Mickey Zucker Reichert - Shadows Realm

by Shadow's Realm (v1. 0)

  Astryd’s brow knotted in surprise. “Why not?”

  “Why not?” To Larson, Astryd’s confusion seemed ludicrous beyond words. “Because making disguises and finding people seem like they ought to be simple.” He raised his voice, waving his arms with the grandeur of a symphony conductor. “Calling dragons and split-second appearances are incredibly dramatic.” He dropped his hands to his side. “How come you can do the hard stuff and not the easy stuff?”

  Idly, Silme rolled Astryd’s staff with her foot. “You’re just looking at it the wrong way. Dragonrank magic comes from summoning and shaping the chaos of life energy using mental discipline. By nature, it works best when used for or against users and products of magic.” She glanced up to determine whether Larson was following her explanation.

  “So?” Larson prompted.

  “So,” Silme continued. “Large volumes of masterless chaos take dragon form routinely; that’s why we’re called Dragonrank. Think of calling dragons as summoning the same chaos we need for any spell. How difficult can it be to work that force into its inherent shape? Then, think of a transport escape as moving a user of magic with magic.”

  “O-kay.” Larson spoke carefully, still not certain where Silme was leading, but glad to find a topic other than Taziar. He spun a log from the stack with the upper surface of his boot and sat across from the women.

  “But,” Silme said. “A disguising spell would require not just moving, but actually changing a human being. Location triangles have to be focused on a person, in this case, one who is not a sorcerer. Understand?”

  Larson shrugged, not fully convinced. “And if you cast this location thing to find a sorcerer? It would be easier?”

  “Much.” Astryd smiled pleasantly. “As long as I knew the sorcerer. If I only had a name and a detailed description, it would cost nearly all my energy. Anything less would prove impossible.” She added belatedly, “Yet.”

  “Yet?” Larson echoed before he found time to consider. Magic made little sense to him. Despite the Connecticut Yankee, Larson doubted a lit match or a predicted eclipse would impress his Dragonrank friends, even if he held enough knowledge of their era to prophesy. One thing appeared certain. Magic and technology are not the same here.

  Larson did not expect an answer, but Silme gave one. “With enough life force, a Dragonmage could do virtually anything. The problem with creating new spells is that there’s no way to know how much energy it’ll cost in advance, and no one can have practiced it to divulge shortcuts. Once the spell is cast, it drains as much energy as it needs. If that’s more than the caster has, he dies.”

  Astryd cut in. “You have to realize, Dragonrank mages don’t become more powerful by gaining life force. We’re born with all the life force we’ll ever have. We have to rehearse spells to improve at them. Even though Silme and I are nearly the same age, she discovered her dragonmark much younger. She’s had a lot more time to practice and more desperate opportunity.”

  Larson nodded, having experienced much of that desperate opportunity.

  Astryd reclaimed her staff, bracing it against the woodpile. “Magical skill is different than sword skill. You get better by making the physical patterns routine and learning to anticipate enemies. Sorcery is a fully mental discipline. We learn new spells by comparing them with old spells, if possible, and explanations from more experienced mages. Proficiency means using less life energy to cast the same spell. That can only come from mental ‘shortcuts,’ that is, looking at the techniques in my own unique way.”

  Larson said nothing, bewildered by Astryd’s final disclosure.

  Silme attempted to elucidate. “Did you ever have some intellectual problem you needed to solve, but it didn’t make any sense no matter how many friends tried to explain it in how many different ways? Then, all of a sudden, you think about it from your own angle and everything becomes instantly clear. You feel stupid and wonder why it used to seem so hard.”

  Sounds like ninth grade algebra. Only I still feel stupid. Larson shrugged noncommittally. “I guess so.” He imagined a cartoon with a mad scientist and a light bulb appearing over the character’s head as he composed a wickedly interesting idea.

