Mickey Reichert - Flight of the Renshai

"Thank you," Calistin said to Treysind, meaning it. Without the boy, they surely would have starved by now. He wondered how many meals had passed that he had devoured in silent fatigue, without a single word of gratitude to the hardworking cook.

"Ya's so verry welcome, Hero," Treysind replied with bubbly eagerness. "Hopes ya likes it."

I'm so hungry, Calistin realized, I could eat bark and appreciate every bite. He did not speak the words aloud. He was not sure exactly how, but they might insult Treysind. "Oh, I'll like it," Calistin managed. "I always do."

Amazir smiled and crouched in front of his own pile of food. He, too, seemed starved, shoveling food into his mouth without bothering to breathe between bites.

Treysind must have already eaten, because he stood between them, replacing any food they finished, whisking away bones and stems, and attending the two Renshai like royalty.

"When your mother was trapped in Pudar, she asked me to help her out of her predicament," Amazir explained. "And sending my son was the only solution I had at the time."

Calistin braced himself, bite of roasted meat half-chewed.

"He was young, Calistin, a virgin. And he left the decision entirely to her." Amazir stopped eating in order to directly meet Calistin's gaze, to speak plainly and clearly. "She wanted Ra-khir to father any child she had; we all know that. But, at the time, that was not one of her choices. She could carry a prince or a Renshai, and she chose Ravn."

Ravn? The name brought it all together in a rush. Abruptly, Calistin found himself sitting on the ground, his usual wary crouch forgotten. Flat on his buttocks, he paused in stunned silence, dizzy with fatigue and understanding. Everything came together in that moment: the aged, unknown Renshai who seemed to know everything, who could best him in a battle and teach him concepts beyond anything he had ever considered. "You're… you're… Colbey. My blood grandfather is… is… Colbey Calistinsson?" How apt his own name finally seemed, shared with the great grandfather who now watched over him from Valhalla.

Colbey laughed at a situation that seemed anything but humorous to Calistin. "Only a Renshai would find more awe in a Renshai's bloodline than a goddess'."

Calistin's bones seemed to turn to water. He could scarcely maintain his position, even with his rear firmly planted on the ground. "My blood grandmother is… is…" It seemed like sacrilege merely to think it, to suggest it aloud might bring the gods' wrath down upon him.

"Freya, yes. Can you imagine anything grander?"

Calistin found himself incapable of imagining anything. Nothing in the world seemed more fantastical, more impossible, than the truth. "So I'm a… a…" He did not know how to finish. He carried the blood of gods, yet also of mortals. "What the hell am I?"

"You're Calistin Ra-khirsson. The son of Kevral Tainharsdatter and Sir Ra-khir, and a Renshai of great potential skill."

Though Calistin already knew the answer, he could not help feeling disappointed. "I'm not immortal?"

Amazir Colbey Calistinsson shook his head sadly.

Calistin scrambled to a crouch, besieged by emotions that baffled and enraged him. "If none of this matters, if nothing has changed, why are you telling me this? I could have gone to my grave blithely believing myself the fruit of my father's loins. Now, I'll find myself reexamining every moment of my childhood, suspecting every word my parents told me." He rose, pacing, though every movement hurt and his limbs felt lead-weighted. "Everything I've done and been is a lie. What other deceptions have my loved ones hidden from me?"

Treysind's gaze followed Calistin's every step, and the expression on his face looked painfully pinched. Clearly, he wanted to help but did not know how.

Colbey twirled a finger through a mound of mashed roots, then licked it from his fingers slowly, savoring.

For reasons he could not explain, the immortal's nonchalance fueled Calistin's irritation nearly as much as his own inability to determine his next course of action. He wanted to distance himself from everyone related to him, whether by blood or family ties. He had already lost Kevral. He had run from Ra-khir, from his brothers, even from his people. It seemed only natural to rid himself of Colbey as well, yet he needed one more answer. "You said…" he started, bothered by the sulky surliness in his own voice, "that I might find a solution to my problem in this story you dumped on me."

Colbey's brows edged upward. For an instant, Calistin thought his impudence might lose him his soulless existence, but then the immortal Renshai laughed. "You're lucky I have an adolescent son of my own, Calistin. I'm accustomed to being spoken to in that manner, though not often. Ravn pays dearly for it. Next time, you will, too."

Ravn? It sounded ridiculous to compare the man who had sired him to himself for age. Yet, Calistin realized, if gods and immortals grew older at the same pace as humans, they would all look like wizened piles of ash and bone. At the moment, he did not care what Colbey did to him. He doubted the practices could get any harder, any more brutal. He believed his torke knew his every limit and deliberately took him just beyond them. He worried more for never getting the information he so desperately needed, and for that reason alone he softened his tone. "How do I save my soul, torke?"

"You can't."

The simple negative response made Calistin's temper boil again. "Then why are we having these discussions? Why don't you go away and leave me to my misery?"

"Because I remember my own all too well. I was in my eighth decade before I discovered my blood parentage, wondering why I remained spry while others withered around me. No one dared claim a lack of courage kept me from my destiny with Valhalla, but Odin taunted me, swore I would never find that one place that matters most to Northmen of every tribe but, especially, to Renshai."

Calistin gritted his teeth. He had his own problems to worry about without listening to those of another man, even one dubbed the greatest Renshai of all time. Calistin's mother had spent most of her life emulating Colbey, his sword skill, his wisdom, even the feathered cut of his hair. "Odin lied, didn't he?" Even as the words emerged, Calistin wished he had not spoken them. The gods could do far worse to a man than kill him.

Apparently Calistin's concern showed on his features, because Colbey reassured him. "Odin died at the Ragnarok. He cannot hurt you."

It was a serious point of religion; knowing the truth might end much of the world's bickering. Renshai, most Bearnides, elves, and a few others believed the Ragnarok, the Great War prophesied to end the reign of the gods had occurred. In their version, Colbey had intervened, changing the projected tide of the battle and rescuing some of those slated to die. Most Northmen believed the Ragnarok had yet to come. Those two main beliefs, and myriad related ideas, accounted for most of the current religions of the world. Only a few still worshiped the old gods of the West or the East's single unnamed deity.

Calistin knew no one would change his or her beliefs based on a truth pronounced by him, but curiosity forced him to ask, "Exactly which gods did the Ragnarok claim?" He did not expect an answer.

Yet Colbey gave a straightforward one, "Odin, Aegir, Heimdall, Thor, Loki, Bragi, Tyr, and the goddess Hel. The monsters Fenrir, the Midgard Serpent, and King Surtr of the Fire Giants went with them."

Calistin could only stare, blinking occasionally. "You… told… me?" he finally sputtered out.

Colbey shrugged. "You asked. And a man needs to know who he can freely curse and blaspheme." He added conspiratorially, "But don't go overboard. Vidar leads the pantheon now, and he is still Odin's son. Some of the others left behind loyal wives, and there's nothing more dangerous than a woman insulted."