“You mean aside from a heavy dose of cynicism?” Matrinka started the comb through Tae’s hair, stopped immediately by a snarl. “No.” She added with a solemnity she rarely displayed, “Truthfully, though, I think this is one situation where preparation for the worst might work to your advantage. And maybe even Rascal’s.”
Another wave of laughter seeped through the partially opened door.
Tae scanned the room with overplayed movements of head and eyes.
Matrinka removed the comb before it became hopelessly tangled. “What are you doing?”
“Looking for the trusting optimist Matrinka I know, you stranger.”
Matrinka whopped Tae with the comb. Without reply, she stood, closing the door between the rooms fully, as much to keep their conversation private as to escape the distraction.
“Mior will make you pay for that.”
“Don’t I know it.” Matrinka returned to Tae’s side. “But you deserve my full attention; and Griff doesn’t need to hear me say that he’s the naive, innocent ruler, not me. Your explanation in the courtroom made sense to me, though I would never have thought of it on my own.” She sighed, returning her focus to Tae’s hair. “I’ve become a lot more interested in handling children since Marisole’s birth. She’s not going to get any discipline from Griff. Darris can only teach with song, and a disobedient child won’t have patience for that. It’s up to me, and I don’t want to make too many mistakes.”
Tae swallowed hard, only then realizing how close Matrinka had come to concerns he had not, until that moment, recognized. He had considered Rascal an annoying distraction from Subikahn. Now, he realized, Subikahn actually propelled his need to rescue Rascal. If he could handle the nasty little hoodlum, he could face any problem that came with fatherhood. “Well, don’t look to me for the answers. I don’t even have a positive parental model. My mother died when . . .” Sorrow snapped into position despite his best effort to keep it at bay. He knew he would never forget the day that his father’s enemies killed his mother and left him, stabbed multiple times, for dead. He managed to finish with only a catch in his voice to reveal how near he had come to crying. “. . . I was ten. And my father made every possible mistake.”
“You do so well with Subikahn.” Matrinka plucked at the knot in Tae’s hair. “Better, I hate to admit, than the rest of us with our babies.”
Tae screwed up his face. “That’s ludicrous.”
“Oh, Ra-khir and Kevral, me and Griff and Darris. We all love the babies.” Matrinka struggled with the comb. “But we’re more the holding and rocking types. You actually get down on the floor and roughhouse. There’s something special about people who can do that.”
It surprised Tae to learn that not everyone could do something that came so naturally to him. “You’re all capable of rollicking around like maniacs.”
“Physically,” Matrinka admitted. “But we don’t know what to do, what to say. In front of others we’re embarrassed. It just doesn’t feel right.”
Considering the situation in this new light, Tae realized most parents behaved as Matrinka did. Perhaps his play was already a mistake, but he could not bear to stop it. Besides, Matrinka seemed to believe it a good thing, even enviable. As the comb jerked at his roots, he winced. “Matrinka, isn’t it beneath your station to groom . . .” He stopped himself from saying something personally derogatory which, while funnier, would upset his companion. “. . . me?”
“Not at all,” Matrinka worked harder on the tangle. “Emotional healing is as important as physical. If you look more like a prince, you’ll feel more like one.”
Tae believed he had now heard himself called a prince more than a hundred times, and it still sounded ridiculous.
Matrinka set to work with the shearing knife as well as the comb. “But you’ve gotten me way off the subject. Now, I know you fell in a pond, and the guards tell me you climbed the wall and broke a window. I don’t doubt you have an excellent explanation.”
Appreciating Matrinka’s trust, Tae launched into his story, describing the events of the evening with detailed accuracy. As he talked, she combed and cut. Black locks tumbled to the floor, gleaming blue and scarlet in the firelight. He finished by describing the events in the toy room. “. . . so I probably saved her life, or at least from an extraordinary beating. And, for all I know, she came to kill my baby.” He gave Matrinka a raised-brow look to indicate he had finished.
Only then, Matrinka added her piece, “You did well, Tae.”
