Mickey Zucker Reichert - Shadows Realm (4 page)

Suddenly, another craft whipped by Larson’s, sail drawn tight to the mast. A middle-aged man with close-cropped yellow hair waved as he passed, and Bolverkr knew him as Larson’s father. Behind the father. Larson’s younger brother flung sunburned arms into the air with an excitement that caused the boat to rock dangerously. “Slowpokes!” he screamed.

Larson accepted the challenge. He hauled in the sheet, hugging winds into the shortened sail. The boat rocked to leeward as it sprang forward. The tip of the mast scraped the lake, then bounced upward, and icy water surged over the sides. With a short shriek of outrage, Larson’s sister thumped to the opposite ledge to balance weight. The line bit into Larson’s palms. Using his toes to anchor its knot, he hardened the sail to the mast. His boat caught and inched ahead of his father’s heeling almost parallel to the water. Spray drenched Larson. He laughed at his sister’s shrill admonishments to free the winds.

An unexpected gust tapped the slight craft, and its sail brushed the surface of the lake. Quickly, Larson eased the canvas. The sailboat hovered momentarily, then capsized into cedar-colored waters, the sister sputtering, the brother and father laughing until their sides ached.

Bolverkr disengaged from Larson’s memory. The scene confirmed his worst suspicions. Like Geirmagnus, Al Larson came from a future time and place. Bolverkr knew Larson’s family would have served as the perfect target for his vengeance, but, with ruined hope, he also realized they dwelt beyond the abilities of Dragonrank magic to harm them. He recoiled in dismay and felt Larson grow alarmed in response. Quickly, Bolverkr regained control, masking his emotions with necessary thoroughness.
It’s not over yet. There are other things a man grows to love.

Bolverkr renewed his search with a malice that knew no bounds. He pried information from Larson’s mind, discovered deep affection for Silme as well as concern for his other two companions. Bolverkr’s efforts also uncovered a pocket of bittersweet grief. He dug for its source to find the remembered image of a samurai named Kensei Gaelinar who had served as a ruthless swordmaster and a friend. Some teachings of this warrior had convinced Larson that a whisper of his mentor’s soul still resided in the finely-crafted steel of the Japanese long sword he had taken from the dead man’s hands and now wore at his side.

Uncovering no other objects of comparable fondness, Bolverkr turned his attention to Larson’s fears and hatreds. These he prodded with meticulous care, not wanting to reveal his presence in a wild induction of rage. He found orange-red explosions of light, noises louder than the nearest thunder, a savage, crimson chaos of future war Larson called Vietnam. Gory corpses with eyes glazed in accusation intermingled freely with the memory of Larson’s own mortality. An oddly-shaped parcel of metal chattered like a squirrel grazed by a hunter’s arrow as Larson charged enemies with a final, desperate courage. Oblivion followed, a pause of indeterminate length before a rude awakening in a strange elven body and an ancient time.

Larson stiffened. The recognition of an intruder’s presence flowed through his mind, and a conjured mental wall snapped over the exit. A tentative question followed.
Vidarr? Is that you?
Bolverkr froze. When no attack followed, he relaxed. For now, he harbored no desire to leave; he found the blockage of no significance. After the consideration of violating biological barriers, a wall manufactured from substance as ephemeral as thought seemed a pitiful substitute. Treading more lightly, he continued his search.

Bolverkr skimmed through Larson’s memories, plucking tidbits with the graceful precision of an acrobat. He found divine allies. These he dismissed, aware gods’ vows would not allow them to meddle in the affairs of mortals. And among the deities, Bolverkr also discovered enemies. He watched the elf’s sword slice through the spine of Loki the Trickster, saw Larson hurl the god’s body into the permanent oblivion of Hvergelmir’s waterfall. The corpse toppled through the Helspring, destroyed, as all things, by the magical braid of rivers that plunged, roaring, from Midgard to Hel. No longer existent, even in Hel, Loki and the mass of Chaos he controlled were destroyed, tipping the world dangerously toward Order.

Attempting to restore the balance and free another god from more than a century in Hel, Larson and Taziar had traveled to Geirmagnus’ ancient estate. Through Larson’s memory, Bolverkr saw the ancient, imprisoned Chaos-force released, its dragon-form towering to the heavens. In horror, the sorcerer stared as Larson, Taziar, and Kensei Gaelinar slashed and stabbed at the creature. Bolverkr saw the Japanese swordmaster dive through razor-honed wire, killed in a desperate self-sacrifice that incapacitated the Chaos-creature and bared its head to Larson’s sword. And Larson seized the opening, slaughtering the dragonform, apparently unaware that its now unbound Chaos must seek a living master.

