IGMS Issue 6 Read online

  "I will not die," Ash said, gritting his teeth as another blow came in faster than he could parry.

  "We shall see."

  Levant was the better swordsman, faster, with superior reflexes and a natural instinct for killing. He cut Ash across the thigh and opened a gash in his bicep even as he tried to fend off the first blow. They traded blows, Ash on the back foot, looking for an opening, Lavent coming on relentlessly. There was an arrogance to the strange young man's fighting style; Ash recognized it for what it was, immortality. Levant truly believed himself so skilled that no sword could open his veins. That hubris was Ash's only hope.

  Ash blocked a thrust, deliberately over-extending from the parry. His follow-up strike left him slightly unbalanced. Instead of adjusting, he made a point of overcompensating, opening himself up for a lightning-quick counter that he barely evaded. For the next cycle of cut, thrust and parry he played a dangerous game of feints, pretending weakness he knew Levant would ruthlessly exploit.

  "I expected more from you, Ash, but you are nothing," Levant spat, moving in for the kill. Ash stepped into the blow, knowing even as he did that he was opening himself up for agony as his opponent's blade pierced his belly. Instead of recoiling, he lunged forward, bringing the Kinslayer around, clutched like a dagger, to bite deep into the side of Levant's unprotected throat. Blood bubbled up around Ash's blade as Levant shuddered, his entire body rigid from the shock of penetration.

  "You killed me?" It was such a ludicrous thing to say, those last three words of one of Kalatha's heroes, killed by the sword that ended his father's life and so many others. He bowed his head, the top-knot hanging limp. When he looked up again the light of life flickered and finally failed. He fell, all of his weight coming down on the borrowed sword, driving the blade deeper into Ash's stomach and through to the bone of his spine. The pain was excruciating. The dead man's weight drove the blade deeper still, grating against the edges of the vertebrae and into the soft discs between, rupturing them.

  The world swam and Ash fell.

  I knew you would come. Release me.

  The command repeated itself over and over again within the darkness.

  Ash could not feel his legs.

  He lay in blood, his own and his friends. It smelled cloyingly sweet in his nostrils, ferrous.

  Release me.

  He was weak. Light-headed. Drained.

  He tried to open his eyes, but he didn't need to. The image of the room swelled behind them, the casket of bone, the fallen swords, the blood and the bodies. They were dead. The Rector's Men undone at their own hands.

  Release me.

  The voice was insistent. Demanding. But he could not move. Levant's blow had severed something inside him; his legs would not respond when he tried to move them.

  Release me.

  The words impelled him. Ash reached out, scratching his nails into the cracked stones, and clawed his way across the floor inch by desperate inch, the words of Blazeus filling his mind completely. He was dying. He knew it. Cold crept into his flesh, filling him.

  Release me.

  "I would rather die," he gasped, barely a whisper in the stillness. It was a lie, the fingers of his right hand clenched around Kinslayer's hilt.

  And yet despite his words, his hand moved of its own volition, clawing at the bones of the casket. All he could do was watch sickly as it crumbled beneath his touch. The last dregs of Ash's strength abandoned him. He lay in his own blood, his hand in the ruined casket, amid the powder of bones, willing death to come and find him in this dark place.

  Give me my freedom . . . this time it sounded less like a command, more like a plea. Perversely, that pleased the dying man.

  But death did not come quickly enough.

  The walls wept black tears for him, or Blazeus, or both of them -- at least that was how it looked to Ash as he slipped in and out of consciousness.

  Death did not feel so dreadful now that it was close. He thought of Levant and the others, the Rector's Men, fallen in this wretched place. Who would protect his lady now? Would Gerant raze this damned citadel with fire and naphtha, or would some other fool wander down into the dark crypt, seduced by the voice of a bitter ghost? Surely Naru would not allow Gerant to send down men to recover their bodies. Let the Rector's Men lie in peace. Better that than the truth of their slaughter becoming known to all.

  All this and more swirled through Ash's mind while he stared listlessly at the black tears. They came slowly, leaking down the stone to gather in the corners where they coalesced like oleaginous black slugs.

