Ra-khir lost his breath. He jerked his head to the elder. No!
As if oblivious to the agony his pronouncement caused, the elder continued. “In fact, that it turns to desperate hatred.”
“No,” Ra-khir finally managed aloud. “That will never happen. It can’t ever happen.” He clung to that certainty, fighting the pain that hovered beyond self-delusion. If the elder Ra-khir spoke truth, he might just as well end his life now.
The elder continued, ignoring Ra-khir’s response. “Kevral marries another, who claims Saviar as his own. And Kevral tells the boy nothing but evil about you.”
Ra-khir froze, momentarily overwhelmed before his brows crunched downward in cynical disbelief. “You’re baiting me. That’s not what’s going to happen to me. It’s what happened to my father.”
Skuld frowned judgmentally.
The elder raised his hands in a forestalling gesture, though whether to silence Ra-khir or Skuld, the younger man could not tell.
Ra-khir had never understood his father’s absence from his childhood, had never agreed with Kedrin’s methods then. “I would attempt to reason with Kevral.”
“Kevral would prove unreasonable, her hatred gaining strength daily. She would refuse to speak with you except to hurt.”
Ra-khir grew uneasy. His hands winched closed. “Then, sir, I would fight for my fair share of time with my son.”
“Kevral would deny it.”
“I would fight, not with violence, but with legality.”
“And if Kevral used your fight as an excuse to speak bad things about you to Saviar?”
“I would deny them.” Ra-khir’s nails gouged his palm. “I would tell him the truth.”
“That his mother is a liar?”
“If need be. If it were truth.”
The elder shifted toward Ra-khir, the green eyes sober. “Kevral would never give you the opportunity. And if you did speak evil of her, truth or not, what effect do you believe it would have on Saviar?”
Ra-khir forced himself to think back to a time he would rather forget, when his mother and stepfather held sway over all he perceived as reality. He had always wished his father had fought harder for the right to raise him, had harbored bitterness over the choices his mother made him suffer, including the one, at sixteen, that had driven him forever from her and to his father. At one time, he had believed his father’s decision not to fight a tragedy that had cost him too much time. He still did not wholly understand his father’s strategy, to resist interference until Ra-khir grew old enough to separate truth from deception by himself, to never speak ill of his mother, no matter the extent of her evil. Yet, now, he finally believed he someday would.
“Success,” Skuld chortled. And the magic began.
* * *
Withered fingers danced across lute strings, wringing out a deep and violent sorrow that defined raw grief. The words that trickled from the old man’s throat bore a sweetness that blended perfect harmonies, matured but never gruffened by age. Darris’ features had roughened. The hazel eyes settled deeply into their sockets, enhancing the large nose; and the broad lips had shriveled. Yet, for the first time since childish innocence and ignorance had allowed him to fall beneath the spell of his mother’s voice, he found himself utterly spellbound by another musician. Tears sprang to his eyes, unbound by the primal beauty of his elder self’s talent.
* * *
A few strands of gold tied elder Andvari’s left war braid to his right, and the chime of steel barely reached ears that had lost their high range of hearing. Blue eyes still keen, he followed every movement of his younger self’s ax, but he found his reactions frustratingly slowed. He fought a desperate battle for the sake of the very one who opposed him. Young Andvari could only believe he needed to fight to win at a time when losing would serve him better. If the old self failed to prove that he had bettered himself in some fashion, he would return to Midgard with fifty years behind him and only faded memories of the trip. Yet the Fate’s laws gagged him. He could not warn young Andvari to lose. He could only find a way to use experience to outdo his young and vital self.
