The Western Wizard (74 page)

One by one, Colbey’s foundations and trusts had shattered or disappeared. He had done nothing he considered wrong, yet he had betrayed one blood brother and lost the trust of the other. For all he had tried to devote his body and soul to the Renshai, he had gathered his own personal foes even as the tribe shed the ones they had acquired through centuries of brutality.

Colbey banished these concerns for closer matters. He remained in place, considering. Though exhaustion made his thoughts seem fuzzy, simply thinking did not tap his stores of energy like active mental intrusions.
So now I have two enemies among Odin’s Wizards.
The challenge intrigued as well as bothered him. Seeking death, he could not fear consequences, so long as he had a hand in them. The prophecy seemed indisputable, particularly when bolstered by the driving, pounding certainty of Shadimar and Valr Kirin.
They believe I will become a servant to Carcophan.

Colbey considered, drawing on his own experience with prophecies and Wizards’ interpretations of them. During the years when the madness had assailed him, before his mind had conquered it, glimpses of future actions and consequences had plagued him. Goaded by the
certainty that Episte’s father would die if he and Colbey were reunited, Colbey had spent months dodging Rache Kallmirsson’s pursuit. Later, Colbey had come to Rache, drawn by the younger Renshai’s death call. Colbey revived images of the last full-blooded Renshai, other than himself, lying in sands turned scarlet from his own blood. The picture seemed bittersweet. Though the end of an era, Rache had died in the glory of battle, as Renshai were meant. The
Valkyrie
that had claimed Rache’s soul left no doubt that, though poison had had as much claim on his life as the sword stroke that had infused it, he had reached Valhalla.

Intact
. The thought came instantly, from years of faith, though now it drew Colbey into a current of bitterness. He forced it aside for the point his memory had raised.
It was not our reuniting that killed Rache; his wound would have proved fatal whether or not I answered his call. All the glimpse told me was that Rache would die when we met again, not that our reunion would lead to his death. My fears added the cause to the effect.
The conclusion came naturally.
If I could make such a mistake, why not the Northern and Eastern Wizards?

Colbey had never considered himself a brilliant thinker, and it seemed nearly sacrilege to place his musings at the level of Wizards directed by Odin. Still, exposure to Shadimar and his assertions told Colbey that, despite their centuries and scholarship, the Cardinal Wizards were fallible.
When Carcophan tried to thwart the prophecy that a Renshai would kill Siderin, he sent his assassins after Rache. Equally wrong, Shadimar believed Mitrian was that Renshai. None of their grandiose magics revealed me.
Colbey’s memory added a detail that still annoyed him.
And even I didn’t kill Siderin. Arduwyn’s arrow stole that victory
. Once again, Colbey saw how vagaries in the Wizard’s prophecies could be misinterpreted. The version that he had heard simply called him the hero of the Great War, never directly stating that he would kill Siderin, only that he would receive the awe and credit.
Whether I wanted it or not.

Still, the wording that Colbey had gleaned from Shadimar left little room for interpretation. It clearly stated that the world’s greatest mortal swordsman would become
Carcophan’s champion.
And, unless and until I die, that can only refer to me.
No pride accompanied the thought, only a certainty that came of reality too strong to deny.
Neither Shadimar nor Trilless cares to listen to me. Perhaps Carcophan will.
The idea intrigued Colbey.
I would not turn against the Westlands without just cause, especially to support an absolute. Perhaps I’ll find that just cause in the Evil One’s explanation. If not, then I will kill him, and the others, too, if necessary
. For reasons he could not explain, the thought pained Colbey, plaguing his conscience in a way no slaying ever had before. Even the realization that he would not kill unprovoked did not ease his mind.
If Carcophan won’t come to me, then I have little choice but to find him.

The night deepened. Shadimar did not return, and Colbey guessed that the mental effort of constructing barriers had drained him as fully as Colbey. Carefully, Colbey rose and dragged his weary body back to the camp.

*  *  *

Demons taunted Arduwyn’s delirium, their bodies shimmering and shifting in manlike parodies, their wolf heads slobbering trails of dark blood across the sands of the Western Plains. Arduwyn flailed wildly with a hand crooked into a claw. The demons retreated. Their fang-filled mouths gaped in soundless laughter. They advanced on him again.

