A fox call whirred through the night, answered by a distant bark, like an echo.
Bolverkr continued, “No matter that these companions consist of an overprotected sorceress of insignificant level, a thief, and a crazed anachronism who, by all natural right, should be dead.” Bolverkr crinkled his nose in disgust. “An elf, too. A magical creation of less consequence than the dragons you’ve killed as beasts.”
“I love Allerum,” Silme blurted. “And I care about my friends.” Her words came without need for thought.
“Why?”
The question caught Silme off her guard. “What?”
“Why do you love Allerum? Why do you care about your friends?”
“I—” Silme considered. “I don’t need a reason to love my husband or my friends.”
“True.” A puff of wind lifted Bolverkr’s cloak, revealing silks that clearly outlined a slender but well-proportioned body. “But blind loyalty only works for lemmings. I would never fault anyone for dedicating himself to a cause he believes in. On the other hand, to devote your life and sacrifice a chance at happiness and total power for a love you can’t justify is stupid and wasteful.”
“Just because I can’t justify my love to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
“Agreed,” Bolverkr conceded. “But you should be able to justify it to yourself. When’s the last time you took stock of your feelings? Do you really love these inferiors, or are you just reacting out of habit? Look deep inside yourself, Silme. I think your heart might tell you something different than your mind.”
“I think not.” Silme tried to redirect the conversation, but Bolverkr interrupted.
“How else can you explain knifing Taziar?”
Silme gasped, not wanting to be reminded of her blunder. She tried to believe she had reacted out of desperation, using the tenets gleaned from her travels with Kensei Gaelinar. Yet she could not forget the rage that had flashed through her at Taziar’s interference. She could not escape the memory of a warm glow of self-righteous justice when the blade had struck home, though guilt had followed on its heels. “An accident,” she grumbled vaguely. “A stupid accident.”
Bolverkr smiled again, in amusement. He did not have to say that the process of drawing a knife and cutting a friend was too complicated and deliberate to pass for accident. It was obvious. “Do as you will. In time, you’ll realize what your heart already knows. The irrelevant companions you call friends have become an annoyance.”
Silme folded her arms, stung to irritation. Recently, everyone and everything seemed to have become an annoyance, and she did feel as if she needed to sequence her priorities. Normally, the ability came naturally. Now, her wits constantly seemed in a scramble. Compulsive action had replaced her usually thoughtful, ordered plans.
Bolverkr’s manner softened. “When that time comes, remember a sorcerer loves you and wants to share his power and his life with you. I’ll be there.” His voice faded to silence beneath the insect chorus. The fox calls became cyclical, the nearer more distant and the farther closer as the creatures sought one another in the darkness.
Bolverkr’s sincerity touched Silme. Trying to read his deeper intentions, she met his gaze. Candor radiated from his eyes and expression, mature emotions that went far beyond Larson’s adolescent passion. Her thoughts unwound like those of a stranger, detailing a life with Bolverkr and the Chaos he offered. Logic showed her a man of great consequence, powerfully tender as well as savagely vengeful. She knew he could understand her devotion to the highest causes and her frustration at having the same townsfolk she had rescued from Bramin’s magic make signs of warding evil when they realized she was Dragonrank as well. He could teach her about things she never knew existed: the earliest years of the Dragonrank mages, spells her dedication to defense had forced her to forsake, the creation of gods and elves. And he could give her the power to practice them without draining out her life energy.
Silme’s life aura gleamed, brighter than she ever remembered it in the past. Unaware of Bolverkr’s methodical Chaos-transfer, she attributed its brilliance to the baby’s linked aura and having gone longer than ever before without tapping life force. Still, beside Bolverkr’s fiery glory, her aura was dwarfed like a lantern in sunlight. For a moment, Bolverkr’s vast potential and the inherent common sense of their coupling took precedence over raw emotion. Then an image of Larson seeped into her thoughts, his angular features strangely handsome, his fragile frame and delicately-pointed ears belying a human mind weighted with morality and none of the elves’ capriciousness. Yet, somehow, the virtues Silme had embraced since childhood seemed distant and insignificant, their importance erased by experience and time.
