Haven Magic

by B. V. Larson

  “Brand! Corbin, my son!” shouted Tylag, coming forward with his arms spread. “How glad I am to see your young faces!”

  “How goes the battle, father?” asked Corbin anxiously.

  Tylag’s face faltered. “Not well,” he said, his voice hushed. “We are reduced to small pockets like this.” He indicated the score of men who stood with him in the shadowy halls. “Our forces are scattered about the keep. I’ve dispatched messengers to try to gather them together, but as yet, none have returned.”

  “What of Telyn and Tomkin?” asked Brand.

  “They are both here,” said Tylag, nodding toward another chamber.

  Brand noticed that Tylag and the other men of the Haven shunned that chamber. All of them stood far from the entrance. But his heart leapt at the news that Telyn still lived. Without waiting to hear more he strode into the chamber and found her crouched over the tiny figure of Tomkin. Tomkin lay beneath a pile of what looked like sackcloth. She looked up and briefly smiled.

  “I’m glad that you live, Brand,” she said.

  “I too, am uplifted,” he said. They came together and quickly embraced. Brand smelled her hair, and his chest seemed to expand with well-being.

  “How is Tomkin?” asked Brand in a whisper. “Has he gone feral yet?”

  “No, but I fear that is not far off. He has been calling for you.”

  “How soon thy Folk forget the quality of good hearing,” chuckled a voice from beneath the sackcloth. There was a sudden flurry of movement under the material, and it was thrown back. “Ah! There, I can breathe! I’m not a sick child, woman!” shouted Tomkin irritably.

  Brand’s mouth hung open to see him. The whole of the dark chamber throbbed with the light from Lavatis, which hung as an impossibly huge weight around his tiny neck. After a moment, Brand recognized the pulse of the light. It matched the beating of the Wee One’s heart. His face was pale, drawn and sickly-looking in the blue light. He struggled up to a sitting position, but then sagged back down with a sigh and closed his eyes.

  “Another gang of rhinogs!” he screeched. “The coursers cut at me!”

  Brand and Telyn knelt beside the dying manling.

  “He’s torn between two worlds,” said Telyn.

  “He’s strong, but it’s only a matter of time until he becomes one with the Rainbow and goes feral,” said Brand.

  “Do not talk as if Tomkin were already dead!” shouted Tomkin, his eyes fluttering open. His great mouth split wide in a familiar grin. “Saved thy arse, I did, river-boy!”

  “Indeed, Tomkin. You did that,” said Brand.

  Shouts erupted from the larger chamber outside. Brand jumped up, expecting a flood of rhinogs and coursers. Perhaps Herla himself was making his final move to claim a second and third Jewel.

  Instead, a bounding figure came into the room and pounced upon the prone form of Tomkin. Brand lifted the axe, suspecting it was another of Herla’s turncoat runners. But after a moment, he recognized the intruder. It was Piskin, the one who had made deals with him on the part of the Wee Folk just a few nights ago.

  “Fool!” screamed Piskin, shaking Tomkin’s fallen body. “You’ve ruined the chance of a millennium! Never shall our people again be so close to grasping true power!”

  “Have a care, changeling,” said Tomkin’s weak, but dangerous voice.

  Brand and Telyn looked at one another. Brand realized then where he had heard Piskin’s voice before. It was that of the false infant they had chased from Lanet Drake’s apartments. He took a breath and took a single step toward the two Wee Folk.

  Telyn laid a hand upon him. “Perhaps we shouldn’t interfere. This is their business.”

  “I’ll have the Jewel instead!” shouted Piskin, “Dando was in my debt, he did me a great harm, and I’ll take the Jewel as my repayment.”

  Brand thought to see him lay hands upon Lavatis. Tiny hands grappled and teeth flashed white. Brand was reminded of two tomcats as a flurry of a struggle ensued, the action too fast to follow. Before Brand could reach out to restrain Piskin, the manling leapt up and ran away, shrieking. His eyes bulged, his face was white. He held his right arm curled against his chest. Dark blood stained his fine waistcoat. Brand saw that his hand had been bitten off, leaving only a stump at the wrist.

  Brand knelt again beside Tomkin, and the dying manling flashed him a smile full of blood-circled teeth.

