by David Weber
“We haven’t got time for buts!” Wencit said sharply. “Someone has to care for Bahzell, and you’re in no shape for a fight. That doesn’t mean one won’t find you anyway if we delay, though. You must stay here while Kenhodan and I finish this. We’ll return as quickly as we can.”
Chernion eyed him rebelliously for a long moment, then bent her head in acceptance. It galled her to realize he not only suspected her but had also guessed enough of her inner thoughts to know she wouldn’t finish the hradani while he was helpless. Yet he was right. She wasn’t in any shape to fight, and they did need to finish this quickly. She glared at him a breath or two longer, then drew several shafts from Kenhodan’s quiver and knelt painfully to splint the broken thigh.
“Here, Elrytha.” Kenhodan laid her sword beside her. “It served me well. Thank you.”
“It served you because of your skill,” she said stiffly, confused by the sense of gratification she felt at his thanks. “But you’ll still need it.…”
“No,” Wencit said quietly. “We’ll need no swords from here.”
“Ahhh!” she growled in disgust. “Gods rid me of wizardry!”
Wencit made no response. He only touched Kenhodan’s shoulder and gestured down the tunnel, and Kenhodan rose and followed him.
* * *
Wulfra sat quietly by her blank crystal. She’d guessed wrong after all, and it was time to pay for all misjudgments. She made no attempt to recall her other creatures; they were too distant and Wencit was too near. Besides, there was a certain foreordained quality to this moment.
She straightened her gown calmly as she stepped into the rust-red pentagram, and her lips curved ironically. She stood on stone sealed with the blood of her house, and more blood from the same fount might soon anoint it.
Ah, Wilfrida! If only you could see me now, she thought. Brought to bay by a dotard wizard and a man who wears mystery like a shroud! How you’d laugh—with the last laugh, and the best.
She bent to touch one powdery line with a gentle finger. She’d never really hated her sister. Strange that she hadn’t remembered that in so many years. Wilfrida had simply stood in the way of power and offered an avenue to more, yet it was the quest for that power which had brought Wulfra here, to this moment.
She straightened and tucked her hair under her headdress. She was of the House of Torfo. However she’d acquired her power, whoever had died to secure it, not even Wencit could take her lineage from her.
Her hands rested calmly at her sides as she turned to face the tunnel’s mouth.
* * *
Wencit and Kenhodan rounded the final bend and stopped as a sudden lick of blue fire crawled along the mirrored walls. An arch, small with distance, glowed with an arcane light that flickered down the passage to them.
The wizard looked old and alien in the wash of blue, and Kenhodan shivered as he perceived the power that clung to him. Wencit’s strength was near the surface now, and it crawled along the edges of his voice when he spoke.
“We’ve come far together,” he said, the words deep and formal. “You’ve trusted me with your life and more, even when I withheld your past. Yet I had no choice; what you learn, you must learn for yourself in the fullness of time. But in this moment, you stand in a peril as great as my own, for what must be done now can be done only in part by me…and I can’t tell you all that is required of you.”
“This is a hell of a time to tell me that!” Kenhodan tried to put humor into his voice, but it came out taut and strained.
“It is,” Wencit agreed with that strange intensity, “and I wouldn’t do it if I had a choice.” He took a small, silk wrapped object from his pouch and thrust it into Kenhodan’s hand. “Take this.”
Kenhodan stared at the folded silk, and his fingers trembled as they opened it. Faint blue light licked at the red, glistening planes and facets in his palm, hard edges pressed his skin, and shadow pooled in carven lines.
Golden eyes winked at him from the face of a carven gryphon, and power bright as blood trembled in its heart. It was two inches long, carved from a single ruby larger than dreams of gems. Thicker than his thumb it reared, wings unfurled, fiercely proud, and its strength burned on the flesh of his face while buried memories whimpered in his heart. He turned the carving and paused; its base was shattered along an irregular line.
“W-what is it?” he whispered, closing his hand upon it and breathing raggedly.
“I can’t tell you that,” Wencit said inflexibly.
