Child of the Sword, Book 1 of The Gods Within (3 page)

The witchman nodded. “Yes, mother.”

At that moment another woman appeared in the
open doorway. She also wore long stately robes, but was younger
than the first. “Husband. Mother,” she greeted them formally. “Avis
said you wished to see me.”

Roland looked at his wife and frowned.
“Don’t you see him, AnnaRail?”

“See whom?” the younger woman asked.

“A boy child,” the old woman answered
gruffly, “at my feet. An urchin of the streets, it appears. And it
also appears that, unlike us, you cannot see through his
invisibility.” The old woman nudged Rat with the tip of a
slipper.

“Don’t stand too close, mother,” Roland
said, chuckling. “He bites, and your soft slippers won’t protect
you at all well.”

The old woman stepped back warily.

“And it’s not invisibility,” Roland added.
“Just a shadow. He makes his own shadows and hides within
them.”

AnnaRail frowned skeptically. “But the
lights in here are too soft for such shadows.” She bent over Rat’s
still form.

Roland shook his head. “He needs no light to
make the shadows he makes.”

“I’m impressed,” AnnaRail said, running her
hands carefully over the still form of the child she could not
see.

Standing over her the old woman said, “Not a
powerful spell but a subtle one. Who is he, Roland? And where did
you find him?”

Roland gave a brief summary of the morning’s
incident. “I questioned several of the merchants. No one seems to
know who his parents were, or when he was born, or where he came
from. They call him Rat, and he seems to have been living on his
own somewhere in or around the market. A fruit monger remembers him
as far back as two years ago. He appears to be about six or seven
years old, though that might be because malnutrition has stunted
his growth. She said he steals an occasional piece of fruit, but
thinks he lives mostly on garbage and dead animals and worms and
the like. Incredible as it seems, he’s apparently survived on his
own. But I don’t think it could have lasted much longer. Look at
his teeth. They’re so stained by
gesh
I doubt he’s eaten
anything else for some time now.”

“I cannot see his teeth,” AnnaRail said. She
frowned and her attention seemed to be elsewhere. She sat down on
the floor unceremoniously beside Rat, looked up at the old woman.
“Something’s wrong here. Will you ward me?”

“Certainly,” the old woman said. She stood
motionless over AnnaRail and began chanting words in a slow, soft
voice, words incomprehensible to Roland whose own magic was so
limited.

He looked on as AnnaRail bowed her head,
cradling the bundle of filthy rags in her arms, ignoring the
child’s stench and conscious only of its needs. She was that way
with all children, and Roland loved her for it. She was one of the
most powerful witches he had ever met, and yet she was happiest
with her sons and daughters nearby.

In contrast stood Olivia, Roland’s own
mother: never loving, never gentle, content to allow servants to
raise her two sons while she plotted their greatness, fiercely
loyal, a she-cat who would defend any member of her family to the
death, she demanded perfection from herself and those around her, a
perfection her sons could never achieve. Yet he knew she would die
as readily for him as for his older brother Malka.

Olivia stopped chanting. AnnaRail’s eyes
lost that faraway look. “It’s hopeless,” the younger woman said.
“He’s gone into some sort of recession. Very severe. So much fear!
What could cause such fear in one so small, I wonder. It will kill
him, I think. Soon his soul will be beyond our reach.”

Something deep within Roland’s soul told him
he could not allow that. “Then we must act quickly.”

“Hold,” Olivia commanded sharply. “You have
yet to convince me we must act at all.”

“But we must,” Roland pleaded.

Olivia’s eyes narrowed. “Must we really? He
is nothing to us, so let him die.”

“No,” Roland shouted.

“Yes,” the old woman growled in a low voice.
“What has come over you? Has this bundle of filth enchanted you? It
is definitely a thing of magic; that I can sense, even if you
cannot. Have you lost your senses? Are you enspelled?”

Roland made a visible effort to calm
himself. “No,” he said. “I am not enspelled. I am answering to my
intuition, which cries out to me to save this child. To let it die,
I sense . . . would be a grave mistake. To save
it . . . to save it will somehow benefit us. It will
somehow benefit House Elhiyne, though how I cannot say.”

