The Sword of the South - eARC (54 page)

“And no more have I,” Bahzell replied.

He dismounted slowly and cleaned his blade, one shoulder resting against Walsharno’s tall, solid side as he did so, and he needed that contact. He’d recognized Kenhodan’s lethality from the very beginning, but this was different. There’d been a smoothness, a deadly efficiency such as he’d never seen from
anyone
to the younger man’s swordplay. It wasn’t simple perfection of form, either, for there’d
been
no form, no use of learned and practiced parries, cuts, thrusts, ripostes. Kenhodan’s sword had simply
been
there, wherever it needed to be at the exact instant it needed to be there. There’d been no waste motion, no hesitation, not even any thought. It hadn’t even been
instinct
, for whatever it was, it went deeper even than that, beyond muscle memory into something almost…supernatural.

Bahzell Bahnakson knew his own worth with a blade, exactly as he’d advised Kenhodan to learn that first night in the Iron Axe. Yet as he finished cleaning his sword, he realized that even he—champion of Tomanāk and victor in twice a hundred fights though he might be—could never have equaled what he and Walsharno had just seen Kenhodan accomplish.

<
I could wish that this was a moment when He saw fit to give us a little additional information,
> the courser said. <
I know He doesn’t lead His champions around by the hand, but I wouldn’t object a bit if He could at least drop a hint or two.
>

“Aye?” Bahzell smiled briefly, ears half-flattened, and sheathed his sword. “I’d not take a bit of a hint amiss my own self. Still and all, it’s in my mind as how himself’s already told us what it is we’re truly after needing to know.”

<
I don’t disagree, Brother. But that doesn’t mean I can’t wish for more, now does it?
>

Bahzell snorted in agreement and walked forward slowly to kneel beside Kenhodan and stare at the wizard. Walsharno followed him, standing at his back, and Wencit looked up.

“Wencit.”

Bahzell’s voice was as implacable as the wild wizard had ever heard it, and he recognized the storm of questions wrapped up in his name.

“That…wasn’t Kenhodan,” he said finally, carefully.

“What?” Bahzell sat back on his heels, staring at him, ears flattened.

“It was a shadow of his past, Bahzell.” Wencit had placed one of the brigands’ packs under Kenhodan’s head. Now he smoothed hair from Kenhodan’s forehead, his touch gentle as a lover’s, and looked down at him. “He chose his name to mock his ignorance, but what he was remains, fighting to get out. It never will—not entirely—but…parts will still break through. That’s what happened this time.”

“But what—?” Bahzell began, then stopped as Wencit’s witchfire eyes rose like leveled arbalests.

“Shall I tell you that and not him?” the wizard asked sternly, and Bahzell shook his head quickly.

“No,” he said. “But is it all right he’ll be, Wencit?”

“‘All right’?” Wencit shook his head, his mouth bitter. “For as long as I can remember, people have asked me if someone or something was ‘all right’! Not everyone can be whatever that’s supposed to mean, Bahzell!” The hradani recoiled from the savage despair in Wencit’s voice. “Some people aren’t given the opportunity to ever be ‘all right’ again. They don’t have that option, that blessing. All they can be is who—and what—they have to be, usually for others, and all too often those others never even guess what they’ve given—what they’ve
lost
—for them. I would destroy worlds for Kenhodan, Bahzell. I’d heap the bodies of his enemies from here to
Kontovar
and back to restore what he’s lost, and I can’t! Only one person in all the world may ever be able to help him rebuild from the ruins, make him whole once more, and even then, the man he becomes will never be the man he was. And I know that, Bahzell. I
know
that, and I can’t share it with him, and what does that make me?”

Bahzell gazed into the face of Wencit of Rūm’s anguish, then reached out across Kenhodan, resting one hand on each of the wizard’s shoulders.

“It’s hearing you I am.” His deep voice was deeper even than usual, his eyes dark. “But I’ll ask you now to be telling me if there’s aught as Walsharno and I can be doing. We’ll not have him take further hurt from this if there’s anything at all, at all, as we might do to prevent it.”