  Ash could feel his grip on life slipping.

  He was alone inside his own head. The sword could not keep him alive; it had no such magic. That, at least, brought a smile to his bloodless lips. The curse of the Kinslayer denied at the last. He had used the blade to kill two of his swordbrothers, but he had not fallen to it himself. He could find peace in that. He closed his eyes.

  He did not see the greasy trails the black tears -- in actuality slug-like creatures -- left as they slithered through his blood, though he felt the blazing blush of heat as they came up against his skin. He assumed it was death -- though he had always imaged death's kiss would be cold, not so fiercely warm.

  Ash felt nothing but warmth as the creatures slithered through his spilled blood and up onto his face, gathering around his mouth and nose. His breath hitched, one final death rattle as they sank into him, through the soft stuff of his eyes, clogging his nostrils and swelling as they slid down his throat, choking the final stubborn sniff of life out of him.

  Jayant Ash was dead as they pervaded his flesh, seeping down into the roots of his brain and into his blood, their malfeasance carried throughout his flesh even as the host leached into his brain.

  When he opened his eyes again, no hint of Jayant Ash remained.

  Blazeus worked his mouth soundlessly, moving his jaw just as he moved his fingers. A slow, predatory smile spread across his new face.

  "Free at last." The first words from his mouth tasted so good after so long. He tried to stand but could not. The bones in his spine were severed. He was crippled. The irony was bitter, his new flesh was ruined, another sort of prison to escape from.

  But Blazeus was patient, capable of playing the longest of games to get what he wanted.

  He lay on his back simply reveling in the existence of flesh. It felt so good to be whole. He did not need legs. This body was good enough for now. He was free with centuries of hate to unleash. The blackness within him delighted Blazeus. Like the stone walls of his hell, Ash's brain still retained the traces of living memory. He had been respected, feared even. That was good. That would serve him. But there was madness inside Blazeus as well, pent up from centuries trapped in the stones of the citadel. He was not the man he had been. That, too, would serve him well. He clutched the Kinslayer to his chest for a moment, feeling the thrill of the blood and the metal before he sheathed the blade. It was a fine sword. Blazeus felt an enchantment stirring within its metal and smiled. And enchanted blade? Even better; it was a blade truly worthy of him.

  Blazeus dragged himself onto his stomach and began to crawl through the filth of death, slowly rising out of his prison to feel the air on his face for the first time in eons. His fingers were bloody, his fingernails torn away by time, he emerged from the darkness. Behind him, the stones of the citadel groaned. Whatever will had held them together was gone now, and the ravages of time were undermining every stone. The towers shifted slowly, buckling. The first stone fell as Blazeus crawled out onto the causeway. It powdered on the octagonal stones.

  He sensed the raveller's power before he saw him.

  What happened in there, Ash? Naru's voice sounded in his head. A wall rose against me, a force I could not surmount. I lost you. I did not abandon you. Something far stronger than I kept me out.

  Blazeus looked up, bitterness burning in his eyes. Get out of my head, he rasped, closing his mind to the raveller, just as he had closed the fortress to h
is prying. The link broken, Naru staggered visibly.

  "It is done. Blazeus is slain. They all are. That is all you need to know."

  Blazeus felt Naru trying to enter his mind. He kept him out.

  "Look at you . . . What happened to you in there?" This time Naru spoke with his mortal voice, a weak and dusty thing. His eyes drifted to the sword at his hip, then lifted, bright with fear and a glimmer of understanding.

  It felt good to be feared after so long. His patience had earned him that and so much more.

  He felt no such compunction against entering the raveller's thoughts, displaying his own might: You shouldn't have released them, raveller. The ghosts were the final defense meant to keep him trapped. They gave themselves willingly, to be sure his like could never walk this world again . . . and you undid their sacrifice. You cost the Rector's Men their lives. I was whole when I went in to Mergolies. Now look at me, a broken man. You did this to me. But I am lucky, I came out of it with my life. The others did not. Now get me to a chirugen before this vile place collapses and Blazeus claims us all.

