Child of the Sword, Book 1 of The Gods Within (64 page)

But his strength was not inexhaustible, and
soon his battle narrowed to his hands, and the death grip they had
upon the hilt, until the world about him receded and he could see
only the sword, and the chasm of power it had opened before
him.

~~~

Rhianne almost fainted when the storm of
power hit the castle. It flooded her soul as if the very ground
beneath her had split and a volcano of malevolent power were
erupting within the castle itself, a power with a consciousness and
will of its own, specifically conscious of her and Morgin. For a
single moment it tried to attack her, but Morgin held it back. She
leaned heavily on a vanity and tried to reassure herself that the
attack would not come again, that it was finished, and then she
realized that it was finished only for her, not for Morgin.

She reached the Hall of Wills just as the
massed nobility of four clans were pouring from every exit
imaginable. The malevolent power she sensed within was like a scar
on her soul, and she knew she had to help Morgin. But the panic of
the crowd was a current she could not oppose, and they nearly
trampled her as they swept past her. Then Olivia suddenly appeared,
took Rhianne by an arm and stood her ground like a granite monolith
on the shore of an ocean storm. “Seal the Hall,” she commanded
angrily. “We must seal the Hall, and Ward it against the
possibility he may fail. We cannot allow whatever it is he has
unleashed in there to turn upon the land. It would devastate the
countryside.”

“Let me go,” Rhianne shouted. “Let me go. I
have to help him.”

The old woman’s hand arced out of nowhere
and resounded loudly against Rhianne’s cheek, stunning her
momentarily. “There is nothing you can do, girl? At least not at
this time.” She pointed to the barred doors of the Hall. “That
battle he must fight alone.”

As if in answer to the old woman’s words
Rhianne heard Morgin’s voice raised in a terrified scream. It was
followed quickly by an inhuman growl of hatred, and vast waves of
power crashed outward from the Hall. A large crack suddenly raced
down the stone of a nearby wall, as if the power trapped with
Morgin in the Hall would escape by tearing down the castle
itself.

Olivia cursed and cried out angrily. She
turned upon the crack and cast her power at it like a spear, and
the stone was once again whole, and again the old woman stood rock
still against the forces that reached out against them. Rhianne
looked on as the old woman called her power forth, coalescing it
about her as if it were a shield, then feeding it into the stone of
the walls about them. She turned suddenly upon Rhianne, and her
eyes burned with the power in her soul. “Help me, you foolish girl.
You’re a grown woman. Don’t just stand there like a child.”

Rhianne obeyed without question, casting
first a small spell to calm her reeling thoughts, then moving up to
the more demanding task of imitating the old woman. And as she
concentrated she began to sense others who were far ahead of
her—BlakeDown, AnnaRail, JohnEngine, NickoLot, Brandon—already
lending their power to the aged stone of the Hall. She joined them
carefully, and as she touched her power to the veil they were
constructing, she sensed again the special affinity that the
malevolence within held for her. But she did not retreat, and with
the others she settled down to a long and exhausting vigil.

~~~

“There’s a horse waiting for you near the
man-gate,” DaNoel told Valso. But then DaNoel hesitated, for he
suddenly realized he had no recollection of how he’d come to be
standing with Valso in the Decouix’s tower prison. He shook his
head to clear it, but was careful not to mention his lapse to the
prince. The pandemonium in the Hall of Wills was a muffled roar in
the distance.

DaNoel tried to reconstruct his memory of
recent events: Morgin’s fantastic struggle with the talisman he had
unleashed, and his open admission to BlakeDown, within everyone’s
hearing, that he had no power. Thinking of that moment in the Hall,
DaNoel had to force himself not to shout with triumph. “He never
did have any power, did he? It was all in that talisman, wasn’t
it?”

Valso, in the midst of sorting and packing
the few belongings he wished to keep, looked up and shrugged
indifferently. “Does it matter now?”

“No,” DaNoel said joyfully. “No, it doesn’t
matter in the least. He’s discredited himself to such an extent
that even if he does survive the talisman, some clansman will kill
him soon enough.”

DaNoel had a sudden thought. He looked
carefully at Valso. “Were you responsible for that?”

“For what?”

“For unleashing that talisman, and at the
worst possible time, and in the worst possible place?”

The Decouix prince didn’t answer, but the
corners of his mouth curved upward in a satisfied smile, and that
was answer enough for DaNoel.

“I assume you’ve provisioned the horse
properly?” Valso asked.

“Twelve days trail rations. I’d give you
better, but trail rations weigh very little and they go far. And
once the cry is raised you’ll need to move with all possible
haste.”

“Well enough,” Valso said. “I’ve lived on
worse.” He finished packing, turned abruptly and walked out of the
room. DaNoel followed him down the stairway to Olivia’s veil of
containment. The old witch’s spell, so complex and powerful before,
was failing quickly as she concentrated more and more of her
strength on the struggle to contain the talisman within the Hall.
The veil was now tattered and rent in a dozen places, though Valso
still needed the help of someone with Elhiyne blood to escape
without alerting the old witch.

DaNoel chose a week spot in the veil and
enlarged it carefully. He stepped through and Valso followed
without hesitation. As DaNoel closed the veil, the Decouix turned
to the guard dozing under DaNoel’s spell and took the man’s
sword.

“What are you doing?” DaNoel demanded.

