by Tiger Gray
"Good," Randolph said, as though he hadn't been sure how his fledgling would take to being tossed out of the nest, "Thank the divine spirit."
"Divine spirit indeed," Ashrinn murmured, standing. He felt a moment of peace like he'd never experienced, now that the energy had settled, becoming banked coals that warmed him from the inside out. "Now what?"
"Your spirit blade is an extension of your will, that same fortitude that let you control the divine."
Randolph stepped back, reached out, and drew a plain longsword from the swirling stuff of the ether. Ashrinn stared, unable to look away. The weapon had no adornment, true, but Randolph's already inspiring presence became awe inducing when he held it.
"Why swords?"
"No one knows. Though I suspect it has to do with paradigm and commonality. Most cultures have bladed weapons, and have for a long time. Every paladin has a different one. They reflect that person's spiritual ideas and inner self."
"I don't think I want to see mine. I'm not exactly sailing through these tests, now am I?"
"There's no help for it. It is what it is."
Ashrinn stifled a groan. He hated that phrase, though he knew it to be the truth more often than not. "All right. What do I do?"
Randolph gave him a look, and Ashrinn comprehended after only a moment of dead end wool gathering.
"Right. Will."
It felt good, this focusing of desire. He had courage, at least in certain contexts, and the will to keep going, to inspire the men under him, the terrible sense of hope that made him hang on to the idea that he might get out of any given conflict alive, with his men alive.
He reached for his blade the way a prisoner in a dark cell might reach for the sections of fat moon, sliced into fleshy portions by the bars of the single, unreachable window. His searching fingertips dipped into the pure ether, compelled to do so even though he didn't truly believe he would find what he sought.
The handle in his palm shocked him enough that he stepped back without meaning to, and the sudden weight of his blade pulled at him.
The sensation of something living coiling around his fingers made him fling the weapon away before he even opened his eyes. He cursed; he could feel the sword as though it were attached to him by a flaming cord.
He opened his eyes. The sword glimmered against the featureless expanse of crystal-colored ground, shimmering with fire the shade of saffron steeped in warm milk. He took a careful step towards the golden weapon. It felt like an extension of his arm, and he itched to hold it.
The wonder became horror as the etching on the blade writhed and fought to become three dimensional. A serpent. He muttered a denial and stumbled back, sorrow and disbelief barbs in the fleshiest part of his heart.
"Thing of Ahriman, be banished," He croaked around the knot in his throat, shielding his face purely out of instinct, "I deny any fate you might have for me."
You don't believe, Ashrinn, he tried to remind himself, though with the spirit-snake doing its best to wriggle free it was hard to remember his more secular thoughts, You don't.
Still. Why had this serpent come to him, and as a reflection of his soul? A bad omen, a bad omen that chilled him in that illogical place that didn't respond to reason.
"Some myth?" Randolph asked, coming to stand beside him. "I don't know it."
Randolph's presence cleared away the misery enough that he could reassess. A thing of Ahriman? Then why that sun-colored fire, the sacred fire? He made his will into a grasping hand as he walked forward once more. Instead of crushing his familiar in his psychic fingers, however, he drew it forth from its home within the sword. The smell of flowers and spices hung heavy in the air.
"Yes," he said, though he didn't look at Randolph, "Serpents are creatures of the Destructor, who is the source of all evil. Just a story," he added, trying to convince himself.
The snake's body, now three dimensional, grew as he fed it energy. His familiar's shape might have called forth evil images, but his soul sang the way he imagined birds of paradise did in tales.
"What about a source for good things? Do you have that?"
"Oh yes," He breathed, unable to tear his gaze away from this ancient omen he'd given birth to, "Ahura Mazda, bright and fragrant, the king, the source of all that is good."
The serpent rose up to meet his gaze. Its eyes were red fire. He and his familiar stared at each other, and his silent communion with this other left Ashrinn shaking and exhilarated in its wake, this creature that defied what he had been taught to believe.