Tae blinked several times. “The kitchen staff still has to contend with her, and she has their possessions. Subikahn got menaced. I nearly died. Where’s the ‘well’ part of all that?”
“You let Rascal know what you expected of her and that you would see right done. You showed her that she can’t get her way with negativity or with sex. And she got punished for attempting vengeance.” Matrinka smiled at an image that had already amused Tae: Rascal believing she could bully an old woman who turned out to be a Renshai. “Most importantly, you got the opportunity to show her that you’ve done all of this from love.”
No word could have surprised Tae more. “Love?” he repeated warningly. If Matrinka had a match between Tae and Rascal in mind, he would storm from the room without a backward look.
“Caring, if you prefer.” Matrinka ran the comb easily through Tae’s hair now, a pleasant sensation that reminded him of the time Kevral had done it, a turning point in their relationship. He tried not to enjoy the queen’s touch too much. “You saved her when allowing her to die would have served you better. And she knows it’s not because you want something from her since you already refused the chance to sleep with her.”
“Rape her,” Tae reminded, using Rascal’s own words.
Though two years younger than Tae, Matrinka patted him like an older sister. “Oh, Tae. A woman fearing assault doesn’t willingly open her clothing. She wants you.”
Tae recoiled as if struck, shocked the thought had never occurred to him. He did not share the affection; he felt certain of that. “Maybe,” he conceded. “But not because she loves me romantically. It’s probably the only type of relationship she ever had with a father or a brother.”
Having finished with his hair, Matrinka settled cross-legged in front of Tae. “So she sees you in that role now. That’s a good thing.”
“Because . . .” Tae pressed.
“Because you can do it right this time. Show her the true role of a brother. Firm but merciful guidance. No sex.”
The very idea of coupling with Rascal turned Tae’s stomach.
“You did well,” Matrinka repeated. “I guarantee you’ll see a positive change in her behavior.”
Tae stood, exhaustion like a lead weight across his shoulders. “And if I don’t?”
Matrinka’s features went stricken, but she did not answer.
“Almost forgot. Package came from your father. It’s by your door.”
“Thanks.” Tae headed toward the door, appreciating the change of subject, despite its abruptness. He doubted resteering Matrinka to the topic would gain him an answer. So instead he wondered about a package important enough to send a party through months of travel. Months of travel. Tae rolled his eyes, blaming tiredness for his lack of thought. Surely, Weile Kahn had utilized a messenger line. Easterners would only have to have gone to the edge of the first Westland or Northern town and paid for others to pass it along. Yet, even that would have required a month and a significant amount of gold. Had it held political significance, it would have gone to the king. More likely, his father had sent him a gift on a whim. Tae managed a weak smile. Soon enough, he would know.
* * *
Fatigue and curiosity drew Tae toward his room, but he forced himself to the kitchen instead. Worried for the damage Rascal might have inflicted prior to going after Subikahn, he thought it best to spare the already burdened staff. As he stumbled toward it, glad he had left the infant in Kevral’s capable care for the night, he realized that he had seen no weapons
in Rascal’s hand. Coming from the kitchen, she had had plenty of opportunity to seize a knife. That suggested that her intentions in the toy room fell short of murder and eased some of his tension. For the first time, he dared to consider Matrinka’s optimism a possibility. The scene he discovered in the kitchen might tell him more. Seizing the door, he opened it.
Moonlight funneled through the only window, playing over quiet utensils, counter tops, and cooking areas. The raisins lay spread across the floor, many deliberately ground into the stone. That small act of defiance seemed like nothing in the wake of the carnage Tae had expected. A glint of bronze from a carving block caught his eye, and he moved to inspect it. Hair ties, studs, badges, and copper instruments lay spread across its surface. A smile eased onto Tae’s face. Though not the direct confrontation he had demanded, and unaccompanied by apology, at least Rascal had returned the objects she had stolen. He dashed to the once-locked drawer, trampling more raisins in his haste. The torque lay where Walfron had left it. Smiling, Tae shoved in the drawer and twisted the broken lock back into reasonable shape.
