Ibn led her through the castle, down to where a blacksmith’s forge rippled with heat, with a pair of great, barred doors behind. The armorer lifted his blackened features from the fire and regarded them as they approached.
Ibn bowed slightly to him. “Special permission for Dyrfinna of Skala to sharpen her sword and get some weapons and armor of her choosing for the upcoming fight. King’s request,” he said.
The hulking armorer nodded, set down his hammer and tongs, and let them in.
He held out a hand for Dyrfinna’s sword, looked it over, nodded, and began sharpening it without a word.
Somebody else came over and took measurements of Dyrfinna and quickly fitted her with a leather shirt and pants that were covered with small iron studs that would deflect weapons or the bites of the undead. Somebody else was busily placing one leather helmet after another on her head, seeing which ones fit best.
“I heard some reports that we have skeletons out there, walking as well,” Ibn said. “At least a skeleton should be easier to deal with.”
Dyrfinna was dubious. “How would you fight a skeleton?”
"Don't fight skeletons with a sword," said Ibn. "Use a flail. Or a spear." He started ticking weapons off on his fingers. "Really, a long-handled axe would be effective. Or a halberd, or a spear, a good fighting spear. Spears are wonderful. You can fight your opponents with a spear as if it's a staff, and then you can stab them right through. Nobody likes that," he added.
"Well, thank you for the weapons lecture," she said, picking up a spear. “The whole work of fighting the dead is not sitting well with me at all. Yes, this helmet fits just fine,” she added, reaching her hands up to feel it. This leather cap was soft and padded on the inside. On its outside, a light layer of iron covered her skull and forehead as well as the back of her neck.
Ibn picked up a flail and spun it. She watched with amazement. This was one of the larger flails, which required a lot of upper body strength, and he was whipping it around as if it were a toy. “How is fighting the dead different than fighting the living?” he asked.
Dyrfinna had to think about Ibn’s question for a moment. “The living in battle want to be there. They fight for glory just as I do. But the dead shouldn’t be walking at all. They’re in pain and hungry and never satisfied with what they devour.” She twirled the spear and swept it at imaginary enemies, seeing how well it handled. It was a light spear, balanced very well in her hands, and the weight of its head was just heavy enough to fall and cut with satisfying speed.
Ibn picked up a spear and twirled it in front and behind. Then he did a fancy set of dance moves as he twirled the spear from one hand to the next.
"Where are you from, that you learned how to do this crazy dance of death?" she cried.
"Córdoba," he said. "My home. A very modern city in Iberia in the Moorish Empire. Everybody can do this. Even little children in the cradle."
"Really?"
"No! We have sense enough not to give dangerous objects to children." He twirled his spear slowly across his arms, remembering. "Beautiful Córdoba. We have palaces, delicious food, and," he added, "we have books there. Libraries full of books." He gazed dreamily into the middle distance. "So many books. It's wonderful to read all day."
"Books are the devil's work," said Dyrfinna.
The spear spun, and Ibn slammed the butt of the spear into the ground, making Dyrfinna startle. "Never! What foolishness is this? I was beginning to like you, too."
"That's just what somebody told me," she said hastily.
Ibn sighed. "I will take you to the a library. You’ll see very quickly that books are the blessing of the Almighty. And our mosque is a jewel in the mountains. You must see it. A roof of scarlet and gold, columns of cool marble, and filled with perfumed lamps. Brass and silver gleams in their light.”
The armorer walked to her, her sword gleaming in his hands.
“Look at that,” Dyrfinna said, lifting it. Now the silver of its blade gleamed beautifully, and the runes down its side – NONE SHALL GET THROUGH ME – he’d rubbed something into where the runes had been cut that made them gleam in the light like golden fire.
She touched her thumb gently to the sword’s edge and hissed. Yes, this was very sharp. “This is beautiful. Thank you.”
They walked back to join the rest of the commanders, who were just finishing up their lunch. “Come on in,” King Varinn said. “We’re just getting ready to start our council of war.”