“Then how can I trust you?!” Kenhodan cried suddenly, tears blurring his sight. “I’m a shadow—a ghost! How much of my heart is my own? How much of it’s been built for your own purposes?! Even I can feel the power in this thing…this tool of yours! Am I only another tool?!”
“I told you once that if we both live you’ll know as much of your past as I know myself.”
Wencit’s voice was unyielding as steel and his features were set and hard, forged on the anvil of centuries into an implacability which neither asked nor offered quarter, and the unchained might of wizardry burned within him.
Kenhodan closed his eyes against the secret heart of his pain. He longed to believe, to trust—but could he? Could he trust the wizard who hid his own past? Who moved all about him like pawns in some vast game whose rules only he knew…and wouldn’t explain? Yet he’d never forced Kenhodan’s will. He’d asked, suggested, argued, and implied, but not once, for all the towering authority of his own legend, had he commanded or overborne anyone’s will. Yet couldn’t that be the ultimate manipulation? There was no way for Kenhodan to know…but wasn’t that the definition of trust? To believe what couldn’t be proven.
He opened his eyes slowly and stared into Wencit’s wildfire, yearning towards the strength and purpose which had kept the wizard true to a cause down the dusty centuries. That unbending visage gave no hint, no clue to the wizard’s thoughts, but Kenhodan’s hand rose to the old man’s shoulder. His fingers dug deep into aged sinews, hard and strong with their inner core of certitude, and he knew the answer.
“I trust you,” he whispered, offering heart and mind like treasure.
“I know.” Wencit’s face softened and he gathered the younger man into a brief embrace, titanic with restrained wizardry. Then he stood back, a hand on each of Kenhodan’s shoulders, and shook him gently.
“Come,” he said softly.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Gryphon Flies
Wencit passed under the arch with a firm stride, and Kenhodan followed, clutching the ruby gryphon as they entered the very heart of the maze.
He felt a vast power roil and swirl silently about him and the mirrored walls vanished, as though alien to this place’s elemental strength. The vast cavern had been clawed out by the fists of nature, ground into the hills by dripping water and the shifting bones of the earth. Wizard lights floated overhead, spangling the air with eldritch beauty, but eternal darkness pressed upon it. Dark patience impregnated the stone and the mineral-bitter pools that rippled and purled to the slow drip of ageless, uncaring water. Kenhodan shivered before the night which had cloaked the cavern for so long, and mortality thrummed in his bones as he measured his life against the endurance of rock and water.
Rough stone collided with water-worn smoothness in twisting aisles of darkness that seamed the raw stone with a web of shadow. Glassy-slick, sunken watercourses tricked the eye away from walls and roof.
And then he saw the rough, tablelike block of stone at the chamber’s center, and he shuddered. The terrible beauty of killing had taken form, fleshed in steel and wrapped in plaited light. The sword’s wards rippled, curled, reflected dancingly like wind-struck water, yet it was impossible to disguise its lean and lethal perfection, and his soul urged him toward that masterpiece of the swordsmith’s art, but Wulfra blocked the way.
She stood on smooth stone within a rusty pentagram. A square, blocky altar stood beside her, its polished stone dark and stained with the memory of lives given to her dark sorcery, and s
he rested one hand upon it as she stood motionless. She was proud and tall, stern-faced with power. Rich embroidery and gems proclaimed her wealth, yet the power that burned in her face and posture surpassed the splendor of any garment ever woven. She faced them calm-eyed, without surprise, and threat and sorcery radiated from her, but the flaw of corruption was within her. Kenhodan could almost smell its sickness.
Taut silence filled the seconds as danger crackled between her and Wencit, and Kenhodan had time to compare them. Some extra sense let him see into her heart and feel her power as if it prickled in his own palms. Arcane knowledge filled her with a regal presence beyond diadems, yet her might—great as it was—was less than a shadow of the puissance that infused Wencit’s shabby, travel-stained frame. For all her power, she was barely a child in the art of which he was master.
