Mickey Zucker Reichert - Renshai 03 - Child Of Thunder

Child Of Thunder

Renshai 03

Mickey Zucker Reichert

To Sheila Gilbert, one of the very best, and to Old Man Mikie, just because.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank the following people: Jonathan Matson, Jody Lee, Charon Wood, David Moore,

and Mark Moore and to Benjamin and Jonathan Moore, for understanding when page proofs come

before Nintendo.(tm).

"Should the whole frame of Nature round him break, In ruin and confusion hurled, He, unconcerned,

would hear the mighty crack, And stand secure amidst a falling world."Joseph Addison Horace , Odes,

book III, ode iii

PROLOGUE

Silence filled the women's court in the EasternkingdomofStalmize , broken only by occasional tense

whispers from the spectators. Khitajrah stood near the far end of the courtroom, her head bowed and

her back to the murmuring crowd. She faced the three-man tribunal who sat, with stony expressions, at

their long table. Behind them, a doorway led to their chambers where they had deliberated for less time

than it took for the woman's heart to beat two dozen strokes. Khitajrah never doubted they would find

her guilty. It was only the sentence that remained a mystery: imprisonment, mutilation, death.

Khitajrah raised her head slightly, her curly, shoulder-length black hair falling into eyes nearly as dark.

Directly beside her, the guard stirred, attentive to her movement, though he did not otherwise respond to

it. She was, after all, only a woman and, also, half his size. She twisted her gaze to the spectators,

counting them to expend nervous energy. It was not her way to stand mute in the presence of injustice;

her need for action had committed her to this trial that had proven little more than a recitation of her

crimes. As an Eastland woman, she had no right to a defense, and the proceedings in the women's court

were a parody of justice.

Khitajrah's gaze played over the seated rows of the audience. She counted eighteen, all men, and

weaponless as the court law specified. Her son, Bahmyr, sat along one aisle, fidgeting helplessly. At

twenty-three, he already sported the heavy frame and hard musculature of his father. Ebony hair fringed a

handsome face, friendly despite growing up amid the cold evil of the Eastern culture. He was the last of

Khitajrah's children. Her other two sons, one older and one younger, had died in the Great War, along

with their father, Harrsha, who had served as one of two high lieutenants to King Siderin.

The other seventeen spectators included family, curious neighbors, and soldiers. Among the latter,

Khitajrah recognized at least two who had placed the blame for the defeat of the Eastern army on her

late husband. That accusation, at least, seemed ludicrous. Khitajrah understood the need for these

broken veterans to find a scapegoat, to blame the hundreds of casualties on a specific man whom they

could curse and malign. As the chosen of the Eastlands' one god, General-King Siderin must always

remain a hero, though he had led his followers and himself to their deaths. But Harrsha had been Siderin's

last surviving high commander, and the Western warrior who had killed him on the battlefield was a

woman.

A woman. Khitajrah pursed her lips in a tense frown, torn by the irony. She had fought for the dignity

and worth of women for as long as she could remember: comforting those beaten, lending her strength to

the overburdened, and stealing food and medication where needed. Now, at forty-three years old, she

would pay the price for a lifetime of assisting her sisters and decades of walking the delicate boundaries

of the law. Now that her cause finally stood a chance, she would fall in defeat, with no one to continue

her work. The war had left women outnumbering men by three to one, and the Eastlands needed to use

the guile and competence of their women, as well as their bodies, to keep the realm from lapsing into

decay. The overtaxed farm fields could scarcely feed the populace, even with their numbers whittled by

war.

The central man of the tribunal cleared his throat. Khitajrah returned her attention to them, her gaze

sweeping briefly over the only armed men in the courtroom. Two burly soldiers guarded the door.

Another stood, braced and watchful, between the tribunal and the crowd. The last remained at

Khitajrah's right hand, alert to her every movement.

The central man rose. "Friends. Freemen. It is the opinion of this court that this woman ... this

frichen-karboh ..." He paused on the word, one of the ugliest in the Eastern language. Literally, it

translated to "manless woman, past usefulness," a derogatory term used for widows. In the East, violent

crime and a constant life of labor saw to it that a woman rarely outlasted her husband. When he died first,

it was expected that she, and her unattached female children, would suicide on his pyre. "... this one

called Khita is guilty of theft, of inciting women, and of treason in the eyes of the one god, Sheriva."

Though he spoke formally, he used the shortened form of Khitajrah's name, as if to imply that she was

not worth the effort of a third syllable. "She is guilty."

