“And when I am gone—and it shall not be long, not at this rate—will this curse affect my son, my Heir, as well?
“Is this a curse laid on me, or on the Scion?
“Darien del Darien and I do what we can for you, and yours,” he said. “And, even if you cannot help me, even if it’s too late, I swear that I shall bind him and his to your aid, forever, if you will protect my son from this.”
His voice was full more with fear than with pain as he pulled the cloth away from his cheek. It came away with clotted bits of blood and pus; the Scion quickly folded the cloth and put it away.
Hosea was at the Scion’s side. Here the old man slept naked, and there would have been something comical about his bony flanks—at another time. “Be still; I’ll not hurt you more, nor harm you at all.” He felt at the cheek, his fingers moving down the neck.
“You wash it frequently with clean water? Good; that should slow the progress down. I’m sure your chirurgeon is applying a poultice, but if you have him add one part goldenseal for every four of comfrey and five of calendula, it should be more effective. Boiled oats—they must be boiled past edibility, mind—allowed to cool should soothe it some, and if you add some eyebright, nettles, goldenrod, goldenseal, licorice root, red clover, burdock, and hypericum to your broth, it’ll increase your appetite, which would be all to the good.”
“What is it?” Ian asked.
“It’s called by many names.” Hosea’s eyes closed, wearily. “The Wasting Disease. Elf-shot.” His eyes met Ian’s. “Or Odin’s Curse.”
A dome of stars hung over a milky plain of clouds, and when Ian looked down below, where music and laughter still rang out from the grand hall, it felt like they were on an island in an otherwise empty sea, and the music and laughter seemed more hollow and frightened than jolly.
Or maybe it was Ian who was more hollow and frightened than jolly.
Next to him, Hosea—no, here he was Orfindel—leaned his elbows on the balustrade. “So,” he said. “It seems we have a problem.”
“What do you mean ‘we’, white man?”
“Eh?”
“Never mind.” Ian shook his head. “Old joke, and not a very good one.”
“But yes, we have a problem.” Hosea touched a knuckle to his mouth. “Are you going to do as the Scion asks?”
That was a strange way to put it. “Won’t it work? Is there some other way?”‘
“One question at a time, Ian, one question at a time. Which one do you want answered first?”
“Okay, first: will it work?”
“Is using one of the Brisingamen jewels to disrupt a curse possible? That’s perhaps like asking if one might be able to damage a stick of soft butter with a chain saw. Together, the seven Brisingamen jewels hold—conceal? …” Hosea shrugged. “Together they contain enough hidden matter to start the universe all over again. The Scion has some natural resistance to the curse; simply keeping one of the jewels near him would magnify that.”
“Is there some other way?”
“I see none.” Hosea shook his head. “Oh, perhaps, if it were anyone else. There are some of the Old Vistarü still around, here and there, and perhaps one or two of them, together, might be able to do something. And, of course, Odin himself could lift the curse, no matter who cast it—”
“If we knew where he was.” It would take more than that, of course. Bending the will of an Aesir was not the easiest of tasks, and were Harbard’s ring capable of it, Odin would never have let it out of his hands. He wouldn’t have given Ian a weapon that could be used against him, after all.
“No. He wouldn’t help me out, would he?”
“That would seem unlikely.” Hosea’s lips made a thin line. “I doubt that Freya will actually be willing to let one of the stones go, but that does seem to be the thing to try, if you feel you have to, or ought to, try something.”
Surely he was wrong about that. She wouldn’t have either of them if it wasn’t for Ian. And—
“Yes, Ian, she is quite fond of you,” Hosea said, smiling. “Very fond. But she’s been fond of mortals before, and she’s only capable of getting involved so much about people, and no further. It would be difficult for her to invest much emotion in you, for your life comes and goes so quickly that you can’t even watch a mountain crumble.
“You look at her like you look at Karin Thorsen, and you see a young woman—older, certainly, than you, but still a young woman.
