Bloodsongs (46 page)

Reimuth raised a hand, pleading for mercy. She begged, but her voice was small and weak against the wind that pushed her toward her doom. In a last effort to save herself, her pale hands locked around the broken body of the raven sculpture that once had set upon the gate, but her strength faded quickly, surely. Bleeding, her fingers gave way, and she tumbled over the threshold.

She began to age at once. Her skin melted and sagged. Her porcelain beauty dissolved into cracks and deep wrinkles and thick folds. With astonishing speed her hair grayed. Her flesh lost its luster and turned a sickly pallor. Her breasts, so rich and full, withered in an instant.

The thing that once had been her mother collapsed on the ground. With a last effort, a rotting head lifted and rheumy eyes stared at her. A hand trembled in supplication, and a voice caked with the rust of years whispered to her.

It said her name, and no more as it died.

Samidar.

The music froze inside her. The wind failed, and the lightning ceased. The rain made only a soft patter on the cobbles, then stopped. The clouds rolled expectantly through the heavens.

Frost quivered with disbelief and terror at what she'd done. She had not intended this—to strike her mother down a second time! All her old guilts rushed in upon her again, the old nightmares, all the old fears. She bit her lip until a trickle of blood ran down her chin. Silently she cursed herself, and she cursed the power that throbbed impatiently within her.

Reimuth's feeble limbs twitched. Her life, it seemed, was not yet completely gone.

With a sob, Frost ran to her mother's side, swept the frail body up in her arms, and carried it back through the fortress gate. She stopped and pressed Reimuth's head to her breast and waited. No breath came to those parched lips; nothing stirred in the brittle chest. Frost lay her face next to her mother's leathery, sunken cheek and rocked the woman as if she were a baby.

“Mother,” she mumbled, spilling tears into Reimuth's vacant, staring eyes. “Mother!”

Something glinted on the ground ahead. Frost looked up and saw the circle of gold that Kel had poured upon the ground. Despite all the mayhem, it was miraculously intact. The Lamp of Nugaril lay just outside it, but there was no sign of the other Aspects.

She glanced up at the sky, swore, and bit her lip again. There was still time. Morning was yet a while off. But she would have to search for the Eye of Skraal and the Book of Shakari. She prayed to her gods that it would not take too long.

Fired by her new resolve, she hurried to place her mother within the circle, pausing only long enough to smooth back the wisps of hair that had strayed across the empty face. With a thumb and forefinger, she closed Reimuth's eyes, noting with a stab of pain their deep green color so like her own.

The book proved easy to find. It lay spine up, open to the earth next to the bottom stair. Some of the pages had folded under, and a few others were smeared with mud. Somehow, perhaps through some magic of its own, it had escaped any damage by the rain.

The Eye of Skraal, however, was nowhere in sight. She began to wander over the grounds, searching for the jewel with a grim desperation.

“Is he dead?” a voice asked weakly.

She turned, startled. Telric leaned on his sword and regarded her with a dazed look. It shamed her to admit she had forgotten him. He repeated his question, and she looked around for her son. She spied his limp form in the darkness. “I don't know,” she confessed. “I think so.”

Telric started toward Kel. “I'll make sure.”

She caught his arm. “No, I need your help. If we find the emerald, I can save my mother.”

His brows shot up. “Save her? What in the hells for?”

She let go of him and stepped back, angry. “She died once because of me, damn you, and the memory haunted me for half my life. I won't let that happen again.” She squeezed his arm again. “Help me, Telric. Don't you see? This is my chance for redemption!”

He pulled away from her and stared across the yard to where Reimuth lay. “She's dead already,” he said. “You defeated her.”

“But I can save her this time,” Frost insisted. “I can use the Three Aspects myself. I have the lamp and the book. I need the jewel.”

His face was full of doubt. “And when she wakes up, what then? She'll want revenge for Kel.”

She shrugged. “I have to do this. I said terrible things to her when we fought, but in her own way, I know she loved me once.” She gazed toward the circle and her mother's still form. Outside the gate those limbs had twitched, but she had no doubt now that Reimuth was dead. “And I loved her, too. After I fled from Esgaria, I used to get so lonely I'd cry for her.” She looked up into the Rholarothan's eyes, begging him for understanding. “I've got to do this!”