The personal tragedy of this finding burned anger through Bolverkr.
Your stupidity destroyed me, and you’ll pay with everything you hold dear.
He imagined a teacher’s long sword, its shattered pieces strewn across a meadow stained with Silme’s blood. Shards protruded from the scarlet haft Larson clutched to his chest, and his voice loosed the screams of a dying animal. Through the nightmare visions he created, Bolverkr relived his own grief. Yet, despite the temptation, he held his fantasy back from Larson’s perception. The Chaos-force and its seemingly limitless power goaded him to recklessness and uncontrolled fury, but it did not make him foolish. Even after a century and a half of peace, he recalled two important rules of a sorcerer’s war: never sacrifice surprise, and, when an enemy proves powerful, fight him on familiar territory.

Bolverkr retreated. He turned to the exit from Larson’s mind, pleased to see the wall had already faded. Patiently, he waited until it disappeared completely. Stepping out, he immediately attempted to gain access to the minds of Larson’s companions. Each effort flung him against natural mind barriers solid as stone. Briefly, he considered. To assault Taziar’s mind here would violate both of the battle tenets he had just uncovered from memory. Instead, he slipped back into Larson’s thoughts, digging for information about the elf/man’s small companion.

Bolverkr’s toil exposed a stormy childhood in the city of Cullinsberg. With effort, he dug out revealing shreds of information, most lodged in the deeper, subconscious portion of Larson’s mind. Here, Bolverkr uncovered a name. There, he found an incident. In the end, he pieced together a patchwork history of the only son of an honorable and heroic guard captain, a son too slight in build to follow in his father’s footsteps. A prime minister’s treason against the elder Medakan had cost the captain his life and his honor, turning Taziar’s carefree youth into a life of running, hiding, and living on the edges of society. It was this dishonorable stage of Taziar’s life that gained him his closest friendships. Bolverkr seized every name he could glean from Taziar’s revelations to Larson. And here, too, Bolverkr decided his plan of attack.
If I begin with the little thief’s allies in Cullinsberg, I lure my enemies to the south. I have no measure of their true power, but it encompasses at least enough to challenge gods. Best to start my vengeance with something not currently in their possession.

Something tugged at Bolverkr’s hip. Engrossed in the mind-link, he slapped at it idly. To his surprise, a sharpened edge sliced his palm. Pain and the warm trickle of blood hurled him back into his own body on the hill over Wilsberg. Harriman stood before him, clutching the sword he had torn free from the belt lying, halved, at Bolverkr’s ankles. The sorcerer rolled more from instinct than intent. The blade swept the ground, rasping off a rock shard. Bolverkr managed to work his way to one knee before Harriman lunged for another attack.

Bolverkr ducked, mouthing spell words with furious intensity. The blade whistled over his head, and Harriman’s foot lanced toward his chest. Desperation made Bolverkr sloppy. His spell cost him more energy than necessary. But a shield snapped to life before him. Harriman’s boot struck magics as firm and clear as glass. Impact jarred the nobleman to the ground. Surprise crossed his features, then they warped to murderous outrage. He sprang to his feet and charged the shielded Dragonmage.

Harriman’s sword crashed against the unseen barrier. Bolverkr saw pain tighten the diplomat’s mouth to a line. Undeterred, Harriman smashed at the magics again and again until his strokes became frenzied and undirected. “Why!” he screamed with every wasted blow.

Bolverkr waited with a stalking cat’s patience.

At length, Harriman sheathed his sword, apparently tired of battering his frustration against a barrier he could not broach. “Why?” he shouted. His tone implied accusation rather than question.

Bolverkr rose, his sorceries still firmly in place. “Why what?” he demanded.

Harriman gripped his hilt in a bloodless fist, but did not waste the effort of drawing the blade again. “Why did you ... ?” He trailed off and started again. “Why would you ... ?“ His broad gesture encompassed the wreckage of the fanning town of Wilsberg.

Suddenly, Harriman’s misconception became clear.
By the gods, the fool thinks I destroyed the town.
Bolverkr shook his head in aggravation. “Don’t be an idiot, Harriman. I didn’t do anything, but I know who did. I need your help ...”

“No!” Harriman shuffled backward. “You’re lying! I saw you laughing when your winged beast attacked me. What have you done with my friends?
Did you kill them, too?
”

“Stop!” Bolverkr hollered in defense. “I attacked you in the same grief-frenzy you just displayed. I apologize for your companions; they died without fair cause. But I want your help against the murderers who slaughtered our kin.”