"Guilty," the judge to the speaker's right echoed.

"Guilty," the other concurred.

Khitajrah stiffened. Though the law condemned dissent or revolt, thoughts of these rose naturally. She

had spied on her husband when he taught their sons the art of war. Hard labor, her own and that which

she had spared weaker women, had honed her agility. Stealing from men had taught her to climb, twist,

and dodge. And, since the Great War, Bahmyr had worked with his mother on strike and parry, his love

for her outweighing the risk of violating Eastern rules. It had never been his or Khitajrah's desire to break

the laws that had become a fixed part of their culture for millennia, only to revise them. Without change,

the Eastlanders as a people would die.

The speaker continued. "We sentence Khita Harrsha's-widow ..." His dark eyes met Khitajrah's, strong

and intense; they seemed to bore through her. The woman had been trained since infancy to look down

in deference, yet this time she met him stare for stare.

Caught off-guard by her boldness, the speaker lost his place. Flustered, he glanced away first, covering

his weakness by turning his glare on the guard at Khitajrah's side. "... sentence Khita to work the silver

mine until the end of her life."

Slow death. Khitajrah knew they had given her the worst sentence of all, an anonymous and prolonged

death. Starvation and cave-ins took those strong enough to survive the constant pace of working to the

limit of the most competent prisoner from moment to moment, without rest. Few lived out a year in the

mines. Khitajrah had expected death, yet it should have come in the form of a public execution, as an

example to the other Eastland women. Given the chance to defy crying out at the tribunal's torture or to

speak last words, Khitajrah could have become a martyr to her cause, her death the shock that might

have driven others to take her place.

"No!" Khitajrah screamed. She whirled, managing to turn halfway toward the audience before the guard

caught her arm in a grip like iron. His sword rasped from its sheath, its edge coming to rest at her throat.

Despite the threat, she struggled against him.

The spectators erupted into a wild, indecipherable hubbub.

Drawing swords, the guards by the door leapt forward to assist. Even as they moved, Bahmyr sprang to

his feet, catching the nearest one's hand where it clutched the sword's hilt. The guard spun toward him.

Bahmyr stomped his booted instep on the guard's foot. In the same motion, he caught the haft, whipped it

fully free of its sheath, and buried the blade in its wielder's gut.

The son's voice rang out over the others, clearly audible. "Mother, run!" Freeing the sword, he shoved

the guard's corpse away. The other hacked high. Bahmyr's parry rang against the guard's attack. His

counter slash opened sleeve and sword arm. The soldier's arm flopped to his side, his sword clanging to

the floor.

Khitajrah's guard spun to face the attack, his sword falling from the woman's throat. He shoved her

violently aside, his blade cutting the air above her head, and he leapt for Bahmyr.

"No!" Khitajrah made a desperate grab, catching the man's hilt and hand as he spun. Using the technique

her son had taught her, she twisted violently downward, breaking the guard's grip. The effort took her to

her knees, the sword still clenched in her grip. Unable to recover quickly enough to defend, she hurled

herself against the guard's legs. The man staggered onto Bahmyr's stop thrust, the sword impaling him

cleanly through the abdomen.

The guard screamed. Bahmyr's cry sounded equally agonized. "Behind you!" He choked off the last

syllable in shock or pain.

Still on her knees, Khitajrah whirled toward the tribunal. She met the last guard's attack as much from

instinct as her son's warning. Steel crashed, chiming against steel, the man's strength driving her to her

buttocks. Blow after blow followed, each so fast and hard she could do little more than block. She

waited for Bahmyr to come to her aid. Between them, they could handle her enemy. Yet her son did not

come.

Fatigue wore on Khitajrah. She exaggerated its effect, whipping a frightened gaze to the man above her.

She met an expression of icy cruelty, devoid of mercy. His blade slammed against hers once more. She

gave with the motion, all but pressed to the wooden floor. The instant he raised his weapon for a final

strike, she lunged, slamming her hilt into his groin with all the power she could land behind the blow. The

guard collapsed, hand still clutching his sword.

Hands, throat, side of the chest. Calling on Bahmyr's training, Khitajrah naturally struck for a kill. She

hacked at his neck. The blow lacked the power to inflict serious damage, but the draw cut she used to

recover the blade opened his throat. Blood splattered, warm droplets pelting her, and the guard went

limp at her feet.