Wisdom had allowed the elder to anticipate the problem. Devoid of landscape, the plain gave him nothing. So, he had prepared the ground with a memorized series of holes dug by his own hand. The younger man’s ax blazed repeatedly for critical areas, true to his training. The older man concentrated on the minimum of necessary evasion, conserving strength and energy. He kept his attacks to the necessary, bearing in only to keep Andvari off his guard and to steer him in the appropriate directions. A high strike pulled the younger man’s gaze upward, and a feigned opening in defense sent him lunging forward. Young Andvari’s foot slammed down on a hole. He stumbled, flailing a wild defense as he caught his balance. As he lost his footing, it proved easier for the elder to drive him to the second hole, then the third. Andvari tumbled to the ground, and the elder pinned him at the throat with the point of his blade. Andvari went still.
And Skuld, once again, worked the magic of success.
* * *
The testing ground unnerved Tae Kahn, and he found himself crouched nervously in front of the giantess and a coarse-featured elder with a snarl of salt-and-pepper hair. Like the others, he knew the identity of the other man, yet he found himself unable to study the end result of fifty years of living on himself. Inelastic skin proved more forgiving of the scars, which tended to fall into creases. Unlike his own, the eyes did not dart but remained as steadily focused as Tae’s had when he confronted Prince Leondis. Until this moment, it had not occurred to him that he now tended to look directly upon those with whom he conversed. Though he still slept on the barest edge of awakening, a habit he doubted his gang training and need to escape enemies would ever allow to die, he had learned the importance of keeping his eyes still to garnering a trust that once did not matter to him.
Several moments passed in silence, during which Skuld turned increasingly measuring looks on the elder. The blue eyes seemed to burn, fiery pinpoints goading the older Tae to action.
“What do you want from us?” Tae finally demanded.
The head swiveled, owllike, to him. Unlike with the others, Skuld gave him a clue. “I want nothing from you. He is the one who must act.”
Tae recalled the comment of the eldest giantess who mythology identified as Urdr. She had called this “Odin’s testing ground.” From only those two details, Tae surmised his fate. He lowered his head. “Fitting that my future has no betterment. My lifestyle would not allow me to reach his age anyway.”
Finally, the aged Tae cleared his throat. “It is not that I haven’t bettered myself.” The words emerged in a confident tenor that startled Tae. It was the voice of a king. “Simply, I’m looking for the best way to prove it. Not only to you, but to myself.” He gave the young Tae a smile that contained not the wisdom of the experienced elder but the conspiratorial unity of a friend. “Sometimes, there is betterment in sameness.” The words seemed nonsense, but he continued, “The ability to appreciate, even embrace, youth long after it has faded. To love and respect, rather than only chide our children. To remember why we did the foolish things we did and why others deserve the chance to make the same mistakes.”
Tae listened appreciatively, reading the mischief in dark eyes he was accustomed to seeing only in a mirror. Even time could not wholly dull the fire, though he would have believed otherwise in the days before they embarked on this leg of their journey. Fifty years later, he had still not forgotten the doubts, the excitements, the humor that had defined him at his current age.
The elder said, “I’ll become a leader of men, without losing my humility. My judgments will remain always tempered by just enough self-doubt to keep me from becoming a King Cymion, from believing myself above the very laws I dedicate myself to uphold. Along the way, I’ll search my soul for what’s right: for myself, for my son, for those I love.” He met Tae’s gaze. “I’ll come to fully understand my father and, from experience, avoid the
same mistakes.”
Tae felt a sudden, intense desire to return home and frolic with Subikahn. The compliments desperately embarrassed him.
“But, if none of that proves my betterment, here are two that might.” The elder said something more, fluently, in a language Tae did not understand, though he recognized it as Renshai.
Tae grinned. The last holdout among the civilized human languages would not defy him forever.
“The other, Tae,” the old man continued to gaze at his younger self, “is understanding. Do you remember when you asked Ra-khir if he would steal food if he would otherwise starve?”
Tae could not forget. “He said ‘no.’”
“Someday, Tae, you will understand that answer.”
Tae doubted that possibility. He had learned much of morality that he once would have found inconceivable. His association with Kevral, Ra-khir, Darris, and Matrinka had already changed him more than he would have believed possible. And, slowly, he was beginning to find ethics he could admire in the father who had organized criminals.
