Chapter Nine
Chapter
Nine
“Lara Raith is old-school,” Bear said. “I like that.”
“Says the Chooser of the Slain,” I noted wryly. “You’re not exactly the latest fad.” I caught the basketball the kids staying at the castle were playing with as it sailed through outstretched arms. I’d secured a portable hoop and set it up in the main hall. Fitz was serving as referee.
“Thanks, Harry,” Fitz said, holding up his hands.
I hit him with a firm pass. Fitz turned back to the three-on-three. “Okay, guys, way to pass, but, Olivia, you gotta stop throwing those elbows…”
Bear watched my interaction with Fitz with approval. “True enough, I suppose,” she said.
“How old are you anyway?” I asked.
“Hah,” Bear said. “That’s a more complicated question than you realize. You’re only familiar with the linear-time thing.”
“Try me.”
“Subjectively, I’m a hell of a lot older than I would be if I told you that I was born before the Messiah.”
“Jesus,” I said, blinking.
“That’s the one,” she said, nodding. “I was at the Crucifixion. There was quite a crowd actually.”
I stared at her for a second and then said, “Wait…capital-C Crucifixion?”
She folded her huge arms, watching the game, and nodded calmly.
I didn’t quite know how to respond to that. So I asked, “What was that like?”
“Smelly,” she said quietly. “Sad.” She glanced at me.
“Not for me. I didn’t know the man. But the people in his life suffered deeply.
You could see it.” Her eyes tracked the ball.
“The world was a great deal more dangerous then, and in that time and place the Romans were the most dangerous people in it. I know it’s quite popular to talk about how awful the world is today, but I’ve been here for a while.
Things are better now in more places than I’ve ever seen so far. ”
I nodded toward the kids. “Pretty sure that there are people in town who might argue with that.”
She shrugged. “They’re playing ball, aren’t they?
Sure, Chicago took a pounding. But it’s still here.
I’ve seen cities where the gutters literally ran with the blood of the slain.
Where not one stone remained upon another.
On multiple occasions. By the standards of history, your battle was a mild one. ”
My voice crackled with heat I hadn’t felt coming. “It didn’t feel very fucking mild at the time.”
Bear wasn’t ruffled. The big Valkyrie looked somewhere between sad and amused. “You probably don’t want to take that tone with me.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Oh. Yeah.”
I scowled at her and looked back at the game.
“You personally took a historically significant hit during it, seidrmadr. I’ll give you that. Time has rubbed off the rough edges of death on a civilizational scale. But it will never make losing friends or lovers or family any easier.”
I fell quiet at that and folded my arms.
Bear squinted at me. “You go to bed early every night.”
“Yeah. So.”
“You don’t sleep much.”
I grunted.
Bear tilted her head, studying me. “Sometimes I hear you talking. Even laughing.”
I didn’t say anything.
She nodded slowly. “Good for you to talk. Even if it’s just to yourself.”
“What I do with my personal time is my personal business,” I said.
“Of course,” she said. We watched the kids play for a couple of minutes, and then she asked, “What was she like?”
“I’ll meet you out front at three,” I said, and walked away from the game.
—
I met King Etri at McAnally’s.
Mac had cleared the pub out for us and put a table in the middle of the floor with some room around it.
Bear sidled up to the bar and nodded to Etri’s single bodyguard, a small man in a neat suit who all but vibrated with energy and certainly wasn’t human.
He bought her the first round. Mac bustled about quietly.
He even brought a pair of bottles to our table, so he clearly thought the meeting was an important one.
Etri was wearing his human disguise, svartalf magic making him appear to be a man of less than average height, late forties, with swept-back dark hair, a silvering beard, and piercing black eyes.
“Sir Knight,” he said quietly.
“Your Majesty,” I responded, and inclined my head briefly. In feudal terms, Etri was a head of state, and I was something like a neighboring landholding knight. He had extended goodwill to meet with me. I took up my bottle, and he his. We clinked and sipped.
Etri closed his eyes for a moment and then turned and lifted the bottle toward Mac. The svartalves respected nothing so much as beautiful craftsmanship, and Mac’s brew was unparalleled.
“You wish to negotiate on behalf of Thomas Raith,” Etri said.
“That is correct,” I said.
Etri nodded. Svartalves have some of the best poker faces around. I got nothing from his face. “Why would you do this?”
“Politics,” I half lied. “My new fiancée wishes to protect her brother.”
“Mmmm,” Etri said. “Understandable. But the matter is clear. Thomas Raith was a trusted guest in my home. He attacked and injured my people. He attempted to murder me. He took the life of a trusted subordinate and friend.” Etri shook his head.
“This is a violation of the oldest traditions upon the face of this world, treachery, murder, and an insult to both myself and the svartalf kingdom. I cannot be tolerant of this act.”
“Let us speak clearly,” I said.
Etri nodded his firm approval. “Thomas Raith will answer for the life he took with his own.”
“A life for a life,” I said.
“Precisely. That is the old way.”
I nodded slowly. “There may be mitigating factors.”
“Explain.”