Harriman shrank away. His dark eyes gleamed with disbelief, and behind Harriman’s expressionless pall, Bolverkr suspected fear warred with anger. His voice went comfortably soft, soothing without a trace of patronage. “We’re not barbarians, Bolverkr. Justice will be done, but it’s for the baron of Cullinsberg to decide guilt and punishment. Come with me. I’m certain he’ll listen to your story.”

Harriman slipped into the role of diplomat with ease, but Bolverkr was too cagey to be taken in by platitudes. He realized his displays of sorcery would work against him. South of the Kattegat, men knew nothing of magic beyond a few mother’s stories that sifted to them from Scandinavia.
Common men revile what they cannot understand. No one in Cullinsberg would question my guilt.
“Don’t trifle with me, Harriman. Look around you. All our friends have died, massacred by strangers. My wife and child were not spared, but you were. What possible reason could I have for working such evil? If I caused this, why would I slay Magan and leave you alive?”

“I believe you,” Harriman said. Though his tone sounded convincing, his sudden change in loyalty did not. “Please. Talk to the baron. He’ll believe you, too.”

Harriman’s deceit angered Bolverkr. “Damn it,” he raged. “Listen to what I’m saying! Think, Harriman. I didn’t ravage the town. I fought to the last shred of my life to save it.”

Harriman opened his mouth to affirm his sincerity.

But Bolverkr made a curt gesture of dismissal. “Save your sweet deceptions for the baron. I can call dragons from the bowels of the earth and shields from midair. Don’t you think I can read your intentions?“ Bolverkr glared to emphasize his lie. The mind barriers rendered emotions as impossible to tap as thoughts, but Bolverkr doubted that Harriman knew that fact.

Apparently fooled, Harriman dropped all pretenses. His cheeks flushed scarlet, and his expression went hard as chiseled stone. “Of course, I think you killed them. What else could I believe? You’re no man; you’re some sort of ... of demon. You were old when my great-grandfather was born. You never caused us any harm before, so we learned to trust you, even love you. But nothing else could have done this.” He gestured angrily at the ruins.

Harriman’s words stung Bolverkr. In his rage, he forgot that his own insistence had inspired the nobleman to speak against him. “How dare you! I built this village, stone by precious stone. I lent my efforts to every labor, nursed the sick, brought prosperity to an insignificant dot on the landscape.” He took a threatening step toward Harriman. “My wife and child lie dead! I’m pledged to avenge myself against their slayers. Are you with me or against me?”

Harriman cowered. He seemed about to speak, then went silent. He started again, and stopped. The inability to act as a negotiator seemed to unman him. Suddenly, he fled.

Caught off-guard by Harriman’s unexpected flight, Bolverkr stood motionless for a startled moment. Dropping his shield, he followed the nobleman’s course as he bounced and leaped over standing stones and corpses. “Stop!” Bolverkr shouted. “Harriman, stop. Don’t force me to use magic.”
If he reaches Cullinsberg, he’ll turn the barony against me. He’ll foil my vengeance!
The realization goaded Bolverkr to prompt action. And, though a more subtle spell might have sufficed, because of his success with Larson, an attack on mental protections came first to Bolverkr’s mind. Gathering a spear of Chaos-power, he crashed into Harriman’s mind barriers.

Bolverkr’s probe met abrupt resistance. For a maddening second, nothing happened. Then Harriman’s barrier shattered like an empty eggshell. The nobleman collapsed, face plowing into the dirt. Pain and surprise assailed Bolverkr. His screams matched Harriman’s in timing and volume. He floundered in the fog of agony smothering Harriman’s thoughts, shocked to inactivity by his own success. The nobleman’s shrieks turned solo, but still Bolverkr stared in silent wonder.
How?
“How!” he shouted aloud. He had acted on a Chaos-stimulated impulse. In his centuries of life, he had never heard of anyone powerful enough to break through mind barriers, not even in the days when Dragonmages called on external Chaos sources.

Nonsentient, the Chaos-force did not speak in words. Instead, it drew upon the basest instincts of its master, allowing him to understand.
I wield more power, more Chaos, then any sorcerer or god before me. It’s mine to tap freely, restored by the same rest that replenishes my own life aura vitality.
Bolverkr struggled with the concept, at once awed, excited, and frightened by it, irrevocably lusting for the same Chaos power that must ultimately corrupt him with its evil. Pain awoke when he attempted to contemplate the immensity of his newfound strength, and, in self-defense, Bolverkr held his goals to a comprehensible level.
Before I battle my enemies directly, I have to learn to handle my own power, to gain full mastery over this Chaos that has become my own. And I have to draw those enemies to me.