by Carol Berg
He cocked his head. “So tell me—who was it came to my camp eight nights ago and stole away my counselor and her fostered child?”
“Ah! Is that my offense?” I took my sword belt from Kasparian and leaned toward him in mock severity. “Summon the woman immediately, Kasparian. We need her sharp eyes to bear witness to my good heart.” The Madonai bowed and disappeared inside the fortress doors as I buckled on the wide belt of soft leather and strapped the scabbard to my thigh. “Ask her who I am,” I said to Aleksander. “She can vouchsafe that I have maltreated neither her nor the boy, and then you can explain why you would kill me for claiming my own child. I recall you mentioning a number of times that I should leave you to your own fate and spend more time with him. Was there some promise involved with that?”
Though I quipped and cut at him, I searched my mind for reasons. Yes, on my visit to retrieve the boy, I had reminded the Prince of promises and faithfulness, but as a warning against this very kind of perfidy. Aleksander had called me his friend and brother, and now he was here to kill me. Humans knew nothing of faith.
“This vow is of longer standing,” he said.
Kasparian soon reappeared on the fortress steps with the woman. The boy was not with them, a wise choice on Kasparian’s part. I would commend him for it later.
At the woman’s arrival, the Prince sloughed off all pretense of ease. He moved toward the steps, his eyes fixed on the woman’s grave face. “How fare you, Mistress? And the boy?”
“Master Valdis and his father are all courtesy,” she said, dipping her head to me. “Evan and I are well-provided for.”
No further words were exchanged, but she shook her head slightly and, for one fleeting moment, the Prince’s ruddy complexion lost color. “So be it,” he said softly, and shifted his gaze to me. “If you plan to use your sorcery to prevent me, Master ... Valdis ... then do so now, for I do swear that I will take your life this day.” Watching him and listening, one might almost believe he could do it.
“Your time and place are well chosen,” I said. “At present, unless I carry Kasparian here in my scabbard, sorcery profits me little in this realm. But I do not fear to face you on mundane terms, Madonai to human. As you’ve brought no war steed, I will even forego my wings.” Whatever the mystery of this determined blood lust—how did he think to benefit by slaying the one who had brought him to the brink of a new kingdom?—I relished the prospect of a fight. Too much concern with children and women threatened to sap my developing strength. “So where shall we test ourselves, my lord Prince? We can duel here in my garden and my fortress, but my knowledge of the terrain would give me unfair advantage. Kasparian can create us any venue we choose in his sparring arena—desert, forest, wilderness, familiar to us both or strange—much like the portal landscapes I’ve described for you. And you needn’t fear that he will build me an advantage. I am the only being he despises more than human princes.”
“I don’t care where we fight. Only that I fulfill my bond.”
I considered the problem. “Perhaps we should start where all this began ...”
I drew Kasparian aside and described what I wanted, allowing him full access to my memory of the place. He departed, and I motioned to the Prince and the woman. “Come along then. By my child’s head, you have nothing to fear until I draw my sword. And you, too, Mistress. I would have you witness that I fought him fair.” As I led them into the heart of the fortress, they followed at a distance, talking quietly. I did not eavesdrop. Their concerns were none of mine.
To begin a duel cold is an awkward thing. In my Warden’s days I had entered combat in a state of studied calm, but always imbued with the fire of righteousness and duty. Of late my arm had swung with vengeance and anger and other feelings that my mind could name, but no longer comprehend, remote sensations, like an unpleasant taste lingering in my mouth. Blood should be shed for reason, not passion. And yet, when I jumped lightly onto the square wooden platform in the barren courtyard of Kasparian’s devising, reason was not enough to draw my hand to my blade.
Kasparian had done well, even conjuring the bitter wind that had broached the gray walls of Capharna’s slave market courtyard on the day I had stood naked and chained on display for my new master. The ground was pitted and puddled with frozen slush, and the iron loops set into the walls for attaching slave chains still spoke of degradation.