Arduwyn screamed. He scrambled backward, his sudden movement bringing a hovering, yellow sphere into view. He willed it closer, knowing without comprehending reasons that it could aid him in his battle against the creatures that tormented him. It held a power and consequence he could not define, the same lethally irresistible allure that a flame holds for a moth and Colbey held for Arduwyn. The globe remained, a round, floating form beyond his grasp, but its relationship to the elder Renshai remained clear, in a way Arduwyn could only understand in dream.

The demons prowled closer, lips peeled from eyeteeth and amber eyes hypnotic in their depth. Arduwyn banished the creatures to peripheral vision, his concentration centered on the sphere. In halting jerks, it glided toward him, dipping and rolling over the heads of the demons
with a slowness that maddened Arduwyn to a frenzy of desperation. Life itself rode on that sphere, one with far more significance than his own. The air grew fetid with demon breath, sapping Arduwyn’s remaining strength. He reached for the orb, but it swirled just beyond his grasp. He screamed in frustration, shouting repetitive, shrill syllables that held no meaning, even in his own mind. He turned his focus fully to the words, willing understanding.

Gradually, the words grew comprehensible, and Arduwyn’s own crazed voice rang through his ears. “What day is it? What day is it? What day is it?”

“The eleventh morning of the Month of Bright Stars in the eleventh year of King Sterrane’s reign.” The not-quite-familiar voice spoke the words in a weary, hopeless tone that implied he had answered the question many times. “Long live our king.” The platitude followed in a monotone that stole all sincerity from the words.

The significance of the number came gradually. “Eleventh!” Arduwyn sat up. He lay on a low pallet in a room so small that the walls seemed to close in on him.

A man whirled to face Arduwyn, obviously startled by his reply. The hunter recognized the soulful dark eyes, the gray stubble of hair, and the large-pored face of Béarn’s court physician. “Arduwyn! Ruaidhri’s ever-eternal mercy, you’re well.”

Arduwyn heard the physician’s words as if from a distance, his brain still centered on the date.
She gave me until the twelfth. Bel gave me until the twelfth of this month!
“The eleventh? It’s really the eleventh?” Arduwyn held his breath, sanity hinged on the other man’s reply.

The physician continued as if Arduwyn had not spoken, apparently believing the hunter was still shaking off the aftereffects of his delirium. “I thought our king’s eyes would swell to the size of pomegranates. First another death, after we thought we were finally rid of the consumption. Then you. Seeing his majesty cry hurts something in me. It’s like stealing a bone from a puppy. I had to send him from the room, you know. And your daughter, too. I couldn’t work with—”

Arduwyn made a desperate grab for the Béarnide,
catching a handful of cloak. The movement shot agony through his leg. “Please. I have to know. Is it really the eleventh? Are you certain?”

“Yes, of course.” The physician dismissed the question. “Do you think I would lie?”

“Then I’ve returned in time!” Arduwyn tried to rise from the bed.

The physician made a pained noise, using both of his huge hands to pin the struggling redhead to the pallet. “Damn it, Arduwyn! Lie still. I didn’t save that leg to have you reinjure it.”

Arduwyn ignored the physician’s comments, though he did go still. “Where’s Bel? I need to see her right away.”

The physician hesitated, just long enough to raise Arduwyn’s concern to a panic. “You stay here. I promised his majesty I’d call for him as soon as you could speak.”

“Sterrane can wait!” Worried to a frenzy, Arduwyn did not use the appropriate amenities. “I have to see Bel immediately.”

The Béarnide dodged the demand. “You were poisoned as well as injured. Lucky your horse knew the way home. Such a loyal girl. And who would have guessed you’d run into the captain of the guard on the return trip. If he hadn’t carried that
brishigsa
weed . . . it’s a broad antidote, you know—”

“Bel!” For now, Arduwyn’s wounds had to take second place to Bel’s safety. And the explanation of the details of his treatment fell to a distant third. “Where is Bel?”

“Bel?”

“Yes, Bel!” Arduwyn had begun to wonder which of them had just had his thoughts scrambled by fever. He still felt woozy, as if a dark sheet covered his thoughts, yet his simple request seemed to addle the old Béarnide more. “My wife, Bel. You know her. You treated our children.”

“Of course I know Bel,” the physician spoke with a pat smoothness that enraged Arduwyn. “Now you just lie still. And I’ll get his majesty.”

