The Western Wizard (83 page)

When Colbey turned, Shadimar had disappeared from sight. Quickly, Colbey lashed the rope around Secodon, then enmeshed his hand as high above the wolf as he
could reach. The rope swung from the wall as he climbed, using what little friction he could form between the tight, black blocks and his feet. He scrambled in through the window, surveying the room while the others moved forward to hoist Secodon inside. This late, Colbey was surprised to find the doorless chamber still dimly lit by candles. Across the room stood a chair that perfectly matched an embroidered couch facing it. A guard sprawled across the couch, obviously unconscious. Tannin hovered over him, as if daring him to move, and Vashi examined the guard stoically.

Colbey sensed her movement just before it happened. As Tannin turned to watch Mitrian, Shadimar, and Rache haul Secodon in, Vashi drew and thrust. Colbey’s blade left its sheath before her sword covered half the distance to the guard. A simple loop and upstroke stole the weapon from her hand, close enough to her fingers to serve as a warning. He caught the flying sword, more to prevent the clatter than out of respect.

Rache, Mitrian, and Shadimar untied Secodon. The confrontation with Vashi had passed so swiftly, the others had not even noticed it. Tannin looked back hurriedly, but he did not interfere. Colbey trusted the Western Renshai to bind the guard. For now, his lesson took precedence.

Three sharp sword strokes sent Vashi back into a corner. Colbey pinned her there with an angle-block she knew he could turn into any of a thousand deadly strikes in an instant. “What were you doing?”

Vashi’s eyes blazed. Colbey read just a trickle of fear, well suppressed, and it pleased him. A warrior who could overcome fear would become a hero. To know no fear at all was an insanity and an affliction. “I was killing an enemy.”

“Renshai do not kill the helpless. No matter who they are. Unless your own battle skill took him down, it’s not your right to kill him. Every person deserves the chance to fight. Let his own actions decide the kind of death he earns.”

Vashi lowered her head, and her already soft voice fell to a whisper. “I just didn’t want to leave an enemy behind us.”

“Then you keep him unconscious. Or you tie him. Or you challenge him outright, if the circumstances permit it.” Clearly, here, they did not. Colbey eased back as Tannin tied and gagged the guard. The others finished their tasks and tried not to interfere with Colbey’s lesson, no matter how ill-timed. “There’s more to being Renshai than killing. You’ve disgraced your honor and your tribe. You’ll have to earn back Sif’s favor. And mine. Neither will be easy.”

Vashi assumed a suitably repentant position, and Colbey jabbed her sword back into its sheath. “Come on.” He turned to follow the others through the doorway and into the corridor.

Tannin came up beside Colbey. “It’s clear,” he hissed. “Which way?”

Colbey hesitated, groping around them with his mind, careful to avoid his companions’ thoughts. He dared not waste more than a dash of vitality on the search, but his senses warned him of presences in the direction that Arduwyn had indicated as Elishtan’s court. Apparently, the man that the LaZarian sentry had called the king was still holding an audience.
Or waiting for us.
The idea seemed unlikely, but it obsessed Colbey. He reclaimed his consciousness fully, dismayed to find that even that short search had made him weaker. “This way.” He steered Tannin toward the court, taking the lead with the Western Renshai.

The group met no more guards as they paced the widening corridor and came to a stop before the gigantic bronze portal and its jade-eyed snake. Light filtered from the crack beneath the door, and occasional muffled voices scarcely penetrated the portal, their words indecipherable. Many bits of fact and speculation began to come together in Colbey’s mind as certainties. Doubtless, the coiled snake symbolized the Southern Wizard’s property as clearly as Secodon belonged to Shadimar. The cold-blooded creatures shared the same bond with Carcophan as the land beasts did with Shadimar, the airborne with the Western Wizard, and the water denizens with Trilless. Colbey felt equally positive that this so-called king, Elishtan the Jaded, was the exiled Northman. Surely, the LaZarian sentries had been paid or threatened into passing
on their well-rehearsed message to the Renshai. Only the motivations of this Northman remained a mystery, and too many possibilities came to mind: vengeance, racial prejudice, curiosity, the challenge of a swordsman even more competent than himself.
Madness.

