Bloodsongs (45 page)

Frost thought her heart would stop. She thanked her gods that the unicorn hadn't charged with lowered horn or reared to attack with those deadly hooves. But the way Telric had hit the earth! The impact alone might have killed her love.

Telric's leg twitched, and she almost laughed with relief. But his hand groped on the cobbles for the sword he had dropped, and she knew it wasn't over. If he got up, it would only begin again.

Unless she finished Kel.

She scrambled up, sword in hand, and moved swiftly toward her son. There was panic on his face and fear. It brought her a strange satisfaction, and she tapped the flat of her blade on her palm as she bore down on him.

“You never loved me!” he screamed.

His words had no effect on her at all. He was mad, a rabid beast that she had to put out of its misery before it infected anyone else.

“You loved everybody but me!” His voice was a loud whine. “Never me!” He raised the fist that held the talisman. It burned with a scarlet coruscation as he bent its power upon her.

He tried to steal her mind as he had done once before. But that time, she hadn't been aware of her own power. With little more than an inward shrug she turned his spell aside. He exerted the talisman's magic, and she felt it nibble at the edge of her will. He was strong, but not strong enough. The glow around his hand became a red fire as he strained uselessly.

The razor-keen edge of her sword glimmered briefly in that occult light. Kel's hand flopped on the ground, the amulet impotently clutched in fingers that slowly uncurled. An inhuman shriek issued from her son's throat, and he stumbled back in agony, staring with disbelief at his gushing stump.

Instantly, another cry rose above Kel's screaming. She recognized the familiar sound and whirled in time to see Ashur rear and stamp in warning. His eyes blazed like furious, prominencing stars.

The sky erupted with a blast of thunder that rocked her on her feet. Jagged bolts of blue and orange raced across the clouded heavens, tearing the fabric of night, filling the air with a harsh smell of burning.

“Get away from him!” Reimuth raged. “Get away from my grandson!”

Her mother strode toward her with a terrible visage. Her eyes crackled with tiny inner lightnings, and her long hair whipped wildly about her face. The sorceress shook her fist; another blast shook the land.

Frost glimpsed the Book of Shakari at the center of the circle where Reimuth had stood. A rising wind not of her making fanned the pages, and she thought of the ritual she had interrupted. It was the night of the new moon, and her mother's last full night of life without the Aspects' magic.

Reimuth's voice soared over the tempest, full of power and anger. “I should have killed you on that dark night so many years ago. But I let my grief for your father and brother blind me. Now, you would slay your own son and doom me to a second death. You're a monster, Samidar, and it's time to put an end to your evil!”

Frost trembled with emotion as the indictments she had flung at Kel were hurled back by her mother with such bitterness. But Reimuth was wrong—as she had been wrong on that distant night.

“Don't make me fight you, Mother,” she shouted, casting down her sword. “You don't understand. You never understood!”

Reimuth stopped. The storm still raged under her sorcerous control. The rippling lightning made a dramatic backdrop that illuminated the courtyard in unpredictable flashes. Her mother pointed an accusing finger. “Step away from my grandson,” she repeated forcefully.

Frost hesitated, and an impossible wind smashed her backward. Her heel caught on a loose cobble and she pitched over, striking her head painfully. It was enough to anger her. With a small effort she turned the wind aside and rose to her feet, feeling the song in her soul swell to a frightening symphony.

“Shall I leave him to hurl stones at you again?” she called to her mother. “Or so he can defile your husband's remains again? Do you know what a
shimere
is, Reimuth? It's an enslaved soul that's been twisted and warped into something vile and deadly! That's what Kel tried to do to your husband and son. In fact, he may have done it. The gods know which one he sent for me in the forest that night!”

“Whatever he's done he's still my blood,” Reimuth answered stubbornly. “He found me and gave me life again. He would have given me longer life yet, but you've interfered!”

The cobbles sprang up around Frost as they had Kel. They tried to pound her, but she was faster. She waved a hand, and the stones turned aside. They thudded to the earth and stayed there.