“There isn’t,” Wencit said softly. “He won’t even remember it. He wasn’t here.”

“What?”

“Shadows of the past, Bahzell,” the wizard murmured, then shook his head slowly. “Pay me no heed; he’ll recover.

He stroked the red hair once more, and then rose. His movement was brisk, focused, deliberately restored to purpose.

“Enough! We won’t mend matters standing around till he wakes up. We have decisions to make. Like—” he turned to the mules “—what to do with this.”

“Aye.” Bahzell accepted the subject change as best he could and began opening packs, though his eyes returned often to his friend.

“It’s in my mind we’ve a problem,” he said presently. “There’s after being a fortune here, and no mistake.”

“Indeed.” The wizard was inspecting another pack. “Gold, silver, spices, silk—and something more. A scroll of the Dorfai of Saramantha’s verse in his own hand, Bahzell.”

“Tomanāk!” Bahzell shook his head. “Brandark would be after killing for such as that! I’ve no least idea at all, at all, what to be doing about it.”

“Pardon me, but aren’t you the champion of the God of Justice around here?” Wencit asked quizzically.

“Aye, so I am. And would you be so very kind as to be telling me just how it is Walsharno and I can be dealing with such as this in the middle of Kolvania?”

“You could always claim it by right of conquest,” Wencit suggested with a smile. “I seem to recall that Tomanāk doesn’t exactly frown on the spoils of combat honestly gained from thieves and murderers.”

“That’s as may be, but we’ve no mind as to be coming all over greedy for such as this.” Bahzell gestured at the heap of pack frames. “I’m thinking as Tomanāk wouldn’t be so very happy if we were after doing anything of the sort.” He shook his head. “No, we’d best be returning it somehow.”

“No rest for the wizard, I see,” Wencit sighed. “I’ll see to it.”

“How?”

“With a word of returning, if you must know. It’s a simple spell, but it’ll take them to their proper owners. Still, I’d best give each of them an avoidance spell, too, so no one will notice them until they get home.”

“Well…” Bahzell said, then shrugged. “As to that, you’re the one’s after being the wizard around here.”

“You’ve noticed,” Wencit said tartly. “And now, if you don’t mind?”

He made shooing motions, and Bahzell backed away with a wry grin, then turned to examine the fallen, though he was certain there were no survivors. While he busied himself, Wencit found his own relief from concern over Kenhodan by considering how best to phrase his spells. Wand magic was always literal, so it was best to think these things through carefully.…

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Music by Night

Kenhodan awoke.

The western sky showed just a trace of crimson, and clouds hung in the south in black waves. He lay still, considering the night, making no effort to move.

He was alive, so he knew they’d won. He had vague memories of combat, and his right hand tingled, yet he could form no clear picture of the fight. Some further inner realignment had occurred, but he felt strangely incurious about it. He filled his lungs with the sweet smell of grass and the tang of wood smoke and gazed at the gathering cloud mountains, and all he truly felt was washed out and clean.

Twin pools of light flickered beside him, and he smiled up at them.

“Good evening, Wencit.”

“Good evening.” The wizard’s calm voice was like an echo of the wind as he blended from the darkness and sat on the grass beside him. “How do you feel?”

“Alive. Peaceful.” Kenhodan drew another deep breath and watched the first stars peek out in the north like scattered gems.

“A beautiful feeling, peace,” Wencit said softly. “Some people are born to it; others aren’t. Yet the one constant I’ve observed is that those who experience it least value it most.”

“You’re waxing philosophical.” Kenhodan pillowed his head on his arms. “That’s a bad sign. Something unpleasant always happens when you start philosophizing, Wencit.”

“Not always. At least, what happens isn’t always
unpleasant
.”

“No?” Kenhodan’s smiled gleamed in the dimness. “Well, let it go.” He drew another breath. “Where are we, anyway?”

“A few miles south of the last place you remember, near the Bellwater. It’s just over there.” Wencit pointed south.