I could see neither Mistress Elinor nor Kasparian. Somewhere in the fortress they would be watching ... as would my father, too, I guessed. All his feelings about humans had coalesced in his hatred for this prince. He would not wish to miss my triumph.
The Prince’s demeanor was admirable. He wasted no time and lost no focus at walking from a buried passage in Tyrrad Nor into the replica of a long-ago winter’s day in his empire’s summer capital. His face was as stark and barren as the walls, and his gaze was only for me. He drew his sword and dagger and attacked.
Reluctantly I drew my weapon. “You must explain this vow you service,” I said, countering his first blow and shoving him away after a brief closure. “My father has freed me of human weakness, which means that even this despicable venue gives me no lust for personal vengeance.”
Another brief, violent exchange. Every sinew of Aleksander’s body was prepared. Every part and portion of his being was intent on his movements and mine, but he was not yet fully committed. His strokes were quick and light and precise. He was feeling me out. Was he not yet sure of his purpose?
In the center of the wooden platform was a post and crossbars to which the living merchandise at auction was bound for inspection. I danced backward, using the structure to separate myself from the Prince. “A matter of honor is it not, to tell a man why you plan to kill him? But then, what do human princes know of honor?”
Aleksander moved slowly to his left, leaving the post out of the way again. “I promised Seyonne that if ever he became the dread being of his visions—the monster he believed would destroy our world—I would slay him. I hoped the changes we saw in you were but for show, some tactic in a war we could not see. I prayed that you knew what you were doing, and that at any moment you would tell me a bad joke and show me how you had saved us all yet again. But then you took your son ... brought him to this place you feared ... into this danger ... and I knew ...” He circled slowly to his left, and his fingers shifted slightly on his sword grip. “The curse of Athos be upon this fortress and whatever power dwells here who has done this to my friend ...” And with a savage cry he fell on me with a blow that could sever a thousand-year oak.
Madonai though I was, the bones of my right arm came near shattering at the meeting of our blades, and I dropped backward off the auction block to give myself a moment to recover. But I had scarce swiveled into position and yanked my dagger from its sheath to join my sword, when he leaped across the wooden platform and unleashed his steel on me again. One blow and then another and another, not a heart’s pulse between them. Around the wooden block, up and over, from wall to wall we fought-or rather he attacked and I defended—until I was backed against the rusty iron gate. To my salvation, the gate swung open, and our battle moved into the cobbled slave market, surrounded by cheerless walls, low roofs, and guard towers that mimicked those of the Derzhi mountain city in all save living inhabitants. The afternoon was gray, the heavy clouds pregnant with winter. A dirty blanket of melting snow lay over the deserted stocks and pillories, and long icicles hung like frozen daggers on the ragged awnings and stone facades.
The Prince drew me into a high counter, then spun about and aimed to take vicious advantage of my vulnerability, but I retreated once again, saving myself from a blow that could have sliced through my rib cage. I stumbled backward through a blacksmith’s shed, tripping over a pile of leg irons and chain. Reluctance and curiosity fell victim to necessity as I countered Aleksander’s ferocious assault again and again.
Through the slave market gates and into the city streets we circled and scrambled, and only when we reached a wide
bridge over a half-frozen river did I have an instant to consider strategy. The Prince’s thickly padded vest was restricting his movements, a flaw that I had already exploited. A scratch on his neck was bleeding, and another on his forearm. And so he yielded the advantage of his relentless fury by pausing at the bridge gate to remove the vest. He should never have done it. When he came after me again, I was ready.
Aleksander was strong, and his skill, speed, and endurance were legendary among his warrior people. Our fighting skills were well matched; either one of us could prevail. But my Madonai body would not tire, nor would minor woundings deter me. Aleksander was young and fit, but he was human. And so I would let him continue to attack for as long as he could stand up, but I would lead him and tease him and bleed him, and when he was half dead from it, I would kill him.
I turned and ran across the bridge, taunting him, shouting to be heard over the ice-clogged torrent of the river. “Come, human, take me if you can!”