Apparently convinced, Skuld gave Tae, too, a pass.
* * *
Nameless, the fifty-year-old man stood alone in front of the youngest of the Fates. Golden hair, devoid of gray, lay hacked short in a battle cut across his brow. The delicate oval of his face gave no indication of his age, and keen blue eyes held a faint trace of gray. A long, slender sword hung at his waist, its make a subtle blur that matched his clothing. Other than his features, predetermined by blood, nothing about him felt concrete. His potential remained untapped and unlimited, his future a vast fog.
Skuld’s voice boomed like thunder. “The law is clear on this. To return as your younger self, you must prove that you bettered yourself to him.”
The man smiled. “How could I not have bettered myself? I have no younger self.”
“Precisely.” Skuld interpreted the situation differently. “Without a younger self to whom to prove yourself, you cannot earn your way back to his age.”
The man felt his heart rate quicken and calmed it using the mental techniques his mother had taught. On the path, she alone could guide him, yet he understood his real future, if he had one, might not include the woman who bore him. “At the risk of displaying too much pride, I believe my life will have significance—whether as a fully trained Renshai or the heir to a major kingdom.”
Skuld folded bulging arms across her chest. “I’m not debating the significance of your life, but Odin made his laws on this matter clear. Most humans do not believe the worth of an intelligent being can be measured, but this test does exactly that.” Her pale eyes contained no mercy. “A month prior to your birth, I can only compare you to a baby. It’s difficult to better an innocent who has no concept of chaos or the evils it represents.”
The man returned the giantess’ stare, feigning easy confidence beneath stark terror. He did not wish to return to Midgard with his life already mostly lived. Kevral’s lessons would stay with him in instinctive ways, but the details of his life, the emotions, the love would remain an eternal blur. “Some would call infants ultimate chaos.”
Skuld cracked a smile that she swiftly hid. “It matters not. You cannot prove you bettered yourself.” She looked him up and down. “At least age does not seem to have touched you too hard.”
“It has not because my life is eternal, and the soul I lost to the spirit spiders immaterial. Nonetheless, I deserve a childhood.”
“I decide what you deserve.”
The man pursed his lips, seeking the words to convince. He had little time. Already, the others likely waited, and his mother would worry for the fetus absent from her womb. Mother! “Have you judged Kevral and Ra-khir already?”
“Yes.”
“They bettered themselves?”
“Yes.”
The man grasped for his only remaining hope. “Whether they have me a moment or a lifetime, our fates remain entwined.”
Skuld frowned. “How so? I don’t believe in blood as magic. Children are happily fostered daily, their fates eternally separated from those who gave birth to them.”
“Indeed.” The man persisted. At least he had her listening. “I may never know she whose blood I share or the knight who the law and I consider my father, whether or not we share blood. But Ra-khir and Kevral will never forget me. Consideration of my needs, and those of so many others, will have a profound effect on them.” He delivered the coup de grace. “It will prove a strong factor in what they become fifty years from now and whether or not they better themselves.”
Skuld’s eyes narrowed, and a glow more fire than light flickered in them. “You’re saying if I already passed them, I have to pass you, too? Even though you haven’t met Odin’s criteria?”
That being self-evident, the man gave no reply. He simply focused a sober-eyed gaze on the giantess.
* * *
Kevral arrived first amid lean, triangular stems poking from neat rows of dark earth. Birds trilled in a dozen different voices. The air lay saturated with the aroma of damp soil. The sun beamed down, gliding toward the horizon. The field stretched as far as her vision, then rose to mountains in the east, north and south. Westward, the world beyond the fields trailed into gray obscurity. Her body felt ungainly and awkward, strong with youth but hampered by the now-enormous bulge in her abdomen. She felt no movement from the baby. At first, this did not bother her; she had grown accustomed to not having it in the fifty years of life that had passed her on the testing plain.
