Seven Swords

Chapter 57

In that battle between opposing forces, that which draws together won over that which pulls apart. The swords gleamed translucent like great ice daggers, then melted their solid forms together - into one ice-forged sword. The escaping colors united into a rainbow and bowed

into the air underneath the dark arch of pines, spanning

the pond and stretching to both ends of the facades to

other worlds. Thane and Javelle looked up to the thin, colorful canopy over their heads. Irissa and Kendric remained fixed, as if impaled in the ground, like the swordpoint. 'What have you done?' he asked her.

Her fingers lifted from the crossbar and stretched one by one like an awakening cat's toes. 'Mind has infused reality. Your original sword and the evocation of it - - are one again. Your lifeline no longer divides into two separating strands. You will live-' 'Forever?' he asked wryly.

'Not forever. Just . . . long enough for a Torloc.' Kendric frowned. 'Is this why you risked our children in Without to claim a talisman for my longer life?' 'Yes! You wouldn't... couldn't... see that you were destined to fade faster than we.'

He sighed and tried to focus on the new-made blade. T still see them double,' he said, 'And there are two edges to your quest. I may live to regret long life, or die of an unforeseen blow long before this magic sword would cut the twisted thread of my fate.'

"May" even a Torloc must live with. Your early death was certain; I saw it in the clouds across your eyes." Another cloud came to Kendric's eyes, but before he could answer, Thane's voice broke into his parents'

troubling discussion.

The... clouds are gone,' Thane reported in wonder. Irissa turned to the phantom wall of doors behind her. Against one lay the exhausted form of Briarwhip, its three eyes fading from a faint green color to their ordinary b****y brown shade. The two Felabbas had deserted their tree limb to flank it and rake their tongues over its disheveled hair.

The dark cloud was not to be seen. 'You've banished Geronfrey's presence! Javelle con

atulated her mother. And given birth to another rainbow.' Kendric lifted his ead slowly to the colored bands above. If he saw the

sword in duplicate still, the rainbow multiplied until the clearing seemed netted over by strips of gaudy mist. 'And the sword is one again,' Irissa congratulated her self. 'All we need do now is find a gate back to Rengarth.' 'Fool!' Felabba the Elder stalked over on stiff legs. "You

have a gate an Empress Falgon could fly through, thanks to your sleight of sword.' 'What's so wrong in that?" Irissa bent down to inquire politely, so fine a mood she was in. 'We can go home now.'

The cat ungraciously spat a few spirit-quenching words into her face. 'What's wrong is only that you have averted one distant danger, not the nearby certain peril. Only that you have inadvertently opened a high road to one denied any road. Only that when you can now exit, another can enter fully.'

Irissa looked up at the wavering ghosts of many gates. One was split open, as if something tore the dark asunder.

A double form was spilling from the torn doorway - the gilded Hunter grown ebony, and a rider merged to his mount.

The Hunter's hooves thudded over crushed grasses as the facade of gates shook and shattered and gave birth to a misbegotten blend of man and beast. Geronfrey's gauntleted hands controlled reins of chain that clanged together, his legs sank into the contours of the beast's ribs. Years of slowly diminishing in Without had forged man and mount into a union of living death.

'I will take the sword,' Geronfrey challenged. 'And with it the soul of he who bears it. And none will stop me.'

Geronfrey raised his own weapon - an obsidian sword as slickly black as the Nightstone and pointed it at - Briarwhip. 'You, ancient whisper of a seeress, cannot long vacate your cringing form here outside Without. Either as cloud or hound, you are unfit to deal with me directly, I will address your perfidy later.

'You, persistent pest,' his raw voice thundered as h

leveled the sword at the two Felabbas, 'are cut in twa

and your powers thus are halved. I shall further mind you both when I'm done with bigger prey.' The Hunter's dark forelegs stamped toward Javelle and Thane. 'You, the young disinherited, will have to find a world

other than Rengarth to frolic in; empty of all your ilk, it

is mine once more. You will not slip through Without

again unless you pay a bitter price."

The bridle chains tautened noisily as Geronfrey reined

the Hunter before the slim stab of darkness that was his

son. 'Your craven betrayal I do not overlook. You will have to demonstrate a reason to exist to me.' At last he reined the beast onto its hind legs, turning

simultaneously so it reared like a hoof-armed wall over Kendric and Irissa. As for you two, you no longer share a kingdom and soon will share no sword. My exile in Without hampered

my powers, but they flower here and now. Give me the

sword and I shall leave you and your children to find your sorry way to whatever place will take you.

'Without take you, Geronfrey!' Kendric challenged back. 'I thank Irissa's rainbow gate that at last you are not hiding behind emissaries, but come in person to do your ill.'

Kendric lifted the sword, feeling a surge of optimism that the reunion of the weapon's separate selves and its reunion with himself as bearer of both its aspects had returned his poison-leeched strength.

Geronfrey and the Hunter made a formidable adversary, but Kendric had dueled them before in mirrors and shadow form. He would take his stand in his adopted land, Rule, eager to end the unwanted association where it had begun.

'I had hoped you would make a fight of it,' Geronfrey croaked, his now-black eyes gleaming fitfully. 'My sword is the twin to yours, forged in the Dark Mirror. We shall see which shatters first before the power of the other my darkness... or your light."

'We can help him.' Thane had sidled up to Irissa as Kendric and Geronfrey warily circled each other in clear space. "Can" and "should" are not interchangeable,' she

reminded her son. 'But it's unfair! Geronfrey is mounted and on a beast beyond normal ken.'

'Kendric is beyond normal height,' she answered mildly. 'How can you stand idly by and watch?' Javelle de manded in tones as disturbed as Thane's as she flanked Irissa's side. 'How can you quest so far and hard for a sword to prolong his life, then see him risk it in a contention with a deceptive sorcerer?'

Irissa could feel their fear and impatience, palpable as fog. She watched while the two white cats drifted over on soundless feet, each bracketing the trio.

'We make quite an audience,' Irissa mused. Thane practically huffed and puffed his impatience, until Irissa put an arm around each of her children. This is your father's work,' she said. 'You have