Dyrfinna set her armor and her new spear next to the door. She instantly saw that Gefjun had returned. Both of them met eyes, and then looked away, pretending they hadn’t seen each other.
“And it is warm in Córdoba,” Ibn went on. “Very warm. Not like this place."
Glad to have her attention diverted from Gefjun, Dyrfinna bantered, "It's not that cold here."
Ibn gave her a look. "I am dying of chill. Right now." He went back to his memories. "Philosophers walk in the streets. Poets sing in the halls. Magicians work everywhere. If you could see my city, you would be ..."
But suddenly, Ibn and the council room were gone.
She'd squeezed through the hole in the ground to drop into a dark room below the surface. Here, the ceiling and walls were held in place by tree roots, and the floor was hard-packed soil. She could only make a little out, but as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, she could see by what little light came through the hole in the soil over her head.
"Lead me down," she said in a guttural voice.
A small light, like a candle, flickered into being far ahead of her. She couldn't figure out how far away it was. A moment later, she realized it was some distance away, and what she thought was solid soil in front of her was actually a tunnel that led downward through the earth. That optical confusion cleared up, she walked toward it, moving slowly. Though she’d been summoned here, she stayed aware, as she always did, of traps.
She knew this was the Gorm, though, and she tingled with excitement to be walking into this deep underground lair. She'd met him before, aboveground, often enough. But this secret world was a place she'd never been.
The air smelled like dirt, but then rocks gathered in the walls of the tunnel more and more, until the air smelled like stone, and it grew colder as she continued deeper underground. But she still kept moving on. Soon the faint light proved to be a taper jammed into the wall over her head, and there was a second taper gleaming far ahead of it.
It was next to this second taper that the dirt tunnel reached its end by a stone gate, which swung open as she approached. She entered.
She stepped into splendor.
The hall was lit as if by sunlight, though she couldn't see the source of the light. The hall, the stones beneath her feet, were smooth as ice, and every corner and angle of the red, polished stone beneath her feet was exact. She stepped forward under the high, sunlit arches. It was cold down here, but the stone ceiling was lit and glittered with mica like stars in the black stone above.
And on a seat at the end of the hall sat a being she knew well, in the form of a very handsome man.
It was the Gorm.
But to her surprise, as soon as he saw her, he got to his feet, staring daggers at her. "How dare you bring her here? How dare you?"
"How dare I bring who? Who?" She looked behind her, calling power to her hands so they lit with red fire. But there was nobody there.
She turned back, and the Gorm was running at her, pointing. "You witch! I see you in there, thinking you can just sit there and watch." He angrily cut the air with his hand at her.
Then Dyrfinna jerked and opened her eyes.
Now she was lying on the ground, half-paralyzed. She could not move, could not speak.
Ibn knelt at her side, lifting the hair out of her face to meet her eyes. “Are you all right?”
King Varinn stood behind him, looking alarmed, as did most of the council.
Confused, Dyrfinna lifted her hand and put it in Ibn’s.
"What
did you see?" asked Ibn. "You were gone again, Dyrfinna. What did you see?"
She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.
"Can you speak?" Ibn asked.
She tried again – but this time, something squeezed her neck, choking her. Something heavy crushed her chest, suffocating her.
Dyrfinna’s eyes went wide. She couldn't wheeze in any air. Her hands came up but there was nothing there to fight.
Alarm flashed over Ibn’s face. He put his hands on her neck, laid them gently. He sang quickly, trying to lift whatever was attacking her, as she fought to breathe, pain shooting through her chest.
"Keep her quiet!" Gefjun said. "Don't let her struggle! She's going to reopen her wound!"
Ibn looked in her eyes, still singing, and the quiet strength in his eyes, the gentleness and concern as he sang, made Dyrfinna realize that he was doing all he could to help her. She stopped thrashing, forced herself to be strong, forced herself to relax and let him sing. Her heart was hammering in fear, though, and she couldn't make that stop, as much as she wanted to. The sense of suffocation was excruciating. Lights flashed before her eyes as she began to lose consciousness.