He knew she’d judged the balance as acutely as he, but her eyes never wavered. She gazed upon death, yet a precarious balance of fear and imperious will fused into something like serenity, and her crimson mantle and golden hair gleamed. Wencit outmatched her, but she’d never learned to surrender.
“Wencit.”
Her voice was quiet, and she bowed slightly, then straightened and met his wildfire eyes unflinchingly.
“Wulfra.”
He matched her tone and returned her bow.
“You have valiant companions, Wencit. Why do they follow you?”
“You might ask one of them,” Wencit said gently, and stepped aside. Her eyes slid past him and then, abruptly, widened with wonder as they probed Kenhodan from red-thatched crown to bootless feet.
“So,” she whispered. “After so long, you reveal your secret.” She smiled. “It’s been said to play deep games, but no one ever guessed how deep! I salute you.”
“Thank you,” Wencit said ironically.
“There are those who’d give a great deal to know if this.”
“There are…but you’ll never tell them, Wulfra.”
“Oh? Are you so implacable, Wencit of Rūm?”
“I am.”
“Noble Wencit!” she sneered. “But your secret will go beyond these walls!”
“Will it? Look to your stone.”
His voice was soft, but her eyes dropped to her crystal and widened once more. A formless blur of light glared from it in eye-hurting pulsations.
“That interference will tell others a great deal, Wencit!”
“It will tell your master nothing,” Wencit said flatly.
“My ‘master’?” Surprise broke Wulfra’s calm for the first time, and the wild wizard smiled.
“There’s nothing thing left to hide, Baroness,” he said almost gently. “I know far more about him than he knows about me, whatever he may think, and I know he’s used you. Now the time’s come for him to discard you. He always knew it would. The only real difference is that he won’t be able to see it happen…or trigger any of the surprises he’s hidden within ‘your’ trap spells.”
“Your tampering with his scrying will tell him you know about him!” she spat. “It proves you’re blocking someone from seeing or affecting what happens here, and who else could it be?!”
“My blocking spells have told him nothing. I’ve had excellent reasons for raising them that have nothing at all to do with him. You gave them to me.”
“But not a reason for this!” An index finger stabbed at the stone like a striking serpent.
“I don’t need a reason for this. I’m not responsible for it.” Wencit’s chin jutted at Kenhodan, though his eyes never left Wulfra. “He is.”
Her gaze flashed back to Kenhodan. Then it dropped to the gryphon in his fist, and her eyes darkened with final and complete understanding.
“Ahhhh!” Her sigh gusted like pain. “That still exists.”
“It does. I’ve had it all along, hidden in a spell so simple no one ever noticed it. But the proper hand holds it now.”
“For the moment.”
Her calm tone masked her purpose, and her hands suddenly twisted and a gout of blackness leapt at Kenhodan like the wings of death. He recognized the danger and flinched, and his fist closed on the gryphon. He raised the carved stone instinctively in an reflex gesture to ward off the death or worse hidden in that pocket of night and knew, even as he raised it, that it would avail him nothing at all.
But the sable arrowhead smashed into his hand and something screamed in the dark. A silent concussion rocked him, jarring him to his heels, and ruby spangles licked between his fingers. They flashed out like darts of fire, stabbing the darkness to its heart. Scarlet serpents savaged Wulfra’s attack, swallowed its power into silence, and he stood unhurt.
“Not possible!” She stared at him, breasts heaving, eyes stunned. “That’s not possible!” she whispered.
“The proper hand holds it,” Wencit repeated. “No single wizard can harm him now, Wulfra. The spell’s too strong. His death demands skill and numbers.”
“Indeed?” she hissed. “Then why hasn’t it protected you?”
“Because I’ve chosen to stand outside it. A masking spell, a spell of avoidance…such things aren’t difficult, Baroness.”
“I see.” She regained her dignity, her eyes bright and calculating, and suddenly she laughed. “So! You’ve come for the sword. Suppose I give it to you? Would that even the score between us?”
“Between us?” Wencit’s brows quirked and his wildfire eyes dropped to the stained altar at her side. “It might. But you owe other debts. You knew the price of your actions; now it falls do, Wulfra of Torfo.”