Kevral examined her hands. They appeared callused and scarred, devoid of thinning or wrinkles. She touched her face. The wind blew the short feathers of her hair, tickling across her fingers. Everything felt normal. The memories of the trial had faded. She recalled nothing of her fifty-year trip across the plains, other than the baby. A boy. Kevral gritted her teeth, too grief-stricken to revel. Pudar had wanted her to bear them a girl. And still, the baby did not move inside her.
Ra-khir appeared a moment later, looking a bit disheveled but otherwise exactly as he had before their journey began. Darris came next, followed by Andvari, then Tae. They all began talking at once, describing their future selves and the method with which they proved their betterment. Only Tae remained silent on the matter, his discussion with the future-Tae sensitive and personal. And still, the baby did not move.
Chan’rék’ril arrived on the field next and El-brinith an instant later. Neither appeared different to Kevral, but appearance might not reveal the truth. Fifty years would not likely change either. The grin on El-brinith’s face, so un-elflike, gave a stronger clue. “The Fates told me that the elves originally failed this task, their frivolous joy not allowing them to better themselves. Near-immortality saved our people.” The grin broadened, if possible. “But it didn’t have to save me. My interest in feeling different types of magic will become a talent, with a lot of hard work. I’ll become adept at separating and defining power.”
“In this, apparently, humanity has had a positive effect on our people,” Chan’rék’ril added. “I also returned to my younger self. I’ll become more magically adept, especially at my favorite thing: artistic creations.”
Their joy became infectious. Kevral smiled wistfully, wondering whether humans had truly benefited the elves or only made them more like themselves. The baby did not kick. In the past month, Kevral could not recall it lying still so long.
Darris asked the question Kevral had considered. “Is the change in the elves a good thing?”
El-brinith pinned the bard with her gaze. “I believe it is. We have no sentimental connection to our past. Whether we like it or not, Alfheim is gone forever, and we need to adjust to our new world. Finding betterment over a lifetime is one of the best traits of humans.”
Tae returned, though Kevral had not seen him leave nor noticed him missing. Perplexedness scrunched his features. “This looks familiar. I’d guess we’re in the Westlands. Around the fertile oval.”
El-brinith confirmed the asses
sment with an elfin-subtle nod. “Skuld sent us back to Midgard. I can transport us easily from here, since I talked her into giving me this.” She raised the thong the giantess had worn around her neck, with the tear-shaped Pica shard. “I appreciate her assistance. I might have had trouble transporting with a member missing.”
Kevral’s hands flew to her abdomen, even as she realized another had not yet joined them. As if in answer to the concern, the baby jolted into a wild flurry of movement. “Where is Rascal?”
At the question, Tae’s gaze zipped around the group. “Yes. Where is she?”
El-brinith raised her brows, then shrugged. “She couldn’t—”
“—better herself,” Tae finished in a loud whisper. “She’s . . . old?”
“She’s gone,” El-brinith corrected.
“Gone?” the Easterner repeated carefully.
“Her lifestyle did not allow for old age.”
It took Kevral until those words to realize that Rascal was dead. “Gods.”
Tae only stared in stark silence.
Kevral moved to his side, placing a sympathetic arm around him and surprised to find tears in her eyes. She refused to delve into their origin, worried that she cried only for Tae’s loss and not Rascal’s death. “You did your best.”
“No.” Tae buried his face into Kevral’s shoulder, sobbing. “I could have done more.”
Ra-khir moved to them, stroking Tae’s hair with a gentle hand. “If you had, it would not have made a difference. You can guide one with blinders, but you can’t force her to see. You can’t better one who refuses to better herself.” He glanced at Kevral over Tae, head rocking and eyes dropping to indicate the Easterner.
Kevral understood the wordless communication. If not for Tae’s own strength of character, they could not have changed him either. The Tae they had known at the start of their mission to rescue King Griff would have died on the proving grounds as well.
The Children of Wrath Page 59