“You're weak, Mother,” she challenged scornfully. “And unimaginative. You imitate my spells. But you were always weak. When Kel told you to shut up, you did. He ordered you to remain in the circle, and you obeyed until you saw him defeated.” Frost reached out with her witchcraft and began to subtly retake control of the storm above them. “You're pathetic,” she continued, her voice full of contempt. “I loved Father, but he treated you exactly the same way. You were the greatest sorceress in Esgaria, but you were chattel to him, as all Esgarian women were chattel.”

A searing bolt lanced down from the sky, but Frost sensed her mother's move and threw herself aside in time, rolling on her shoulder and regaining her feet. A small black crater marked the place where she had stood moments before, and fire swiftly consumed the bits of weed and brush that pushed up through the shattered paving.

“Liar!” her mother shouted. “Your father and I ruled together, and together we guarded the northern borders against Rholaroth.” She waved toward Telric's limp form. “How ashamed he would be to see the scum you've fallen in with!”

Frost held herself back, feeling the pattern of the storm, alert for another attack. “Guarded the border, you say? By all the hells, you made it your prison! Did you ever wonder what lay beyond the border, Mother? There's an entire world, but you were too weak and afraid to discover it. For all your sorcerous knowledge, you hid behind these walls, cloaked yourself with the laws and traditions of this backward little nation.” She spat in the dust. “You're not worthy of the magic you wield.”

Reimuth screamed, enraged. She raised her fists, then brought them down in a sharp, commanding gesture.

But the lightning didn't respond. Frost extended herself, freeing the music within her, and seized control of the storm. “Yes, you're weak. That's why you took your own life those many years ago!” She turned from her mother and shouted to the storm. A barrage of lightning answered, and a section of the fortress exploded under the blistering force.

“No!” Reimuth stared horrified at the destruction. She shouted a string of words that Frost couldn't understand, and she stamped her foot.

The earth surged up like a giant wave and tumbled Frost helplessly. From the corner of her eye she spied Ashur. The unicorn bellowed and ran ahead of the wave, disappearing around the old barracks. The swell of earth struck the ramshackle building and smashed it into splinters.

Frost didn't know what spell her mother had spoken, but it was a potent spell, causing almost as much damage as her lightning. She risked a hasty glance around to locate Kel and Telric. Both of them lay in supine heaps. She wondered if either lived.

“You call me weak?” Reimuth roared. “I've seen the horrors of the nine hells. You dare speak to me about the world?” Again she shouted something, and this time Frost recognized the language as an Esgarian dialect unused for centuries.

The grass and weeds shot up at an impossible rate, coiling around Frost's limbs, twining over her body before she could get to her feet. The sharp grasses cut her as she struggled; the weeds constricted around her throat, choking her. The blood pounded in her ears, and her lungs burned.

“You are dead, daughter,” Reimuth mocked. “Challenge me again in twenty years if you can find your way back to this life.”

But Frost was far from defeated. She tore at the weeds around her throat, sucking for air. At the same time an arcane shimmering danced over her flesh, scorching the writhing verdure, turning it brittle and black until it crumbled at her merest shrug. Frost scrambled to her feet, furious.

Reimuth was prepared. She bent and scratched a sign in the dirt before her daughter could act. Then she spat in the center of her glyph and called out a word.

Beneath Frost's feet the earth turned to mud. She sank to her ankles, then the slime rose up around her in a massive, swelling mound. She barely had time to cup her hands over her mouth and nose before the rising mire engulfed her. Dampness seeped through her garments, cold and gelid, chilling her. Inexorably, it oozed through her fingers and threatened to fill her mouth.

Desperately, she swallowed the scant air trapped between her hands. The mud crept up into her nostrils.

She opened her mouth then, but the muck did not pour in. A high, keening note flowed from her throat, pushing back the viscous shell, creating a small pocket near her face. But there was no more air to breathe, and pain seared her chest as she sang. She emptied her lungs slowly, agonizingly, striving to maintain the single note.

The pocket grew and grew. Slowly, all the mud recoiled from her body, forming a new bubble. Straining, she pushed outward, opening her eyes, freeing the tears that welled in the corners. Her note began to quaver. She had almost no air left to sing. Yet she knew if she stopped, the mud would come rushing back to smother her.