  “Told him I would have his foul hand!” chuckled Tomkin. He made no move to spit out the severed hand. Brand reflected that the Wee Folk were a strange lot.

  The pulsing Jewel on the manling’s chest beat faster now, and it seemed less regular.

  “Should we take the Jewel from him?” asked Telyn in alarm.

  “Try it!” said Tomkin. “My hunger has yet to be sated!”

  “Would it kill him to remove it? What would the Rainbow do?” asked Telyn. Even as she spoke, Brand knelt beside the manling. He reached out his hand tentatively, wondering if he would fare better than had Piskin, should he try to snatch it.

  Tomkin made a choking cry. “The ants cut at me!” he cried. Brand’s eyes widened as he watched rips appear on the thin flesh of the manling’s shins and ankles. Blood welled up from the cuts. Tomkin writhed in agony. The blue pulses filled the chamber with rapid, flashing light.

  “Brand! The monster is coming!” cried Tylag from the hall. Even as he spoke, Brand felt the stone beneath his knees shiver. The ancient timbers creaked and groaned. A great crash sounded out in the main chamber and men screamed. Daylight and clouds of choking dust flooded into the room.

  “We must get out, Brand!” cried Telyn, tugging at him.

  “Tomkin!” shouted Brand, and for a second the manling’s eyes fluttered open. “You have earned my friendship. Have I earned yours?”

  Tomkin’s grin resembled a snarl. He nodded weakly.

  “Then Tomkin, allow me to take the Jewel from you. Let me take up this burden, that you might live to see another day.”

  Tomkin didn’t reply. His eyes were closed and his breathing was ragged.

  Brand reached down and gingerly took the Jewel Lavatis from his neck, expecting at any moment to see those sharp ice-white teeth snap shut upon his fingers like a poacher’s trap. But although Tomkin’s body shuddered when the Jewel was lifted from his breast, he allowed it.

  Brand staggered to his feet. The wall before him gave way, and he felt the terror of facing the Rainbow once again. A great shimmering hand forced its way into the chamber and began to grope for the Jewel. The Rainbow loosed an odd, insane howl that shook the flagstones.

  Brand looked down and saw Telyn take up Tomkin’s limp form and hold it to her chest as one would a child. She fled the chamber with Tomkin’s body flopping loosely against her.

  The Rainbow, now freed of any master and full of madness, reached for him and the Jewel. Brand cried out and hacked at the brilliant fingers. Chopping into the hand felt odd, almost as if he were cutting at a bag of soft cotton. A shimmering finger fell to the floor of the chamber and flailed there. The great hand was snatched back. The flagstones ran with liquid colors and outside, the creature loosed another howl. Its huge face came near the opening and a single, mad eye of blue flame regarded Brand.

  He wasted no more time. He ran into the hallway after Telyn. Behind them there was a terrific sound as the Rainbow ripped away the wall of the keep. Those of the men who had not already fled in terror joined them, including Tylag and Corbin. As they ran they could hear the thunder and the smashing blows of the Rainbow as it followed them unerringly.

  “It’s no good, Brand!” shouted Telyn. “The Rainbow can sense the Jewel! It is drawn to it the way things are drawn to my beacons!”

  Brand stopped and eyed her, knowing the truth of her words. He put away his axe and lifted the chain from which Lavatis hung and looked into the depths of the stone. It seemed to him that something there regarded him in return. He felt a shiver chase through his body. He kissed Telyn’s head, and then pushed her away.<
br />
  “Run,” he told her. He glanced at Tomkin’s still form, which Telyn still carried, and wondered if he yet lived. Telyn looked at him in surprise, and she searched his face for a brief moment.

  “You mean to wield the Jewel,” she said, her eyes filling with an expression of horror. She opened her mouth to beseech him. He shook his head, kissed her mouth and lifted up the chain and the brilliant Blue Jewel again, gazing into it.

  “Good luck, cousin,” said Corbin. He pulled at Telyn’s shoulder and together they fled with the rest of the troops down a stairway that still remained whole.

  Left alone in the shaking keep, Brand stood to face the Rainbow. It shook the walls and stove in the ceiling. Insane eyes burned down upon him.