"Maybe," Randolph said, tone reverent as though he were in a church, "the truth is somewhere in the middle."
CHAPTER SEVEN
Had the heart gone out of him, that day his best friend had nearly died under his hands?
Mal had time for thoughts like that, now. He'd stuck it out after Ashrinn had gone into the hospital and then home, taking up the position of team leader and putting in another six months. He didn't have the same fire, though, and when they'd given him a shot at retirement he'd decided it was time to hang it up.
Not only that. What with Rosi...
"She'll be all right, Malkai." Talasi's voice jolted him out of a doze he hadn't realized he'd slipped into. The gnome woman had her hand on his knee in a gesture of affection, and her polished gold quartz eyes had a lot of sympathy in them despite being so unnatural.
He clutched at the armrests of his easy chair like he'd was back in a Little Bird helicopter about to hit turbulence. It took a good half a minute for his living room, edges blunted by the gloom of drawn curtains, to make sense to his blurry eyes.
"She hasn't had an attack like this since she was born. And Raietha can't do anything for her."
"I keep telling you, you should look into blood therapy," Talasi's soft tone saved the words from being a scold. "Our scientists say there's healing properties in the blood of some magicals."
"I'm not a donor for her." Mal tried not to let his annoyance show. "You know that. Even if I did have magic, I couldn't help her. And bless Raietha, but I'm not willing to take the chance on her Fae blood being the cause for all this bad luck and sorrow. She feels guilty now, but imagine if a transfusion of her blood killed her youngest. How do you think you'd feel?"
"Given that it takes even longer for gnomes to build a new gnome than it takes you to grow a new human? Devastated." Talasi got into the other available seat with some difficulty; she stood four feet if she was an inch. She looked something like a peninsula Indian, but like the coloring book version. Maybe something out of a Disney movie. Her strong jaw, tight like a drawn hunting bow, and the gray streak in her blue-black hair made her look grim instead of blandly perfect, however. She fixed him once more with her glittering eyes.
"I hate you!"
The shout cut Talasi off before she could speak again. Mal squeezed his eyes closed. His eldest daughter's voice had that shrill quality it only got when she and her mother were fighting.
"The feeling is mutual, you ungrateful little brat!" A thud, as though Liu had thrown something. Judging by Raietha's wordless howl of anger, she had.
"Excuse me a minute," Talasi said, in that too-mild tone, "I've about had it." She hopped to the floor and made her way down the hall. "The both of you shut up," she said, using her best school marm voice. "I don't want to hear anything but respect out of you both for the rest of the night."
"You're not my mother!" Liusidris.
"You're surely right, Liucy," Talasi said, "but I hardly think it would help your situation if I was. Now go in your room and fume in there."
Door slam.
"And Raietha, I am tempted to tell you to do the same."
Mal wished as hard as he could for all the damned noise to just fade away.
"Her sister might be dying and she doesn't even care! That school counselor is supposed to be helping her!"
Talasi marched back into the living room, driving Raietha before her even though Rai was half again as tall. "Do you want Rosi to hear yo
u?" she said. "Pull the whole house down around us, why don't you?"
Rai started sobbing. Mal roused himself and went to his wife. "Raietha," he said, steadying her by putting his hands on her shoulders, "she'll be all right."
"How can you say that?" The sight of her drawn face, wan and harsh from sadness despite her natural Fae beauty, pulled at him. He didn't know how to comfort her, not really. He grasped after some kind of answer that would at least calm her down for a minute.
"Honey --- "
Rosi's nurse, an elderly gnome woman crowned with severe white braids, interrupted by marching down the hallway towards them. The crafted enhancements on her body shone as she moved. Eventually her fleshy parts would give out to the point that she couldn't compensate for them with magic and craftsmanship, but he guessed by the hard look in her onyx eyes that she wasn't ready to give up the ghost until death broke in through her front window and dragged her out kicking.
Be nice if it were that simple for Rosi. A few pieces of hammered metal and no more problems.