With the exhilaration that came of unexpected success, Tae gathered the raisins and scrubbed at the stains. Though not a thorough job, it might at least ease some of the tension the following day if the spill looked accidental. With renewed enthusiasm, he headed upstairs and through the corridors to his bedroom. He waved at a guard he passed, pleased with himself for the first time in as long as he could remember, scarcely believing that, not long ago, he had battled for his life. Only the residual exhaustion paid any credence to that struggle, and the thought of collapsing into bed made even that a pleasure. Finally, he had succeeded at a task that had seemed impossible. Perhaps, this once, his parenting instincts had overcome his lack of experience. Always before he had worried he would freeze in front of his child, running possibilities through his mind in a desperate race and still choosing wrongly. Now, he allowed himself to consider the possibility that he might truly make a competent father.
Tae’s door came into view, a pile of something unidentifiable beside it. The package. He stared at it as he approached, gradually making out rumpled leather, cloth, and unraveled rope. Someone opened it? He blinked, trying to make sense of what he saw. The closer he got, the more he realized that someone had definitely tampered with the contents. Quickening his pace, he arrived at his door and crouched in front of the package. The rope lay, cut. Wadded vellum perched atop a shredded pile of velvet, silk, and gingham. He snatched up the supple parchment, opening it to reveal the writing: “Prince Tae Kahn at Béarn Castle.” He flipped it over. Eastern runes scrawled across it in his father’s neat handwriting: “Knew this would take months to get to you, so I had them made big. As handsome as Subikahn will look in these, don’t let any Béarnian princesses steal his heart. My son refuses to take my place, and I need an heir.” There followed a string of symbols that represented laughter.
Tae’s lips twitched upward, immediately stopped by remembrance of the carnage that lay beneath the message. Scooping up a pile of fabric, he let the torn scraps flutter back to the floor. Here and there, a swatch revealed its original purpose: a sleeve here, a laced collar there. The whole blurred to a multicolored smear that glided through his fingers, as soft as down. Rascal did this. Tae buried his face in the silk. The loss of the clothing did not bother him; Subikahn would never go naked. The gift from his father had meant so much more: an end to the bitterness and cruelty that had tainted their relationship, a promise of closeness between an elder who had only just learned to love and a grandson as yet too young to understand.
Newly found confidence crumbled, replaced by the wary walls the difficulties of Tae’s childhood had crafted. Too tired to fight them, he let the tears glide where they would.
* * *
The shapeless soup of chaos, with its flickering array of colors and everchanging densities had long ago faded to insignificant background to Colbey Calistinsson. He had found a bittersweet irony that the demons could never fathom: the unpredictable inconsistency of chaos had, itself, become a stability in a life torn apart by his commitment to the cause of balance. He thought back to the day he had nearly handed over the Staff of Chaos to Kevral, knowing that she would bind and believing that the only way to oppose Dh’arlo’mé’s subjugation to the Staff of Law. Then, Ra-khir’s impassioned pleas and Tae’s attempt to sacrifice himself had changed Colbey’s mind. Had he known then about Odin, he would never have considered handing the task to another.
Willing the plane of chaos to a dirt pathway, Colbey paced. So much had changed since the day he demanded that the staff bring him here. Shreds of law became the seeds for demons, but nothing else living had ever survived on chaos’ world. History and logic had deemed that Colbey should have fragmented the instant of his arrival, adding a new mass of demons to chaos’ horde. The power of mind and body had rescued him. Slaughtering demons had won his place as their prince, though even that gained him only their fear and individual obeisance. The creatures of chaos could never, by nature, organize.
Gradually, Colbey’s mastery over chaos had grown. When he willed it, objects and boundaries came into existence on a world once lacking such concepts. Experimentation had revealed that, aside from self and staff/sword, anything he took from this world ceased to exist on the others, except as raw chaos. Objects brought here shattered or became as mutable as everything else. Colbey paused at the end of his track, then spun on a heel to travel the other direction. A path that had closed behind him reappeared, and he trod the length, continuing his thoughts. If he could draw Odin to chaos’ world, he would gain the upper hand, even without the assistance of the other gods. Short of that, he had little hope of besting the AllFather. He believed he might prove the better swordsman, but Odin had the stronger mind powers. And Odin had magic.