  “Each time one of those personal revelations arises, the spell gets easier ...” Silme clarified, “... for me. But it’s hard for me to turn around and teach what made the spell simpler. I can help steer, but eventually Astryd has to find her own shortcuts. Anyway, I can only practice so many spells to this high degree, so I have to limit my repertoire to a fraction of the available spells. Why waste time and energy risking my life to create new ones? Of course, most Dragonranks specialize in those magics most useful to them or the ones they seem to have a natural bent for. Like Astryd’s dragon summonings. The larger the repertoire, the less practice time I can give to any particular spell and the more energy it takes to cast.”

  “It’s a trade-off,” Astryd added. “It would be as if Gaelinar taught you sword and bow skills. You could spend all your time practicing footwork and strokes and become a superior swordsman and a mediocre archer. Or you could do the opposite. Then again, you could work on both equally and become reasonably competent in two areas, but you’d probably lose a sword duel against an opponent who put as much time into blade drills as you did into both. Most Dragonrank mages know the basic discipline of a large number of spells, yet they understand only a handful well enough to ...”

  A sudden premonition of danger swept through Larson. He stiffened, interrupting Astryd with a cutting motion of his hand. Rising, he slipped back into the darkened portion of the room and crept to the window.

  Abruptly, Taziar’s head and fingers appeared over the sill. Wounds marred his familiar features, discolored red-purple from bruises. Concerned about pursuit, Larson caught Taziar’s wrists, yanked him through the window, and sprawled him to safety. In the same motion, Larson drew his sword and flattened to the wall beside the opening, waiting.

  A moment passed in awkward silence. Taziar clambered painfully to his hands and knees. “Ummm, Allerum. I could have gotten in by myself without you throwing me on the floor.”

  Cued by Taziar’s composure, Larson inched to the window and peered out. The alley lay in a quiet, gray haze, interrupted only by a ragged calico perched on the shattered remains of a crate.

  Larson heard movement from his friends behind him. Astryd’s horrified question followed. “What happened?”

  Larson seized the shutters, pulled them closed, and bolted them against autumn wind and darkness. Turning, he saw that Taziar had taken a seat on the floor before Astryd, his head cradled against her thigh while she tousled blood-matted, black hair with sympathetic concern.

  Eyes closed and smiling ever so slightly, Taziar exploited Astryd’s pity.

  Milking it for all it’s worth. Accustomed to boxing, Larson assessed the damage quickly. He knew most facial bones lay shallow and sharp beneath skin easily damaged on their surfaces. Broken nose and, from the way he’s breathing, snapped a few ribs, too. “What happened?” he demanded. Urgency made his tone harsh.

  Taziar’s eyes flared open, the keen blue of his irises contrasting starkly with blotches of scarlet against the whites. Silme and Astryd glanced at Larson in surprise as if to remind him the question had already been asked and far more gently.

  Taziar responded vaguely. “I got hit a few times.”

  Larson squatted, hand braced on the firewood that served as Silme’s seat. He dismissed Taziar’s reply with an impatient wave. “Obviously. Now I need to know who and why.”

  Astryd removed Taziar’s cloak and tunic, surveying injuries more slowly and carefully than Larson had. Robbed of dignity, Taziar caught her hand before she could strip him fully naked. “Take off anything more and be prepared to enjoy the consequences.” He twisted his abraded lips into a leer.

  “Shadow!” Astryd reprimanded.

  Taziar went appropriately serious. “Honestly, Astryd. You’ve seen all there is. Anything else would be for fun.�
�� He addressed Larson. “Who is a pair of berserks working for the new leader of the underground. Having mangled their brains with mushrooms, they now exist only to pound the life from men smaller than themselves.” He added beneath his breath, “And not a lot of men are larger.” He continued, returning to his normal volume. “Why is because someone has convinced the street people I betrayed the underground.” He considered briefly. “Which is amazing given it’s almost impossible to talk the entire underground into believing anything. And my friends are in trouble. Does that answer your questions?”

  “Yes,” Larson admitted. “But now I have more. Define ‘trouble.’ Do your friends owe someone money?”

  Astryd ran her hands along Taziar’s chest, singing crisp syllables of sorcery while the others talked.

  Shortly, the bruises mottling the flesh over Taziar’s ribs faded, and he breathed more comfortably. “My friends are in the baron’s dungeons, set to be hanged the day after tomorrow.”