He gave chase, splashing through the ankle-deep slush of ice and filth in the narrow streets of the poor quarter. Every few hundred steps, I would halt and allow him to engage me, not too close, but yielding him five hits for every scratch I put on him. Then I would duck and dodge his next blow and run away, up and down the refuse-strewn alleyways. By the time I stopped again, my nicks and scrapes had faded, while the Prince looked as though he’d run through steel brambles. I laughed and let him come at me again.
At one stop, as we circled like two dogs eyeing the same piece of meat, he started talking. “Elinor says you answer to the name of your god Valdis. Is it so?”
I spun to meet his lunging step, left a dainty blood streak on his cheek, then stepped back. “I am everything that remains of Valdis and his memories, and I possess the power that has been waiting for him since his birth. If humans view Madonai power as the sign of a god, then that is their own limited vision.”
Circling. “And this prisoner you’ve feared ... this sorcerer ... you call him father ... the Nameless God...” He feinted left, then swept another powerful blow to my right.
My counter drove him backward. His back slammed into a tenement wall, loosing a small avalanche of ash-grayed snow upon his head. “My father was once the greatest of the Madonai,” I said. “He has made me Madonai, too, gifted me with his power—”
“—and his hatred of humans. You told me of that.” He brushed his face with his sleeve and spit the snow from his mouth, never lowering his guard.
“I do not hate humans. Neither do I care for them. I have been freed of such weaknesses so I can make reasoned judgments.” I lunged forward and pressed him with a series of intricate moves that left him bleeding in ten places.
But he did not lose focus. He beat off my attack until we both stepped back. “Yet your care, your compassion ... was always more effective than your sword. Don’t you see that? Fiona could tell you. Blaise, too.” He waved his sword to the scene around us. “Here in this very place you once stopped me from razing the poor quarter of Capharna. You were always watching me, and on that day I began to see things through your slave’s eyes. I hated you for forcing me to see.”
I glanced at the ramshackle warehouses and mean dwellings on every side of us. Indeed I recognized the place. A Derzhi heged had wanted to burn out the quarter and all its poor inhabitants to build a palace. Aleksander had refused them. On that same day in this street, the Prince had commanded a servant to give me a cloak and shoes against the freezing wind.
For one brief moment, I thought I had missed a move, and his dagger had caught me behind the eye. But I had no wounding. Why did my head keep hurting so these past few days? Was some spell carried by the woman and the Prince? Nonsense. They have no power. I tried to concentrate. “Do you think to distract me with sentiment, Prince? Remember, I have none.”
Dismissing the piercing discomfort, I lunged, staved off his dagger with my right foot, and ripped my knifepoint across his chest. His quickly muted oath punctuated our conversation, and blood stained the ragged tear in his shirt. I smiled and danced away. He resumed his attack. I dodged a ferocious strike and took off running. We had been fighting for two hours, but I felt as fresh as if I had just stepped onto the field.
Through the streets and back across the great bridge I led him, up the causeway toward the palace where I had been his slave, and then back toward the city marketplace. Our clashing steel and grunting efforts were the only sounds in the ghost city save the river and the wind gusting weakly from the heavy clouds. I began to question his tactics. He would feint a blow at my legs, his favorite target when dueling, but strike at my neck and shoulders— a reasonable ploy, but becoming predictable. He was tiring, perhaps not thinking clearly. I led him and teased another bloody hole in his sleeve. He looked like a juggler in his tattered garments, striped with red. Blood flowed freely from the shallow chest wound, a deep cut in one leg, and another gash in his left forearm.
A flurry of blows and another chase through the gloomy afternoon. The Prince drove me backward into Capharna’s vast central marketplace, through abandoned stalls and into a potter’s booth, knocking over tables stacked with bowls and cups and painted jars that shattered on the ice-slicked paving. I backed away into the center of the square, beckoning him as a drover calls his mule, only to be brought up short by some obstacle, a pedestal of stone. I tried to slip left around the shoulder-high block of marble, but a wood-vendor’s wagon was in the way, piled high with sticks and logs and staves. Before I could go the other way around, Aleksander attacked again.
