Sword Bearer (Return of the Dragons) (4 page)

Volk
!

The word vibrated on all four dimensions, sending out
pulsating light on the strands that ran away from us in all directions.

At first we heard no answer.

How would anyone answer, anyhow?

Then I felt a small tug.

I looked down, expecting to see Kara’s hand, but there was
nothing to see, at least with my first two eyes.

With my third eye I saw the strands spreading out from our
hands, still vibrating with our call. The center, the
nexus
, was between
our clasped hands. I felt the tug again, and Kara gasped.

She must have felt it too. It was one of the strands. The
tug grew stronger as the strand grew thicker and brighter. Its vibration felt
like a buzzing in my ears and all through my body.

A crash came from behind us. I turned my head around. A
stone had fallen out of the wall. The wall still held, but for how long now?

Watch
.

I looked back at the strand that pulled at us as it
thickened and vibrated and spiraled, suddenly no longer a straight string but
more like a luminous coil, or a spring, and then the spiral solidified into a
glowing disk.

Durch
.

The word, sent out from our joined minds, from our lips,
rang loud and powerful like an enormous ringing bell.

The crashing stopped for a moment on the other side of the
wall.

There was another cry of rage then.

Maybe they realized how close we were.

I looked at the disk and it darkened, then swirled, a
glowing whirlpool of many colors. Kara squeezed my hands tightly then, and I
felt a buzz all the way from my teeth to my ears to my toes. Another stone fell
out of the wall, making a cloud of broken stone and mortar.

They were almost in.

A hand was reaching through. But there was something wrong
with it. The fingers were too long, for one thing, and they ended not in nails,
but instead in... How could I describe it?

Little sharp points? Claws?

I shuddered and bit my lip, and tasted blood.

Kara squeezed my hand so tight then I thought my knuckles
would crack.

No time now. Look. Now. At the Gateway.

There was a fire.

Smoke.

Wood smoke blew through my mind, and my mind cleared.

I looked again at the gateway. A clearing in some forest, it
looked like. A smiling face, looking worriedly at us, with pointy ears and a
nose ring.

Durch
, Kara thought, and I echoed her.

Together our words joined our thoughts with a great thunder
and roar.

There was a crumbling from the door, a cloud of sparks, and
dust everywhere. I felt a rush of exhilaration, and then we were jumping,
together, into the gateway.

I looked back at a snarling face. It wasn’t an animal or a
person, but something else entirely. Its eyes glowed. Its forked tongue spat
out a word of power covered in green glowing spittle.

I ducked. Great heat rushed by my right ear, but then we
were through the circle and someone was pulling at our joined hands.

A burning heat tore into my leg. I turned and stared at a
monster.

Two eyes like red hot coals, a mouth full of razor sharp
teeth — the mouth round and wide open, and out came the forked tongue, ready to
spit again. I felt Kara’s hand in my left and then another hand, large and
firm, in my right. In my head I heard a word as it blasted out of my mouth and
the mouths of those around me, and the word was
VERSCHWINDEN
.

The disk turned black and disappeared.

I fell to the ground as the world turned black.

Chapter V

I awoke in a clearing. It was pretty dark, and I was so
confused I couldn’t tell if it was very early morning or early in the night. I
lay on a bed of soft grasses and leaves, which crunched pleasantly underneath
as I turned over now onto my side and sat up.

A fire burned brightly, and I could smell something
delicious. It smelled like nuts. I remembered when I was ten my father took me
out into the woods, and we roasted chestnuts.

But these were not chestnuts.

Certain nuts were magical — enhancing the constitutions of
those who ate them, strengthening them both physically and magically.

Just from the roasting smell, I knew this nut must be
powerful.

My mind felt clearer and cleaner. Colors looked stronger,
sharper and stranger as I breathed in more and more smoke. If the burning
shells affected me this much, I couldn’t imagine how eating the nuts would
affect me.

I felt a shadow over me and I looked up. Kara was smiling as
she reached out her hand. I grabbed it and she pulled me up.

“I want to introduce you to someone,” she said, and pointed
off vaguely behind her.

A man stood there.

His hair was light like wheat, his ears were pointed, just a
little bit, and there was something weird with his eyes, a strange honey color
that confused me. I was sure I had never seen eyes like his, yet they seemed
familiar.

There was a small gold ring in the man’s straight short
nose, and his lips were smiling, revealing white straight teeth.

He was full-blooded Kriek, I was sure of that much. I had
read about their rebellions, their freedom and their eventual doom, far off in
the black forest, the Schwarzwald.

I hadn’t believed a word of it until now.

With a shiver, I realized I was cold now, and that the black
forest was not far off anymore.