  Larson winced, recalling Taziar’s tales of the prison in the towers of the baron’s keep, his vivid descriptions of torture. Taziar had told him most guards hated dungeon duties, but some chose it as a means to satisfy aggression by threatening and battering its prisoners to death. “Uh, Shadow. Just how close are these friends?”

  “Close enough that I have to rescue them.” Apparently misinterpreting Larson’s alarm as reluctance, Taziar turned defensive. “They’re thieves and spies and con men. Damn it, I know that! You may not believe me, but they’re all harmless and good people nonetheless. I once saw Mandel pay hungry orphans to scout territory he knew by heart. Amalric ran a lottery. He’d collect coppers, remove his share, then award the remainder to a ‘random’ winner who, somehow, always turned out to be the family most down on its luck.” Taziar cringed beneath Astryd’s touch. “But no need for you to risk your lives. The three of you go back to Norway. I’ll meet you at Kveldemar’s tavern.”

  “Nonsense.” Silme’s single word left no room for argument.

  Still, Larson felt duty-bound to clarify. “What are you, stupid? Of course, we stick together.” Without Shadow’s aid, the Chaos-force would have killed me as well as Gaelinar, and the rest of the world with us. I owe him this and much more. “Besides, we all know the ferry doesn’t leave for Norway until spring. Did you expect us to swim the Kattegat?”

  Astryd added nothing to the exchange. A light sheen of sweat glazed features drawn with effort. The healing magics had cost her a heavy toll in life energy.

  Larson dragged his fingers along the rough surface of bark. “So who are these friends, anyway? Shylar? Adal? Asril?”

  Taziar stared. “How did you know?”

  Astryd turned her sorceries to repairing Taziar’s nose, and the Climber suffixed his query with a gasp of pain.

  Larson shrugged. “You told me stories. Occasionally you mentioned names, mostly just in passing. I thought I’d forgotten most of them. They must have registered somewhere, though, because something’s dredged those memories back up.”

  Silme went stiff as a spear shaft. Taziar tilted his head, confronting Larson from between Astryd’s fingers. By the alarmed expressions on their faces, Larson could tell they had simultaneously come to a desperate conclusion. He glanced rapidly between them. “What?”

  “Allerum.” Silme’s voice scraped like bare skin against stone. “Have you noticed anyone meddling with your thoughts.”

  “Meddling? I...” Larson trailed off, suddenly uncertain. He recalled a recent rash of mild pressure headaches, but he’d noticed no malicious entity triggering memories to goad or harm him. None of his thoughts felt alien, although he had become dimly aware of the reemergence of seemingly useless recollections in the last month. “I don’t believe so. I’m still not used to people mucking around in my brain. I’m not sure I could tell.”

  “Gods.” Taziar made a soft sound of anguish. “I really am the traitor.”

  They think someone read my mind to get those names. Guilt rose, leaving a sour taste in Larson’s mouth. Anger followed swiftly. Since arriving in Old Scandinavia, his thoughts had caused more trouble than any differences in culture. Flashbacks of Vietnam had plagued him unmercifully; his mind lapsed and backtracked at the slightest provocation. His enemies had taken advantage of his weakness, provoking memories of war crimes and dishonor until he teetered on the brink of insanity. Later, they sifted plans from his mind, forcing his companions to leave him ignorant or use him as bait to trap those enemies, a warped cycle of betrayal within betrayal. But Loki and Bramin are dead, and the world has only a handful of wizards and deities. What are the odds we just happened upon another? He voiced the thought aloud. “You’re suggesting the baron hired a Dragonrank mage to ferret out criminals? Seems extreme and expensive, not to mention farfetched.”

  “But remotely possible.” Taziar’s reply emerged muffled beneath Astryd’s hands. “More likely, the baron captured one underground leader and beat the information from him. But, in all honesty, that’s not a lot more likely. I’d die in agony before I’d intentionally inform against Shylar. And I don’t think any of my friends would reveal every other peer; at most, the guards could jar loose a name or two.”

  Silme spoke with calm practicality. “I think you’ll find the informant at the source of the lie. Who’s calling you traitor?”