“There is a spirit I will not name,” I said. “A being that works toward chaos and conflict. One who can possess almost anyone and cause them to act against their will.”
“No,” Etri said calmly. “I know the being of which you speak. Our security measures would have detected any such invasive spirit the moment it crossed our threshold—even that one. You cannot excuse his actions thus.”
“Not Raith,” I said. “It took his woman and demanded he act or forfeit her life and the life of her unborn child.”
Etri leaned back in his seat at that, his expression perhaps, barely, troubled. “Meaning no disrespect, that could be an easily arranged ploy.”
“It could be,” I said. “It isn’t.”
“I have no way of knowing that.”
I nodded and took a sip of my own beer. “This could be a matter where consciously applied faith might help resolve many difficulties.”
“I have given my faith already and paid for it with my friend’s life,” Etri said, his voice made of cold, cold iron. “We are beyond that.”
I nodded slowly. “What if I provided you proof?” I asked.
Etri took a slow drink of his ale, studying me. “In that event,” he said, “then the onus of my wrath belongs to a different being.”
“And Thomas would be free of reprisal?”
“No,” Etri said with slow, granite intonation. “Though he may have been compelled, that does not change the consequence of his actions. Nor will I permit my nation to be seen as weak.” He turned one hand palm up. “However. There might be more latitude as to the nature of the reprisal.”
I exhaled slowly. “If it comes to it,” I said, “I will fight for him. Winter will be with me. As will Lara Raith.”
Etri showed me his teeth. “I am aware of the stakes, wizard. You would not be our first foe. Nor our last.”
“Do not misunderstand me,” I said. “I point this out only because it benefits us all to find a way forward without such conflict.”
“Agreed,” King Etri said. “But I did not initiate these events. In the absence of this proof you claim exists, Thomas Raith’s life is forfeit. If you wish peace, that is the only way forward.”
I had to work to keep from clenching my hands and jaw in frustration.
Etri studied my face for a moment and then relaxed back into his seat.
“Understand, wizard, that I know that you swept Raith from custody. I have no evidence to bring before an Accorded judge, of course, but do not think me blind or foolish. I can see how I was manipulated by Lara Raith so that you could free her brother. That became obvious the moment the alliance between Winter and the White Court was made known.”
I stared at him and said nothing.
“We have looked for Thomas Raith, of course,” Etri said. “There are comparatively few places and beings who might be able to successfully hide him from our agents and our spells. I did not initially think you skilled enough to be one of them. I have since altered that supposition.”
The crystal that contained Thomas’s physical body was the closest thing to truly impervious I had ever seen, both magically and physically. When Demonreach buttoned something up, it stayed buttoned.
I tilted my head to one side and said nothing.
“Out of respect for Mab, I have reserved my judgment of you, thus far,” Etri said. “And wizards meddle. It is what they do.”
“Meaning?” I asked.
“Many things are not what they seem. Your conduct in this matter will show me who you are,” he said. “If you prove false, you will find yourself my enemy and the enemy of my people. Believe that we will make your life an affliction for the world to see.”
I wanted to swallow very, very badly.
“Resolve it with honor,” Etri continued, “and you may yet retain our respect. Do you understand?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Either I bring you proof that a damned near untraceable and undetectable entity was manipulating events, I hand over Raith to be executed—”
“Tortured and executed,” Etri interjected. “We do not take treachery lightly.”
“Tortured and executed,” I corrected, “or you declare war on me personally. Which Mab is likely to let me handle on my own.”
“You have until one year from the day you took Thomas Raith from us. Do you understand?”
“I understand,” I said.
Etri’s tone gentled. “I take no pleasure in this,” he said. “My people are craftsmen. We are content to create, to live, and to let live. But a life was taken from us. It will be answered for. There are no other options.” He rose from the table.
I rose to match him and inclined my head.
For a second, Etri looked tired. “We all love. This is understandable. But death is death. I like you, wizard. I would prefer it if you did not make yourself my enemy.”
“I would prefer that as well.”
Etri nodded firmly. “We cannot control all things. What will be will be.” He turned to nod respectfully to McAnally, beckoned his bodyguard, and left. They both took their bottles with them.
Mac watched them go and then nodded approvingly to me. He bent over and came up with a wooden box full of bottles. He grunted and set it down on the bar in front of Bear.
Bear beamed at him, finished her bottle in a long pull, and rose. She took up the box and we walked toward the door.
“You’re not going to make my job easy, are you?” she asked.
“That’s why you get paid the big bucks.” I sighed.
“King Etri,” she said, “and his people.”
“Yeah?”
“When Asgard was strong,” she said, her expression serious, “they wouldn’t go to war with the svartalves.
There are always more of them than you think.
They always have something unexpected in store.
And they don’t know how to quit. Remember that war is a craft, too. One-Eye learned much from them.”
A cold feeling slid through my guts. If they truly were that dangerous, Mab would certainly throw me off the sleigh, rather than expend the resources of her realm on an optional war.
“Do the nigh impossible or die,” I said. I finished off my bottle and waved at Mac. “Well. At least this feels familiar. Let’s go.”
This was turning out to be one hell of a year.