“Why?” she challenged proudly. “Who are you to demand payment, Wencit of Rūm, last Lord of the White Council? Where’s your warrant? You reek of hypocrisy! You want to talk about my actions? What of yours? I’ve done nothing—nothing—to rival the blood on your ‘noble’ hands!”
“I’ve never denied it,” Wencit said softly.
“You can’t! You murdered a continent, old man! Look at your graveyards and tell me my ‘crimes’ are worse!”
“The First Stricture convicts you, Baroness. Intent defines the act. What you did, you did for power; what I did, I did to end the abuse of power.”
“Abuse of power?” She laughed harshly and pointed at Kenhodan. “Look at him and tell me you don’t abuse power! Power is the heart of your life, Wizard!”
“We all make choices,” Wencit replied. “I’ve paid a price beyond your dreams, and I’m not finished paying. Do you wish to judge me? Very well. I’ll bear your judgment…but will you bear mine?”
Kenhodan listened, grasping for the meaning behind their words, but his mind ached with its proximity to power and his thoughts were sluggish. He knew something vitally important was being said, yet he couldn’t understand it.
“I must.” Wulfra was cold and dignified. “Yours is the power to act as you will, but don’t speak to me of ‘judgment’! Your Strictures are stone dead, buried in the ash of Kontovar by your own hands. You have no right to levy their ghosts upon others.”
“I have every right. And, as you say, I have the power, as well.”
“Of course you do,” she jeered. “So use it—but spare me your moral mask.”
“There’s no mask. There never was.”
“Bah! Your precious Strictures were always based on power. Nothing else ever supported them, and Ottovar used them only to chain his rivals at the foot of his throne. In the end, they were never any more than that!”
“Power supports them,” Wencit conceded, “because there’s no other way. Even peace ultimately rests upon the force to defend it—but not the force that feeds upon ambition. See yourself as you are!”
He flung up his hands, his palms flashed silver, and she recoiled as they hurled her own image into her eyes.
“You know only half of power, Baroness of Torfo! You know how to take and to break, but not how to heal or build. No one denies your courage, Lady, but your hunger costs the innocent too much. The Strictures were forged against such as you, to protect th
ose without power from those who know it so imperfectly.”
“Fine words!” Wulfra spat, and then composed herself once more in the cold dignity of dispassionate desperation.
“You’re empty as the wind. You’re no god to judge me. You chose a pattern, and because you hold power, you made others accept it…for a time. But yours isn’t the only power, and others who hold it won’t be denied forever. We reject your right to dictate our lives and work, to tell us what to be and what not to be. Beware, Wencit! Your arrogance has stored up a fate to break a heart of stone! You will know sorrow.”
She hissed the final sentence, and he nodded slowly.
“Your warning comes too late,” he said softly. “I’ve already known it, and you can neither increase nor decrease it.”
“Then let us begin,” she said levelly.
“As you wish. Because of what you might have been, I owed you an explanation. But if you tire of it…”
He squared his shoulders and raised one hand in an oddly elegant, formal gesture.
“My name,” he said quietly, and the distant rumble of thunder storm power rolled in the depths of the words, “is Wencit of Rūm. By my paramount authority as the last Lord of the White Council I judge thee guilty of offense against the Strictures of Ottovar. Wilt thou defend thyself, or must I slay thee where thou standest?”
“Indeed?” She gave a laugh like chilled silver. “A formal duel? I am honored!”
She dropped a sardonic curtsy, but Wencit’s expression never flickered.
“Wilt thou defend thyself?” he repeated stonily, and she straightened, eyes very still, and drew a bone wand from her sleeve. It was ringed with gold, and as she caressed the power it contained, Kenhodan felt the very air throb about him.
She raised her left hand, fingers spread, and a crimson fan grew from it, stitched to her fingertips. A matching arc of multi-hued fire spread from Wencit’s hand, arching from his fingers to meet her crimson and meld with it. Kenhodan stared at the merging streamers, transfixed as he realized the colors bore their life forces, bound together in an intimacy only death could loose.