I love Allerum. Silme did not allow her thoughts to stray, grounding her reason on the single fact. To contemplate too long might throw her into a frenzy of ideas she did not understand. “Go away.” Her words emerged softly and with too little punch to convince even herself of their sincerity.
Still, Bolverkr honored her request. Light cracked open the hovering darkness of moonless night, and the sorcerer disappeared, leaving a trailing pulse of oily smoke.
The forest seemed to close in on Silme. Suddenly wholly alone, battered from without and within, she began to cry.
* * *
CHAPTER 6
Chaos’ Massacre
Religion, blushing veils her sacred fires,
And unawares Morality expires
Nor public flame, nor private, dares to shine;
Nor human spark is left, nor glimpse divine!
Lo! thy dread empire Chaos! is restored:
Light dies before thy uncreating word;
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall,
And universal darkness buries all.
—Alexander Pope Thoughts on Various Subjects
A gentle shake awakened Al Larson. He tensed, eyes flicking open to Astryd’s tiny face and china doll features. Beyond her, darkness blurred the forest to hulking bands of black and gray. Silme curled some distance away. Larson could not see Taziar. Presumably, the Shadow Climber lay behind him.
My turn on watch. The constant click of insects and the bantered calls of foxes waxed from dismissed subconscious to wakeful background. Larson yawned, stretching to work the cramps from his muscles. He mouthed the word “thanks,” not wanting to awaken Silme and Taziar by speaking aloud. Silme always slept on the barest edge of awakening, and Taziar rested nearly as lightly.
Astryd shook her head. She gestured at Larson and herself, then pointed behind him into the woods.
Larson stiffened. His hand tightened on the sword hilt. Slowly he turned, seeing only a broad stretch of shadowed woodland. Taziar was nowhere in sight. “Where?” Larson started.
Astryd’s fingers gouged Larson’s arm in warning.
Breaking off, Larson turned back to Astryd, not understanding.
Astryd made a grabbing motion in front of her lips, a plea for silence. Again, she pointed deeper into the forest. Curving her fingers so the tips touched her thumb, she placed the hand by her mouth. Opening and closing her fingers rapidly, she simulated lips and the need to talk. Though crisp, her gestures lacked the urgency that would have cued Larson to danger.
Assuming Astryd wanted to converse in private, Larson nodded his understanding. He inclined his head toward Silme.
Astryd shook her head.
Larson bit his lip. The idea of leaving Silme asleep and alone pained him. He whispered, “We can’t—”
Astryd clamped a hand to Larson’s mouth, shaking her head more vigorously. She waited until he quieted before removing her hand.
Silme did not stir. The patterns of her breathing remained the same.
Turning, Astryd headed off into the forest, crooking a finger over her shoulder for Larson to follow.
Against his better judgment, Al Larson trailed Astryd through autumn-brown undergrowth encased in crumbled leaves. They veered between pine and around copses, ducking beneath a fallen, rott
ing trunk whose upper end had wedged against a neighbor. Slipping between a pair of narrow hickories, Larson discovered Taziar standing with his foot braced on a deadfall. Astryd sat on the downed trunk.
Larson crouched, his back against a towering oak, awaiting an explanation.
“I’m sorry to call you away in such a strange way.” Astryd scuffed at a pile of pine needles. “I didn’t want to wake Silme.”
Larson frowned, acutely aware that they had not only not awakened Silme, but they had left her unprotected.
Astryd went straight to the point. “There’s something wrong with Silme.”
Freshly awakened from sleep and immediately reminded of his troubles, Larson did not try to hide his annoyance. “What cued you in? Her griping at Shadow or her suggesting I go back to hell?”
Astryd seemed to take no notice of Larson’s sarcasm. “Neither.” She looked up. “And both, I suppose. Do you remember how I linked my magic with Silme’s so she could tap my life energy to transport without risking the baby?”