“Was anyone hurt?”

“No—thanks in no small part to Bostik’s mail. Our border warden got a scratch, and Bahzell got a few cuts that are scratches on him, though they wouldn’t be on me. Other than that, they’re fine, and neither of the coursers—or Glamhandro—got even that.”

“Good.”

“And you, Kenhodan?”

“Good, Wencit. I feel good.” He stared up at the fragile stars, waiting to feel bitter, but somehow he didn’t. “What does that make me?”

“Yourself,” Wencit said softly. “Only yourself.”

“Myself? Wencit, will I never be nothing more than an empty sack around what used to be a memory?” The words were bitter, but the tone wasn’t.

“Not if you live,” the wizard said compassionately. “But for now, at least, try to be content. You’ve lost your past, but you’re still you. There’s something almost pure about that simplicity, Kenhodan. Treasure it while you can.”

“I shed blood like a duck sheds water, Wencit. What’s ‘pure’ about that?”

“Self-pity’s the last thing you can afford,” Wencit replied a bit more sternly. “You’re a superb warrior. Is that reason for shame?”

“To reek of spilled blood?” Kenhodan’s voice was still peaceful, yet he sounded unendurably weary. “Yes, it is.”

“Really? Would you refuse to kill if that allowed evil to triumph?”

“That’s an unfair question, Wencit.”

“How? Whose blood can you remember having shed without cause?”

“All right,” Kenhodan said finally. “Point taken. But it isn’t easy.”

“I know—better even than you think. But sometimes, killing is the only way. Sometimes the future can be built only upon death—or by those willing to
dispense
death, at any rate.” The wizard’s voice softened. “It’s never pleasant to learn that lesson, my friend.”

“But can anyone really build anything good on death?” Kenhodan asked meditatively. It wasn’t arguing. It was more like picking up the thread of a conversation he couldn’t remember, yet knew had been interrupted.

“That depends on who you kill…and why.” Wencit drew a deep breath. “I won’t say the end justifies the means, but sometimes someone has no choice but to choose who will die. Possibly which of many will die. And how do you choose them?” He paused, lowered lids turning his wildfire eyes into glowing slits, then went on speaking, slowly. “I have more blood on my hands than any other living man—probably more than any single man who’s
ever
lived…or will. Does that make
me
evil? Would it have been less evil to let the Dark Lords swallow Norfressa as well as Kontovar? Let them enslave and torture and murder
here
as they already had in Kontovar? I am what I am, and I do what I must, and in the dark of the night…in the night I tell myself I’ve helped preserve a little of freedom and hope. Of love. And that’s almost enough, my friend. Almost.”

The wizard fell silent for a long, still moment, then shook himself and opened his eyes wider, their glowing circles brightening as he gazed back down at Kenhodan.

“Perhaps my case is a poor example. Someday you may think it’s the worst measuring stick of all, and who should blame you? But be as compassionate with yourself as you are with others, Kenhodan. The gods know it’s not easy to accept your own faults. Too many times it reeks of sophistry or self-justification, but it’s also the only path to sanity.

Kenhodan closed his eyes to savor Wencit’s words. Not many could echo the wizard’s calm assertion of self—but did he need a memory to try? Perhaps he hadn’t been as bad a fellow as he feared. But it hardly mattered, even if he had, for Wencit was right: his life was his. He could kill or not kill as he chose, and as long as he was guided by honor, he need not feel ashamed.

His teeth flashed in the light, and he thumped Wencit’s arm gently.

“You make a good case for the defense,” he said softly. “Thank you.”

* * *

Bahzell and Chernion made no comment when Kenhodan and Wencit rejoined them by the fire. Bahzell knew what had happened (or thought he did, which was almost as good). Chernion didn’t, but unlike the hradani she meant to find out. She’d recovered from her shock sufficiently to wonder just how important whatever had happened was to the entire puzzle of Kenhodan, and she intended to explore it thoroughly, but carefully! She had no wish to reawaken the killer within him and turn it against herself.