The revelation struck hard, but Colbey shifted his thoughts to the necessary task at hand. Whatever his mental state, Carcophan’s champion had proven himself as clever as any fox and as cruel as any demon. Colbey did not doubt that the Renshai would, when they entered the court, walk into a well-set trap. Still, he did not balk or shy from the challenge. He took a quick glance over his companions: all Renshai, except Shadimar, and the Wizard could handle himself. “Be ready,” Colbey warned. “Let’s go.”

Tannin reached for the door handle. The snake’s jade eyes seemed to mock them. The bronze door swung open on silent hinges, and the Renshai found themselves facing two dozen arrows in hastily-drawn bows. Each archer’s dark Eastern face looked grim. Beyond the semicircle of archers, one man strode back and forth on a raised dais that held a jeweled throne. Another man stood sentinel beside it. Colbey’s gaze went naturally to the still one. The more dangerous a man, the calmer he remained under pressure, and this man’s presence drew Colbey as irresistibly as a well-crafted sword. Though aged, he looked powerful. Salt and pepper hair fringed eyes the green-yellow of a cat’s. A sable cloak hung from his shoulders, and a smile flickered across his solid, though creased, features. His gaze riveted on Shadimar.

Carcophan.
Having identified the Southern Wizard, Colbey dismissed him as Shadimar’s problem. His gaze trained on the figure that had already claimed the attention of all of the other Renshai.

A smaller man paced the dais, his polished silver breastplate gleaming in the candlelight as if to mock the Renshai’s aversion to armor. Beneath it, a mail shirt covered a red silk blouse embroidered with gold leaf. His greaves were lacquered black, polished to a blinding brilliance, and they lay over light breeks. A spired helmet enclosed his head and face, though wisps of yellow hair poked beneath it. His eyes seemed to dance with a
strange, laughing madness, and the chaos hung so thick around him it nearly choked Colbey. Still, though they had changed, Colbey instantly recognized the deep blue eyes and the perfect, graceful stance he could never forget. For the first time in his existence, realization paralyzed the Golden Prince of Demons.

The exiled Northman was Episte.

The armored apparition spoke with a stranger’s voice. “Enter, golden-haired dogs with your tails between your legs. Enter, or run like the cowards you are.”

Colbey’s legs would not budge. It made no sense to run. The archers would shoot them all down from behind, and the Renshai would never choose to die without glory. He watched as the others edged in through the portal, for the moment unable to move himself. Too many emotions crushed down on Colbey at once, none of them his own. The archers’ loyalty touched him, though he sensed a stirring of fear beneath it. Mitrian seemed confused, cued by something, though she clearly had not yet recognized Episte. Rache stewed in a vengeful rage against his father’s slayer that required fulfillment. He also did not know his brother, and he had claimed the battle for his own. Under the circumstances, Colbey could not help feeling that perhaps Garn’s son was right.

Vashi seemed confused, valiantly tempering her need for action with the need to please her goddess and her
torke.
When she fought, it would be with forethought and principle. The Cardinal Wizards stood as still as statues. From Shadimar wafted indignation, from Carcophan wicked joy. Tannin studied the archers, measuring their weaknesses. Intuitively, he knew that the major battle was not his to fight. Over it all, a madness fed by bitterness stagnated, converging on Colbey like a physical entity. Though it lacked the sharpness of an actual wound, it was nearly incapacitating.

Episte laughed, gaze fixed on Colbey. “Who would have guessed the Golden Prince of the jackals himself would be the one too afraid to approach?”

But it was not fear that held Colbey. Episte’s voice,
though changed, opened the floodgates of his own emotions. The feelings of those around him disappeared, leaving Colbey to drown in his own grief, tainted only by a flicker of hope. The truth came together, rewriting history that Colbey had clung to as fact, but an understanding of motivations did not accompany his realizations. He remembered finding the young Northman’s headless body, the scraps of clothing and the beloved amulet beneath it that had made him certain of the corpse’s identity. Now he knew that Episte had performed the grisly murder, taking the head and leaving his own belongings, stealing the dignity from another’s death only to mislead. “Why?” Colbey managed to ask.

