The Western Wizard (13 page)

The guard’s craggy features crunched in doubt. He switched to the trading tongue as well, though far less gracefully than most Westerners. “Did you hear me chasing you?”

It seemed pointless to lie. “Yes.”

“Why didn’t you stop?”

“I . . .” Garn started, seeing only one way to go with the query, yet knowing it might antagonize the guard. Still, any answer seemed better than a guilty pause. “I thought, perhaps, someone told you the same thing about running.”

The guardsman frowned. Still, he chose to talk rather than act, and Garn could only presume that, until he admitted to some crime, the man could not legally harm or arrest him. “You’re injured.”

Naturally, Garn glanced to the bandages on his left wrist and right forearm. Mar Lon had done a careful job, yet the fall had reopened Morhane’s knife slash and blood drew a red smear across the rag. The wounds being self-evident, Garn saw no reason to reply. Yet from his years of freedom, he had learned that most people expected a response to anything they said, no matter how obvious. Silence might seem insolent, so he replied. “Yes.”

“How?”

“Work accident.” Garn could think of nothing more specific or cunning. “It was healing fine until you tripped me.”

The officer abandoned that line of questioning for now. “You’re no Béarnide.”

Again, Garn saw no reason to respond. He felt queasy with pain, and the guardsman’s comments seemed pointless. But he forced an answer. “True, I’m no Béarnide. I’m just visiting. Could you please remove the spear?”

“Who?”

“You. Could you please remove. . . .”

The guard waved him silent. “I meant ‘who’ as in
who
are you visiting?” The spear remained in place.

Now, Garn could not help but hesitate. He knew no individual Béarnides, except Sterrane, Miyaga, Morhane, and Mar Lon. None of those seemed appropriate. Memory brought one other name to mind, a man Mar Lon had mentioned. He hoped he had the name’s pronunciation correct. “Rathelon. The guard captain.” Garn fairly grinned at his cleverness. Surely this lesser officer would not risk offending a guest of his commander.

“Yes,” the Béarnide said. “That’s me.” He relaxed slightly, apparently put at ease by Garn’s knowledge. “Now, who are you visiting?”

It took Garn a moment to understand what had just transpired. Trapped, he knew he had to divert Rathelon without arousing more suspicion. He considered inventing a name that sounded Béarnian, but he knew that would be folly. Surely, Rathelon knew every citizen of the mountain city. “May I go now? Or is there some law against running in Béarn?”

“There is if you’re running because you stole something.”

“I didn’t.”

“How do I know that?”

“Is anyone missing anything?”

The spear continued to hover. “Not that I know of. Yet.”

Garn considered the objects on his person. Rathelon would not be able to tell the wine was poisoned unless he drank it, an action which would, by itself, solve the problem. Surely many people carried a knife and a tinderbox. Impatient to return to Mitrian, Sterrane, and Shadimar, Garn grew sarcastic. “You’re welcome to search me for . . . um . . . whatever it is that’s not missing yet.” He opened his guard fully, hoping Rathelon would take the challenge. If the captain came close enough to touch Garn, the spear and sword would become useless. Even as large and sinewy as Rathelon was, Garn guessed he would prove stronger, and his shorter limbs would gain him leverage.

Apparently deciding that a man who would offer him
an open search could be hiding nothing, Rathelon did not bother. “We do have a curfew.”

Garn glanced into the sky where the golden glow of morning crept over the background of forest. “You have a curfew against being out after
sunup?
” Garn’s words reminded him of the passage of time, and urgency kept him from measuring his words or his tone. Rathelon’s stalling made it clear that he held no true charges against Garn.

Rathelon studied Garn through slitted, black eyes as emotionless as marbles. “Clearly, you were out before sunup.”

“Clearly to who? Did you see me then? I didn’t leave the indoors until dawn.” Garn spoke honestly, though it did not matter. Truth or lie, Rathelon could not prove otherwise. “Now, I’m honored to have met the captain of the guard, but I really do have to go.” Cautiously, he rose. This time, luck had worked against him. Probably, he had come upon Rathelon coincidentally, while the captain was making routine rounds to check his sentries.

Rathelon frowned, keeping the spear on Garn, though he did not stop the ex-gladiator from standing. “You still haven’t told me who you’re visiting.”

No longer able to avoid the question, Garn chose insolence, seeing a personal affront as the only sure way to divert the guard. “Your wife.”

“What?”