Khitajrah rose, assessing the situation in an instant. Bahmyr sprawled, facedown, in the aisle, blood

washing from a wound in his back at the level of a kidney. Another knife cut ravaged the tunic she had

sewn for him, now dark with her son's blood. The sight paralyzed her. She stood, sword still in her

clenched fist. All color drained from her and, with it, all her will to fight.

From beyond Bahmyr, two veterans of the Great War advanced on Khitajrah. She knew both men well.

Diarmad had been the first to disparage her dead husband, laying blame on the commander, at the top of

his lungs, from the curtain wall of the king's palace. The other had engineered this mockery the tribunal

dared to call a trial.

The elder who had pronounced Khitajrah's sentence shouted. "Stop her at any cost!"

Some of the audience sat, rooted. Others leapt to obey, charging down on Khitajrah with her son's

killers in the lead. The judges ran around their table toward her.

Attacked from all sides, Khitajrah mobilized as well. She whirled, running directly for the judges' bench.

Footsteps pounded behind her, liberally mixed with shouts and threats of violence. As she sprinted for

the bench, the judges hurried around it, to corner her against it.

Khitajrah did not slow. She sprang to the surface of the table, dark hair flying behind her, entwined with

her cloak hood. For an instant, she balanced there. Then, her momentum drove the table over backward.

Wood crashed, splintering against planking. She dodged free as the judges scattered, leaving her an open

path to their chambers.

"Get her!" the speaker shrieked.

A knife whizzed by Khitajrah's head. Its hilt struck the door frame and bounced, skittering across the

floor. She threw a quick glance around the room, finding its furnishings wastefully excessive at a time

when the Eastlanders could scarcely feed what remained of their masses. Pillows covered the floor,

surrounded by half-eaten platefuls of beef and grapes and goblets of wine. Three desks lined the walls,

festooned with intricately carved leaves and vines. Above one, a window overlooked the mazelike

alleyways of the Eastlands' royal city.

Khitajrah hurled the sword blindly behind her. Its length in her hand could only hamper her escape. She

hoped throwing it might gain her the precious moments she needed to maneuver. She had prowled the

streets of Stalmize enough times to know them by heart, even under the cover of night's darkness.

Although she had never entered the tribunal's quarters, she knew its window from the outside. It opened

a story over a populous street, full of vendors and shops. Though it would leave her exposed and

hemmed in by crowds, a few steps could take her in any of a thousand directions. If she worked her way

into the street, she had a chance of evading pursuit.

Khitajrah made a wild leap for the desktop. A hand snagged her sleeve. The sudden jerk of motion tore

the cloth and stole momentum. Jarred backward, she missed the desk, crashing to the floor and skidding

half beneath the desk. She sprang to a crouch, banging her head against the underside of the desk. Pain

howled through her head. A foot lanced toward her. She dodged, twisting, hurling her body up and over

the desktop, and rolling through the window.

Khitajrah's mind told her the fall was too far for an uncontrolled landing. She clawed, managing to catch

a grip on the sill. Splinters jabbed beneath her nails. Then, a knife blade slashed the back of her hand,

and she recoiled reflexively.

Khitajrah fell. She twisted, her body still lithe from training, despite her age. She scrambled for a hold on

the masonry of the building. Stone snapped her fingernails into grimy irregularity. The touches

friction-burned her flesh and made the wound in her hand throb, but it slowed her descent. She landed on

her feet on the cobbled roadway, bent her knees, tucked, and rolled at random. Her already aching head

pounded over stone, then struck a woman burdened with two buckets of water.

The stranger sprawled, dropping her cargo. Water splashed over Khitajrah, chilling her. Sense of

direction lost, she spun and scrambled to her feet, ducking into the nearest alley. Pained, bleeding, and

haunted by images of her son's corpse on the courtroom floor, Khitajrah Harrsha's-widow sought to lose

herself in the rabbit warren snarl of Stalmize's streets.

PART I

THE SEVEN TASKS OF WIZARDRY

CHAPTER 1

The Outworlder

Surf battered the Northern coastline of the country of Asci leaving jagged cascades of stone. Colbey

Calistinsson stood, legs braced and balanced, on a fjord overlooking the wild slam of the waves. Spray

stung his clean-shaven face, the youthful features belying his seventy-seven years. Golden wisps still

graced his short, white hair, and he studied theAmirannakSea through icy, blue-gray eyes that had not

changed, in look or acuity, since his youth. A longsword hung at either hip, their presences as familiar as

his hands. Though he paid his companion, the Eastern Wizard, and the Wizard's wolf no heed, his mind

naturally registered their every movement.