“But she’s not a young woman, Ian. She’s not a human; she’s an Old One, and an Aesir. She thinks differently than you do—and differently than I do, for that matter, since I’m neither a woman nor an Aesir. You couldn’t have trusted the two Brisingamen gems into safer hands, but that’s merely,” he said, his smile reassurance, not reproof, “because there are no safe hands.”
Well, there was that. Tossing the diamond into the hands of the Vandestish would have been even worse than putting the ruby in the hands of the rulers of the Dominion. And trying to keep either would have been suicidal.
Who better than Freya to hold on to the gems until the time came for the end of time?
“She wants to keep them for herself?”‘ If Hosea were to say it was so, Ian would try to believe it, but…
“No. As I keep telling you, she’s old; you seem to be unable to understand the implications of that. Remaking the entire universe in your own image is an urge that affects the young and the crazy, not the old and tired. Perhaps that idea would have appealed to her in her youth, and to the rest of the Aesir and the Vanir, to the Tuatha and Vistarü and Tuarin and all the rest.
“But they’re gone. Like Bóinn, some have become tired and become hill spirits, or forest spirits like Morrigan—stay out of her woods, Ian!—and Damona. If they had enough vitality to sustain themselves, Ian, they would be what they were, and not what they are.
“Or so I think.”
There was another way to look at it. Forget all the complexities, ignore the schemes within schemes and whatever subtle games the Old Ones played, and leave it as a simple matter. Two men—the Scion and his klaffvarer—had promised their help in return for his, swearing that they were not the source of the Thorsens’ problems, and while that could be a lie, it felt true, and while he had willed them to believe that their only hope to persuade him was to tell the truth, that wasn’t why he would have to go to Freya and ask for the loan of a Brisingamen gem.
“I’m going to give it a try,” Ian said.
“Yes, you are.” Hosea nodded. “I thought as much,” he said. He stood silently for a long while, his eyes closed, as though in prayer, his body swaying almost imperceptibly from side to side. “If this was planned,” he said, “whoever planned it—be it the Scion, or Harbard, or somebody else—couldn’t have planned it one whit better to play to your weakness.” His eyes opened. “I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”
Weakness? Ian bristled.
“Yes, Ian, a weakness. Because, in the final essence, the plea that the Scion made was not for himself but for his son, for the Heir. It wasn’t really that you save his life, but that you protect his son’s future. Think on it, Ian Silver Stone—aren’t you jealous of the Heir for that paternal affection? Don’t you hate him, just a little?”
You have to be able to speak ugly truths to your friends. If you keep them inside, they’ll eat your guts out, just as surely as Odin’s Curse was eating away at the Scion’s face.
“No, not a little,” Ian said. “Much more than that.” It was small and mean and petty to resent yet another son who had a caring father, but Ian couldn’t control what he felt. Yes, he could look on a father’s love with a cold envy that felt more like hatred than anything else…
But you weren’t responsible for what you felt. You were responsible for what you did.
If Ian had been chosen as somebody’s stooge, he had been chosen well and played perfectly.
So be it.
Chapter Twenty
Valin
Branden d
el Branden himself checked the belly straps on Ian’s saddle, and only smiled thinly when Ian checked them again.
“No offense meant,” Ian said, pulling hard on the tight weave. He waited until the horse let out a breath, then pulled it again.
“It would be rather, well, awkward for me to take offense at the moment, Ian Silver Stone, even if you were to unbutton your fly and void yourself on my boots, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, there is that,” Ian said. “But let’s not test that, eh?”
“As you will,” Branden del Branden said with a grin.
Ian slung Giantkiller’s scabbard over the left saddle pommel, then stuck a foot in the stirrup and lifted himself up and on to the saddle. Horses. Ian didn’t hate horses, but he wasn’t overly fond of them, either.
Branden del Branden tied the end of the pack horse’s lead to the right-hand pommel of Ian’s horse, then exchanged a brief handshake with Ian.
