The Golden Shield of IBF (56 page)

Swan’s answer was astonishingly quick. “I did not raise the dead, nor can my mother. Such power is beyond any magic in the universe. I summoned the spirits of Mir and his army and, with my magic, gave them form and substance. When my magical energy was draining away as I wove the vortex of light, you might have—”

“Mir told me that your magic was fading. I saw them, some of them, their bodies and the bodies of their horses becoming transparent, like they were just fading away.” Garrison smiled, shaking his head.

“What is it?” Swan asked him. They were nearly to the ring of bonfires.

“Something I read years ago, about old soldiers never dying. I’ll tell you later. If your mother can’t—”

“Then, what is she doing? Do you remember, Al’An, when I took your life force from you before it left you, there on Arba’Il’Tac? I placed it within the bird so that when your body would be fatally damaged the life force would not escape it? My father’s life force escaped his body with nowhere to go but into death. When you and I were one within the vortex and our life forces left our bodies, they went into the vortex, did not just escape our bodies. I could summon my father’s spirit from death, as I did with the spirit of Mir and those of his knights and archers, but their bodies are long since gone to dust, as will the body of my father. With his life force gone, the body remaining is only a deteriorating husk. The witches can only reanimate his body, not return the life force energy to it.

“What’s she want with—”

Alan Garrison didn’t get to finish the question—what would the Queen Sorceress want with a dead body? Swan stopped walking, only a few feet away from the crackling bonfires. “Mother?”

The woman inside the circle did not turn around, but called out, “I laud your abilities, child. But you have not won. You could win, but will not, because you will not kill me, nor will you harm your father. You are good, and that is your problem.”

Eran turned away from the body before her and faced them. Garrison was stunned. Eran wore a dress of deepest red, accentuating a figure that a Hollywood actress would have killed for. The dress’s neckline was low, showing a cleavage that glistened in the firelight. A magnificently carved black baldric was suspended from her right shoulder to her left hip, its engraved silver buckle further drawing the eye to her breasts. Sheathed to her left hip was a sword, its hilt ornate.

The only odd thing was the riding boots, visible beneath the hem of the red dress and the hint of white linen under it. Strapped to the black leather boots were glinting silver spurs.

Her complexion was flawless, her black hair falling to her shoulders and beyond in heavy, undulating waves. The liquid green of her eyes was impossibly beautiful. Garrison blinked. The eyes were just like Swan’s eyes as he looked more closely, a little grey in them, making them prettier still. He blinked again, and the face was Swan’s face.

Garrison took a step back. It was Swan, not her mother! This was Swan. Her hands touched at her throat and her fingers trailed lazily down across her bare skin to her breasts and her lips formed a kiss as Garrison started to step between the bonfires and reach for—“Mother! You do not have the power to make Al’An think that you are me!”

“I just did, child.”

Garrison staggered, blinked. His hands were inches away from Eran’s body, and now they shook. Eran stepped back, deeper within the circle of bonfires, laughing at him. He felt Swan’s hand tug at his arm. He shook his head, took a step back.

Looking into Eran’s eyes, his voice low, Alan Garrison snarled, “You lousy—”

Eran cut him off. “And this is your Champion! You picked a handsome fellow. Al’An, is it? I hope he performs to your satisfaction, daughter. There are ways to enhance that, if you wish.”

Garrison felt oddly awkward, like a rock on the ground or a piece of furniture—or a sex object. He was being talked about as if he were just a decoration or something. And Eran’s eyes were undressing him.

“Mother?”

Eran’s eyes left Garrison, flickered to her daughter. “Yes?”

“You made a mistake. Don’t make another mistake.”

“You mean with your father?”

“You cannot bring him back to life. You don’t have sufficient magical energy to leave Creath and find another other realm male. I can command all of the magical energy of the universe. You cannot prevent my removing you from power. You can, however, live out your life in what peace and happiness you can find.”

“You would do that for me? You are good. And, remember, child, that good shall be your undoing. I won’t step down. You won’t kill me. You are wrong. I do not make a mistake, an error, whatever you choose to call it. My Handmaidens even now summon your father to life. Do you want to watch us while I take my energy from him, see your mother and father—”

A glance at Swan’s face told Garrison that he had to shut up her mother—quick. He said, “Hey, come on now, Mrs. Goodman!”

