Darkspell - Katharine Kerr [164]
Shaken, Alastyr’s etheric double swooped and fluttered, desperately trying now for escape, not victory. The Moon Land where they fought is the gate to many others, Nevyn’s own Green Land, the Orange of the world of form, the shining home of the Great Ones; here, too, abuts the proper sphere of the dark dweomer, the Dark of Darkness, the Land of Husks and Rinds. If Alastyr could escape to the dark, his soul would live on, working harm for aeons to come. Nevyn could see him trying to open a gate, his hands fluttering, the words of the rite pouring, gibbering from his mouth. Nevyn sent a spear of light that slapped and flung him high just as the first pillar formed, then shattered the half-made gate.
Howling, Alastyr tried to flee, but Nevyn swooped up and rained down fiery light to trap him. With one hand Nevyn flung spear after spear and pinned Alastyr in a cage of light, while the etheric double threw itself against the shining bars and bit them in panic. With his enemy pinned Nevyn built up another gate, this one with the golden pillars of the sun, and between them opened the pure blue of a summer sky.
“Not mine the judgment!” Nevyn called out. “But yours!”
Through the pillars sped an enormous shifting, shimmering arrow of light, flying straight and true, striking Alastyr so hard that the double shattered into a thousand pitiful shreds. There was a shriek, then the whimpering of a tiny child. For the briefest of moments Nevyn saw the child, flickering like a candle flame, a mewling babe with Alastyr’s raging eyes. Then the light swelled, enveloped the tiny form, and swept it through the portal and up the path to the Hall of Light, where it would be judged.
“It is over!” Nevyn cried out. “It is finished!”
Three great knocks, three claps of thunder, boomed through the violet light, while down below the death-white flowers nodded. Nevyn knelt and bowed his head, not in worship, but as a sign of fealty, then let the portals fade away. In his exhaustion he felt the silver cord tugging on him, pulling him back to his body, which lay at a great distance but no true distance at all.
Sarcyn pulled his dagger free of Alastyr’s heart and wiped it clean on his dead master’s face.
“Vengeance! And honey sweet it is.”
He rose and ran into the kitchen just in time to see the farmhand bolting out the back door. Sarcyn let him go; there was no time to waste chasing someone who knew so little about them. Whimpering under his breath, Camdel lay in the straw by the hearth. When Sarcyn knelt beside him, he shrank away from the knife.
“I’m not going to kill you, little one,” Sarcyn said, sheathing it. “I’m going to unchain you. We’ve got to ride fast.”
When Camdel moaned aloud, Sarcyn hesitated, caught by a feeling that he couldn’t quite understand. His pet lordling was going to have a miserable life ahead of him, no matter how much sexual pleasure he took in his master’s torments.
“Ah, horseshit!” Sarcyn said abruptly. “You’re going to see your cursed father again, after all.”
Cursing himself as a fool for succumbing to the first feeling of pity that he’d felt in years, Sarcyn got up and grabbed the leather bag that held Alastyr’s books.
“Fare you well, my fine, noble lord,” he said.
Camdel let two thin trails of tears slip down his cheeks in an agony of relief. Sarcyn ran out of the room and into the farmyard, where his horse was waiting, saddled and ready.
“Gan! Curse you! Where are you?”
Silence for an answer. Sarcyn turned, glancing round the farmyard. No one there. Apparently the old man had seen a chance at freedom and taken