Telric let go a heavy sigh. “Then let's find the god-cursed stone, get this over with, and get out of here. If I never set foot in Esgaria again, I'll die a happy man.”

Leave Esgaria,
she thought strangely,
leave home?
For all the grief and anguish that filled her, there was still room for the sadness such a consideration brought. Yet she realized in that moment that she would ride anywhere with Telric—away from Esgaria, away from the place where she was born—anywhere he wanted to go. Yesterday, this land had called to her, filling her with an awed wonder. Now, she longed only to be free from a ponderous shadow.

She resumed her search for the Eye of Skraal. “If I get close enough, I'll sense its emanations,” she told her friend. “But it's dark; it might have rolled anywhere. You take that side of the courtyard.”

He sheathed his sword and made his way toward the ruined gate in a half crouch, the better to see the ground. She worked her way gradually toward her son's body, searching with her eyes and her witch's senses. There was so much rubble, broken stone, and cobbles. Quite possibly, she feared, the emerald was buried.

Down by the shattered barracks something moved. She froze in midstep, then straightened and watched the twin spots of flame that raced toward her. A small part of her brightened to see the unicorn, but she was too weary to rejoice—and too desperate for her mother.

A short distance from Kel's body, Ashur stopped. He snorted suddenly and pawed the earth; his eyes sparked. Then, to Frost's amazement, he charged and drove his ebon horn straight for her son's body.

Even as she screamed, Kel rolled aside. Still alive, then! But perhaps not for long. Ashur lunged again, and again Kel barely avoided that glittering point.

Frost ran, all thought of the gem vanished from her mind. Ashur reared over her son, and Kel's face went ashen with terror. He raised the stump of his right hand to ward off the unicorn's next thrust, too paralyzed with fear to do more as he stared at certain death.

Then she was between them. She shouted Ashur's name angrily as deadly hooves lashed out. The unicorn bellowed confusion as he tried to avoid her. He came down on top of her, brushing her shoulder with a foreleg, numbing her entire arm. She fell backward from the force of the blow, and the wind rushed out of her lungs as she landed on her son's knee. His outcry rang in her ears.

Then another cry drowned him out, a horrible and familiar shrieking that tore open the night with its sharp-edged fury. From the corner of her eye she saw Telric racing toward her as Ashur paced an uncertain circle. There was no help for her, she realized.

Demonfang gleamed above her, clutched in her son's one hand. He plunged it deep, ripping another scream from her to add to the dagger's demented chorus.

But an instant later, the dagger went silent. The blade grated between her ribs, yet Kel had missed her heart. She sucked in a short, painful breath, knocked his hand from the hilt, and rolled away from him. Gasping, she struggled to her feet and her sword hissed from its sheath. She raised it for the death stroke.

This was what she had come to do. Now, Kel would pay for the murder of his father and brother. Kimon and Kirigi could rest in peace. And how many others would also rest when he was dead? How many men and women, how many kingdoms, would be safe?

But her arm refused to fall. She added her right hand to the hilt, yet she couldn't bring the blade down. Her knuckles cracked as she wrestled with her weapon. Her muscles trembled. Her sword hovered over Kel, ready for a final blow that she couldn't bring herself to strike.

It was no charm, she knew, nothing of Kel's doing. He was at last helpless and without hope; it showed in his face as he cringed at her feet. It was no magic at all that stayed her hand. Only the knowledge that he was her son.

Slowly, then, Kel realized her weakness. He smiled, puckered his cheeks, and spit into his one good hand the missing Eye of Skraal.

A hot rage seared through her. He'd had the jewel all along and played dead, knowing that sooner or later its emanations would draw her close enough to give him the chance to use Demonfang. How he must hate her!

And how she hated him. Hated and loved—she saw it now like the two edges of the same sword.

Telric ran up behind Kel and paused. His steely eyes locked briefly with hers, and he saw her inability. His own sword made a swift, glittering arc as he swung, and he glared at his nephew with a cold determination, knowing evil when he looked upon it.