“I need a weapon,” Valso said as he pulled
the sword from its sheath and looked it over. “This isn’t much of a
blade, but it’ll do until I find better.”

The guard suddenly groaned and opened his
eyes. He looked at DaNoel, then at Valso, and his hand shot
instinctively to his side, but of course his sword was in Valso’s
hands.

DaNoel reacted instantly, smothering the
man’s consciousness with his power. “You did that,” DaNoel snarled
at Valso. “You woke him on purpose.”

The Decouix shrugged. “You can handle one
minor clansman, can’t you?”

“But if I tamper with his memories Olivia
will surely sense it, and she’ll trace it to me.”

“Then kill him.”

DaNoel took a frightened step backward. “I
didn’t agree to murder.”

Valso shook his head sadly. “Treason is
acceptable, eh, but not murder?” The prince turned his back on
DaNoel, pulled the tower door open just a crack and looked
carefully outside. He turned back to DaNoel. “I’d really like to
stay and discuss your strange code of honor, but I’m afraid I don’t
have the time. We’ll meet again, Elhiyne.” And with those words
Valso slipped through the door and was gone.

DaNoel turned toward the guard. He struggled
with himself to find some other way of handling the man: a bribe
perhaps. But Olivia had chosen her guards for their personal
loyalty to her. Reluctantly DaNoel pulled his dagger, hesitated for
an instant, then drove it between the man’s ribs into his heart,
though even then it took some moments for the guard’s spirit to
depart fully.

DaNoel cleaned his dagger carefully on the
man’s tunic and returned it to its sheath, then checked the man one
last time to be certain he was truly dead. Satisfied, he stood,
turned to leave, but his heart almost stopped at the sight of
NickoLot standing in the tower door, looking at him oddly. “What’s
going on here?” she demanded, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.

DaNoel said, “The Decouix escaped. Killed
this guard on his way out.”

NickoLot’s eyes narrowed further. “You’re
lying.”

DaNoel looked at her carefully. “Lying about
what?”

“I don’t know, but I do know you’re
lying.”

“And what did you see with your own eyes,
little sister?”

“I didn’t have to see it with my eyes.
You’re tainted with the scent of murder. You murdered the guard.
Did you help the Decouix escape?”

When her eyes flashed DaNoel realized he’d
given himself away with a look. He reached out and gripped her
viciously by the throat. “I’ll deny any accusation you make, and
since you can’t prove it, you’ll only hurt mother and father if you
speak out.”

He threw her to the floor in a heap of
petticoats. “Little girls should not interfere in the affairs of
men,” he growled at her, then walked quickly out of the tower to
raise the alarm for the Decouix. He’d better do everything he could
to appear innocent just in case the little bitch did speak up.

A Choice of Treasons
(hard
science fiction)

To save himself, he first had to save two
empires . . . but when he tried, his options were
limited to a choice of treasons.

As a lifer in the Imperial Navy, York
Ballin’s only hope at an honorable discharge is the grave. Matters
only get worse when he finds himself deep behind enemy lines on a
commandeered imperial cruiser without a trained crew, commanded by
an incompetent nobleman, with the empress and 200 civilians as
passengers, and everyone hell-bent on turning them into a cloud of
radioactive vapor.

The Thirteenth Man
(hard
science fiction)

Beware the curse of the thirteenth man, for
should he not fall, all may fall before him.

Charlie Cass returns from five years in a
squalid POW camp to find the nine Dukes and the King conspiring
against each other, and plotting with Charlie’s old enemies. As
interstellar war looms, he’s forced to assume the mantle of the
thirteenth Duke de Lunis, who, according to legend, is destined to
fall beneath the headsman’s ax. But if he can survive the headsman,
all may fall before him.

When Dead Ain’t Dead Enough
(contemporary fantasy)

The dead should ever rest in peace, but when
dead ain’t dead enough,

the living should fear for their mortal
souls.

Paul Conklin is a rather ordinary, thirtyish
fellow, sharing his ordinary, present-day San Francisco apartment
with the ghosts of his dead wife and daughter. Suzanna's cooking
for him again, and Cloe's bouncing around the apartment in her
school uniform, and things are almost back to normal. But a piece
of Paul realizes he's really bug-fuck nuts, or at least that's what
he thinks. He has no idea that a Primus caste demon from the
Netherworld covets his soul, and that he's going to have to take a
crash course in killing big, bad hoodoo demons, or lose his soul
for all eternity.

About the Author

J. L. Doty was trained as a scientist and
studied optical physics and engineering, earning a Ph.D. in
Electrical Engineering. His specialty has always been laser science
and laser physics. He spent all his working life in various facets
of the laser industry including a number of years in research and
development, even working briefly on laser weapons in the early
'80's. For the last twenty-five years, he has been writing fiction
in stolen hours on the weekend, or on long flights overseas.

When writing science fiction, Jim is
sometimes hindered by his deep knowledge of laser physics, and for
that reason you'll never see a laser weapon of any type in his
science fiction books. In fact, you can visit his website to read
his
rant on laser weapons
, and how they are almost always
badly misused in science fiction. You don't have to be an engineer
or physicist to understand it, and you might find the information
on lasers of interest.

Jim lives with his wife and their three cats
in Northern California where they are horribly spoiled by the
weather.

Visit the author's website at
http://www.jldoty.com

Contact the author at
[email protected]

Follow the author on Twitter at
http://www.twitter.com/@JL_Doty