Olivia nodded. “Very well. You are not
enspelled. And I know the power of your intuition; even if you
doubt its magic, I do not. But what you suggest will require
powerful and dangerous spells. Besides we here, only Marjinell and
MichaelOff are available. And MichaelOff is only just of age, and
far too inexperienced. I’ll not endanger him so.”

“We must do something,” Roland begged.

Olivia looked carefully at AnnaRail. “What
say you?”

AnnaRail looked at Roland as if she could
see into his soul. “I sense strange forces at work here, subtle
forces. This child is strongly tied to the arcane in some fashion I
cannot fathom, and I trust my husband’s instincts. We can take
precautions to protect MichaelOff. I say we at least try.”

Olivia did not reply immediately, but looked
at each of them carefully, measuring them. “Are the two of you
prepared to accept responsibility for this . . .
this guttersnipe?”

Roland nodded instantly. AnnaRail hesitated,
then agreed with less enthusiasm.

“Very well,” the old woman said. “AnnaRail.
Prepare the child. Roland. Summon Marjinell and MichaelOff to the
sanctum. I’ll go there directly and set the Wards.”

~~~

Olivia turned her back on them without
another word, left the room so quickly they had no time to react.
She rather enjoyed such dramatic exits, for it kept her offspring
on their toes. And out in the halls the servants were careful to
step aside as she strode past them.

The servants were another matter. They
feared her, she knew, and they avoided her when they could, which
was right and correct, for she was a woman to be feared.

Avis, the chief steward of the household,
waited outside the sanctum when she arrived. It was not the first
time he had anticipated her with almost clairvoyant accuracy, and
it was not the first time she wondered if there wasn’t some small
talent hidden within his soul.

She paused before entering the sanctum,
though she kept her eyes straight ahead looking at the power
within, and not at the servant standing to one side. “You know the
procedure, Avis.”

“Yes, madam. I’ll seal the chamber and post
guards.”

She nodded, then stepped forth into the
sanctum, the servant already gone from her mind. This room, and
others like it, always struck her as odd, even after all these
years. Twelve walls and twelve corners. Almost round, but not
quite. The servants would never enter such a room, not even in fear
of their mortal lives, for rightly they feared for their immortal
souls.

For a moment she stood without moving,
looking at the ceiling and the twelve walls, her eyes narrowing
into a look of intense concentration. Then she chose one of the
twelve corners, though there was nothing to distinguish it from the
rest. She approached it, stood motionless before it, and
concentrated with every ounce of her will on the words of power she
knew existed within her.

She spoke the words from memory, almost by
rote, for as always they carried no meaning at first, as if they
were not meant to be understood by a mere mortal such as she. But
then slowly the power within them filled her soul with meaning, and
the air about her began to shimmer without luminance, a wavering of
the senses only there at the edge of vision. Then suddenly, as if
her actions were controlled by something beyond her own will, her
hand thrust upward high in the air. Her sleeve billowed about a
leathery old wrist quivering with tension, and she cried out in a
voice that echoed the power at her command: “
Primus
,” she
called, “I bid you come.”

Pain shot through her arm as a spark of
brilliant radiance flared within her upraised hand, and light that
was not meant for mortal eyes splashed across the room. She wanted
to look away; she wanted to wince at the pain that burned a hole
into her soul, but she knew she dare not show such weakness to the
life she had called forth from the nether reaches.

She stood for a long, motionless moment. And
then, when certain she had achieved control, she lowered her hand
slowly to the floor, left behind a pillar of such intensity that
now she must look away. To the eyes it was a rod of golden light no
wider than a finger, but to her soul it was something far more. It
was power, the First Dominant Ward of Power, vibrating with a sound
that hurt her ears, blistering her hand with heat, and torturing
her soul with a life beyond what she could ever hope to
comprehend.

She turned away from it almost arrogantly,
walked to the next corner, raised her hand again and cried,
“
Secundus
. I bid you come,” and there she drew forth another
Ward. But where the first had been gold, the second was violet, and