Bahzell handed him a plate of broiled rabbit and he took it with a smile, then settled on a convenient rock and dug in ravenously. The hradani watched him eat, and as he did, he recognized the curious aura of peace which possessed him. The senses of a champion of Tomanāk were too acute to be fooled by surface appearances, and Bahzell felt a vast sense of relief as he recognized the change. The air of tortured memory which had been a part of Kenhodan for too long had all but vanished, as if the process begun in harp music in a forest had been consummated in blood by a river. Bahzell wasn’t certain what had replaced it—not yet—but whatever it was lacked the jagged fracture lines and internal, bleeding hurt of the man he’d first met, and he was happy to see it. On the other hand, it left him a little awkward, as if they were meeting for the first time. Kenhodan was the same, spoke the same way, sounded the same…yet he was different as well.

Wencit smiled to himself as he noticed the peculiar hesitation—almost a diffidence, if that word hadn’t been so utterly foreign to Bahzell Bahnakson—which had afflicted the hradani. If Bahzell had trouble adjusting to this change, the experience would stand him in good stead later.

Conversation drifted as the moon climbed slowly, but Wencit said little. He watched the heavens thoughtfully, and the others respected his silence, though Bahzell eyed him occasionally. There seemed little point in sitting here, but Wencit always had his reasons. So what was tonight’s?

The wizard finally surprised one of Bahzell’s measuring looks and smiled.

“Are you ready to take me to task over the crossing yet, Bahzell?”

“In a manner of speaking. It’s a mite puzzled I am, seeing as how we were after risking our necks to reach here by moonrise—aye, and hauling Kenhodan like a sack of meal for the last league or so—if all you’ve in mind after we’ve done it is for us to be sitting on our backsides while you watch it.”

“You always think in such straight lines,” Wencit murmured.

“Aye, so Leeana’s said a time or three. It’s a little way I have about me. The moon, Wencit?”

“Now, Bahzell! You know wizards are required to study the heavens.”

“Hah!” Bahzell sniffed the cool air and cast his eyes over the star-flecked sky. More clouds had massed silently in the south, blotting out half the heavens while moonglow cast silver highlights over them, and the ebon and argent mountain ranges continued to expand. “It’s after being a pleasant enough evening, but I’m thinking you’ve an eye for more than just the moon tonight.”

“Why, that’s because I do,” Wencit agreed calmly, and chuckled as Bahzell glared at him. For all his ancient power, Wencit had never lost a taste for showmanship, and his sense of humor could be…odd. Bahzell sometimes felt like a hard-pressed father who could hold his patience only by reminding himself his wayward son knew no better.

“You’re after being the oldest ten-year-old I know,” he sighed.

“So I am, old friend.” Wencit touched his shoulder and pointed to the moon. “But here’s your answer. Hold tight to your courage and trust me.”

Bahzell blinked in surprise at the words, then craned his neck to peer at the silver disk. A tiny shape etched itself black against it, growing as he watched. Wings. Two—no,
four
wings, by the Mace! Wencit rose beside him, shading his eyes with a hand as he gazed upward, and his movement caught the others’ attention, drawing their eyes, too, to the silent moon.

The shape was smaller than a mustard seed with distance, but it grew, and a glimmer and glow seemed to strike outward from it. Recognition flared suddenly in Bahzell, and the hradani lurched to his feet, reaching automatically for the sword propped upright against a boulder beside him.

Wencit raised both hands. Night breeze whispered as he thrust them at the moon, and a glare of blue light burst upward—a shaft of radiance that pierced the night like a glittering needle. Its backwash illuminated him, etching the hollows of his face with shadow. His witchfire eyes glowed in their craggy sockets like balefires, and his voice rose like thunder.