Frost unleashed a portion of her power to stop him. Death halted a hair's-breadth from Kel's neck.

“Release me, Samidar!” the Rholarothan shouted bitterly. “I've had too much of people controlling my actions. You know what he is. You know what has to be done!”

She heard his words dimly. Demonfang's power began to work its damnable magic. It had not found her heart, but it had tasted her blood, and that had satisfied it momentarily. Still, its hunger was unending, and she could feel it as it slowly devoured her life.

She reached inside herself, opened her soul, and matched her power against the dagger's. Demonfang recoiled, but she knew she could not hold it back for long.

The fear left Kel's face. A horrible, twisted mockery of a smile blossomed on his mouth, a leer that was both glee and accusation. “She can't kill me,” he proclaimed for Telric's benefit. “She's my mother. She
loves
me.” His lips writhed venomously around every word as he jeered and laughed at them. “Tell me how much you love me, Mother.” He mimed a kiss, batted his lashes at her, and held out his bleeding stump.

The sword fell from her hands and stuck shivering in the earth. She said nothing, just sank to her knees. Then, his fear returned suddenly as she bent over him. He tried to crawl away, but she caught his tunic and pulled him to her. She tangled a hand in his hair, dragging his face close to hers. He tried feebly to push her back, but his strength had drained away with much of his blood.

“No,” he croaked, and he grabbed for Demonfang where it was still between her ribs. She caught his arm and forced it gently down. “Don't. . . .”

“Don't fight me.” she whispered urgently. “Don't resist.” She took his face between her hands, ignoring the mewling sounds that issued from him. His eyes bored into hers, so full of fright, so green—like her own eyes and Reimuth's. He was indeed his mother's son.

She compelled him to meet her gaze. For a brief instant all his trembling ceased, but the fear never left him. “I love you, Kel,” she told him, and she repeated it over and over.

Then she called her magic once more. It surged up, a wild music. She shaped it, melding the cacophonies and euphonies into dazzling lancets. She poured the full, eldritch fury into the only child of her body.

The air glowed around the two of them, mother and child, as they huddled on the ground in the darkness.

“I love you, son,” she whispered.

 

 

 

Chapter Twenty

 

Frost released her son, sagged heavily to her right side, and caught herself on one elbow. She gasped with pain. A trickle of dark blood oozed from the corner of her mouth. With the fingers of her left hand she explored Demonfang's hilt where it rested just near her breast. The grip was wet and slick. So was her tunic. Warm liquid flowed down her ribs.

She felt the dagger's power rising again and heard its muted wailing in her head. Her lips parted to answer it.
Not yet,
she commanded.
Be silent.
She pressed her lips tightly together, denying the scream that the blade's curse urged on her.

Telric bent beside her. He grasped the protruding hilt, but before he could pull it free she caught his hand. “The sheath.” She nodded toward Kel. “He's wearing it. Bring it here.”

He looked uncertainly at his nephew. Kel hadn't moved since Frost had let him go. He sat with his legs wide, arms dangling limply at his sides. There was a vacant, childlike expression on his face.

As Telric unfastened the sheath belt from Kel's waist, he crinkled his nose. “He's wet himself,” the Rholarothan said with disgust. “What did you do to him?”

She breathed hard. More blood trickled from her mouth, and she wiped it with the back of her hand. “I couldn't kill him, Telric.” She grabbed his sleeve and tried to pull herself up, but he forced her gently back down. “I used my witchcraft to reach inside his mind, and I destroyed it. All his power, all his knowledge, everything he was or could ever be, it's gone.” She drew a rasping breath and gazed at her son. “He was a sweet baby when he was born. Now, he'll be a baby for the rest of his life.”

Telric swallowed. He grasped Demonfang's hilt. “I've got to get this out,” he said between gritted teeth. He hesitated, then jerked.

The blade scraped against a bone, and a blinding white pain did what Demonfang's power could not. Her head snapped back, and she screamed. Telric held the dagger up, staring fearfully as black blood ran over the tang and the hilt and dripped on his hand.

“Sheathe it,” she gasped. “Quickly, before it exerts its power.”