Larson nodded. At the time, he had lain unconscious and inches from death, but he saw no need for a detailed description of the process. “What of it?”
“It’s a dangerous link, and not well understood. I think there’s some ... well ... residual.”
Taziar leaned forward, watching Astryd curiously. “What do you mean by residual?”
“It’s hard to explain.” Astryd kicked needles from one boot to the other. “It’s as if there’s an invisible, intangible thread tying her aura to mine. Every so often, a trickle of emotion slips through the contact.”
Larson blinked, gathering his thoughts. Magic made little enough sense without complicating it with links and contacts. “So you can read her mind? And you see something bad?”
“No. That’s not it at all.” Astryd fidgeted, apparently having difficulty finding the words needed to describe a process she did not fully understand herself. “I’m not getting thoughts, just occasional glimpses of emotion. And I’m not trying to read them, either. They just sort of, well, slip through now and again.” She sighed heavily, aware she still had not clarified the issue well enough. “I’ve tried tracing the thread to Silme by using a gentle probe. But she snapped closed the contact so violently, it hurt.” Astryd winced at the memory. “Maybe she thought I was Bolverkr.”
Taziar stepped behind Astryd and massaged her shoulders through the heavy fabric of her dress. “Don’t you think you should discuss this with Silme?”
Astryd nodded, still looking at Larson. “I will. I just haven’t had a chance. Her mood ...” She trailed off. “Her mood is why I wanted to talk with the two of you first.”
Larson raised his brows encouragingly.
“This may sound stupid.” Astryd spoke slowly, as if considering each word. “But she seems to feel as if she’s being invaded. From within.”
Larson froze, the expression sounding familiar in his ears. Then, finding the proper memory, he laughed. “You’ve never been pregnant, have you, Astryd?”
Taziar’s fingers stilled on Astryd’s shoulders.
“No,” Astryd confessed. She regarded Larson more directly. “And I’d venture to guess you haven’t either.”
Taziar smiled.
Larson conceded the point. “Do you have younger brothers and sisters?”
“Older,” Astryd admitted. “I’m the baby. Why?”
“I just remember when my mother was pregnant with my little brother. She used to call him ‘that little alien in my stomach’ and talk about how he danced on her bladder and sucked up artichokes.” Remote images of his mother standing before the kitchen window warmed Larson’s memory, sparking others. The details of his parents’ Bronx home seemed faded, another man’s life. Nearby, cranes banged and huffed, building city blocks of skyscrapers that would be called Co-op City. He remembered sneaking out at night with his best friend, Tom Jeffers, to clamber over the machinery and skeletal frames, while his brother collected sugar packets and near-empty paste tubes that the work crews had left behind.
Bitterness tinged the memory. Jeffers had died in Vietnam even before Larson had enlisted. Not wanting to contemplate his friend’s death, Larson tore himself from reminiscing just in time to hear Astryd’s question.
“Artichokes?”
Jarred back to the conversation, Larson nodded* “My mother craved artichokes, white chocolate, and kosher dills all through the pregnancy. And she never used to like pickles.”
Astryd swiveled her gaze toward Taziar, and they both shrugged in ignorance.
Larson got to the point. “I’m just saying pregnant women do feel like there’s an invader inside.” He recalled his mother’s temper flaring at the slightest provocation and his father cutting dinner table arguments short with a humble, “yes, dear.” “And some of them get snappy and irritable, too. It’s hormones.” Now, Larson felt pleased Astryd had drawn him away to talk. It gave a name and explanation to Silme’s raw-tempered, uncharacteristic behavior.
Several moments passed in silence before Larson noticed Astryd and Taziar were staring at him, apparently awaiting an explanation. He addressed the Shadow Climber. “You were a youngest child, too?”
“Only child.” Taziar resumed his massage. “I’ve seen enough women with child to know some do act strangely. But what, exactly, is a hormone?”
