*Fool!* The staff granted no quarter. *The result will be the same. The holes that grant magical creatures access to chaos also provide a means for chaos to leak out.*
*Yes.* Colbey saw no reason to argue. He had once watched a healer blend the ground, acid seed of wertel with vinegar in a corked phial. Showered with glass shards and liquid, Colbey had politely told the healer he would rather let his wounds fester. Yet that same mixture in an open bowl had resulted in a quiet poultice that burned fiercely yet cured infection.
*Is it your design to utterly destroy chaos?* The Staff of Chaos did not await an answer. *Because that won’t work. What you propose will ruin all the worlds—and law as well as chaos.*
Colbey waited for his companion to relax enough to listen. He had enough information to argue the point. Until Colbey, no being of law had survived on the plains of chaos. Even Odin, who had crafted the world to which he had banished the primordial chaos, had deliberately left the openings Colbey now worked to plug, leaving a means for tiny amounts of chaos to affect man’s world. To do otherwise would have resulted in total stagnation, law wholly unopposed.
*Desist at once!*
The command irritated Colbey. *Are you finished attempting to order me?*
*If you do not cease, you leave chaos no choice but to destroy you.*
*I’ll take that as a ‘no.’* It seemed Colbey’s true intention, to leave a single opening that he could monitor, would never get explained. *When you’re ready to stop assuming my motives and hear my reasons, let me know.* With that, he slammed shut the barriers to his head, ignoring the wild tapping from the staff that followed.
Colbey returned his attention to the task at hand, plugging more of the gaps that connected the plains of chaos to Midgard. The staff’s entreaties became faint, drumming background. Finally, it disappeared completely, leaving Colbey wholly at peace.
Colbey worked long past exhaustion, through the night and into another day of patternless mutation. As he worked on the fifty-ninth hole, warning prickled through him. His senses screamed of a danger so absolute it radiated no color at all. It hovered, its malevolence tangible, yet without substance. Colbey’s hand slid naturally to the hilt of the sword embodied by the Staff of Chaos.
The thing spoke to Colbey in ten thousand voices, all conveying the same message with different words or concepts. It led him to understand that he faced chaos in total, a personification of the primordial soup. Where the demons could not organize against him, they had found a way to face him in unison. By becoming a joined entity, contained by his boundaries, it could enforce the combined will of all. *Join us,* it/they directed him. The patience of chaos had run its course. *You are chaos. Bind and become a part of the whole.* It glided toward him, a maw emerging from the shadow to swallow him.
*No,* Colbey did not retreat. The sword rasped from his sheath . . .
. . . and melted in his hands. A second creature appeared beside the first. It took the form of a man, pose displaying admirable grace and features handsome even beyond youth. Blond hair framed chiseled features, and blue eyes filled with mischief studied him triumphantly. *There is no need to fight, Colbey. You and I are one.*
Colbey watched the figure in front of him, feeling naked without a weapon. The being did bear a striking resemblance, not only to himself but to the dead god, Loki. Once, Colbey could not have seen the similarities. Now, they held him spellbound. The creature that came from the Staff of Chaos could as easily pass for either. He reached out a gentle hand. *It’s your destiny, Colbey.*
The words broke the spell. Colbey had heard the same from Odin when the gray leader of the pantheon had insisted Colbey’s birth, life, and ascension existed only for the moment of rescuing Odin from his fate at the Ragnarok. Colbey gave the same answer as he had then. *I don’t believe in destiny.*
Loki/Colbey smiled. *Semantics, only. You chose this course. You knew this moment would come, and it has. You cannot win against Dh’arlo’mé unless you become one with me.*
Colbey crouched. The primordial chaos continued to drift closer. He could see that its many appendages enwrapped something which was struggling. *I don’t believe that to be the case.* He sent the truth, yet it lacked the backing of certainty. When he had championed balance, he had never doubted his motives or his many courses of action. Now he felt as if he had lived his whole life safely strapped into a cart that naturally made the right turns. He felt vulnerable, devoid of the sureness necessary to act in the best interests of gods and mankind.