She suddenly stood again in the great underground hall.
The Gorm stood before her, the cords showing in its neck, the veins bulging in its forehead as he stooped over her. But she was saying to him, with her finger planted against his chest, "Dyrfinna is mine. You hear me? Mine. It will be my hand that hews her down, not yours. I will repay her for destroying my ships, for killing my men, and nearly beating me in combat. She is mine. I will kill her, not you."
And then Dyrfinna could sit up. A great gust of air wheezed into her lungs. The suffocation, the heavy weight on her chest, was gone.
She gasped in air. Ibn’s hand clasped hers. She squeezed it, her heart hammering.
"Just tell me where, Nauma," Dyrfinna said, breathing great gulps of the delicious air, coughing as she breathed too fast. She was aware of Ibn's hands steadying her.
"What? Is she here?"
"I don't know," Dyrfinna said. Because there was no reply. “I don’t know.”
The only sound in the room was Dyrfinna's labored breathing. But no indication of what was to come.
"I need to recuse myself from this council," Dyrfinna said when she'd finally caught her breath. "For obvious reasons."
23
Twinned
Ibn stayed with her while everybody else went into the king's war room to plan out their parts in the attack. It broke Dyrfinna's heart when the door shut behind them. She smashed her fist in her hand. A council of war was her favorite place in the world to be, but here she was, stuck outside because their mortal enemy, she had to assume, could see through her eyes the way she could see through hers.
"I don't know if that's true," Dyrfinna explained to Ibn. "But each time, I'm just watching what Nauma does and experiencing her thoughts. I don't realize that I'm not myself until I return to this place, until after I leave, or I'm forced out."
"But you say the Gorm knew what you were."
"Yes. It saw me, or it looked at Nauma, and yelled that I was there."
Ibn thought a moment. "There's a way that you can see it," he said. "But first, I need to untangle how you are, all of a sudden, able to see into her mind without even knowing it."
"It was after that fight with her," Dyrfinna said. “That’s when those visions started.”
"After she threw that sword into you and killed you," he said. “Did you walk into death to get that ability?”
Dyrfinna suddenly gripped his arm. "It wasn't death that gave me that ability," she said, suddenly realizing. “Nauma had just pulled that sword out of her own chest just before she flung it through mine. It had her blood on it! And it got into me!"
Ibn's eyebrows went up. "That would certainly do the trick.” He made a disgusted face.
Dyrfinna shuddered to think of Nauma's blood in her body. "But that would explain why I have that link with her."
"Now we need to find a way to go to her when we please," Ibn said.
"How about right now?" she asked.
Ibn slowly nodded, looking into her eyes. His eyes were so dark, she realized, the darkest shade of brown she'd ever seen, very handsome.
"You're a brave one," he said.
"Or foolhardy," she replied.
"Yes, that too. What do we need to do first? What usually happens just before you show up in Nauma's thoughts?"
"Usually we're talking about her," she said. "Like we are right now. As a matter of fact, I've been expecting to show up in her mind at any moment but nothing's happened. As you can see."
"The Gorm might have blocked you off from her," he said, thinking. "If the Gorm can see you, then there must be a way to see that there's a second soul looking through her eyes.”
He gazed into her eyes, and she gazed back, smiling.
"Staring contest," she murmured.
His eyes flickered as they looked into hers. "Usually there's a trace of the other, like a mirror image of two people instead of one in the eyes."
Dyrfinna narrowed her eyes, but only slightly. "But wouldn't that mean that you were the one who was twinned instead of me? But then I couldn't see it, only you." She saw only one of herself in his eyes. "There's only one of me right now," she said.
He blinked. His eyelashes were very long. "But then how would I know that you weren't lying to me? Maybe you do see two of yourself in your eyes. In my eyes, I mean."