As the bubble expanded, it achieved a murky translucence. Frost saw her mother limned in wild flashes of lightning. Reimuth chanted hysterically, her face dancing with light and shadow, arms outflung as she strove against her daughter's power and fought with all her sorceries to collapse the mud again.

Frost stretched out her own hands as if to hold the bubble back. The pitch of her song changed suddenly as she shifted her attack and poured her last breath into a piercing note.

Reimuth screamed in anger and surprise as her gown flew up about her face. The material snapped whiplike at her eyes, and thick folds stoppered her mouth. She ripped frantically at the rebellious fabric as it twisted about her with constricting force.

Distracted, Reimuth lost control of her spell. Deprived of the sorcerous energy that shaped it, the bubble of mud showered harmlessly down upon Frost. Sputtering, she wiped the slime from her face and eyes and gulped air into her tortured lungs.

When she could see again, she faced a naked parent. Shards of Reimuth's gown fluttered across the yard on the storm winds. Her mother began to chant again, but Frost strode implacably forward.

“I'm not dead, Reimuth,” she called icily, feeling the music swell within her once more. “You learned much during your time in hell, but I've learned more from life. It's made me strong, Mother, strong as steel and stronger.”

She gestured, and the firm ground beneath her mother's feet changed to a shallow pool of blood. Reimuth gasped and leaped to dry pavement. She stared horrified at the stains on her bare flesh, her chant forgotten.

“You made me an outcast in my home,” Frost charged. With each step closer, her power grew. “You stole my witchcraft and drove me into the world with only a sword to carve my way.”

Reimuth's fear shone suddenly in her eyes. She began a new chant and swiftly bent to draw another pattern in the dirt.
 
With a despairing cry she jerked her hand away as another bloody pool formed where her finger touched the earth.

“I lived by that sword, Mother!” Frost shouted, giving full vent to her anger. “I fought and I killed with it; I slept with it and cared for it and cherished it, because to lose it meant my death. Even when I thought I'd found peace at last, I couldn't part with it. I kept it in a trunk near my bed.”

She raised her fist and shook it. The sky answered with a titanic blast of thunder. The wind roared over the wall and rushed through the courtyard. Rain began to fall with stinging force, washing the mud from her face and garments. Then the ground shivered as twin bolts of cobalt fire struck the cobbled paving.

For the first time, Reimuth screamed in fear. She flung up an arm to protect her eyes from the brilliant flash and exploding debris. Her long hair stood almost on end as the air crackled around her, and she staggered away from her daughter, blood squeezing from a score of small wounds.

“Even if your sorceries had been greater than my witchcraft, you couldn't have defeated me.” Frost brought down another bolt, forcing her mother to retreat farther. “You made me strong, Mother, stronger than you'll ever realize.
 
You don't have that strength. You haven't the will to really fight me. You faced death once, and you fear it.”

She conjured a frightening display. Lightning rained down upon her ancestral home, blowing gaping dark holes in the walls. The westernmost tower exploded in a hail of shattered stone. Reimuth screamed again and ran for the steps, but Frost called the wind to lift her mother and hurl her back. Head over heels, the tempest rolled the sorceress ever closer to the entrance gates.

“You've faced death once,” Frost repeated, shouting over the rising gale. “But I've faced it a thousand times on a thousand glittering edges. I've lost my fear of the nine realms, and that makes me stronger than you!”

Two bolts clashed overhead like swords in combat, ringing not with steel but with deep-throated thunder.

“Samidar, don't!” Reimuth implored. Her mother's nails dug in the ground between the cobbles, seeking purchase as the winds continued to assail her. “Please, stop!”

Frost thrilled with the arcane music that filled the deepest reaches of her soul. The power was a maelstrom inside her. Her anger churned it, and she laughed, drunk with its potency as she glared at the helpless naked thing before her.

“This was to be your night,” she mocked her mother cruelly, “the night when you reclaimed your full life.” She looked beyond the fortress gate, where Reimuth could not go. Kel's necromancy had bound her short life-force too closely to her home, and while his magic maintained her vitality, the gate and the wall defined her world. She drove her mother toward it. “Instead,” she cried, “it's Death that shall do the reclaiming!”