The question reminded Larson of an ancient gag: “How do you make a hormone? Don’t pay her.” Having spent weeks recovering in Shylar’s whorehouse, Larson found the joke appropriate, wishing the pun would translate into Old Scandinavian. If it did, I could technically be the first person to ever tell it. “Hormones are chemicals the body makes.” He searched for a comparison his companions might understand. “It’s like the excitement you have long after you’ve finished doing something stupid.” Staring at Taziar, he smiled, “I mean, something dangerous.”
“That’s funny,” Taziar said, though he did not smile.
“Anyway,” Larson finished, “this hormone floats around in your blood, making you feel good. Pregnancy hormones make women weepy and testy.”
“That doesn’t seem fair,” Astryd said.
Larson shrugged, not fully certain he had his facts correct, but aware it did not matter. “It evens out. Women make adrenaline, too. And men get violent and flaky around too much male hormones. They just don’t get pregnant.”
Taziar fingered his cut cheek.
Astryd nodded. Her tension faded, and she seemed satisfied with Larson’s explanation of Silme’s behavior. “Imagine how she must feel. All this hormony stuff poisoning her blood. Then she’s got the baby to worry about. And every time we run into Bolverkr, she has to decide between killing her child and possibly letting her friends die.” Astryd winced. “Oh, poor Silme.”
Larson frowned, concerned with pressures of his own. The battle at Bolverkr’s keep had left him feeling helpless and trivial, a man exposed to a thousand years of science yet unable to stand against a single, primitive man. Gaelinar gave me his sword, the vehicle of his soul, because he believed I would take care of it. I failed him. I failed myself. And, now, my failure will kill my wife and child as well as my friends. The image of Bolverkr collapsing, half-cleaved, to the ramparts filled Larson’s memory. He swore. I should never have turned my back on an enemy until I knew he was dead. For now, Larson conveniently forgot that he had seen heart and lungs through a wound no man could have survived longer than a few seconds. I can’t believe I didn’t lop off his head while I had the chance. That mistake may cost all our lives.
Astryd rose. “We need to let Silme know without doubt that we want her to save the baby over any of us. We need to rescue her from the choice.”
Taziar took Astryd’s hand, his gaze on Larson. “Good idea, but I think the approach is wrong. No matter what we say, Silme will put our lives before the unborn baby’s. Our protests to the contrary would only make our sacrifice seem more noble; it would look as if we were more dedicated to her than she to us.”
&
nbsp; Taziar’s words confused Larson. Not wanting to sit through the justification again, he pressed for the solution. “What do you think we should do?”
An updraft whipped through the pines, dropping a shower of needles onto Taziar and Astryd. Absently, Taziar brushed needles from Astryd’s hair. “We need to show Silme some confidence, to make her truly believe we’re capable of handling Bolverkr.”
Larson snorted.
Taziar raised his hand. “Let me finish.”
Larson nodded grudgingly.
“If Silme thinks we can kill Bolverkr, she can stop worrying about us and focus on the baby. If one of us is slain then, it will seem like an error in logic. She’ll have misjudged our competence rather than made a conscious choice to save the baby and let us die.”
Astryd shivered.
Larson had become accustomed to discussing his own death. Taziar seemed to speak of it openly enough, but Larson did not feel certain the Shadow Climber had fully considered the implications of his words. Astryd seemed all too aware of her mortality, enough to make her unpredictable in combat. Inwardly, Larson groaned. We’re facing the most dangerous enemy in the world, and our army consists of an incompetent twentieth-century soldier, a witch in a hormonal storm, a midget adrenaline addict with few combat skills, and a sorceress’ apprentice. Despair winched tighter. “You know, there is something else to consider.”
Apparently cued by an atypical soberness in Larson’s tone, Astryd and Taziar regarded their companion intently.
“It’s one thing for me to decide my baby takes precedence over my life. It’s another for my friends to make the same sacrifice. Neither Silme nor I expect either of you to put the baby’s life over your own. That would be unreasonable.” Larson considered the situation from another perspective. “Given a choice between rescuing Silme or the baby, I’d have to save Silme. I can hardly blame either of you for making the same decision about the one you love.”
Mickey Zucker Reichert - By Chaos Cursed Page 11