High above, on the ramparts surrounding the killing ground, the blue-clad soldiers seemed less eager to start shooting arrows and throwing spears than they had the day before. Which was fine.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to send at least a demi-troop with you?”
Ian shook his head. “I think the idea of a troop of soldiers riding toward Harbard’s Crossing would send the wrong message. Don’t you?”
“We could dispatch riders to the appropriate margraves, bearing sworn oaths that we mean no harm, and merely see to the welfare of the intended of the Margravine of the Eastern Hinterlands, but…” Branden del Branden frowned and raised his hands in surrender at Ian’s head-shake. “But you don’t care for that.”
“I think it’s too risky.” In more ways than one. There were ample reasons Ian would prefer not to have a bunch of Dominion soldiers as his putative bodyguard. If he was successful, he’d have to watch his back for the entire return trip. Some soldier, too clever by half, might figure to betray the Scion, or take it into his head to protect the realm by removing the jewel from the untrustworthy hands of this possible Promised Warrior.
“As you wish,” Branden del Branden said. He was enough of a politician to know when further argument held no promise.
“Again,” Ian said, “Hosea remains here of his own will, to help that Vistarü woman with her herb preparations. When he is ready to leave, he is to be—”
“Yes, yes, yes, he is to be escorted where, and as, he wishes. You have the Scion’s word on that, Ian Silver Stone, and his klaffvarer’s. You hardly need mine. But you have it, as well.”
Ian nodded, and kicked his ankles against the black mare’s meaty sides. Obediently, she clopped into a slow walk, the small pack pony following along behind, starting even before the braided rope fully took up the slack.
Why was it that the twisting path out through the tunnels was longer than the one coming in?
Ian shook his head. Maybe it was just his imagination, or maybe a horse really walked downhill slower than uphill, or maybe there was some sleight involved, but it felt like an eternity until the mouth of the tunnel opened ahead …
… above a sea of fog, where a long, narrow road in front of him vanished off in the mist.
Well, there had been only one road up, and there was only one road down. Ian made a tsktsktsk sound with his teeth, and the horse picked up the pace.
The fog still surrounded him, but the distance he could see down the trail had lengthened to perhaps twenty yards when he heard the expected coarse whisper from the fog.
“Ian Silver Stone.”
He reined the horse to a stop, and waited, and in a few moments, a dark shape walked out of the fog.
Ian had seen Valin look worse, but mainly he had seen the dwarf look better. His thick, meaty cheeks seemed sunken, and his thin muslin tunic was damp. Vestri could live off the land better than humans, by and large, but living off fog was another matter.
“Greetings, Valin. You look miserable.” Ian dropped easily to the ground and retrieved a blanket and a leather bag of meatrolls from the pack horse. With a little reshuffling of gear from the gray pony to Ian’s mare, the pack animal could carry Valin, as well.
The men of the Cities knew much that Ian didn’t, but they had their blind spots, as well. Once Valin had escaped the Old Keep, he was, at least in their minds, gone—even the Scion had only worried about the possibility of him sneaking back in, after all.
But if he was unknown to those in the Old Keep—and apparently he was—then it only followed that he was unlikely to be familiar with the environs around the keep. So what would he do? Stagger about in the fog blind, hoping that even though he was walking the trails of the Old Keep without the permission and blessing of its occupants, it would part properly to guide him?
Or would he simply wait for the next party leaving, and follow it?
Ian wrapped the blanket about the dwarf’s shoulders and started to untie the gear. “Eat some of those meatrolls, Valin, and get warm. I think we’ve a few things to talk about,“ Ian said.
Or more than just a few.
“Yes, Ian Silver Stone,” Valin said. “Whatever you wish.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Reckoning
Thorian del Thorian looked over the yellow crime scene tape at the dirty, bloody, snowy ground.
Your message has been received, he thought. Whoever you are and whatever your intentions.
