The Western Wizard (85 page)

Seeing his opponent disarmed, the Northman screwed up his courage and charged.

Surprised, Episte crouched, prepared to battle bare-handed, if necessary. Light flared in front of him and a sword appeared from nowhere, hovering near his hand. It did not shine in the moonglow; light seemed to shy away from its steel. Though shocked by its sudden presence, Episte did not question. The youngster’s hands closed over the grip, and warning buzzed through Colbey. Unlike his charge, he knew the danger.
The Black Sword of Power.
The wisp of poetry returned vividly to him: “The three Blades together shall close the age. The Age of Change, when Chaos shatters Odin’s ward.”
Ragnarok.

The madness came with the touch. Abruptly, agony hammered Episte. Something dark and orderless speared into his mind, and all the knowledge of the universe seemed to accompany it. First, it brought understanding, distorting truth by amplifying every negative emotion,
thought, or feeling ever harbored by Episte. Then it compelled him to destroy.

Panic stole all color from the Northman’s face. Whirling, he ran in terror.

Enraged by his opponent’s cowardice, Episte gave chase, howling and foaming like a rabid wolf. He leapt upon the Northman, grounding him with momentum, pinning him down to hack repeatedly and mercilessly at the neck. The youngster’s screams formed a bold and ugly duet with Episte’s laughter, and the salt odor of blood only heartened the assault.

Despite the detail, the image flashed through Colbey’s mind in less time than it took to blink. Then Episte’s last childhood memory winked out, stolen from Colbey before he realized it was menaced.

No!
Colbey searched frantically, finding no miniscule trace of the child he had loved. Helplessness drained him. For now, he faced an enemy too vast and formless to fight. He could stir the chaos mentally until the effort emptied the last of his vitality and claimed his life. But, here in Episte’s mind, nothing remained to salvage. Colbey thought of the pyre he had built for the headless corpse he had believed was Episte, knowing that that was still truly the moment he had laid his student to rest.

Scooping up the medallion, Colbey replaced it around Episte’s neck. He cradled the youngster into his arms, feeling the warmth against him, the heaving shoulders, the warm wetness of the tears. He rocked the boy tenderly, like a father with an infant. All the words he had promised he would have said to Episte, given the chance, rushed back to haunt his mind. But he knew they would do him no good. The creature that Episte had become could never understand. Like Garn, he was suffering. Yet, unlike Garn, the poison would not kill Episte. It would only drive him to butchery and ruin.

Colbey drew the
nådenal
, finally understanding Sif’s plan for her last needle. If he could not reclaim Episte, at least he could honor his death with the ultimate symbol of Renshai faith and glory. The greatest of swords had stolen Episte’s humanity; the tiniest of blades would restore it in the only way it could. Colbey’s fingers fumbled around the bulbous, guardless haft, scarcely in his control.
His grip tightened, and he pushed the sharpened silver through Episte’s spine. The Renshai child went limp in his arms. Withdrawing the
nådenal
, Colbey rested it on Episte’s chest beside the medallion.

A wave of grief enveloped the old Renshai then, and others’ emotions accompanied it. Only now, he recognized the desperate concern beneath the Cardinal Wizards’ outward calm, and the source of their worry accompanied it. Colbey’s eyes roved to Episte’s sword. Though proficiently forged, even the edge of the blade did not gleam. It seemed to disappear in the shadows formed by irregularities in the braziers’ illumination. Surely the Wizards realized, as Colbey did, that the three Swords must have existed on the mortal world together in the instant that it fell into Episte’s grip. It was not the Sword itself that had inflicted the damage but the chaos its untimely summoning had brought.

Gently lowering Episte’s body, Colbey hefted the Black Sword. The touch tingled, as clear a warning as the rattle of a snake. This blade was not meant for him to wield or even to hold.

