Child of the Sword, Book 1 of The Gods Within (9 page)

“Good. Do you know why you’re here
today?”

“No, milady.”

“You’re here because I wish to test your
power. I want to know how much of a witch you are. Do you
understand that?”

“Yes, milady.”

“Good. Now listen to me carefully. I am
going to caste certain spells, and while I am doing so you must
relax and remain absolutely still. You may experience certain
sensations, some of them not altogether pleasant. If so, do not
resist, for if you do you will be the one that is harmed, not I. Is
that clear?”

“Yes, milady.”

“Excellent. Now, I must have absolute
silence.”

The room itself seemed to obey the old
woman’s command, returning a silence that was eerie. The walls in
that part of the castle were thick, and not even the noises of the
busy yard could penetrate to disturb them. Morgin had a sudden
desire to be away from there, for he could sense something building
within the close confines of that small room. It was akin to what
AnnaRail did when she performed a seeking, but where that something
was kind and soft, this was cold, hard, and powerful.

Olivia’s lips began to move almost
imperceptibly, and Morgin caught the hiss of a faint whisper at the
edge of his hearing. The words she spoke sent a shiver up his
spine, words of power, and he concentrated on them carefully as
AnnaRail had taught him to do. He could hear each syllable clearly,
and yet when he tried to put them together into a word, the final
product eluded him as if he was meant never to understand such
words, or the power they called forth. But nevertheless he
concentrated on each as the old woman uttered it, and in so doing
he felt fearful power rising within his soul.

Morgin watched the old witch build something
indefinable within her, and then she built something similar within
him. He felt violated, but he remembered her words and fought the
desire to resist her, until he felt he was being strangled from
without by her power, and from within by his own.

Without warning Olivia’s power merged
painfully with his. He staggered under the suffocating weight of
it, struggled for air, and did something, though he didn’t really
understand what he did, or how he’d done it. But Olivia gasped,
stood, slapped him, and screamed, “Monster!”

Morgin had been oblivious to the world
around him, but the slap snatched him back to the moment,
staggering, his face stinging with the force of the blow. He
watched helplessly as the old woman raised her arm to strike again,
but now her hand was glowing, with streaks of power dancing up and
down her wrist. The room was electrified with a sense of unreality,
and all Morgin could see was the old woman’s eyes: black and
angry.

“Mother, no,” Roland screamed. “You’ll kill
him.”

The old witch hesitated, though her magic
swirled about her and demanded to be used.

AnnaRail quickly filled the silence. “He
didn’t know what he was doing. It wasn’t his fault. I warned you to
move carefully. His power is extensive, and he has too little
training for its control.”

Olivia lowered her hand and the room became
still, though she looked upon Morgin like a bug she might squash,
and her eyes glowed with malevolence. But strangely enough there
was a hint of gladness there too, and a faint smile of greedy
smugness. She looked at AnnaRail and spoke through clenched teeth.
“You are right, daughter. You did warn me, and I should have heeded
you.”

Then she looked again at Morgin and he
cringed. “You are forgiven this time, peasant, because of your
ignorance. But never, ever, strike me again.”

Morgin, staring at the floor and thinking
that he’d touched no one, decided it was best to keep his mouth
shut.

Olivia’s mood suddenly changed, and she
smiled openly. She turned back to AnnaRail. “You were also right
about his power. It is extensive. Certainly more than anyone else
his age has exhibited.”

Her eyes narrowed with concentration, and
for a long silent moment she thought carefully. Morgin had no doubt
that whatever she might be considering bode ill for him. “I have
come to a decision,” she announced suddenly. “Such power should
reside within House Elhiyne. And so the child’s twelfth birthday
will be officially recorded as the eighth day of the next month of
this year. And on that day he will be adopted into House Elhiyne as
your son, and we will have a Naming. Between now and that time you
will give him as much training in the arcane as he can absorb, and
if need be, he will be excused from his other lessons. You will
teach him control, for he will never again be allowed to do what he
has done this day. And someday, he will prove useful to us.”

She looked at each of them separately for a
moment, and especially at Morgin. “I have spoken. It shall be so.
Now leave me. I wish to be alone.”