Colbey battled self-doubt, delaying. *What happens to me if I bind?*
*When you bind,* the creature returned, emphasizing the first word, *you cease to be the Prince of Demons. You instead become chaos’ extension into the other worlds. You’ll have all the power of chaos behind you, to tap at your will.*
Still Colbey hesitated, as he never had in war. Renshai through the ages had quoted him: “Warriors make their decisions on the battlefield, faster than an eye blink. They cannot afford to be wrong.” He had known this moment would come, had known resistance might prove even beyond his skill, had even known that resistance might not prove the best course. Yet even after chaos had become so much a part of him, he still clung to self and balance. *I’d become Loki,* he realized aloud.
The human representation of the Staff of Chaos laughed. *If you wish. Is that such a bad fate?*
Colbey recalled his first conversation with the shape-changing mischief-maker of the gods, the first father of lies. Loki’s explanation came to him, verbatim, assisted by the staff: “Chaos is necessary. Even some of the men and gods who realize it refuse to be the ones who champion it. What we truly need is balance. But I’m one god working alone against many. If I just stood behind symmetry, I would accomplish nothing. When so many back law, the only chance for balance is to embrace chaos.” With Colbey’s help, the gods had come to recognize the need for balance. Yet, now, a massive force of law threatened the world as surely as if every god still stood against it. Someone had to champion chaos, and that someone was Colbey Calistinsson. He recalled all the sessions in the temple, his mother’s horrible stories about the gods’ champion of chaos. Loki, I take back all the hatred I harbored against you as a child. I understand everything you did.
*You are forgiven,* the staff returned.
Colbey stiffened. He had not sent the thought from his mind, and the Staff of Chaos should not have been able to read it. Clearly, he had left a gap in his defenses. He banished reservation, strengthening his barriers. *I understand what you did,* Colbey repeated. *But I will not duplicate your mistakes.*
The demon began its forward progress again. This time, Colbey retreated a step. With a sword, he could at least battle to his death. Without one, he had no chance at all to find Valhalla, only a hideous and dishonorable death.
*Mistakes?* the creature said.
*I will work with chaos, but I will not bind with it.*
Resentment covered Colbey like a blanket. *That, my partner, is a mistake beyond any Loki ever made.*
Loki had known, as Colbey did now, that the clash between law and chaos would destroy those bonded to it. He had clung to the understanding that he would personify the fires that razed and cleansed the worlds, that a new order would spring entirely from his destruction. The personification of death did not draw Colbey as it had his predecessor. He still clung to the hope that the extremes of law and chaos could demolish one another without affecting humans, elves, and gods. *Be that as it may, I will not bind.*
The staff-creature’s face twisted, though it could not shake the beauty Loki’s features granted. *I thought you might prove reticent. That’s why I brought some reassurance.*
Several of the demon’s arms opened to reveal the struggling figure it still gripped by the shoulders, thighs, and mouth. Ravn heaved against the black tentacles, tattered tunic revealing slashes and bruises the length of his body. He had not proved an easy hostage.
Colbey froze. Even his heart seemed to stop be
ating in his chest.
*Bind now?*
Colbey latched his gaze on his son. Ravn’s blue eyes held pain and rage, but no fear. *Would you want me this way?*
*I’ll take you any way I can get you.* Brutal honesty from a force that championed lies.
Colbey had already known the answer. He had asked more for procrastination. He licked his lips, faced with a true choice. Bowing to such a ghastly ploy bothered him; yet, if he did so, it would have no bearing on future dealings. From that moment forth, he would become merely an organ of chaos. He could buy his son’s life with his own, a more than fair trade. Whether or not he completely bonded, he would still likely die in the end. If he phrased the exchange well enough, he might still rescue Ravn from the same fate.
*Well?* Chaos pressed. The subtext came through clearly. It would not allow inordinate delay.