  As though to emphasize his point more stones fell as the tower crumbled, twisted and finally collapsed, reclaimed by the sea. Without the power of Blazeus' will to bind it like mortar, the ravages of time and the elements reduced it to what it was, a ruin.

  "You wield the Kinslayer?" Naru said, commenting on the blade at his side.

  "Levant would have wanted it so."

  "I am sure he would," the raveller said, giving no hint of the true meaning underlying his simple statement. "There is justice to it finding your hand."

  "I shall wield it in his honor," Blazeus said.

  "Rest now, my friend, that is a heavy burden you have lifted."

  "I am strong."

  "As was Levant, and his father before him," Naru said softly. Blazeus assumed it was some secret held between the raveller and his host, so he chuckled mirthlessly as though appreciating the black humor.

  Blazeus had traded one prison for another, but that was enough.

  For now.

  Naru carried him back to Kalatha while the last traces of red bled out of the sky.

  Tomorrow would bring a new dawn, and he would be a new man. Who could blame any changes they saw in Jayant Ash? Any bitterness that crept into him? He was a cripple, he had every right to hate the world.

  Tomorrow he would tell Gerant he wanted to rebuild the Rector's Men, to make them his own. Gerant would cede the responsibility to him precisely because he was a cripple. Guilt would make him.

  And when the time came, Blazeus would find new flesh, though for now he would enjoy being Jayant Ash, protector of the Rector's lady, wielder of an enchanted blade.

  He was so close to the descendants of those who had brought him down. And tomorrow he would sow the seeds that would see them all die.

  Tomorrow.

  How Peacefully the Desert Sleeps

  by Brad Beaulieu

  Artwork by Scott Altmann

  * * *

  The first time I woke, blood fell upon the desert floor.

  At the time, I didn't know whether it was good news or ill.

  Kallie's coughing fit started, as it often did, when the alabaster sun brought the rising heat of the desert with it. When the fit had passed and the pain had subsided, she cleared her throat and spit blood-tainted phlegm onto the cracked desert floor. Then she stood tall on the driver's bench of her two-wheeled cart, hoping to see any sign of the Ohokwa village, but all that greeted her was a sea of adiwa cacti running clear to the horizon.

  Kallie's heart sank as she dropped back into her creaking seat and took a long pull off her waterskin; it appeared she would need to rein in her pack bird and spend another scorching day under the direct sun before reaching Ohokwa Gorge. But she whipped her kuko into motion anyway, not willing to give up as long as she was able to withstand the heat.

  Only minutes later, movement caught her eye. A few hundred yards up, two Ohokwa warriors bearing tall spears filed out from the cacti and onto the trail. With a whip of the reins and a cluck of her tongue, her kuko released a ragged caw and trudged faster.

  With each passing second Kallie's anxiety rose. She was about to take the first real step toward healing the consumption that had struck over a year ago. She'd managed to enter tribal lands and elude the Shaukauna, the settler's fiercest opponent in their unquenchable thirst for westward land, but now it came down to talking, a skill Kallie hadn't been blessed with, and it soured her gut that her future depended on this one conversation.

  Kallie was close enough now to see the details in their jet-black hair, which was braided behind their ears into two long strands. White folds of cloth hung loose around their shoulders, ready to cover their dark-skinned faces against the midday sun. They wore white shirts and pale leggings of the softest buckskin, embroidered with the angular designs of their people.

  Kallie pulled her cart up short when the taller of the two warriors -- the one with a half-dozen tiny bones piercing the crown of each ear -- laid his spear across her kuko's path. Kallie let out a slow breath, trying dearly to fend off another coughing fit, and pushed up the brim of her wide, leather hat.

  "How do?" Kallie said.

  Rather than reply, the shorter Ohokwa whistled, his tongue fluttering to create a rhythmic warble. She'd never heard the call in person, but she knew good and well what was about to happen.

  A buzzing, like a child blowing a blade of grass between his thumbs, cut through the desert air. Kallie swallowed hard as two red beetles the size of her hand crawled over the top of the nearest adiwa cactus. One of the dejda beetles raised its iridescent wing case and rattled. The second followed suit a moment later, then another, and another, and soon, the entire area was abuzz with their bone chilling call.