And he knew Episte would tell him. Though Colbey had trained the Renshai never to gloat nor to waste time talking while an enemy found openings, he recognized the intensity of a madness and bitterness that had to be shared. Episte had prepared too long for this moment to sacrifice it for caution or strategy. Surely, he would defy Colbey’s lessons just as he had abandoned the Renshai’s definitions of cowardice and ethics.

Episte removed the helmet from his head and shook back his golden locks, looking enough like his dead father to be a twin, aside from the chaos smoldering in his eyes. Colbey felt realization shock through his companions, felt Rache’s need for vengeance flutter into an odd conglomeration of fury, sadness, and confusion. Colbey gave his mental talent free rein, not wanting to waste energy channeling or directing it. The need seized him to penetrate Episte’s mind, to break the force that drove or controlled him. But the consciousness he managed to catch radiating from Episte was not a separate force, and it pained Colbey to discover that it was not just goading. It had become Episte. Still, Colbey needed to prove that to himself. He needed not just to hear but also to understand the betrayal. Though he knew it would weaken him, Colbey focused his mental presence directly into Episte’s mind.

Chaos pressed Colbey, a wild insanity that nearly sent him, screaming, to the floor. At first, it seemed formless and without direction, upending his reason and stealing his sense of self. Then Episte spoke, opening a direct
link to the source of the madness, and Colbey was staggered by the impact. Episte’s words rang in his mind as well as in his ears. “You shaped and battered me with your training and your ruthless techniques. Moment to moment, you made me choose between the mother who loved me and the heritage you forced on me.”

The pathway led to a bitterness that gaped and festered like a dirty wound. Around it, Colbey found only fading sparks of the man whom he had once recognized as Episte. “My father never wanted me to exist. He damned me to Hel with my name, then left me to seek death in some distant war. And you all called him a hero.” Colbey recoiled from the blasting reek of Episte’s malice, desperately examining the surviving pieces of the youngster’s conscience and devotion. “Then I gave my love and trust to a Deathseeker so like my father, only to have him betray me.” Colbey’s mind scarcely registered the fact that Episte had descended from the dais and now stood on the floor in front of it. “You killed my mother, Colbey. Didn’t you?”

Believing the question rhetorical, Colbey did not answer. He glanced at the last patchy light of Episte’s humanity, finding only ancient fragments of shattered hopes and dreams with origins in early childhood. He caught a momentary sensation of something shapeless, more presence than being. Before he could define it further, Colbey’s legs went weak. Reluctantly, he drew back his mental probe to shift its direction, channeling its energy back to himself to keep from collapsing. Suddenly, a rush of dizziness stole all focus, and he knew he did not have the strength to face Episte sword to sword. He forced himself to meet Episte’s eyes, seeing there a joy that came as a direct result of Colbey’s frailty. Episte reveled in a weakness whose source he could not understand, savoring his control, gloating with an obviousness that flaunted his disdain for Colbey’s teaching in the same way as his armor did. Clearly, his aim was to demoralize and then destroy. And Colbey felt ill-prepared to stand against those tactics. No matter how many times his mind reassured him that he faced a stranger, Colbey’s heart told him this monster was his son.

Episte lowered his voice, a tiny hint of his familiar
tone seeping into it now. The jewel-encrusted throne on the dais behind him seemed like a distant background from another world. “When I stood there in the woods, surrounded by dead Northmen, I remembered again the last image of my home and saw things that blind trust and grief had hidden. When I got there, all the Northmen were dead and my mother dying. Only one sword was blooded, Colbey, coward and demon. That sword was yours.”

Colbey felt certain that a battle in the forest with Northmen could not, by itself, have triggered such intricate details of memory. Something else had happened in the woodlands that day; someone had handed Episte the clues and the answer, then magnified every scrap of ugliness, resentment, and bitterness it found. Colbey steadied his body with his mind, then let it rest. He would need all the strength he could muster just to see that some of the Renshai did not die. He could feel Mitrian’s and Rache’s eyes upon him, awaiting his explanation with the same horrified interest as Episte. Tannin and Vashi continued to measure the archers. An impatience touched Colbey, though he could not quite divine the source. Someone had come within striking range of violence.

“Tell me that you didn’t kill my mother, and I will let you live.”

Colbey remained silent, wanting the extra moments to capture the vitality of mind and body. If that feeling of imminent attack came from Episte, Colbey had to be its target.