The pretty eyes weren’t pretty as they bored into him. “I am not Mrs. Goo’D’Man! I am the Queen Sorceress!”

“Yeah, and you’re also g’urg outta luck; but, on the other hand, a good-looking widow like you—”

“Silence! Or I will—”

Alan Garrison gave her his best smile. “You’re beautiful beyond description, on the outside. But, inside, I don’t think so.”

“Mother, you cannot do what you intend.”

“Watch me. Watch us.”

“Al’An, we are going!” Swan announced matter-of-factly.

Alan Garrison just looked at Swan. “You can’t be serious! I mean, this isn’t like we’re some married couple at a dinner party and the hostess just brought out a tray of drugs or something. We can’t just—”

“I really think we should go.”

“You’re going to let her grab some more magical energy and start another damn war? I don’t think so, sweetheart!”

“Please, Al’An?”

Eran laughed. “Please? Turn him into something like Mul’Din over there,” and she gestured toward the solitary horse outside the circle of witches. “Even just for a while, and teach him some manners. Remember who you are. Even though I will, someday, destroy you, you are my daughter! Remember that!”

“Yo! I love your daughter and she’s not turning me into something, or anything like that! She loves me.” He almost choked with laughter as he thought of it, Eran as his mother-in-law. “And I’m gonna marry her. And you can butt out!” He looked at Swan. “It’s really okay to go? She’s not going to—”

“We should go now, Al’An.”

Garrison took Swan’s hand. They started walking away from the circle of bonfires.

“Don’t leave! Watch us! Don’t you want to see your father one more time, child? Watch us!”

“Squeeze my hand. Tight!” Swan hissed through her teeth.

“Take it easy. She really can’t—” As Garrison looked at her, he saw that Swan was crying. The chanting of the witches grew louder, faster. Garrison looked behind them. The bonfires were rising in intensity. Eran’s arms were outstretched toward the sky, her fingers splayed. “She’s trying to take magical energy—”

“I have it all at my command. She can take nothing.”

“This deal with your father’s—”

Swan stopped in her tracks, looked at him, anger, disgust, sadness, all visible in her eyes by the firelight.

“You mad at me?”

“No. Never at you. If you must be certain, then watch. But I have warned you.”

Alan Garrison started to ask Swan what she meant, but before he could speak the fires flared more brightly still and the wind gusted so strongly that he clung to Swan lest she’d be knocked down.

The Handmaidens of Koth, witches all, caught fire, living torches lighting one after the other, their bodies remaining unconsumed within the fires, motionless.

“What’s—”

“It is too late, Al’An!” Swan shouted over the howling wind. “It’s too late! It’s happening.”

The witches’ circles within circles were all ablaze. Garrison looked at Swan again, followed her eyes. She stared into the inner circle, at her mother, at the body lying on the bier.

Garrison thought that he saw it move, knew in the next instant that his eyes hadn’t deceived him, when Swan’s own body tensed in his arms. “I’ll get you out of here,” Garrison shouted over the roar of wind and fire.

“No.”

“Then you get us out of here with your magic!”

“You were right, Al’An.” Swan’s voice was almost a scream. “I can’t run from this, because it will be ugly. I cannot leave it unfinished.” Swan turned in Garrison’s arms, looked straight at her mother and the reanimating corpse of her father.

The body sat up, stiff legged.

Eran. Garrison realized that Eran had lost her mind. Her hands raised the baldric from her shoulder, and she let the sword belt and the weapon it carried fall to the ground at her feet. Her hands moved behind her neck, under her hair. In a moment, Garrison realized that she was unfastening her dress. Eran’s arms twisted behind her and her hands busily worked her dress open the rest of the way.

Eran slipped her arms from the dress and was naked from the waist up. Eran moved almost imperceptibly and the dress fell to her feet. She wore a white petticoat, trimmed in lace. Her fingers did something at its waist and the petticoat fell away. Eran was entirely naked now, except for the boots. Her body was magnificently erotic as she stepped out of her clothes and approached the bier.

Swan shivered. Garrison held Swan more tightly.

Eran climbed onto the bier, her hands touching the chest of the reanimated corpse, her mouth about to touch its mouth.