“I was visiting your wife.” Garn knew that, as the captain of the guard, Rathelon would have a full and unwavering faith in the law. Trusting in that, Garn pressed, hoping his effrontery would pass for understandable, self-righteous annoyance at being inappropriately detained. “You won’t recognize her, though. I shaved her beard.”

Rathelon’s nostrils flared. His hands blanched on the spear haft.

Garn held his ground. “May I go now?”

Reluctantly, Rathelon withdrew the spear. “Go. But I warn you. If I find out you’ve done anything, no matter what it is, I’ll find a way to get you executed. And I’ll do it with my own hands.” He glowered. “I’m forbidden to challenge on duty; but if I ever see you when I’m not
working, you had best hope your sword is at least half as sharp as your tongue.”

Fighting words Garn knew. Many retorts sprang to his mind, the least of which would have goaded Rathelon into immediate combat. But Garn wisely kept these to himself. Instead, he walked away, careful to move out of spear range before turning his back on the captain.

Rathelon’s grumbled words reached him, garbled but understandable. “Stupid
wisule’s
bastard.”

Garn scowled at the insult but continued on, certain he would see the captain again. When he did, he doubted he could avoid a real fight. And he was not at all sure he wanted to.

Sterrane sat on a weathered stump in the sparse mountain forests of Béarn, watching the sky dull to pewter as the sun sank below the line of trees. His war ax lay propped against a deadfall near his feet. The last rays of sunlight gathered on the blade, making it seem to glow, a strange, metallic presence amid nature’s softer colors and less angular shapes. Shadimar sat in the center of the clearing that now served as a camp, stirring ashes from the dying campfire with a stick. Wrinkled flesh hugged arms so thin they seemed to lack muscle or fat, yet the ease of his movements kept him from looking frail. White hair cascaded from his head to meet a full beard. Though age had changed the color, the strands maintained their youthful thickness. He had not changed in the eighteen years since he had met six-year-old Sterrane and spirited the heir to his storm-warded ruins near the Town of Santagithi.

The wolf, Secodon, sat before Shadimar, gaze following the repetitive circles of the Wizard’s arm. Sterrane knew that Garn and Mitrian crouched in the trees beyond the clearing, awaiting the arrival of Morhane and his promised escort. Yet, for once, the closeness of friends failed to soothe Béarn’s heir. Always before, Sterrane had broken circumstances down to their simplest components. Always, it came down to integrity. All promises, whether stated or implied, must be honored, and he trusted all men to follow the natural candor and order imposed by the world Odin had created from law. When men forgot their vows, Sterrane presumed it was by accident, and he saw to placing them back on the proper path, whatever it took. The struggle between good and evil was not his concern.

This philosophy, instilled in him by Shadimar, had served Sterrane well through his twenty-four years.
Trust all; help all.
Those four words had brought him through a lifetime of friendships and gained him no enemies. Yet, on the issue of his uncle, King Morhane, Sterrane found himself wrestling with his conscience for the first time in his life. Shadimar had insisted that the traitor must die, yet Sterrane could not see the method or the cause. Grimly, he shook his head. Noticing that Shadimar had turned his attention at this movement, Sterrane addressed the Wizard. He used the trading tongue, though he seemed doomed never to learn its rules or complexities. “No.”

Shadimar snapped the twig between his fingers, tossing the halves into the smoldering coals. He trained eyes as gray and timeless as mountains directly on Sterrane. “What do you mean ‘no?’”

Sterrane met the Wizard’s warning glare. “Not kill family. It wrong.”

“Sterrane, we’ve already been through this.” Shadimar’s voice lacked its usual, near-immortal’s patience. “Morhane cannot be forgiven nor trusted. If you leave him alive, he will find a way to kill you and retake the throne.” Secodon whined, cringing from Shadimar. Empathetically linked to his master, he could surely read the anger and disappointment that the Wizard’s tone conveyed to Sterrane.

“He family. Me talk. He learn. He change.”

“No.” Shadimar rose, his cloak falling in folds and wrinkles about a body nearly as narrow as a staff. “I see things you can’t. Morhane cannot be changed, and your mercy will only assure your death.”

Sterrane pouted, his face childlike despite the dense black mane of hair and beard and a massive frame packed with fat and sinew. “We both live.”

Shadimar shook his head, denying the possibility. “For you to reclaim your throne, one of you must die.”

“Then me not reclaim throne.”