“
Ahm laurick meosho, Torfrio! Ahm laurick!
”

His companions stared at him, stunned by his sudden display of power after so many days and weeks of stealth, and the light became a silver streamer. Then it changed yet again, glittering and flowing with all the brilliance of the wild magic itself, shaming the moon as it flared upward to strike the tiny shape. More prominences of wildfire danced before Wencit’s eyes, and Chernion looked away uneasily. Even Bahzell stepped back from the power roaring suddenly about the old wizard, and only Kenhodan—to his own surprise—accepted the display without question or qualm.

The flying shape changed course. It arrowed towards them, riding the cable of wild magic like a plumb line, growing until it blotted away first the stars and then the moon, and
still
it grew, dropping upon them like the night come to life.

“
Dragon!
” Chernion screamed in recognition—and dragon it was, a tremendous beast, dwarfing the one they’d fought. Moonlight flashed from mailed scales in showers of red, gold, and green sparks, as if the creature were wrought of rubies, topaz, and emeralds. The fire from Wencit’s hands impacted on its mighty chest in a wash of glitter that purpled the onlookers’ sight, and the earth trembled as the leviathan landed.

Not two wings, but four, arched from the razor spine. From scimitar tail to snout was over a hundred yards. Wicked horns jutted, needle-tipped and fifteen feet long. Vapor plumed from the fanged jaws of a multi-ton head, and moonlight and wild magic flashed on ivory teeth taller than Bahzell. It had landed lightly, but the shock of impact shuddered in their bones, and the horses—but for Glamhandro and the coursers—screamed in terror. They tore at their pickets, and their fear woke Bahzell into action. He flung himself among them to calm them, and Walsharno joined him, fastening his own will upon Chernion’s mare and the pack beasts.

Kenhodan gaped at the dragon. So vast a creature could never be born of nature! Wencit’s description of dragon kind had to be correct. They
must
be the very embodiments of the wild magic itself.

Green dragon eyes flared like bonfires and a chiaroscuro brilliance of shifting color danced in their depths like tongues of flame. It crouched motionless, forty feet away, and its bulk dwarfed the world.

Wencit stepped into the strange smell of the dragon—the smell of burning wood and strange spices, of hot iron and the molten-rock smell of lava. Vapor from its jaws lifted into the cool air, silvered by the moon, and the wizard paused between its towering, taloned forefeet under the shadow of its vast head.

“
Ahm laurick, Arcoborus
.” The voice rumbled like a hurricane, its rolling thunder stunning them deeper into silence. More vapor plumed as the dragon spoke, and it angled its head to peer one-eyed at Wencit, like a bird at the tasty beetle.

“Torfrio.” Wencit’s voice was tiny in reply. “You come in a good hour.”

“The timestorm blows.” The dragon’s vast voice gusted about them.

“We need your aid, Torfrio.”

“I am here. Symmetry demands answer, and so I answer.”

“May I introduce my companions?”

“No need. I see them in the timestorm,” the dragon rumbled with a huge chuckle. “I know them. Many threads gather here, and my people’s fate is in them. Let the young killer meet me.”

Kenhodan quivered inwardly, but there was no evading it. He knew who the dragon meant, though not
how
he knew, and he stepped up beside Wencit. The dragon’s smell was a hurricane in his nostrils and the green eye hovered over him, slitted like a cat’s and deep as the abyss of time itself. The vapor breath stung his eyes and skin.

“I greet you, Young Killer. I am called Torfrio—Son of Fire in the tongue of wizard folk. The timestorm tells me you go to save my people…or to slay them.”

“I—” Kenhodan groped for words. The dragon’s brilliance dazzled him, and he felt like a grub beneath its head. He gripped his emotions and sought the proper words. “I greet you in return, Torfrio.”

His voice came out crisp and clear, without a quaver, untouched by uncertainty, and surprise flickered through him as he realized he didn’t
feel
uncertain. Frightened, perhaps, but with the clear, unshakable sense that this was the one place in all the world where he
needed
to be at this instant. He looked up into that enormous eye, feeling the century upon century of experience behind it, knowing that in some obscure way he stood before a bar of justice without the knowledge he needed to defend his past or chart his future, and there was no hesitation within him.