Garrison started to raise his hand to cover Swan’s eyes, but Swan pushed it away. “It is almost finished,” Swan told him, her voice barely audible even though she clearly was shouting to be heard over the wind and the crackling of the fires.

There was a tightness in Garrison’s throat. Swan’s body was rigid in his arms.

Eran fully embraced the corpse of Swan’s father, leaning the body back, simultaneously straddling it and touching her lips to its mouth.

In the instant that their bodies joined together, the howling wind ended and the witches’ fiery circles within circles ceased to blaze and the bonfires died.

The Handmaidens’ bodies dissolved to dust.

Eran lifted her body from the corpse, flung out her arms from her sides, threw back her head and uttered a piercing scream.

As Garrison watched, Eran’s body began to collapse into itself, implode. Her arms, still outstretched, were disintegrating to dust. Her head sagged into a torso which could no longer support it, her legs shriveling. A breeze, but not the wind which had lashed the barren ground, rustled Swan’s skirts, tugged gently at Swan’s hair, at Garrison’s hair.

The breeze must also have touched what remained of Eran’s body.

Garrison blinked.

A dust devil rose from the bier and what had remained of the Queen Sorceress’s body was gone.

The ashes from the bonfires were caught up in the breeze, vanished as well.

Garrison looked around them. The breeze swept clean the ashes of the Handmaidens of Koth, as if they had never been. Garrison looked skyward. The darkly luminous clouds scudded away, the newly revealed sky a rich blue. He and Swan stood alone beneath it. The body of Swan’s father, Peter Goodman, lay alone, once more, unmolested on the bier.

Garrison heard the sound of hooves on hard ground. The black horse, saddle empty, reins swaying free, galloped off toward the horizon. He touched his lips to Swan’s forehead, to her cheek, turned her in his arms so that she faced him. Tears streamed from her eyes. Alan Garrison held Swan close.

Chapter Sixteen

Alan Garrison looked up from the book. The size of the crowd had surprised him. He was even more surprised that since he’d begun the reading, instead of his audience surreptitiously fleeing, more people had entered the room, standing at the back and on the sides. He cleared his throat and continued reading. “Swan told me what I had feared that she would, what Erg’Ran had hinted at, that there was danger beyond understanding in the magical power which she now possessed. And, if I, a man from the other realm, were to stay in Creath and take her as my wife, Swan would be at risk of falling into the well of depravity within which her mother at last had drowned. Eventually, Swan and I might end as Eran and Peter Goodman had ended.

“The worst part of it, although I could not imagine Swan’s ever turning to evil, was that I loved her too much to risk it.

“And so, I witnessed Swan’s magic as only a bystander for one more time, knowing that her next use of magical energy would be to return me to where she had found me.

“We’d burned Peter Goodman’s remains. The magical energy Swan had used to summon the vortex of light with which she destroyed the Mist of Oblivion had robbed the summer palace of its magical aura. When she returned to it, restored it to as it had been, she would take her father’s ashes with her and scatter them in the gardens which never ceased to bloom.

“So it was even stranger to see Peter Goodman standing there with us, having form and substance once again, however briefly.

“Swan had summoned his spirit, as she had done with the spirit of Mir and the spirits of his knights and archers. Peter Goodman stood with us as Mir approached. Mir dropped to one knee and touched his lips to Swan’s outreaching hand.

“‘Hail to you Enchantress!’“ Mir stood, resting his hands on the hilt of his great sword. ‘“You have done well. Rule Creath wisely and with honor, lady. And, should it ever be that I may have the honor to serve you again, lady, you have but to summon me.’

‘“I would ask a boon of you, Mir.’

“‘Name it, Enchantress, and I will grant it if such is within my power.’

‘“My father, too, was a soldier, Mir. And, like you, he was a hero. The boon which I crave is that his spirit may accompany you, that he may ride at your side in death.’

“Mir looked at Peter Goodman, then extended his hand. Goodman clasped it.

‘“You honor me with your request, Enchantress, and I shall be forever honored that he who is the origin of your seed will be with me.’

“Mir said his farewells, to Gar’Ath and Mitan—on whom Mir seemed to very much enjoy gazing—and to Captain Bre’Gaa and to me. ‘Champion! The name suits you, lad. I made a promise that I would share with you a secret known by none living in these days. I do that now. I am like you.’