  She'd never been bothered by crawlies and such, but she'd never come face to face with insects so almighty large, and the stories she'd heard along the way -- the way they swarmed over their prey, their mindlessness when driven by the Ohokwa's whistling, the poison they injected with each thrust of their stinger -- didn't help one bit.

  Then, quick as a hiccup, the dejda highest up on the cactus took wing -- a blur of red against the blue sky -- and whirred to land at Kallie's feet. Though she knew it unwise, she couldn't stop herself from shifting along the bench and reaching for the shotgun resting in its holster.

  The taller Ohokwa made it clear that drawing the shotgun would be tantamount to suicide, and the shorter whistled again, louder this time. The beetle near Kallie's boot rattled once, sending a furious shiver up her spine, then winged back to the cactus from which it had flown. Kallie inched her right hand back to her lap.

  "You have nerve, stranger," the taller Ohokwa said, "bringing firearms to our lands."

  His command of her language surprised her, and she chastised herself; she'd made a promise that she wouldn't underestimate them. "It's only to scare the coyotes," she said, her heart beating heavy. "Can't shoot worth a damn, anyway."

  As the taller warrior stared at Kallie with hard eyes, the second warrior moved to the rear of her cart and began rummaging through the crates stored in the bed as if they'd just insulted his mother.

  Several of the beetles buzzed in unison. One of them took flight, but was immediately whistled back by the taller warrior. Kallie was confused, for she'd heard the Ohokwa had supreme control over the beetles using their whistles and their shared bond. But these, while clearly influenced by the warriors, weren't behaving as she would have guessed.

  "You came through Shaukauna land?" the taller warrior asked.

  Kallie coughed once, softly. She daren't lie now. The Ohokwa and Shaukauna were practically the same tribe. "I did."

  "How?"

  "Traveled south, around the foothills, then through the wastes."

  "Those are watched lands, tahone."

  "Might be," Kallie said with a careless air, "but no one stopped me from passing through."

  The warrior's eyes thinned. "Then w
hat brings you?"

  Kallie winced at the sound of breaking glass. The warrior in the back ceased his inspection momentarily, but then resumed as liquid -- no doubt the expensive whiskey -- gurgled and spattered against the desert floor.

  "Come to trade," Kallie said. "Simple as that."

  "But why? Why risk our spears?"

  Kallie glanced at a particularly large dejda flexing its wing cases. Maybe it was the goddamned beetles driving the spike of fear through her chest, maybe it was the heat, or maybe it was just time, but Kallie started coughing, and this time she couldn't stop it. She took out her kerchief to mask the blood -- she'd be damned before she let them see it -- but it was too much, the worst one in days, and by the time the fit had passed, the pale kerchief was spotted through with blood.

  The warrior continued to stare, but his eyes had thinned and his jaw had stiffened. The resentment in his expression sent a sickly dread running through her. He knew why she'd come. He knew she'd come begging for the Ohokwa's fabled healing tonic, kayeya. Years ago, the Ohokwa had shared their prize with the settlers, but that was before the massacre at Holy Hill. Tensions with the tribes, particularly the Shaukauna and Ohokwa, had only heated since then, and it had nearly boiled over into all-out war several times this hot, dry summer.

  "You think the Ohokwa would give a tahone one drop of kayeya?" the warrior said.

  Several dejda shouted in unison.

  Kallie took as deep a breath as her broken lungs would allow her, and she prayed dearly she wasn't about to make a big mistake. "What name you go by, tribesman?"

  He hesitated, but only for a moment, and stood incrementally taller before replying, "Hochomi."

  "I brung music boxes, Hochomi, the best quality. Some of them play minutes on end. I brung instruments: two violins and a banjo. I got whiskey, aged sixteen year, and five bottles of fine wine. What could one small woman do to your people, no matter what the men might've done? What could you gain by denying me what means so little to you? Does that bring honor to your tribe, to kill a woman come begging for help?"