Chaos believed it could not lose, Colbey realized suddenly. Whether he came to it willingly, or it invaded his mind during the weakness that would follow watching his son slaughtered, it would have him. A whisper of outrage joined the desperate concern. A sword in his hand would make all the difference. Suddenly, he understood why the Staff of Chaos had reveled in his decision to pass his other weapon to Kevral. It had feigned envy to hide long-planned deceit. “Let the boy speak for himself.”
The Loki/Colbey being nodded. The demon’s arm retreated from Ravn’s face, leaving a purple bruise in its wake.
Ravn took a moment to compose himself before speaking, which Colbey appreciated. The responsibilities he had placed on the adolescent shoulders had aged his son. “Don’t do it, Father. I’d rather die horribly.”
*And you will,* the staff being hissed. The demon’s grips on arms and legs tightened, and the flesh blanched, blood driven from it. Soon, the bands would constrict enough to damage the tissue beyond salvation. Ravn would lose his arms and legs.
The pain evident in Ravn’s pale eyes struck through Colbey as well. The urge to promise anything welled up in his throat, but the words did not emerge. He wanted to hurl himself at the demon, to unleash his deadly skill against it. Helpless as a toddler, he stood before it. His bare flesh could not harm it. Without a weapon of law-confined chaos, he could only look the fool, a child swinging furiously in a hopeless tantrum. Colbey closed his eyes. The answer could only come from within. *STOP!* he shouted. The flat, black plain of his eye-closed world seemed a new blank slate for the story of the universe. For the moment, truth existed only as he saw it. He kept his mind barriers wholly in place. Even the drone of the Staff of Chaos could not penetrate it. There was only Nothingness.
Nothingness. Primordial chaos. The world before creation. In his own mind, Colbey finally felt godlike, the author of a world that existed only because he forced all else away. That it existed only because he had blocked out reality did not matter for the moment. Its existence was all there was.
Gradually, a thought sifted in, wrecking the virgin quiet of Colbey’s world. Running from truth is as much cowardice as fleeing battle. The idea was his own, yet the cruelest of Renshai insults did not affect him. Why not? The answer shocked him, and Colbey felt a grin stretch his face. Because chaos is my realm. The world I created is not an escape. It is reality! A rumbling laugh escaped his throat, and his lids sprang open. All remained as he had left it. The Loki/Colbey figure glared at him. The demon clutched Ravn, while the young man gritted his teeth against agony.
“This isn’t real,” Colbey said.
*Nonsense,* Chaos shot back. No weakness there.
Colbey stared at the demon grasping his son, seeing instead a million weaker representations of chaos, a vast flat of ever-changing nothingness without substance or pattern. The struggling adolescent shimmered.
*Bind,* the staff creature said. *Bind, damn you. You’re deluding only yourself. Your child will die for your foolish denial. You cannot dismantle reality with thought.*
Doubt battered at Colbey’s intentions. He forced it away, clinging to the mind control that battling Wizards had gained him. *I am the Prince of Demons. Chaos is whatever I make it. If you resist, I will destroy you, too.*
*Delusion!* The staff fought with the weapons of skepticism and self-doubt. It sent concepts instead of words, a bold certainty that dream and want could not affect actuality.
Colbey did not waver. *My dream is your reality. My want is your truth. My creation is your world.* Ravn dissolved to a dark mass of mutable chaos goo, a demon too meek to bother its prince. *And you are my weapon, never my master.* His mind nudged the creature that had once resembled self. Again, it took the form of a sword, honed edges readied for the battles of its wielder.
This war was over. And Colbey Calistinsson had won.
CHAPTER 30
The Keeper of the Balance
No mortal war has given me what I’ve searched for all my life—death in glory.
—Colbey Calistinsson
Ravn kept his hands clasped in his lap to hide their telltale shaking. The same quaking apprehension that brought him first to Asgard’s meeting hall also goaded him to flee before the others arrived. Perhaps he could pretend that he had not received the summons or that he remained coolly aloof from the proceedings. The latter would not surprise the other gods; they would attribute it to his father. And, at least for the moment, the comparison bothered him nearly as much as the anticipation.