“Why do you bring me to this place of all of them?” he said, panting with his efforts. Yes, he was tiring at last. But still foolishly confident. He closed the gap between us, sweeping my sword aside, closing in and aiming his dagger at my heart. For one moment we grappled, a knot of straining muscle and damp skin and edged steel. Even tired and bleeding, he was as strong as a Makhara bear. “Oh, gods, where are you, Seyonne? I don’t want this.”
He was too close; his left hand was pressing my right arm up over my head, exposing my side. Feeling suddenly vulnerable, I gathered my strength and shoved him away. I was Madonai. No human could best me. As he stumbled backward, crashing into the wood wagon, I kicked his sword out of his hand. It skittered under the wagon. I dodged about the pedestal and backed away yet again, taunting him to charge me, daring him to turn his back on me and crawl under the wagon to pick up his sword. He held back for one moment, bent over, his fists on his knees, and breathing harshly. My shirt and hands were sticky with his blood. Soon I would take him. Soon.
I gave him a moment to recover. No need to run too far ahead now. No need to rush. While he caught his breath, I glanced up to the bronze statue that topped the pedestal—a dying Derzhi warrior, slumped beside the corpse of a mythical creature called a gyrbeast. In the counterpart of this very statue, back in true Capharna, had my people hidden an enchantment that had led the two of us to their place of exile. At the feet of this dying warrior, Aleksander and I had begun a journey ...
My eyes fell to his blood on my hands. Like the glowing iron that had seared the slave mark on my face, so came the white-hot pain behind my eyes once more. The wounds of my flesh were already closing, but this one ... oh, gods of night ... this one ...
... a journey through a frozen forest ... a steaming pool and a white-haired man with a staff... a lion shape streaking through the woodland, bloodied... torchlights flaming in the night... four slave rings broken, lying in the grass... a fortress of strength in the midst of desolation... the life-giving waters from a fountain ofjoy and light ...
Like the gasping Prince, I could not breathe, could not speak. What weakness had been left beneath my skin? For that moment I felt powerless, and I staggered backward, trying to focus my vision through the glaring ferocity of pain. Powerless when I needed strength ... Powerless. As if one ray of dying sunlight pierced the lowering clouds, as if the knife blade behind my eyes ripped open a pall of darkness to reveal one spark of life, so came a
shattering truth. Tell me who you are, the Prince had said, and for that single moment, I knew the answer.
“I am my father”—the cry burst from me as the Prince snatched a thick branch from the wood wagon, heaved a ragged, sobbing breath, and charged—“and his father before him.” My sword was high, ready to slash through the human warrior that rushed toward me, bearing death in his hand. But my weapon did not fall ... not for the moment’s breath that made it too late, when the wooden club smashed into the scar on my right side, and I could no longer move.
Nerveless cold radiated from the fiery explosion in my side until half of my body was numb. My arm fell limp; my sword clattered to the paving. My right leg folded underneath me, and, even had I the strength to do it, there was nothing to catch hold of. When my left elbow struck the ground, my knife went flying, and then my executioner was kneeling at my side. Through the haze of shock and pain and flying snow, I could see his dagger poised above me and the white blur of his face, anguished, as if he were preparing to cut off his own flesh ...
“No!” The mountain’s root beneath us shook with Nyel’s wrath. If I could have sharpened my blurring eyesight, I would not have been surprised to see the earth crack and molten rock spew forth in that moment. But as it was, I saw only the nauseating result as the stones and structures of Capharna sagged, shifted, and reshaped themselves into the stone floor and columned vault of Kasparian’s torchlit arena. Three forms took uncertain shape a few tens of paces away—Nyel, Kasparian, and the woman. Only Aleksander was held motionless, a solid center to the blurring universe, as unmoving as the bronze statue, though his eyes were living, and tears rolled down his blood-smeared cheeks. I lay crumpled in the dirt below his abruptly halted knife, fighting for breath, not sure my heart was still beating.