Arduwyn shouted. “Have you gone deaf or stupid? I have to see Bel first. If you don’t get her, I will.”

“No.” The physician’s expression combined uncertainty,
pain, and anger. “Stay still. The orders of my king come first, and he told me that no one speaks with you before him.”

Despite his dizziness, Arduwyn knew Sterrane too well to believe the king would care whether he spoke with Bel first or second. Usually, his bargaining skills would give him the words to sway the physician to his cause. But sapped of strength by the injury and the last remnants of poison, he abandoned negotiation for desperate need. Though he knew it would hurt him more than the Béarnian court physician, Arduwyn thrashed wildly. Agony shocked and spiraled through his left thigh, lancing pain from his hip to his toes. Unconsciousness swam down on him, threatening, and he felt a deep nausea like nothing he had ever experienced.

The physician made a wordless cry of outrage. He fought to hold the hunter still.

Arduwyn continued to struggle, fighting hovering blackness as well. He lunged from the pallet. His foot met the floor and buckled beneath him with a pain that flashed a white bolt through his vision. He rolled to the floor.

“Stop it!” The physician tried to grab swirling arms and legs.

The effort of talking roiled nausea through Arduwyn. Pain coarsened his voice to a growl. “I’ll stop when you tell me about Bel.”

“All right!” the healer screamed. “All right. Just let me help you back in bed.”

Arduwyn went still. He allowed the physician to heft him gently and deposit him back onto the pallet. The Béarnide reached for Arduwyn’s leg, presumably to examine the damage. Blood stained the bandage, brown framed by fresher red.

Arduwyn scissored away, as much to avoid the pain as to hold the Béarnide to his promise. “Bel first,” he reminded, uncertain whether physical or emotional pain brought tears to his eye.

“I ought to let you tear that leg apart.” The physician mumbled, his words clearly meant for himself though he addressed Arduwyn. “I’m sorry,” he said. “His majesty thought it best if he told you himself.”

Fear spiraled down on Arduwyn, obscuring the pain. He could not even ask the obvious question.

“The consumption took her. I did all I could. I’m sorry.”

“Took her?” Arduwyn did not dare ponder the obvious euphemism. The pain dropped to a tingle.

“She’s dead.”

“Dead,” Arduwyn echoed, incapable of voicing an original thought. All hurt disappeared, and the numbness spread across his body like a rash. “Dead? Bel?”

“I’m sorry,” the healer said again.

“Sorry,” Arduwyn repeated.

“It happened quickly. She didn’t suffer.” He touched Arduwyn’s arm in sympathetic silence. “Should I get his majesty now? And your daughter? They’ve both had a long vigil.”

“Get his majesty now.” Again, Arduwyn parroted the physician, able to comprehend only the first few words before the other’s voice muddled to obscurity. His emotions had emptied, and he had no idea whether or not he wanted to see Sterrane. His memory brought images of Bel to mind easily, but the concept of “dead” would not register.
I’m still dreaming. The demons are still here.

“Lie still,” the physician instructed for what seemed the thousandth time. “Rest, if you can. I’ll be back.”

“I got back on time.” Finally, Arduwyn managed to speak, other than with the physician’s words. This time, he had quoted himself. “I got back on time. She can’t be dead. The gods wouldn’t do that.
I got back on time!”

The Béarnian physician fidgeted. Surely, he had dealt with death too many times to count, but never before in direct defiance of his king’s order. “The gods don’t always work in ways we understand.” He pulled a vial from his pocket. “Here. Take this. It’ll calm you.” He offered the vial.

Arduwyn took it. It was easier to follow instructions than to think.

“I’ll get his majesty now.” The Béarnide spun on his heels and whisked from the room, closing the door behind him.

Arduwyn closed his eye, certain that the death god, Dakoi, could have no cosmic purpose for Bel. “I got
back on time.” Meaning disappeared from the words, and they became as nonsensical as his ravings in his delirium. Restlessness drove through him. He set the vial down. Sitting up, he kicked it. It skittered across the floorboards, struck an uneven edge, and rebounded beneath the mattress. White pinpoints danced and sparked across Arduwyn’s vision, coalescing to a white plain that stole all sight and reason. Gritting his teeth, he held the position, afraid to move for fear of losing consciousness. The whiteness broke in pieces, then faded, leaving the normal darkness of closed eyes.