I must have traveled far North, through the gateway, farther
even than when we had moved when I was little.

The man stood there smiling silently, immobile, at the far
end of the campfire.

“Why is his face green?” the man said, finally.

“It’s only a clay mask,” Kara said, giggling.

“I’m even stranger looking underneath,” I said, laughing
now, as I took a step towards the fire. The man, as if I had been waiting for
just this signal, came forward and held out his hand.

“Welcome to the
Schwarzwald
. You can call me Kalle.”

“Anders,” I replied, and shook his outstretched hand. I felt
strange vibrations through my fingers, a tingling that moved up my arm to my
teeth and made them buzz, then ache; it was almost like music played not in the
air, but in my blood and sinew and bone.

It was unpleasant and wonderful at the same time and I had
never felt anything else like it.

Kalle let my hand go and looked me up and down. He turned to
look at Kara, and I felt, instead of heard, his words.
The blood sings
strong in this one, cousin
.

Then he turned back to me.

“You don’t look like us, yet you’re one of us. Your eye is
opened.”

“I opened his eye, Kalle,” Kara said.

“That explains a little. But many strange things are about,
now. They say the hills sing out a warning, and then in a moment the animals
are gone from the Wald. We must be careful. We must be swift. But I take the
time to greet you, Anders.”

Then Kalle did something I didn’t expect.

He bowed.

I bowed as well, awkwardly.

Kalle laughed. “Enough formalities. We’ll have time to get
to know each other on the trail. For even my weak ears hear a warning from the
hills.”

I looked around but couldn’t see anything threatening. How
much time did we have, before whatever Kalle was talking about was upon us? I
wasn’t ready for a battle. Would I ever be ready?

“We must move on,” Kalle continued. “We have enough time to
clear this camp, and to eat those nuts — their nutflesh will strengthen our
bodies and minds. Look at them now, with your third eye, in the fire, and tell
me what you see.”

I looked.

There were maybe five or six dozen nuts in the fire, and
each one glowed a different color, like a pile of fiery multicolored jewels. I
could feel physical heat from the burning shells, but inside, there was a
magical heat as well. There was some kind of connection between the two, one
feeding the other, the physical the magical.

And wasn’t fire itself magical? My tutor had told me it
wasn’t, but turning wood into heat and light and ash seemed if not magical at
least wondrous.

“They’re beautiful, like a bed of jewels,” I said. “What are
we waiting for?”

Kalle smiled. “Wait a little while longer. When they are
ready, you will hear it. Then I’ll scoop them out of the fire and put them in
this bag. We will throw dirt on the coals, and be off.”

I could see the glow of the nuts, but hear them? I looked at
Kara but she was looking out into the forest.

She turned with a thin smile to me.

When the nuts are ready we’ll have around thirty seconds
to get out of here. They’re coming, and I’m afraid the nutsong will bring them
quicker.

I felt her worry as well. My tutor had told me about thought
projection, but I figured it was one more thing that had gone the way of
dragons. I had never experienced it before. Or had I? What had happened, when
grandfather had died? Just before he died, hadn’t I heard words in my head? I
couldn’t remember. I felt suddenly exhausted. I wished grandfather Henrik was
still alive.

He’d know what to do. He had been a real wizard, not like my
father.

Everything was happening too fast. And everything was damp
and cold except for this fire, which would soon have to be put out.

He’s cold, Kalle.

I will fetch him what little I have. I travel light, now
I will travel lighter.

Kalle’s thoughts rumbled through me like a heavy carriage on
a dirt road.

“Will you please stop thinking about me,” I said. I felt
ridiculous, my teeth chattering, shivering, so lightly dressed, so far from
home. Here I was at night in the Schwarzwald, in my studying garb, which was
scarcely more than underclothes. Of course I was cold.

And I still had that gunk on my face.

Kalle laughed. “He hears us Kara. He hears all, this
Anders.” He drew away from the fire for a moment and then came back into the
light. He was carrying a light cloak. “Here, Anders, take this.”

I caught the cloak thrown through the air and put it on.

Kara handed me a wet cloth, giggling. “Wipe that off your
face, now.”

I felt warmer, but angry. Who were they to laugh and giggle?
I wiped my face savagely, making the skin hurt.

Had I
asked
to be drawn into this whole crazy
adventure? My parents would be home soon, and find my study destroyed. I hoped
they would be in no danger themselves. And here I was on the other side of the
world with a beautiful thief. And a man with pointed ears and a nose ring. And
both of them were laughing. At me.

I wiped at my face again, and it felt clean.

For once the ache was gone. I wondered if the green paste
was more effective than I had imagined. It had been ages since my face had felt
this…
normal.

Still, I was upset.