Out of nowhere, her hand came up and placed itself on the side of his face, along the jaw.
They both froze, taken aback.
Something burst inside of Dyrfinna's heart.
Confused, she lowered her eyes, lowered her hand.
She realized that Ibn wasn't moving either. He was examining his hands. His fingernails were short, as if he bit them a lot.
Then he cleared his throat. "Maybe there's another way to see a second soul looking out through your person," he said.
Everything was back to normal, much to her disappointment.
"Let me see if I can merely sing you back there," he said.
"Yes, do," she said, a little too eagerly.
Ye dogs and little fishes, what was wrong with her?
"That would be fine," Dyrfinna said a little more formally. "I'll think about Nauma, the way I had been before. Because all I want to do is fight her and end this nightmare.”
Dyrfinna looked at Ibn again. He brought his hands apart to create an enchantment.
"I would like to try this one," he said. "It's one I learned from my grampa. We had people who used to spy on us. It's a long story."
"People who spied on you?" Dyrfinna said, shocked.
"When you move through this world, oftentimes you discover that people are no good. Not a bit. So grampa would check to be sure we weren't being used by some of their familiars. This is what he'd sing." In a low voice, he sang a short phrase in one of the Arabic languages. A rich, dark-blue light appeared between Ibn’s hands in a perfect sphere.
"Here," he said quietly, and then he lifted it and placed it over her head as if it were a hat, and he sang something.
The light slid down over her body, and as it did, it split a strange ghost form from her. It pushed a white figure off her body that seemed to be made of sand, or snow.
"Ah, you see it too,” he said.
He stepped forward and, with one hand, he caught the figure by the throat and pulled it away from Dyrfinna.
It made a scream and fought against Ibn's hand. He sang something short and commanding that bound it together in a body of white. It tried to burst out like a swarm of gnats, then tried a second time, but each time Ibn's spell pulled the white grains back together in the form of a person.
Dyrfinna drew her sword.
"Speak to it!" he commanded. "You won’t kill her this way. Speak to it. I cannot hold it for long."
Dyrfinna turned to face the form. "I will fight you," she said, brandishin
g her shining sword in its face. "An honest fight, right here where I’m standing.”
"I’m not going to fight you," the form said. “I love how frustrated you are. You can’t find me and yet I keep turning all those people into undead monsters. And you can’t do a thing about it.”
“But you keep running from me. I’ll never leave you in peace. And I’ll keep sending all your undead back underground. ”
The Nauma-figure tossed its head. "I’ve already crowned myself queen of some country. I’ll take Varinn’s crown.”
Dyrfinna sneered. "This is stupid talk. I don’t want a crown. I just want to lead an army, and take you out of this world so you can't kill any more innocents. I'll go wherever you are right now," said Dyrfinna. "My dragon and I will find you. Then I'll jump down and kill you myself with my sword."
"Not so fast, pretty girl," Nauma laughed. “You have to catch me first. Don't you know I can move underground? That's why you can't catch me."
The human shape broke free from Ibn's hand and shattered itself. The white sand swirled everywhere, dispersing in a cloud, in a mist. Gone.
As soon as the mist had vanished, Dyrfinna grabbed the hilt of her sword. "Freyja's tears! Why can't she just fight and be done with this?”
"It gives her more time to terrorize kingdoms and take more crowns. And now she is centering her forces on Varinn's kingdom," Ibn said. "She doesn't want to fight you. Why would she? She knows she could lose every advantage she’s gained."
"What does she want more than anything?" Dyrfinna said.
"She wants to kill you."
"Yes. And she also wants to bear Varinn's heir."
Ibn wrinkled his lips. "What is wrong with her?"
"A number of things. But she also wants to crush anybody who made her life miserable in the past. Beyond that, I don't know."
"I believe it's plenty," Ibn said.
Dyrfinna sighed. She looked out over the wide plains as she rolled her shoulders and her neck. "We can do one thing right now that will upset her."
A Crown of Flames Page 16
