I met her gaze. “You may release me from your service, if you prefer.”
“There’s only one release from my service.”
“My death?”
“Yes.”
“No,” I noted. “There are at least two paths to my freedom, my lady. The second is through your death.”
She stared at me for a long moment. “Do you threaten—”
“Never. I swore to serve you. But if ever I’m unable to save you from danger, Lady, I’ll be free again.”
She smiled, almost fondly. “Ah, Rifkin. You aren’t comfortable in the inferior’s role, are you?”
“I might not be, if I’d accepted an inferior’s role. Your word binds you to me as closely as mine binds me to you.”
“You speak rather insolently, my Rifkin, for a foreigner and a boundman.”
“I do so in your interest, Lady, as best as I can evaluate your interest.”
“And I suppose you won’t accept another’s estimate of my best interest?”
“No.”
“Not even my own?”
“Especially not your own, Lady.”
She reached out to squeeze my hand. “Try not to make this difficult for either of us, hmm?”
“And you, the same.”
“Yes,” she said. “Definitely a lawyer. Come on, lawyer. We’ve rested long enough.”
I followed her for another twenty minutes or so. We left the path and climbed through brush and scree up a hill so steep that we had to use our hands to steady ourselves. Naiji paused midway to what seemed a sheer rock face, pointed upward, and said, “Your new home, Rifkin.”
Far above us a castle jutted up from the high cliff like a shark’s tooth. The mountain towered over it, shading the castle from the moonlight, so all I could see was the silhouette against the starry sky. My impression was that Naiji’s keep was huge and old and possibly carved from the rock rather than built upon it. Perhaps Castle Gromandiel had been grown magically from the stone.
She seemed to expect me to comment. “It appears, ah, very defensible,” I said.
“No one’s ever conquered it.” There was enough pride in her voice that I did not ask why anyone would want to take a castle, however formidable, that stood on a forgotten cliff in the midst of wild woods and bleak hills. After all, whatever I might think of it, she was right. It was my new home.
* * *
3
CASTLE GROMANDIEL
NAIJI WAS CONTENT to stand and admire her home. I said, “How do we reach the top? Scaling cliffs in the dark isn’t an art I know.”
“Li
ke this.” She led me to the base of the bare rock face, then cupped her hands about her mouth and made a call like a mountain cat’s. “Step back.” She drew me beneath a slight overhang, and a thick braid of knotted hemp fell nearby. “Can you climb a rope?”
“I can climb any line.”
“Good.” Naiji went first, disappearing in the shadow of the cliff. I tucked the shaft of my axe into my belt, then followed her. My arms ached before I had climbed a third of the rope’s length, but there was no way to rest other than clinging to the rope, so I continued.
Naiji’s fox-fur boots were the first sight to greet my eyes as I clambered over the cliff’s edge. Next to them were two huge boots made of moosehide, large enough that someone might have decided to dress a statue, as is sometimes done in the temples of the island nations. Doubting this was the case, I felt very vulnerable as I looked up.
The man beside Naiji was immense, even for a Kond. His hair had been cut around his head so that in the night, he seemed to wear half of a coconut for a helmet. A tangled pale beard sprouted from his face like smoke. His clothes—baggy pants and a hooded jacket—appeared to have been sewn from old woolen blankets. A long straight sword at his hip would have been wielded with both hands by a normal warrior.
He moved his fist to indicate me and said in an oddly high-pitched voice, “Kill him, mistress?”
Naiji reached up to pat the giant’s shoulder. “No, Avarineo. He’s to be your friend.”
The man shook his head. “Friend? No, mistress. He smells of death.”
“That’s not his fault,” Naiji answered. “He was trapped in the woods by one of our defenders. You would have done the same, Avarineo.”
The giant stared, and I wished there was something behind me besides a long fall to the rocks. I knew I could never free my axe from my belt before he attacked, if he chose to. I doubted it would be much use, if I could.
“Which did he kill, mistress?”
Naiji glanced at me in warning, then said, “It wasn’t his fault, Avarineo. Truly.”
“Which?”
“Old Avo,” she answered sadly.
The giant’s fists bunched together like boulders, but Naiji interposed herself between us before he could act. “No! He didn’t know that you and Avo were spirit-brothers! Avo threatened him. I saw it!”
“You saw it, mistress?” The man’s voice carried his anguish. “You did not help?”
“I thought Avo could handle him. I was wrong. I’m sorry, Avarineo. Truly.”
The giant pointed at me and growled, “You will never be my friend. Never.”
“Yes, he will,” Naiji said. “He must be. We can’t afford to fight among ourselves. He’ll be your friend. Understand, Avarineo? He will be your friend.”
“He will never be my friend. I’ll kill him, mistress. He is bad. Very bad.“ Avarineo reached for my throat with a massive, gnarled hand.
“I didn’t know the bear was your brother,” I said, as calmly as I could. “He attacked me. I did not attack him.”
‘True?“ The giant paused a step from me with his fingers much too near my skin.
‘True!“ Naiji put both her hands against the giant’s beard. ”I saw.“
“I wish to be your friend,” I said.
“You’ll never be my friend,” Avarineo growled, but with less conviction. He let his arms drop to his sides. His stare continued as though he hoped his gaze would push me off the cliff.
Naiji suddenly embraced him. “Then pretend he’s your friend. For my sake.” Releasing him, she said, “Please, Avarineo?”