*You could have magic, too,* the staff/sword reminded, dismissed by a brisk chop of Colbey’s hand. *You know you’ll have to bond eventually. If you wait too long, you may lose that chance.*
*Hush!* Colbey’s command left no space for further argument. He would never admit that the staff was probably right. Once linked to chaos, he lost control; and without control, he could not regulate the outcome of the battle. The entity he became would no longer care about balance. It would battle law until nothing remained. With any luck, the forces would destroy one another; but, if either the bound-Colbey or Odin triumphed, all of humanity would succumb. Whether to chaos or to Odin’s self-centered annihilation did not matter. *If you can’t suggest something useful, don’t bother me.*
*Binding at least gives you a chance for what you seek. Without it, you can only die—and bring chaos down with you.*
Colbey wondered if he could ever get the staff to understand that becoming part of the primordial chaos was worse than dying. *At least against Odin I have a chance to die in battle.*
*Moot, at best. Do you think Odin would leave Valhalla intact? Even if he did, he would banish you from it.*
Colbey did not bother to argue. His need for an honorable death no longer held any basis in Valhalla. Thoughts of Odin brought him back to his first battle with the arisen god. Then, he had noticed two things. When the Staff of Chaos had carved through the entity bound to law, parts of both had canceled one another, the backlash a blast that had blown him back to chaos’ world and nearly taken his life. Second, bits of Odin’s mental attack that he had walled away and brought back with him had fizzled into nothingness against chaos. Realization struck with painful clarity. If Odin came here, it would not just even the battle. It would destroy him.
Chaos leaped to its own defense. *The resultant explosion would kill you, too.* It did not speak the obvious, clear enough to Colbey. It would also destroy chaos’ world. Colbey froze in mid-step, astounded by his new discovery. Devastation of the largest entities of law and of chaos would accomplish precisely what he had intended. His own death did not matter. He had anticipated nothing different.
*No!* the staff’s voice echoed empha
tically through Colbey’s mind. *I won’t allow it.*
Colbey watched colors ooze and twine around him, without reply. He already knew the practicalities would prove far more difficult than the conception. Odin would never come of his own will. *Try and stop me.*
Colbey vowed to relish his final battle.
* * *
This time, Kevral remembered to squeeze her eyes shut as Captain’s magic transported her and her seven companions to a world of unknown perils or tedium. The familiar tingle rippled through her, and she clutched the hilts at each hip. So far, they had obtained Pica fragments without violence; and logic suggested they would procure the others at least as easily. Even she would not quibble over a worthless shard of sapphire, though she secretly hoped someone would. The urge to wield her swords in something other than spar or practice itched, her reason for joining the expedition in the first place. It seemed nonsensical to drag a Renshai along without a need for combat, yet she knew they had chosen her because no one could predict the occupants of unknown worlds.
Kevral opened her eyes, blinking against dull light diffused by a blanket of silver fog. She stood on an indistinct mulch of leaves and ancient bark, surrounded by her companions. Ra-khir gazed about in wonder. Tae crouched, almost invisible in the haze. Darris’ hand rested on his sword hilt also, and his eyes darted to all corners of the mist. Andvari stood tall, the muscles in his arms tense balls but his stance otherwise revealing no trace of discomfort. Rascal hunched into herself, on the exact opposite side of the party from Tae. El-brinith showed an agitation uncharacteristic for elves, shuffling from position to position with an attentiveness Kevral had never seen from her before. Chan’rék’ril remained still beside her, his face tipped toward her, though he did not speak. Likely, they discussed her discomfort in singular khohlar.
Kevral approached El-brinith. “What’s the matter?”
El-brinith turned her eyes to Kevral, though not for long. Even as she answered, her gaze flitted around the area again. “Strange magic. Nothing I’ve encountered before.”
The Children of Wrath Page 28