"Lily?" Talasi asked. Raietha stepped back from him and twisted her long fingers in her skirt. Mal did what he could to hide his own anxiety..
"She's alive. Asleep for now. The human blood helps and so do the drugs. You can all sleep easy for the night."
He didn't feel Rai clinging to him at first. The relief numbed him. He wanted to cry, but pushed the thought out of his mind as soon as it had come. Instead he held his wife, arm around her shoulders, hand on her hair. They had problems, sure, but when it came to Rosi's health they were allies.
Thanking his lucky stars that his two boys had decided to keep to their rooms, he nodded his thanks to the elderly nurse.
"Nothing more to be done?" Talasi asked.
"She's not one of us, Talasi. I can't build her a new body. The implants would kill her. And you know as well as I do that magical healing has its limits."
"It would do a hell of a lot more if we had more healers. But damned if I know of more than one or two, and they're mostly hedge witches."
"Let's not borrow any more trouble for the night, ladies," Mal said, trying to soothe Rai's trembling, "If she's stable, let's count our blessings."
Talasi's hard expression softened; she'd got the point. Lily, less human than her younger counterpart, only huffed. She bade them goodnight and left without fanfare.
"I'll stay," Talasi said, "and let you two have some time to yourself."
Rai pulled away and looked at Liu's closed door.
"Maybe you're a little hard on her, Raietha," Talasi added, "I doubt she wants her sister to be in pain."
"I didn't ask your opinion. I am perfectly capable of raising my children, thank you." She went down the hall without waiting for a response and slammed the door to their bedroom, much like Liu had slammed her own door not too long ago.
"She's just worried," He said, feeling protective. "Try not to take it personal."
"I don't," Talasi took her seat again, "but she's trying too damn hard to be human."
Sometimes his wife was entirely too human. He didn't say that, though. "Thanks. You know.. For staying. I reckon I ought to follow the wife."
"Any time. I've been fond of your children since they were born. If Raietha thought she would get rid of me once she graduated from my magery classes, she must be sorely disappointed now."
He turned away, switching lights off as he went until Talasi sat in the glow of a single lamp, her reading glasses perched on her pointed nose. She didn't need them, of course, not with such finely crafted eyes. Still, he found himself glad of the affectation, glad for its humanizing effect.
He paused, hand on his bedroom door. After a moment, he opened it and walked towards the soft, weeping shadow on the bed.
* * *
The scent of drying lavender made a mighty strange backdrop for reading a letter from your old Army buddy, Mal thought as he wandered around his backyard. He enjoyed the heavy perfume, though, and whatever he might have thought about his wife's need to have things just so, he had to admit that paying a man to keep the bushes and flowers tamed had been a good idea.
He hadn't heard from anyone on his old team for some time. The Unit had a way of swallowing a man whole, especially if he were out on a mission. Didn't leave a lot of room for letter writing, and by the sound of this one he guessed Harry Masters was all set up to be a lifer. Chavez wouldn't be far behind.
Good for them.
He folded the letter and slid it into his back jeans pocket, turning towards the street to catch a glimpse of the moving van trundling along. Fat rays of sun the color of butter made it hard to work out who his new neighbors might be, but he'd already planned on hiding out here until Raietha turned up and harped on him to go say hello.
He stopped at the fence dividing his backyard from his new neighbor's, leaned on it, and took a moment to calm down. Lily's words had proved right, and Rosi was up and around for now. He tried to be grateful for that, but he was all too aware that they'd bought the reprieve with a dangerous amount of drugs. If the disease didn't kill her, the medicine might. He wished for the millionth time that she'd been born some kind of magical aside from the Fae blood, some kind of disease resistant creature that could shake off her symptoms. He knew when he opened his eyes the dream would fade and he'd only have his Changeling daughter, neither human or Fae and all the worse for it.
He tried to put the thought out of his mind and distracted himself with the hope that the new neighbor would look after the back garden; the wild disrepair didn't seem right with such a fancy old house squatting in it.