it sang a note higher and more shrill. “
Tertius
,” she cried
at the third corner, and brought forth the white Ward.
Quartus
answered her summons at the fourth corner, and
Quintus
at the fifth. When
Sextus
finally occupied
the sixth corner she paused, sweat beading on her brow, lines of
strain added to those of age.

She passed the next two corners without
filling them, for between them stood the only entrance to the room,
a heavy stone door hanging on massive iron hinges. At the ninth
corner she called upon
Nonus
, and at the tenth
Decimus
, then
Undecimus
, and
Duodecimus
. She
completed the circuit of the room, and turned to look upon her
work: ten Wards in ten corners, each flaring its own color, and
sounding a note harsh and demanding.

AnnaRail entered the room cautiously,
carrying Rat. She was followed by a woman her own age, and an
adolescent boy. She placed Rat, still unconscious, though naked now
and washed, on the stone floor at the center of the chamber. And
about them all the air shimmered with power.

Olivia turned to the young boy. “I need your
strong back, grandson.”

He appeared to know what was required of him
without being told; he stepped to the heavy stone door, put a
shoulder to it, and pushed. It swung silently on its hinges and
closed with a thud to form the twelfth wall. He reached out, threw
the bolt, sealed the chamber, and except for the hinges, handle,
and locking bolt of the door, the twelve walls were now without
feature. The boy joined the two younger women at the center of the
room.

Olivia stepped up to the now clear seventh
corner, and without hesitating she reached upward and cried,
“
Septimus
. I bid you come.” And in her lowering hand she
brought forth the black Ward, unique in its silence and lack of
color.

She stepped to the last corner, the only
corner that did not glow with the infinite power of a Ward, and her
bearing changed, for now she was in command. Her back straightened;
her chin thrust outward, and her sagging, old breasts stood out as
if she were a young girl again. There was a sense of strength in
her movements; her eyes alight with godfire, and about her hung the
aura of a queen. “
Octavus
,” she commanded, “Ward of the
power of the eighth tribe, Keeper of the House of Elhiyne, I
command you . . . attend me.”

Instantly the eighth Ward appeared, red,
angry, and powerful. She admired it for a moment, then turned her
back on it arrogantly. “The circle is complete,” she said to the
others. “None may enter. None may leave.”

Without speaking further she joined them at
the center of the chamber and added her hands to the living circle
they now formed about Rat. She looked at each of them closely,
judging them. Her eyes—large black pools in the middle of white
orbs—shown with an orange red glow, a manifestation of the power at
her command. She knew that to the others her eyes gave her the
appearance of near madness, and she was oddly proud of that. She
stood wrapped within her power, dark, arrogant, dangerous.

She lifted her face to the
gods
and
spoke. “We, of House Elhiyne, of Clan Elhiyne, of the eighth tribe
of the Shahot, are here assembled in arcane rite. Let those whose
magic is not ours . . . BE GONE.”

~~~

Rat awoke suddenly, though cautiously he lay
without moving for a time, eyes closed and listening. Only when
certain he had heard every sound the room would yield did he open
his good eye. He was naked, and alone, lying beneath a blanket on a
cot in an otherwise empty room: a bare stone cell with a doorway
but no door.

He tossed the cover aside, swung his legs
off the cot and crossed the room in an instant. He found no one in
the hallway beyond, but to his delight he discovered many shadows.
It took much searching to find his way in such strange
surroundings, for often he had to hide in a convenient shadow while
witches passed. And then there was the stairway, a long winding
path of steps down which he had to sneak with no help whatsoever
from shadow. But he made it, and once below he found the courtyard
easily. From there it was a simple matter to find the front gate,
to slip through the iron bars and lose himself in the shadows of
the city beyond.

It took all afternoon to cross the city and
find his den, but he managed it, and once there he searched
frantically for his
gesh
. To his great relief it was there,
undisturbed. But as he placed a pinch of the root on his tongue it
seemed to catch fire, his eyes felt suddenly as if they would burst
from his head, and the contents of his stomach came boiling forth
to splatter all over the filthy straw of his bed. The convulsions
continued without mercy until he finally fainted.