  Brand slid the chain amulet that contained the Jewel Lavatis over his head, and he took it for his own.

  He fell to the dust-laden flagstones and began to rave.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Bloodhound

  Brand awoke groggily with great pain in his legs and side. He was surprised to find that he was outside, lying across something large and hard. Disoriented, he looked around. In the west, the sun was dying, already half-hidden by the crooked dead trees. He was vaguely surprised to realize that the battle had lasted a night and a day. Then he rose up on one elbow, and saw that the thing pressing against his belly was the wall of the keep. Then he saw his belly, and he screamed.

  His scream came out as an odd, warbling howl. His belly was a vast shimmering spanse of brilliant hues. He was the Rainbow.

  Tiny things pained his feet and side. He turned ponderously to see that rhinogs were hacking and cutting chunks of the vaporous stuff of his body from him. He swatted at them and they died. He stood up, then staggered, unsteady on his injured feet. He fell to his knees again…

  …and was back in the keep. His mouth was encrusted with centuries-old dust. He choked on it, and tried to rise. He sensed something near him, something bad…

  …he was the Rainbow again, but now he had lost his balance and was falling. It seemed that he had been falling for a long time, as if it took quite some time to reach the distant ground with its tiny, fuzz-like grass and pebble-like boulders. He wondered if it would hurt when he hit, and it did…

  …in the keep again. This time he tried to rise quickly. The thing that approached him, the bad thing, was very near now. He felt for Ambros, and it slapped itself into his hand eagerly. A shock ran through him as the two Jewels sensed one another, and declared war upon one another. The battlefield was his mind, and as the two siblings charged one another, it seemed like great wet clumps of brain were torn up and tossed about in his skull. He groaned…

  …and found himself floundering outside the keep again. The ants were back at it, chopping at him, hacking the stuff of his body loose in cotton-like chunks. Determined to stop switching bodies, he fought to hang onto being the Rainbow. He rose ponderously up into a sitting position and crushed a band of rhinogs in the process. He recalled the bad thing in the hall, stalking his prone form. He turned to look into the keep, and saw himself, lying prone on the flagstones. An antlered figure rode a tall dead horse forward. It carried a boarspear with a broad gleaming head. A small dog rode with it on its unbreathing steed.

  Not knowing what else to do, Brand reached down with his shimmering hand and placed his palm gently over his prone body. He took care not to crush himself accidentally. Some dark part of his mind wondered what would happen to his soul if he did die while in the body of the Rainbow. Would he become one with the wind and rain forever? Or would it be much worse than that?

  Herla thrust the boarspear into the gauzy flesh of the great hand, and Brand worried for a moment that he might drive it all the way through the hand and slay him. He swept the hand toward the horseman, who backed away and then leapt into the air itself.

  He saw more coursers and rhinogs approaching the spot, from all over the keep. Clearly, they had taken the fortress by storm, despite all that the Haven troops had done. Not knowing what else to do, he decided to pick up his own body and bear it to safety. Perhaps then, as the Rainbow, he could yet turn the tide of the battle.

  He gently picked himself up and lifted his body high into the air. It was an odd experience, and his greatest fear was of losing control while transporting himself. He didn’t relish awakening as himself in the midst of a hundred-foot fall. Not knowing where to head, he turned toward the Faerie mound. The sun was almost gone and the twilight after dusk was falling over the land. Soon, he would be able to walk the path around the mound. Perhaps he could find Myrrdin.

  It was exhilarating to be the Rainbow. He was a giant, a vast shimmering creature that could march where he would and do as he willed. None could oppose him. He felt now and understood the intoxication that had gripped both Tomkin and Dando. How could they, as the smallest of Folk, resist the allure of being an all-powerful giant?

  And still, the ants bit his ankles. He looked down and behind him, and knew fear again. Wee Folk bounded like fleas about his feet. Coursers raced after him by the dozens. Herla himself trailed him, boarspear leveled. He saw Herla lift Osang and wind it. More coursers appeared from hidden spots all around and converged upon him. The Wild Hunt was in full pursuit, and he was the prey.