Ravn looked around the room, but even this third inspection failed to reveal details. His eyes sent images his mind evaded, tortured by more significant matters than vision. He forced another, slower scrutiny, this time managing to register the domed ceiling, the plain gold walls that contrasted strangely with an exterior studded with jewels, and the table and chairs that constituted the room’s only furniture. Far above his head, a massive chandelier with a dozen tiers held hundreds of candles. Magically lit, they never sputtered or burned out. Their myriad flames reflected yellow highlights from tabletop and floor.
The heavy teak door opened, revealing a delicate lace of diamonds embedded in the jamb. Light scattered, cut into colors by the facets. Ravn could not stop himself from cringing. The stares of Asgard’s finest, so often blasted on his father, would now pin him. He had long dreaded this moment.
Freya entered the portal, closing the door quietly behind her. Hair cascaded past her shoulders, a golden waterfall outshining the diamonds. Her pale eyes steadied him with gentleness from features so perfect they defied his description. The simple tunic and sword belt could not hide her well-muscled curves.
Ravn loosed a pent-up breath, though he knew the reprieve short-lived.
“I thought I might find you here.” Freya turned her son an encouraging smile that revealed symmetrical teeth in two straight rows. “Nervousness dissipates patience.”
“I’m not nervous,” Ravn said, in jest. He knew his mother would easily see through the lie.
The grin remained, though Freya did not laugh. “Sit here.” She gestured to a seat on the left-hand side, with only one seat between it and the head position.
Ravn shook his head in short, sharp movements that revealed his trepidation.
The corners of Freya’s lips slid downward, past neutrality to a slight frown. “Ravn, your father’s life, the whole of mankind, and the gods’ themselves may depend upon you convincing staid old goats who never believe themselves wrong. The more confident you appear, the better chance you have. Colbey always understood the significance of good positioning.”
The words struck Ravn at many levels. First, he feared his suggestions the wrong ones. It seemed more as if he might lead the gods to their doom than rescue them from it. With restless guilt, he wondered whether Colbey’s destruction might ultimately become the better course. His father dealt with every matter as if it were a battle, and his wars of words with the gods proved no exception. Ravn still recalled his very first meeting, when Colbey had sat in the sacred seat, once Odin’s. That maneuver had won him as much rancor as respect, yet it had paved the way for Vidar to later cla
im that chair as his own. Without a word Ravn rose from his seat near the door and moved to the indicated spot. His anxiety level rose near to panic the farther he moved from the exit, and he desperately wondered whether his mother had made the right decision. She claimed the chair to his right, even as the door opened again.
In singles and pairs and sixes, the deities selected places around the huge, rectangular table. Thor’s sons. Modi and Magni, took the seats directly across from Freya and Ravn, their father’s hammer wedged between their chairs. Vidar claimed the head seat, his half brother Vali the one at his right hand. The goddesses Sif, Nanna, Idunn, and Sigyn clustered beyond Freya and Magni. The once-dead Balder and his blind brother, Hod, sat on either side of the women, the nearest ones to the door. Ravn’s uncle, Frey, arrived last. Left the choice of the empty chair between Ravn and Vidar or sitting beside either Hod or Balder, he chose the latter. Quietly hooking the chair on Balder’s end, he sat and studied his hands on the table. Ravn saw the decision as a positive one. For most of Asgard’s denizens, the farther they chose from the head of the table, the less confrontational they felt. Ravn did not want any trouble, least of all from the elves’ creator.
The instant Frey chose his spot, Vidar opened the meeting. “As those of you who do not know have already guessed, I gathered you here to discuss the current state of the balance.”
Ravn stiffened, gasping in a bit of floating debris. He held his breath, fighting the natural urge to cough and choke. Nothing short of bolting in terror could make him look less in control now. He had anticipated more discussion of other matters, perhaps some dull routine business, before Vidar cut directly to him.
Every head shifted to allow every eye to fall directly on Ravn. He won the battle against hacking, loosing only a composed cough. He hoped his cheeks had not become too flushed or his eyes too teary.
Vidar continued, though it seemed unnecessary. “Keeper of the Balance, Ravn, please enlighten us.”
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