Shadimar spoke. "Colbey, we need to talk." Colbey said nothing. He studied the jeweled chop of the

waters a little longer before turning slowly to meet the Wizard's gaze. The measured delay was an

affectation. Should the need arise, the old Renshai could strike more quickly than most men could think

to watch for the movement. But he had found that Shadimar equated slow deliberateness with

competence, and the appearance of mastery seemed to unnerve the Eastern Wizard more than its

actuality. Months ago, when Colbey had fought for the lives and freedom of the few remaining Renshai,

Shadimar had misinterpreted a prophecy, Their blood brotherhood had dissolved in the wake of

Shadimar's distrust. Though Shadimar had apologized, in his subtle and not-quite-satisfying manner,

Colbey still harbored some bitterness that took the form of keeping the Wizard always slightly uncertain.

Few things unbalanced or bothered the Wizard more.

Always patient, Shadimar waited. His silver beard hid his craggy, ancient face, and eyes the gray of the

ravaged stone remained fixed on Colbey. Wind whipped Shadimar's blue velvet robes, and the fur trim

eddied, but the Cardinal Wizard stood steady. Secodon waited at his master's side. Empa-thetically

linked with Shadimar, the wolf often betrayed emotions that the Eastern Wizard carefully hid. Now, the

beast remained as still as his master.

Though a long time had passed, Colbey responded directly to Shadimar's request. "What do you want

to talk about?"

"The next step in your training, Western Wizard."

The form of address bothered Colbey, and he frowned, eyes narrowed in annoyance. Decades ago, he

had traveled to thecaveofTokar , the Western Wizard, because of an old promise the Renshai Tribe had

made to the Wizard. While there, he had witnessed the Western Wizard's ceremony of passage, a rite

that killed Tokar and was to have passed his knowledge and essence, and that of all of the Western

Wizards before him, to his apprentice. Colbey had interfered, attempting to rescue the centuries old

Wizard from the demons that had come to claim him.

Though the thought surfaced quickly and fleetingly, it brought, as always, crisp clear memories of the

pain that had assailed Colbey then. Agony lanced through him, vivid enough to make him wince, softening

the glare he aimed at Shadimar. Despite all the wounds he had taken in battle, this memory ached worse,

an agony he had never managed to fully escape. And with that pain had come a madness. Colbey

recalled the decade he had spent combating voices and presences and their compulsions in his mind. One

by one, he had fought with and destroyed them, in the process honing his own self-discipline and mental

competence until he had found the perfect balance between mind and body. And more. As he gained

mastery, he found himself occasionally reading the thoughts and emotions of others around him. Over

time he discovered that, with great effort, he could actively read minds, though he considered this

intrusion too rude to attempt against any but enemies.

At first, Shadimar had attributed Colbey's abilities to the incorporation of a stray piece of magic during

Tokar's ceremony in the form of a magical being called a demon. Much later, he hypothesized that Tokar

had shifted the focus of his ceremony from his apprentice to Colbey. And, though wholly against his will,

Colbey had become the next Western Wizard. "Soon, a ship will arrive to take us to the

Wizards'MeetingIsland . There, you will undergo the Seven Tasks of Wizardry that Odin created to

assess the competence of each Cardinal Wizard's apprentice. You should have passed these before

Tokar ..."

Shadimar continued while Colbey's mind wandered. He knew from pieces of previous conversations

that each of the four Cardinal Wizards took an apprentice when the time of his or her chosen passing

became imminent. An apprentice then had to undergo seven god-mediated tasks to prove his worth.

Failure at any one meant death. The challenge intrigued Colbey, yet Shadimar's unspoken thoughts

interested him more. Because Colbey had destroyed the collective consciousness of the Western

Wizards, one at a time, he had none of their magic to guide him. And, since he had received no training

from his predecessor, he had learned none of the Wizard's magics in that manner. Shadimar believed,

without a thread of doubt, that this lack would doom Colbey to fail all of the tasks. And, to Colbey, the

Wizard's cocksure dismissal made the challenge nearly irresistible.

"... finished, you will truly be the Western Wizard in every way, save one."

The exception pulled Colbey back to Shadimar's words, though he already guessed the missing

qualification.