He gazed at the overgrowth, mind wandering, but what happened next stunned him so badly he couldn't think at all. Sometimes, English just didn't have a word strong enough to describe how he felt about things. Take right now, when the back door opened and the man that walked out wasn't a stranger at all, but his former team leader.
The other thing about English, though, was that a lot of clichéd sayings had a kernel of truth to them. Mal finally understood what it felt like to have your jaw drop.
Ashrinn came towards him, outlined in light like he was a ghost.
Seeing a ghost. That one's good too.
Ashrinn grinned in that way that special way of his, that grin that convinced people he had something smart to say, or that he was good in bed, or that he knew what he was doing. He'd seen it work hundreds of times and it worked on him now.
Ashrinn looked just how he remembered, too. Except now he was dressed in a sharp set of civvies and he'd done his hair in a thick braid, pulled back like how a woman might wear it. His green eyes flashed with mischief, the cagey bastard.
"I hope to hell you're surprised, Tielhart." Ashrinn said, picking his way down the half sunken steps and across the yard, "Been planning this one for months."
"You son of a bitch!" Mal blurted.
Surprised? Definitely not good enough. Poleaxed, maybe. Hit on the head with a board? Closer. Ashrinn laughed and met him at the fence. Mal gritted his teeth as he watched Ashrinn limp, remembering the injuries that had helped end his friend and leader's military career.
He didn't let himself think about the rest.
"Brought the whole family," Ashrinn said, hugging him, "I've missed you, you know. You're the only one who got out, besides me."
"Too many damn kids. Figured I'd take the stipend and keep my hide in one piece."
Ashrinn pulled away, though his eyes were still alight with good humor. "What, after all those bullets I took for you?"
Mal sobered but tried to hide it behind a thin smile. Mal caught the flicker in Ashrinn's eyes; he'd noticed. "Now I know why you were acting strange last time we talked," Mal said by way of getting past the awkward moment.
"Liu and Coren already go to the same school. The wives spent years together at Ft. Bragg. Why shouldn't we live next to each other, too, especially when we don't have missions to go on every five minutes?"
It was his turn to be observant. He heard the w
aver in his friend's voice, though he wagered no one else would have. "That does make good sense," Mal offered, and Ashrinn beamed. For a moment he looked like the boy he'd been when they'd first met, instead of a hardened war veteran. The bruises under his eyes spoiled it some.
"Would you mind it if I came over tonight?"
"Sure." Mal said, excited even though he knew how weird the situation was. "Come by any time. You want help moving in?"
"Oh no, no. Best to let the boy do it. Shiftless lay about could use the exercise."
Mal knew Ashrinn meant it more as affection than chiding. Coren was a good kid, and he'd had a good effect on his Liu. As far as Mal was concerned he could be forgiven for some old fashioned teenage bad attitude.
"Him and Liucy are thick as thieves."
"So he tells me. He seems rather taken with her."
"Really?" He felt bad about the disbelieving tone. No offense to his eldest daughter, but she was not the sort of young woman who would have put having a full dance card on her list of problems.
Ashrinn opened his mouth to respond but closed it again at the sound of his wife's voice, calling for him. His smile became something else, the shadow of the expression he'd worn only a second before.
"The wife. I'd better go and help."
"All right. I --- " Mal stopped, once again aware of how weird the whole situation was. It was too easy to slip right back into his brotherhood with Ashrinn, which had lasted their entire adult lives. Neighbors, though? "I can't believe you're here."
Ashrinn managed a weary laugh. "Please god don't tell me you hate having me nearby, because I don't think I can afford the pound of flesh it would take to reverse this deal."
For a minute Mal felt like a kid again, sharing cans of Coke and going over plans for cutting class. "No. It's great. Sure you don't want help?"
"Yes," Ashrinn said in a voice that had a sharp edge. "Thank you though."
Mal straightened as Ashrinn disappeared into his new house.
Doesn't want me to see the family? I wonder why.
* * *
"Where are you going?"