  He ran for the mound now, and the coursers trailed him. Osang sounded again and the Wee Folk bounded about at his feet like hopping fleas. He soon outdistanced them, but he knew that he couldn’t outrun them forever. They would trail him to the very foot of Snowdon and beyond, to the distant shores of the sea itself. When he reached the mound he placed his human body gently upon the grass and let the body of the Rainbow lean back, back—back further still…

  …he awakened as a great crash resounded behind him. The Rainbow had toppled. Wee Folk and coursers raced up to it and hacked at it. He climbed to his feet and began to circle the mound, widdershins.

  Before he was around twice, the coursers had noticed him and came up to where he walked the path around the mound. They hacked at him, but to no effect. They were like ghosts to him. Their blades flickered and flashed, but could only make him shy away. As he continued to circle the mound the coursers faded until he could no longer make them out at all. Only the twilight land of the Faerie seemed real. He was relieved to find that the Rainbow no longer pulled at his mind. Somehow, by circling the mound, he had left it behind in that other place, and had freed himself of it.

  But there was someone trailing him. He never doubted who it was. He glimpsed the other now and then, each time he circled the mound. As he rounded the mound the fourth time, he glanced back to see the antlers of his enemy as the other walked his horse on the path behind him. Herla was gaining on him. Brand turned back to the crushed grass of the Faerie path and tried to walk faster. It was difficult, like wading in sucking mud.

  Clopping hoofbeats echoed strangely in his ears. He sensed his enemy coming closer. It was all he could do to resist the urge to look back. He lowered his head and pressed forward, putting one foot before the other, plodding steadily. It seemed that the more he tried to hurry, the more resistance he felt. It was as if unseen veils pressed against him, as if he fought the current of an invisible river.

  He made another circuit, the fifth? Or was it the sixth? He could no longer recall. He sweated and strained with the effort. Slow hoofbeats sounded in his skull like the clanging of church bells. Unable to resist the urge any further, he looked back over his shoulder. His heart jumped in his chest. Herla was only a dozen paces behind him. He saw the Jewel Osang embedded in the great horn. Its deep, violet hue glowed in the Faerie half-light. The red staring eyes of the bloodhound matched it.

  He halted and twisted his body to half-face his enemy. He dared not take his feet from the path. His sides heaved and sweat ran from his neck and burned his eyes.

  The other halted his horse, and they regarded one another. A long moment passed, during which neither spoke.

  “I require the Jewel, Lavatis,” said Herla. His voice
was odd. It made Brand think of gravel rasping down a mountain face.

  “It is not mine to give.”

  “Do you serve the elfkin, then?”

  “I am the Axeman of the River Haven,” said Brand. “I serve the River Folk.”

  “Then Axeman, as your King, I command it,” said the other.

  “You are not my King.”

  “I am the last Human King. None other lives.”

  “You are not my King,” repeated Brand stubbornly. He felt a pang as he said it, however. Did this thing really believe itself to still be the King of humanity? Was it possibly correct? He felt lost for a moment. He realized that he faced a being that had once been human, and who had once ruled among the Dead Kingdoms…when they had still thrived. He wondered what lost histories could be learned from its eldritch mind.

  “I see that you do not understand,” rasped the strange voice. “You and I are not truly enemies. We have the same goals. I am still human, despite my great age.”

  Brand felt an odd twinge of disbelief come over him that threatened to cloud his mind. Could he truly be having this conversation with King Herla himself?

  “I ask a final time, Axeman of the House of Rabing. Yield to me, and join me to rule and empower all humanity. All the wrongs done to our people shall then be avenged.”

  Brand took a moment to marshal his thoughts. It was difficult. “We aren’t the same. There is a great gulf between us.”

  “What gulf? We stand in limbo, half-way between worlds, but only a few paces apart.”

  “I speak of the gulf that stretches between the living and the dead. Whatever you were in life, I can’t accept the rule of the dead.”

  “You sadden me, Axeman. Nothing has saddened me for centuries. Know that you cannot oppose me here.”

  “If you close with me, I will chop the legs from your horse. You will fall to dust as you should have nine centuries ago.”

  The other laughed. It was an odd, lonely sound with no joy in it. “If my end would come so easily, Axeman, why has it not happened for fifty generations? With my long weapon, all I need to do is knock you from the path, and you will be lost forever in the twilight lands of the Faerie.”