“What!” Shadimar sounded shocked for the first time since Sterrane had met him. He covered the ground between himself and Béarn’s heir in an instant, the wolf
skittering aside to save its paws from a trampling. “That’s nonsense.”

Sterrane stuck with the easy solution. “If not be king, not need kill family.”

“Damn it, Sterrane.” Shadimar stomped his foot, kicking up a divot of dirt. “I thought this was settled. We haven’t time for this madness now.”

Sterrane shrugged noncommittally.

“Prophecies aren’t random; I thought you understood that. They don’t just happen because they fit the whim of fate or the cosmos.” Shadimar made a broad gesture, encompassing the horizons. “Millennia ago, the first Eastern Wizard determined that you would take back the high kingdom. Since then, twenty-three Eastern Wizards have worked to see to your ascension. Jalona talked Odin into giving the bards the job of king’s personal bodyguard in addition to entertainer. Drero built the underground tunnel that saved your life. Seeing you back on your throne is one of the primary reasons for my existence.”

Sterrane stared in silence, uncertain how to respond to the Eastern Wizard’s revelations. Since the day of his escape, Shadimar had taken a personal interest in him. The Wizard had raised Sterrane for two years before turning him over to Rache and Santagithi for a year, in the belief that Rache, not Mitrian, was the Renshai destined to help Sterrane retake the throne. Shadimar had then claimed the job of guardian until Sterrane was old enough to strike out on his own. Yet, the Béarnide would never have guessed Shadimar’s life or the integrity of Wizards hung in the balance. “If me give up throne,
you
die?”

Shadimar frowned, considering Sterrane’s broken rendition of the trading tongue, apparently wanting to answer the correct question. “No,” he admitted, his demeanor calmer. “I can’t die until I choose to do so.”

Sterrane nodded, his view of reality restored. He knew that Shadimar’s life already spanned more than two centuries, and, from experience, he had noticed that no object seemed capable of harming him, accidentally or by intention.

As if to reinforce the point, Shadimar hefted Sterrane’s ax, carelessly clamping his fingers along the blade.
“Sterrane, Béarn is as much your child as baby Rache is Mitrian’s. Your decisions, no matter their content or reason, no longer affect only you.”

Shadimar’s words confused Sterrane. “Not understand.”

Brush rattled behind Sterrane, followed by Mitrian’s voice. “They’re coming. Morhane and two very alert guards. Garn’s preparing.” Without awaiting a reply, Mitrian disappeared back into the forest, the swish of branches and vines defining her route. Unlike Garn and Arduwyn, she had little experience creeping through woodlands. The harder she tried to move silently, the louder she became.

Sterrane turned back to Shadimar. Sorrow made the old gray eyes seem liquid, and the Wizard’s stance was resigned. “Do what you feel you have to do, Sterrane. It’s your world and your kingdom.” Without another word, he turned and headed back to the fire. He sat cross-legged before it, stirring a finger through the coals. Secodon walked a narrow circle, then lay down at Sterrane’s feet, his bushy tail covering his nose.

Sterrane swallowed hard. Forbidden from harming mortals by Odin’s law, Shadimar could do nothing but goad and observe. And Sterrane found himself in the same position as before their talk, torn between correcting an old sin and committing one of his own. Teachings from his childhood rumbled to the forefront, little more comprehensible now than then. But one thing did seem clear. The high king in Béarn held the task of keeping a balance he did not understand, of dedicating himself to enforcing Odin’s law and codes of honor, no matter the price in morality. Sterrane could not begin to explain his uncle’s willingness to abandon honor and slaughter family, but his self-interested need to place his own person and line on the high throne was clearly evil. And evil, like goodness, did not have a place in Béarn’s rule. Clearly Morhane had to die, yet Sterrane wanted no hand in his murder.

Leaves and twigs crunched and snapped as Morhane and his escort approached the clearing. Sterrane used the haft of his ax like a crutch, grinding the base into the
dirt. He rose, unprepared to meet his uncle, but knowing that, one way or another, he must.

Suddenly, a burly figure in Béarn’s blue and tan stepped into view from behind a cluster of trees. Seeing Sterrane and Shadimar, he stopped short, briskly gesturing someone behind him still, presumably Morhane. A moment later, another guard stepped up beside the first, slightly smaller but equally Béarnian dark. “Who are you?” the first guard demanded. His blanched fingers kneaded the hilt of his sword.