Gingerly, Colbey carried the Black Sword several paces, stopping before Shadimar and Carcophan. It was the Wizards’ job to see that prophecies were fulfilled, their god-meted task to follow the laws that bound them to Odin. He could see them causing the
Ragnarok
, blindly obedient to an order that had long ago lost its usefulness in Colbey’s eyes.
Have the gods, Wizards, and men become too slavishly devoted to their own law? It is one thing to sacrifice one’s own life for honor, quite another to let rigid faith destroy the world. There comes a time when every man, and perhaps every god, needs to redefine his honor and his faith.
Colbey’s time had come. One thing seemed certain. Whether or not he attempted the Seven Tasks of Wizardry, he would not be bound by all of its laws.
I won’t work toward the
Ragnarok.
If that means opposing every other Wizard and every god, so be it. I will not let this world die for ancient laws no longer applicable and a devotion to duty that precludes common sense.
Colbey hurled the Black Sword at the Wizards’ feet. It thudded to the floor, scraping granite without a spark. “Destroy it,” he said. “Or I’ll find a way.”

Without waiting for the Wizards or the wolf to react to his challenge, Colbey hefted Episte. The still warm body curled into his arms like an infant, and he carried it to the huge, bronze portal unchallenged. He tried to open the door; but, bolted from the outside, it would not yield to his touch.

“Open the door!” Carcophan shouted, his voice loud as a thunderclap in the too-long silence. “He means you no harm and your leader no disrespect.”

The ensuing stillness was short-lived. The drawing bolt rasped, the door swung open, and Colbey passed through a small cluster of Easterners in red leather armor. He wandered into the flickering blue-black shadows of the corridor.

*  *  *

That night, Mitrian, Rache, Tannin, Tarah, Modrey, and Arduwyn huddled around a campfire in the Eastern woodlands. Excitement, exertion, and a muddle of conflicting emotions had left Rache drained, yet he still felt certain of one thing, a need he had been considering since the party had left Béarn. His gaze found Arduwyn, the flickering fire striking gray through the archer’s hair. “Arduwyn.” Rache flushed, the address seeming too informal for an elder. “Sir.” The title felt equally uncomfortable. “I’d like to escort you to Béarn.”

Arduwyn rested his splinted arm on his knee. The single dark eye met Rache’s, and it probed questioningly. “I appreciate the offer, but you needn’t feel obligated. So long as I stay in forests, I don’t think I’m in any danger.”

Rache shrugged. His body stung with every movement, from scores of tiny cuts. “You’re wounded. How will you hunt without an arm? And you’ve done so much for us. We can’t let you face these wild lands alone.”

“And?” Arduwyn asked.

The query surprised Rache. “There needs to be more?”

“No,” Arduwyn admitted. “But I’m sure there is. Your face has turned the color of my hair. What is it you want?”

Suddenly, Rache felt every eye upon him, which only made him flush more deeply. He would have liked to
have discussed the matter with the hunter in private, yet, for now, it seemed better to keep all of the Renshai together. “Well, sir. It’s your . . . your daughter.”

The little archer’s face seemed to lose all the color that Rache’s had gained. He stopped breathing.

“I’ll keep her safe,” Rache said quickly. “If it’s all right with the others, my mother and I thought the Renshai could live on the Fields of Wrath.” He threw a quick glance at the Western Renshai, hoping their previous home would not hold too many memories for them to return there.

When no one contradicted or complained, Rache continued, “That’s right near Béarn.”

Arduwyn still did not move, not even to take a breath.

Rache felt a desperate need to defend the Renshai. “Colbey often told me that there was an order to the world. I believe him. If this world had no Renshai, it would be different. Not better or worse, just different. Some other power would have served the same function.”

Arduwyn closed his eye.

Alarmed, Rache caught the slight hunter’s shoulders. “Breathe, sir. Please.”

Arduwyn gasped in a lungful of air.

Rache prattled on. “If it’s the will of the gods to place your blood among future devils, what harm can it do? The difference between angels and devils is who looks upon them.”

Abruptly, the flame-haired hunter laughed, first hysterically, then with a more natural calm. “Easy, Rache, or you’ll talk yourself out of a father’s permission. My attitude toward Renshai has changed much since I first met Colbey. You have much of your father about you, and Garn was a man I liked well. If Sylva will have you, I won’t stand in your way. But you must give her time to learn to know you, time to finish growing up.”

Rache loosed a whoop of joy that sounded strangely light and free after the events of the last long months.

Arduwyn laughed again. “A long time ago, the first day I met him, Colbey said my blood would never become Renshai except under a truly odd set of circumstances. I guess this qualifies.”

Rache could not contain his excitement. “When Colbey gets here—”

Mitrian interrupted. “He’s not coming back.”