Without a word Roland and AnnaRail bowed and
backed out of the room. Morgin did not need to be told to do the
same.

Chapter
5: A Wizard’s Name

Morgin sat on the floor in the center of the
Hall of Wills, a vast, cavernous room, the place the villagers
called The Wizard’s Hall. With the exception of a simple loin cloth
he was naked, and by that fact ill at ease, for clanfolk high and
low filled the Hall, almost everyone who lived in the near vicinity
of Elhiyne. He sat stiffly upright, his legs tucked beneath him,
his hands at his sides. Before him a circle of fine black sand had
been sprinkled in a thin layer on the gray stone of the bare floor,
and all about him the ceremony of the Naming was in progress,
witches chanting words of power, casting spells of incomprehensible
nature to mere Morgin.

Twelve days before they had executed the
formal adoption ceremony and he had become a member of House
Elhiyne: the family that ruled the clan that ruled the eighth tribe
of the Shahot. He still hoped to someday understand what all that
meant, though for now he was content with his ignorance.

After the adoption they’d begun preparations
for the Naming: twelve days of fasting and intense ritual. Morgin
had had little to do, for he was the “new born infant,” and as such
was the passive object of the preparations, and not actively
involved in any way.

On the day of the Naming he’d been allowed
no food. The women of the house had bathed him carefully, then with
charcoal from a fire twelve days cold, they had written runes on
his naked body. He was then directed to sit on the cold stone floor
before the circle of fine black sand, and the Naming was begun.

He’d been sitting there for hours now, his
joints stiff and sore, his stomach growling for food. He longed for
the ceremony to end, even while he knew it was only just
beginning.

A sudden gasp ran through the assembled
throng as something began to materialize in the air before him, a
demon from the netherhells of his own nightmares. Fangs and claws
appeared first, then a tail with a barbed point dripping venom.
There came the body of an ogre and the head of a goat, and it
looked at him hungrily with eyes of fiery hate. Then it advanced,
saliva spilling from its muzzle in anticipation of a meal.

Malka intervened, stepping in its way. It
struck him with its claws. He staggered, but withstood the blow.
Then, wielding his own power like a sword, he cried out in the
godtongue and struck back. The demon whimpered sorrowfully. Malka
struck again, lashing his power like a whip until the demon
screamed in agony, a balefully inhuman whine. Malka raised his
power to strike again, but the demon vanished before he could do
so, gone, dematerialized. A distant cry of anger and pain echoed
back from the netherworld, then all was silent.

Morgin shivered. He wondered how many more
demons, curious about all the sorcery here, would come to
investigate.

A witch, young and pretty, stepped forward
to stand on the other side of the circle of black sand. She cast
spells, tracing runes in the air with her fingertip as she chanted
more of the words that always eluded him. He’d asked AnnaRail about
that, and she’d explained that when he was older and had learned
his lessons well, the words would begin to take on meaning.

The young witch finished her incantation.
But as she turned and melted into the shadows of the darkened hall,
the runes she’d traced in the air before him remained, softly
visible by some magic of their own. They faded slowly, and when
they were gone Morgin was tense with the new power he could sense
in the room.

He cast a spell AnnaRail had taught him for
protection, then another to banish fear. He wished now that he
could have mastered more of her teachings, for the young and pretty
witch was obviously the first of the truly powerful. He tried the
spell of confidence, but as usual he failed there.

AnnaRail had explained that there was
another hierarchy within the clan, a ranking that had nothing to do
with one’s relationship to Elhiyne. It was the hierarchy of power.
At its bottom were those like Roland; Morgin was embarrassed for
him since he ranked below some of the children. And at its top were
Malka and Olivia, masters of the arcane and the powers of magic and
sorcery. They would all stand before the circle of black sand this
night, one by one, in ascending order of power, with Olivia the
last and greatest of them all.

AnnaRail had warned him that a gap existed
between those of little power and those of great. She had cautioned
him not to be frightened when the first of the truly powerful stood
before him, but the warning of another day held little weight in
the here and now, with power dancing up and down his spine. He
tried to think of other things, of other times, but his thoughts
would not leave the present and the magic that surrounded him.