“For your sake,” he said. “But I only pretend.” He pointed again at me. “You are not really my friend, man.”
“His name is Rifkin.”
“Hah!” said Avarineo. “A stupid name.”
I said, “It was considered a good one in Istviar.”
“It may be a good name in some stupid land. Not here.”
“Maybe not,” I said. “But it’s mine.”
“You should change it,” said Avarineo. “To something less stupid.”
I nodded. “I’ll remember your advice.”
“Your name sounds like a fart,” said the giant.
“Avarineo!” Naiji said.
“Sorry, mistress.”
‘Truly?“
“Well...” He looked at the ground. “It’s not my fault his name sounds like a fart.”
“You’re trying to start a fight,” Naiji said.
Avarineo looked up and nodded. “Yes, mistress.”
“Don’t. Pretend Rifkin’s your friend. Remember that.”
“I will remember that.” He had bowed his head before Naiji, but he glanced down at me. “I will also remember Avo.”
“Fine,” Naiji said with considerable annoyance. “Remember Avo. But protect Rifkin. He’s bound to me.”
The giant’s jaw gaped.
“Close your mouth, old friend.”
“But, mistress...”
“Yes?”
“He killed Avo!”
“Yes. And fairly.”
“He is small. Very small.”
“He fights better than Avo did. Can you say the same?”
“He is funny-looking.”
“He’s darker than our folk. He was born that way.”
“His name sounds like a fart!”
She sighed. “I tire of this, Avarineo. Haul up the rope. We don’t need to be attacked while we argue.”
He stared blankly, then nodded. “Yes, mistress.” He bent, and his arms moved with the precision of clockwork as he pulled up the line we had climbed.
“I could build a machine to make that task easier,” I said. “A winch and a pulley...” I considered this for a second or two. “And perhaps rig it to a rope ladder, rather than a single strand...”
Naiji laughed. “You are full of surprises! Not a lawyer, but an engineer, eh?”
“I’ve learned a few tricks,” I said modestly.
“Obviously,” she answered, pleased. “But for that”—she jerked her chin to indicate the giant’s task—“we have Avarineo. It makes him feel useful.”
“And if you no longer had him?”
She hesitated, then said, “Then we’d chain two slaves here, and let them serve us.”
“I see.”
She glanced at me, so I could not pretend to mistake her warning. “You could be one of them.”
“No, thanks.”
“Done, mistress,” Avarineo announced.
“Good.”
“Kill him?” he said hopefully, jerking his thumb at me.
“No! And don’t ask again.”
Abashed, he said, “Yes, mistress.”
She looked at me. “Offer him your hand.”
I looked at Avarineo, who glowered with mixed suspicion and confusion. “What do you mean?”
“It’s a way of showing trust.”
“I’m not sure I have any to show.”
“I can’t be worrying that one of you will kill the other. Offer your hand, Rifkin.”
I flexed my fingers, since this might be my last chance to do so, and held out my left.
“The right,” said Naiji.
Reluctantly, I obeyed.
Avarineo stared at my hand, then grinned.
“Don’t hurt him,” Naiji ordered.
His grin disappeared. His voice was like that of a child who had been slapped. “No, mistress.” His great hand enclosed mine. I slid my palm up so that my thumb could press under his, if I had to. The giant was content to squeeze gently, and then he released me.
“We are friends?” I asked.
“We are not enemies,” he said.
“That pleases me.”
“It is odd not to be enemies with a man whose name sounds like a fart.”
“Avarineo!” Naiji said.
I only laughed, since his insult had no threat behind it.
“Come, Rifkin,” said Naiji. “My brother waits.”
The castle was
even larger than it had seemed from below. I suspected that it might easily garrison five hundred soldiers, so long as supplies could be brought to them. I wondered again why anyone would think this valley so important. I had journeyed from a Kondish city that was too small to threaten anyone, where no one seemed to suspect that this fortress existed, and I was told that the city beyond the hills was no greater or any more ambitious.
We walked along a trail wide enough for two horses to pass. After a moment Naiji stopped and said, “Be careful of Avarineo. Though he’s simple, he has a long memory.”
“So do I. But I’ll try to make friends with him.”
“Good. Now, another matter.”
“Yes?”
“My brother will want to know your history.”
“And you don’t?”
“I know what’s important about you, Rifkin. You’re competent, and you’re true to your word.”
“I might leave this place while everyone sleeps.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“It wouldn’t be easy to escape our keep. Avarineo guards the cliff most nights, and someone always watches the supply road. Besides, I learned a little about your nature while healing you.”
I said, “I see.”
Something must have told her that I was not pleased. Naiji set her hand on my arm. “I only assured myself that you honor your vows.”
I shrugged as if it did not matter.
She released my arm. “So, what’ll you tell my brother?”
“I’ll admit that I’m an exiled prince who roams these lands in hopes of raising an army to free his native country. What else could I say?”
She glanced at me before she laughed. “Right.”
“You’re too perceptive, Lady. I’m actually a simple fellow who lived peaceably near his village until he learned of a great evil in the world and reluctantly set out to make everything right again.”
Naiji shook her head. “My brother has no sense of humor, Rifkin.”
“Then I shouldn’t tell him I’m a disguised magician who travels to escape his enemies?”
“You carry too much iron for him to ever believe that.”
“Oh. Will he accept that I’m a wandering mercenary who recently took the wrong side in a war, and therefore seeks a new master?”
Will Shetterly - Witch Blood Page 2