The words squelched Rache’s gladness in an instant. “What do you mean?” Then, realizing he had asked the wrong question, he tried again. “How do you know?”

Mitrian rubbed her hand along the winter ground, clutching a stone to her palm. “Honestly, I’m not sure how; but I do know it’s true. We’ll leave in the morning. Without him.”

“We can’t leave him.” Tannin nursed his injured shoulder, glaring jealously at Rache. Clearly, he wished he had thought to ask for Sylva’s hand first. “Colbey still could come back. He’s hurt, emotionally, at least. And he may need our help.”

Mitrian tossed the pebble on the fire. “Colbey never needed anyone’s help. Especially now. You’ve seen the mood he’s been in. The look in his eyes when he left was like that of an old dog before it crawls into the woods to die.” She shook her head.

Rache stared, hating the words, yet knowing his mother spoke the truth.

Tarah added quietly, “If the Golden Prince of Demons chooses to return, I have no doubt he can find us.”

Every Renshai bowed his or her head in unison. And Arduwyn shared their sorrow.

Colbey cast his gaze from the last smoldering ashes of Episte’s pyre to a gladder campfire before him. But for this subtle movement, he might have been carved from the same wood as the stump on which he rested, a petrified testament to the last full-blooded Renshai. Nor did Colbey seem to move when another figure stepped within the circle of his light. Surely, even Shadimar missed the instinctive shifting of Colbey’s hand to his sword hilt. Nearby, Frost Reaver whickered softly.

The Eastern Wizard took a seat on the fallen trunk that had once graced Colbey’s perch. Secodon lay beside the stallion, watching, while the Wizard set a handful of roots to roast upon the fire.

Colbey said nothing, finding nothing worth saying. Sensing no threat from Shadimar, he let his mind lapse back to the formless entity that had stolen Episte from him, letting logic override emotion for the first time since he had entered the Tower of Night. At the time, he had committed himself too fully to rescuing the youngster to consider the enemy carefully. Then, the battle had not mattered; he had already lost the prize. Now, chaos’ familiarity touched him, the knowledge that he had defeated it before too strong to deny. When he analyzed the madness that had assailed him after Tokar’s death, he realized that it had consisted of more than just an odd perception of others in his head. Insanity had pervaded those others. He recalled their wild feelings of confusion and the grinding pressure of the sensation he had come to equate with magic and with chaos. A different answer came than the one he had sought.

Suddenly, Colbey understood Tokar’s decision. Over the millennia, a madness had become incorporated into
the Western line of Cardinal Wizards. The fusion of thoughts had driven one Wizard to the brink of chaos, and that flaw had passed from predecessor to apprentice over centuries.
Tokar felt the insanity pressing him, and he knew it would only get stronger. That’s why he chose a weak successor like Haim, probably hoping his apprentice would die in the transfer and a new Western Wizard would have to be found, one unaffected by predecessors and their mind rot. Then, he met me.
Colbey could only guess at Tokar’s motives here, though impressions left by the Wizard before Colbey had crushed the foreign presence gave him room to guess.
Tokar knew I would contain that madness or die trying. At the least, since I had not undergone the Tasks of Wizardry, I could be killed by my own hand or by others.

For several hours, the two men sat in silence, while the roots cooked amid the pop and hiss of flame. Finally, Shadimar rolled the roots from the fire with a stick and offered a share to Colbey before tossing one to Secodon.

Colbey accepted the offering, biting into the thick, sweet root with a new hope and vitality he had not known for a long time. The Tasks of Wizardry gave him a fresh challenge, and the possible need to work against the Cardinal Wizards, maybe against the gods themselves, made him feel reborn. Yet one simple question still plagued him. “Shadimar, at the castle walls. I only killed one of those sentries. For you to have slain the other would have required a bigger risk than I’ve ever seen you take. But I can’t think of anyone else who could or would have done it.”

Shadimar continued eating without reply.

Realizing he had never actually asked, Colbey rephrased his thoughts into a question. “Was it you?”

Shadimar’s face twisted into a smile of shocked innocence. “What can one helpless old man do?” The tip of his gnarled staff dipped into the fire, and the flames danced like mad things.

Perhaps there’s hope for the Cardinal Wizards yet.
Colbey smiled. For the first time in months, he no longer felt alone.