Shadimar confirmed Colbey's thought. "You will not have your predecessors to guide you. Though I

thought little of Tokar's apprentice, I can't fully fathom my colleague's choice to abandon Haim for you."

Since Shadimar's proclamation that Colbey was the Western Wizard, ideas had tumbled through the old

Renshai's mind. Believing he understood the reasons, Colbey addressed Shadimar's implied question.

"There was a madness in the Western Wizard's line."

Shadimar nodded agreement. It was common knowledge to the Wizards that the ninth Western Wizard,

Niejal the Mad, was paranoid, gender confused, and suicidal, presumably due to the collective

consciousness itself. His insanity had warped others in the line, the flaw passing as easily as the memories

and skill. Shadimar's head froze in mid-movement as the deeper implications became clear. Accustomed

to subtlety, the Eastern Wizard was momentarily stopped by the pointed directness of the warrior's

comments. "Are you saying Tokar chose you because he knew you could destroy an entire line of

Wizards, including millennia of irreplaceable wisdom?"

Colbey shrugged. Shadimar had taken it one step further than his intention, and the mentioned wisdom

seemed of little consequence. Aside from a distant attack that had sent a soldier crashing from parapets,

a feat Colbey had matched with his own mental power, he had never seen a Wizard create magic more

powerful than sleight of hand or illusion. He had once fought a creature Shadimar named a demon, which

the Eastern Wizard claimed one of his colleagues must have called, but Colbey had not witnessed the

summoning. Time had taught him that knowledge came with age and experience. Still, though he lived

through as much now as in his youth, the wisdom seemed to come in smaller doses as he gathered what

the world had to offer. His skill and understanding became honed in tinier, finer detail with each passing

year. He wondered if the difference between learning for millennia and a century was really all that much.

"Actually, I don't know if Tokar expected me to destroy the entire line. I do believe he thought I could

kill or contain the insanity."

Shadimar frowned. "An illogical thought. To destroy that much power would require mental powers

stronger than all of the other three Wizards together."

Colbey smiled, ever so slightly. "Not so illogical. I did it, didn't I?"

Shadimar hesitated just long enough to display his doubts. Apparently, he still had not fully convinced

himself that Colbey was the Western Wizard rather than a man under the influence of demons. "The issue

is not whether or not you destroyed the Western Wizard's line. It is forever gone, along with its

knowledge. The issue is whether Tokar had reason to believe you could do so. It should be impossible to

fight a collective consciousness, let alone destroy one. No Cardinal Wizard would believe otherwise."

Colbey shrugged again. Clearly Shadimar was wrong. There was no need nor reason to say so. Still,

silence seemed rude, so the Renshai tried to make his point tactfully. "Maybe Tokar knew something you

don't."

"Maybe," Shadimar replied. A thought that served as explanation drifted from the Eastern Wizard to

Colbey without effort or intention. It has always been Odin's way to make the Western Wizard the

strongest of the four and the Eastern the weakest. Maybe Tokar did know something. Understanding

accompanied the idea. Colbey learned that this discrepancy had existed since the system of the Cardinal

Wizards had begun, and no logical reason for the imbalance had ever come to the attention of the Eastern

Wizards. Colbey also discovered that the Western Wizard's line was not the only one that had lost its

collective consciousness. In the past, the Eastern line had been broken twice and the Southern line once,

in all three cases because the current Wizard had died before his time of passing. Though twenty-four

Eastern Wizards had existed since the system began, Shadimar carried the memories of only six.

Silence fell. As if in sympathy, the wind dropped to an unnatural stillness and clouds scudded overhead,

veiling the sun. Secodon sat, whining softly. For all his quiet stillness, the Wizard was apparently bothered

by his thoughts.

At length, Shadimar met Colbey's gaze again. He raised an arm, the fur-trimmed sleeve of his velvet

robe a stark contrast to Colbey's simple brown tunic and breeks. "There are still things we need to

discuss. Since the beginning of the system of the Cardinal Wizards, just before the beginning of mankind,

the Western and Eastern Wizards have worked in concert, for the good of neutrality and its peoples, the

Westerners."

Colbey frowned at Shadimar's stiff formality. Although he came from a Northern tribe, technically under

the protection of the Northern Sorceress, who championed goodness, he had long ago pledged his

services to the Westlands.

Shadimar continued. "Some have physically worked together as a team. Others have worked separately

for the same cause. I would like to work closely with you. In harmony." His glance sharpened.

Mickey Zucker Reichert - Renshai 03 - Child Of Thunder

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