Who were these people, to pull me out of my life in the
castle?

To pull me out of the only life I had ever known?

The answer seemed to come from the cloak, from the fire,
from the roasting, glowing nuts, which had began to hum, as they sizzled.

The answer was: they were my kin.

My anger faded.

“You look much better now,” Kara said. “Just a little
charcoal soap, maybe, when we get into camp.”

“Thanks,” I said, pulling the coat tighter around me.

“The coat fits you well,” Kalle said. “Let it comfort you in
our Wald.”

The nuts were making some kind of vibration, a buzzing,
humming noise that was musical and random at the same time, like some crazy
dance music, music that made my head hurt and my teeth ache.

I brought my hands up to my ears, but it made no difference
— I realized that I heard the song inside my body, through my skin, instead of
through my ears.

Kara was looking off into the distance.

Kalle, though, met my gaze and nodded. “The song takes some
getting used to,” he said, raising his voice to be heard over the nutsong. “You
can’t drown it out, so try to enjoy it. The problem is it will pull enemies to
us like moths to a bonfire. Kara is watching but we must be quick.”

I looked at the fire then and let my hands drop from my
ears. Kalle was right. It made no difference. I opened my inner eye and looked.
Luminous bands shot out from the roasting nuts, pulsating different colors as
the song played on.

The song rose in pitch and the colors changed. My body
vibrated with the song.

I was sure my ears were going to burst. The more I resisted
the song the harder it got to bear — there was pain now, a dull throbbing,
growing sharper with every note of nutsong.

I shook my head to clear it. That only made it worse. Kara,
waiting at the side of the clearing, nodded at me.
Let it in, Anders. Relax
.

Was she crazy?

I wanted to run away into the forest. The noise was driving
me crazy, and now it really hurt. My hands were pressed again tight against my
ears.

And yet.

I’d trusted her so far.

Why not trust her now?

I was lost here anyway, without Kalle and Kara. If I
couldn’t trust them, I was doomed.

And they had called me kin.

Maybe I should stop resisting. Stop trying to drown it out.
I let my hands fall to my sides. I opened my inner eye and inner ears.

The song burst through me. My body became an instrument
playing the song of the
haselnuss
.

The song took hold of me and my body sang. Pulsating light
and music covered me, filled my every pore.

But the pain was gone. It was glorious. I smiled, and looked
up.

Kalle was smiling too. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? Normally,
when a boy has his first experience with the opening of his inner ears, through
nutsong or the song of an ancient tree, we have a special ceremony. It’s a
right of passage. You let the song into you or it will rip apart your inner
ear. You, Anders, have gone through the opening of your inner eye and your
inner ears today, without ceremony. We should celebrate, but we have no time.
The haselnuss already finishes its song.”

I realized the song that coursed through me was in its last
notes, fainter, more drawn out.

The song stopped.

The night was silent, and then I heard a far off squeal.

It hurt my ears, but not like the haselnuss. There had been
something good in that, even when it was painful.

Kalle threw dirt on the fire.

“We have minutes, now, at the most,” he said.

“I think we have even less,” Kara said, moving closer to the
fire. “There are three creatures coming from the north. I see their breath,
hear their cries, their whistles. Even their breath hurts me. They are very
magical. And they are very evil.”

Kalle drew back, and out of his mouth came a word, a word of
power,
kalt
, and green fire extended out of his raised hand. Cold poured
into the smoldering fire, as the word vibrated on all four dimensions.

Then Kalle was picking up nuts and handing them to us.

Kara took them, but shook her head. “They’ll come all the
faster now, after that spell.”

Kalle shrugged. “After the song of the haselnuss, nothing
could be a stronger signal that we’re here.”

Another squeal from not so far away. I didn’t want to stick
around and find out what made
that
sound. I felt a chill vibrate up my
spine. “That was close,” I said.

Kalle’s face tightened. “We must gather every nut and flee.
Quick now! Look for them with your third eye. Don’t miss any, or they’ll be
food for the beasts that hunt us.”

I opened my third eye and saw several dozen points of light
in the firepit. Kalle and Kara were already picking them out quickly and
putting them into pouches.

I picked up several nuts, one at a time, and put them in a
pocket inside my cloak. I grabbed several more. They tingled in my fingers, but
Kalle’s magic had taken away their heat — they were merely warm to the touch.

Another squeal sounded, closer now, and I stopped for a
moment. Kalle and Kara kept right on picking up and storing the nuts. I picked
up two more. Then I looked down one last time. There were no more points of
light.

I looked up at Kalle and Kara with a grin of satisfaction,
but they weren’t grinning.

They were looking out across the clearing.

Two pairs of red eyes were rapidly approaching.