The body had long since been hauled away by men in white coats and loaded into an ambulance—something that surprised Thorian del Thorian; wasn’t an ambulance supposed to carry injured people to a place of treatment?—and an amazing number of men and women had spent all night and much of the day going over the ground first under the portable lights that they themselves had brought, and then under the lights of the unpronounceable television stations.
Maggie’s landlord had already repaired the back door, and Thorian had already paid him for the costs and the labor.
Thorian del Thorian shook his head. There was an element of even minimal pride lacking in these city people. His son had kicked down that door attempting to rescue one of their own, and instead of honoring him for that, they had chained, imprisoned, and now fined him.
Well, at least they hadn’t chained and imprisoned him for long, and certainly the size of the fine was not a problem for Thorian del Thorian.
Karin would have argued over the price, but she was a woman, and matters of finance were properly her concern. Thorian del Thorian had simply reached into his inner jacket pocket and then removed by touch three of the ten-bill packets of twenties, as she had taught him to do. He was pleased that he had remembered to peel off five of the bills and put them back; that didn’t come naturally to him.
The landlord had accepted the money with a grumble and a smile. He had actually smiled as he had taken the money! Had these city people no pride?
No. That was not fair. They had pride. It was just a different, inferior kind of pride to that which Thorian del Thorian had learned at the feet of his father.
As Thorian stood looking over the tape, one of the city’s blue-suited proctors, visibly shivering in the cold, emerged from his still-running automobile, slammed the door hard behind him, and walked quickly over to Thorian.
“Is there something I can help you with, sir?” He was half Thorian’s age, and the hair of the brown moustache under his lip was too thin. But he used the honorific “sir” and offered Thorian aid in that strangely impertinent way that neither showed respect nor offered assistance.
In the Cities, someone with that sort of arrogance had best be good with a blade and fond of pain—and quick of learning that arrogance had best be kept from display. For there was usually a better swordsman, and in any case there were always more swordsmen.
But Thorian del Thorian had not lived in the Cities for, now, more than half his life, and perhaps it was time that he accommodated himself to this cheap and common sort of rudeness. He didn’t, after all, have to leave the environs of Hardwood often.
Or hadn’t had to, until recent times. Amazing how one could get used to such a strange little place.
“Sir?” The proctor’s voice was far too loud, and his manner gradually more aggressive.
“Assistance? No.” Thorian del Thorian smiled as he shook his head. “I thank you for the offer, but no. I am …fine.”
He would have liked to look more closely at the bloody ground. But if he had decided to do it, crossing the tape was something that he would have had to wait another time for; still, he was sure that he knew what he would find, and since the Son had not attacked in wolf form, even if there were Son prints on the snow—and there were—the authorities would not understand their meaning.
“Then you’re just looking?” the policeman asked.
“It’s a sad thing,” Thorian said. “A young woman killed so horribly, for no purpose.”
“Yeah.” The young man visibly relaxed as he nodded. “Yeah. It is sad, all right. We’re, well, we’re trying to keep this area clear, if that’s okay.”
Thorsen looked at the tape and thought about asking why, if they needed a larger charmed circle, they hadn’t encircled a larger area, but the young policeman wouldn’t know. The only thing he knew was that the big man with the scar looking at the area he was supposed to be guarding made him nervous for reasons he couldn’t quite figure out, and that he would be more comfortable when Thorian del Thorian moved on.
So Thorian del Thorian would move on.
“I’m sorry to have bothered you,” Thorian said, forcing himself not to make a stiff but slight bow-of-minor-reproof before he walked away. The customs in this land didn’t allow for such things, and he wouldn’t want to stand out as different in the young policeman’s mind. He walked evenly away at a marching pace—it was not a day for rushing, after all.
The Greek restaurant was on the corner diagonally across the street, and while the outer compartment was cold and unappetizing, when the inner door swung open, the scents of garlic and roasting meat washed over him in a pleasant wave.
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