Jonathan Strahan - Swords & Dark Magic - The New Sword and Sorcery

Then he came back up through the surface of the lake. He sat down, feeling dizzy and ill but that passed after a few moments. He rose, cut the grapevine, and wove it into a small hoop about the diameter of his forearm. Then he continued on.

The ground sloped up sharply into a forest of odd, twisting oaks, star pine, and juniper. The resinous scent of the last made the damp air fragrant, and for a moment he felt as if he was far away, on the windswept Steppes of the Mang, where he had been born, where his people still made their annual rounds, hunted grass bears and bison, raided Stone-Leggings and Cattle People.

How far was he from there? If he ever made it north out of these mountains, he ought to be somewhere near Lhe, and from there he could take one of the old, faded roads that ran up through the Sherirut chiefdoms. If he had horses, he might do it in a year, or better. It would be good to eat dube stew again, see Ch’ebegau, the White Spruce Mountain. Feel like a Mang once more, like he belonged. His mother—was she still alive? His sisters and cousins?

He tried to picture his mother’s face, but found only a blur.

He’d searched the world from the Northern Forests of the Giants to the ancient, decaying cities and febrile islands of the south for a way to be rid of Chugaachik, to have his life back. He hadn’t found any answers there. Maybe they lay back where it had all begun, where his father had first introduced him to Chugaachik.

But he didn’t belong there, now. He had never really belonged there.

So he continued on, and soon found the shrine that had been described to him: a building with walls of natural stone fitted without mortar, a roof of cedar shingles in need of repair. The door was open.

On the steps leading up to the shrine sat a woman.

Her hair was white and pulled back in a long braid. The face beneath was seamed by years of laughter, sorrow, and pain. Her blue-eyed gaze stayed on him, a bit curious, a bit accusing.

“I wasn’t sure what to imagine,” she said. “I see desert and red stone,” she said. “Scrubby trees in the sand and tall white ones in the mountains. Where are you from?”

“Mangangan.”

“I’ve not heard of it, but it hangs on you. You’ve been thinking about it.”

“It’s north, a long ways.” Feeling uncomfortable: “If I had been thinking about sex, would you be asking about my women now?”

She smiled. “I see her, too. From very far away, surrounded by water—not your place.”

“No.”

“Is she why you’ve come here, to do this thing? Do they have her captive?”

Fool Wolf shrugged. “They have her, yes. But I’ve yet to decide what I’m going to do.”

“I see,” she replied. “That’s good, to have an open mind.”

“Are you Ruwhere?”

“They told you about me, then. And about the freeing of Qul?”

“Yes, although they didn’t put it that way. They sent me after a sword.”

“Why do you suppose I’m here?” Ruwhere asked.

“To keep me from the sword.”

She nodded. “You really don’t want it, trust me. Did they tell you why they wanted it back?”

“No. Something about a curse and sacrifices.”

“You weren’t curious?”

“Whatever they told me, I would have to waste my time trying to figure out what was true and what wasn’t. It was easier to just come here and find out.”

“I might have chosen to kill you without speaking to you,” she pointed out.

“You might have. And yet they seemed pretty confident sending me up here.”

“That’s what the last three they sent thought,” she replied. “It’s not confidence—they’re just not very bright. They get stupider and weaker every day, without their sustenance. If you wait long enough, they will die, and you will have your woman back.”

“How long?”

“Without their ritual, they will age like men. A few decades, at most.”

“I don’t really have that much time on my hands,” Fool Wolf said.

“I suppose not,” she replied.

“What happens if I give them their sword?”

She shook her head. “You should put that thought out of your head. First of all, I won’t let you touch it. But even if you did—the fact is, they don’t want their sword. None of them can wield it without their lives draining back into Qash. What they want is some idiot who doesn’t know better to pick it up.”

“Why?”

“Well, to take it you would have to slay me, and they want that. And once you held the sword, Qash would possess you and send you after the virgins.”

Fool Wolf suddenly felt completely lost.

Virgins? Chugaachik hissed. This gets better and better.

Fool Wolf did his best to ignore her, but she was aroused, and he felt warm behind his ears, as if someone were kissing him there.

“I don’t understand,” he told Ruwhere.

“The sword is part of Qash,” she replied. “And Qash is quite mad. Our people drove him mad a thousand years ago when they sacrificed a virgin to him.”

“Ah,” Fool Wolf said, “and since they are his descendants, they also require virgin sacrifices.”

“Yes, you see that do you? But their union was unnatural, evil. Qul always strained to be free and finally—after centuries, with my help—Qul managed to break away and take her daughters with her.”

“The virgins are Qul’s daughters?”

“The men who sent you here are the sons of Qash. It is from the daughters of Qul that they must have their sacrifices. I brought the daughters here, the ones who remain virgin, to keep them safe.”

“I can think of better ways to save a virgin,” Fool Wolf said. “The problem is in being virgin, yes? If only virgins are fit for sacrifice—”

The air suddenly crackled with force, and his sight opened as he was yanked beneath the lake. Ruwhere was a burning brand, the knot in the heartstrings of a god, and the god was all around them, a half-formed woman, naked, mutilated. Her gaze was all deranged fury.

Ruwhere’s calm exterior broke, and that rage rushed through her.

“Wait—”

“You’re like them,” Ruwhere said, in a low, flat tone. The reasonable old woman was nowhere in that voice. “They don’t kill them. They rape them, just as they taught Qash to rape Qul, just as they now must rape to keep their youth.”

“I didn’t understand that,” Fool Wolf said, backing away. “I was only joking. I wouldn’t…”

It’s too late, Chugaachik snarled. Qul has her.

“You have!” Ruwhere screamed. “The things you’ve done, I see them now, the things…” She choked off, and her eyes rolled back.

He did the only thing he could do. He tossed the grapevine ring so that it landed about Ruwhere’s neck. Her eyes went wide with shock as Qash entered her by his vein, seeking through to Qul. Mad or not, Qul understood the danger, and in an instant severed the conduit. But by then, Fool Wolf had lunged past the sorceress and taken grip on the sword.

He turned and found Ruwhere blazing with godforce and knew that if it weren’t for Chugaachik, he would already be dead. Gasping as his bones began to burn, he threw himself at her, plunging the weapon in deep just below her breastbone. Ruwhere hung on the blade, her eyes gradually calming.

“You’ve done it,” she gasped. “You monster. You don’t understand what…”

But she fell away, and the presence of Qul diminished and then fled from the sword.

“It was only a joke.” Fool Wolf sighed.

He tried to drop the blade, but his head seemed to fill with locusts and his legs began jerking without his permission.

And he knew Ruwhere had been right, and Qash was in him.

He’s trying to make you walk, Chugaachik said. She seemed weak, far away.