  Weakly, Astryd sank to the log pile. Taziar placed a supportive arm around her waist and whispered something soothing which Larson could not hear. In response, Astryd nodded. Having ascertained that Astryd was all right, Taziar addressed Silme from a face vastly improved by Astryd’s efforts, but by no means fully healed. “I don’t know. I’ve been told several of the guards named me. I doubt anyone but the baron could get them to agree so consistently.”

  “Unless the same person interrogated the guards.” Silme grasped the situation from the other side. “Then it wouldn’t matter what the guards actually said.”

  Taziar drew Astryd closer. “That would be the new leader. Harriman. Of course, others in the underground would probably corroborate the story.” He hesitated, addressing his own thought before it became an issue. “They’d corroborate by questioning other guards, guards paid by the underground ... specifically, paid by Harriman. And Harriman seemed awfully quick to tell the street gangs I’m a traitor and to put a bounty on me. Odd thing though, he seemed intent on keeping people from talking to me, but he didn’t kill me.” He massaged a faded welt on his cheek. “And if he had wanted to, he sure could have.”

  “Methinks Harriman doth insist too much,” Larson contributed, and even Astryd stared. “Shakespeare, sort of,” he qualified sheepishly. My god, now I’m misquoting a man who’s not even born yet. “I just mean if Harriman’s making so much effort against you, it’s probably to divert suspicion. You’re right, he’s the stool pigeon.” When no one challenged his conclusion or his use of English slang, Larson continued. “Do you think Harriman would interfere with rescuing your friends?”

  “No doubt.”

  “Then our course is clear.” Silme reached across the log and took Larson’s hand. “One way or another, we have to get rid of Harriman and break Shadow’s friends out of prison.”

  “Oh. Is that all?” Larson tossed his free hand in a gesture of mock assurance. “You make it sound easy. Do you have an ‘organized crime boss influencing’ spell?”

  “Obviously not.” Silme ignored the apparent sarcasm. “The mind barriers keep us from altering moods and loyalties as well as thoughts. However, if it was you I was trying to manipulate ...”

  Larson interrupted, not wishing to be reminded of his handicap. “You wouldn’t have to.” Briefly, he leaned his head against her shoulder. “I’m putty in your hands.”

  Misunderstanding the comment, Taziar gibed. “You’re not pretty in anyone’s hands.”

  “You’re not particularly pretty right now either,” Larson shot back. He rose, attempting to reestablish a semblance of order. “We have a goal, and we have an enemy. Unfortunately,
Shadow’s the only one who’s seen the inside of the prison or knows anything about Harriman.” He whirled toward Taziar. “What can you tell us about this Harriman?”

  Taziar released Astryd and knotted his hands on his knee. “Not much. I never saw or heard of him before today, but I didn’t take much interest in politics either. The street orphans said Harriman used to be a diplomat of some sort from one of the smaller, southern towns. Apparently, some disaster killed everyone in his village, and he blames it on the baron. Harriman came just before the violence started in Cullinsberg.” Taziar opened laced fingers. “Not surprising. I’ll bet he caused it. He took command of the underground when the leaders got arrested. He had no previous dealings with criminals. He just seemed to appear from nowhere.”

  Larson settled back on his haunches. “Just seemed to appear, you say? Like magic? Does he happen to look Norse?”

  Taziar leaned against the woodpile and drew his knees to his chest. “Maybe.” He considered further. “Not really. He could be a half-breed. Why do you ask?”

  Larson shrugged. “Before, you all seemed concerned we might be dealing with a Dragonrank mage. Did Harriman do anything you might consider magic?”

  “Not unless you consider dragging a crazed berserk off his victim in mid-punch magic. It’s impressive, at least.”

  “A good thought though,” Silme encouraged Larson. “If Harriman’s a sorcerer and of any significant rank, likely either Astryd or I know him. Can you describe him?”

  Taziar launched into a detailed description, filled with stiff, golden curls and swarthy features while Silme and Astryd prompted with questions. A half-hour discussion brought no glimmer of recognition. The fire dropped to ash, and Larson restocked the hearth from the stray logs that were not being used as chairs.