There followed a train of wizards and
witches, including Annaline and many of his newly adopted brothers
and sisters and cousins, with MichaelOff the last and most
powerful. And then the next to stand before him was Tulellcoe, a
strange man with eyes like a caged animal, darting about as if to
see all at once. Morgin didn’t like Tulellcoe. He was a quietly
angry man, with a kind of seething hatred hidden just beneath the
surface of his emotions.

JohnEngine said that Tulellcoe’s mother,
Hellis, who was Olivia’s sister, had been raped by Clan Decouix
during the last of the clan wars; that Hellis hated the child that
had been conceived within her, and shortly after Tulellcoe’s birth,
had taken her own life. She’d tried to take the child Tulellcoe
with her into death, but had been prevented from doing so by Olivia
who raised him as one of her own sons. JohnEngine said that the man
Tulellcoe had inherited his mother’s madness, and most feared him
for that.

Tulellcoe finished his magic and AnnaRail
stepped forth to begin hers. But where Tulellcoe’s magic was an
angry thing, and Olivia’s was fearful, AnnaRail’s was warm and soft
and loving. Morgin felt it wash over him, calming him, even as it
added to the power that was building. He thought back to an earlier
time when he’d asked her about the Naming.

“The Naming,” she had said, “is a ceremony
by which a proper name will be chosen for you.”

“But I already have a name.”

“Yes,” she agreed. “And it is a good name.
But I chose it for its sound, not for its power or for its relation
to you. It is an arbitrary name, no more than a label, a peasant’s
name. Many live their entire lives with such a name, and there is
no shame in doing so. But you have been chosen for a Naming, and
that is a high honor.”

“But Morgin is good enough for me.”

She had smiled then, and laid a hand gently
on his shoulder. “Then you may use it always, if that is your
desire. Come. Don’t be so fearful. The Naming won’t be difficult,
and from it you will receive a name that is yours; a name that,
without our magic, would be hidden to us; a name that will give you
power and tell us much about you; a name that is yours through all
worlds and times. With such a name you may know and understand
yourself as you could never do without it. And knowing yourself,
others may not hold nor bind you without the use of much power.
Your strengths will be the greater, and your weaknesses the lesser,
for a name, a true name, is a very important thing, a very powerful
thing.”

“The Naming will do all that?”

She shook her head. “No. The name will. The
Naming is merely a ceremony to help us find that name so it may be
known to you, and to us. It is not an easy ceremony, for much magic
and power is required, and so it is reserved only for those of high
caste. And you, my son, have much to learn in preparation.” And
with that, she had returned to his lessons.

Now, though, she stood opposite him, the
circle of black sand between them undisturbed, and like the rest,
she spoke words that Morgin could not understand. But unlike the
rest, her power was a warm, soft blanket in which he found
comfort.

Malka stood next before him, Malka in his
glory and his strength. He shouted words of power that echoed off
the walls of the Hall. The air of the room answered back with a
rumble that could be felt in the bones of Morgin’s spine. Malka the
powerful warrior, whom all knew would inherit the clan at Olivia’s
death. Malka the strong, whom none dare anger.

Malka finished and the room fell silent,
with Morgin alone at its center. The air was charged with power,
all directed at him, waves of it crawling up his skin. The small,
blond hairs on his arms and legs stood on end. Here and there a
strand of his hair, freshly washed, clean and dry, could be seen
standing up and waving in whatever motion the air possessed.

Olivia stepped forth slowly to stand before
him, motionless and unspeaking. She uttered no spells; she cast no
incantations; she just stood there, arms folded within her
billowing sleeves. But Morgin knew that however motionless she
might seem, her power was building, and his power could do nothing
but follow, pulled along by a command stronger than his will.
Terrified, he tried to retreat, to cease the rise of a strange
force that threatened to consume him. Quickly he concentrated on
the spell of confidence, for Olivia’s power would allow no
faltering, no withdrawal. For a single moment he felt as if he
stood on the brink of an abyss of fear, then he calmed, feeling
AnnaRail nearby, casting a spell to aid him. Again he concentrated
on the spell of confidence, felt it wash over him, comfortably warm
and refreshingly cool all at once. He opened his eyes and looked up
to meet Olivia’s gaze. She nodded reluctant approval, then
continued exercising her power.