Taziar would not let his point rest. He rose and helped Larson to shaky legs. Still clutching the elf's arms, Taziar met his gaze. "My full name is Taziar Medakan. I'm from a city across the Kattegat Sea called Cullinsberg. Under the alias 'Shadow Climber,' I have a price on my head which could make you rich for the rest of your life. I tell you this because I trust you not to turn me in. And I need you to trust me." Taziar's eyes probed Larson's with sincere urgency. "I can't explain why, but your life depends on trusting Gaelinar and me and no one else.''
Larson pulled free of Taziar's grip. He tried to reassure. "Of course I trust you, you little idiot. You just saved my life. What choice do I have?"
Taziar smiled, but he still looked tense.
Larson continued. "I don't believe leaving you and Gaelinar was my own decision. I think Bramin influenced me with magic. Thanks for your help. We'd better get back to Gaelinar before Bramin returns." Larson started slowly toward town. "I don't feel much like killing Hel anymore."
Taziar walked at Larson's side. "If Bramin's loose, so is Silme. You say she can find us. We may as well continue Vidarr's quest and let her come to us."
Fatigued by lack of sleep and his battle with Bramin, Larson yawned. He patted his pocket, reassured by the faceted presence of Silme's rankstone. "Shadow, you've done enough to convince me to talk Silme into taking on Astryd as her apprentice. You have no interest in Geir-magnus' rod, and my enemies want nothing from you. Why are you still helping us?"
"Allerum," Taziar replied carefully, "trust me."
Bramin's laughter haunted Larson's weary trip back to the tavern and pierced his dreams as if from habit. A rumble as mournful as surf echoed through his mind. With fatalistic acceptance, Larson's unconscious acknowledged Bramin's domination of his nightmare. The intrusions had become too familiar to resist, and Larson had learned never to trust his dreams. Too tired to fight, he accepted the scenes Bramin wound through his mind with indifference.
Again, Larson faced Bramin. But this time, Bramin's assault was a wild blur of attack. His sword thrust and parried like a live thing. Larson defended with harried slashes. Repeatedly, steel rang against steel, and Bramin's superior size and skill drove Larson backward.
Suddenly, Larson's foot fell on empty air. He stumbled forward to avoid the new danger behind him, impaling himself on Bramin's sword. The blade sank deep. Pain tore through his chest, and blood ran like spilled wine. Jarred backward, he fell through leagues of blackness, his body tumbling and wind-slashed. Bramin's challenge chased him down the chasm. "Allerum, you are only the first. I have a debt to pay against mankind. They will suffer as I did, and the gods will die with them!"
The scene shattered to evening light. Still in directed dream, Larson watched a village on the eastern coast of Norway. Fishermen in patched homespun carried split cod on poles, their stocky boats angled on the shore. From out of the darkness beyond the town, Bramin rushed down upon the populace. His face was a mask of menace, his skin black as ink. He howled with the pure joy of slaughter as his sword slashed and rent through the crowd. The fishermen grabbed up axes and staves, but their weapons did nothing to slow the half man. Bramin moved with the speed and grace of a whirlwind, leaving piles of red corpses in his wake.
"Stop!" Larson charged Bramin, grimly aware of his own blood, brown and sticky, on his hands. The world upended. The village vanished in a roaring ball of fire. A wave of heat buffeted Larson, and he dove from the path of the inferno. Flames ate men and women, huts and single-sailed boats indiscriminately, then danced like red demons into the forest. Cries of anguish rose above the sour note of the wind. Bramin's savage laughter formed melody to the background of human despair.
Larson gathered his spirit to defend himself from Bramin's threat. He plucked a picture of reality from the exploited wreckage of his thoughts: a village tavern, faithful companions, and a hearth. Bramin's fire withered, trailing smoke. Blackened, uprooted stumps softened to brown, and the green needles of pine replaced skeletal branches. Then the image of the common room filled his mind's eye. Even as Larson basked in his success, Bramin lashed out against Larson's conjured image. Gaelinar's sleeping form turned corpse-pale; blood welled from the mangled ruin of his throat. Taziar's scalp lay flayed open to the bone, and splintered, white skull poked from beneath the wound.
No! Larson wrenched against Bramin's hold on his mind. The vision strengthened, wavered. Abruptly, another entity crashed into Larson's mind. Bramin's scene dissolved with unnatural suddenness. The half man loosed a startled cry followed by an angry hiss.
Larson clung to consciousness with the desperation of a wounded soldier on enemy ground. The effort flung him into the tangled tapestry of his own mind. The figures of Vidarr and Bramin circled, more vivid than his grasp on reality. Bramin lunged, slicing white-hot agony through Larson's mind. Vidarr dodged, inadvertently tripping a memory of the New York skyline. Larson's anger flared against the dark elf who filled his life and mind with terror and the god who had, again, violated his thoughts. Though dizzied by Bramin's and Vidarr's battle, Larson gathered resolve and struck back.
A wall took shape, a solid bastion of brick and mortar, neatly trapping Vidarr and Bramin in a corner of Larson's mind. Surprise broke the battle. The combatants stood in shocked silence, their contest forgotten in the face of this new menace. Larson channeled his spirit against them, clinging to the image of the wall. It was easier the second time, but he did not trust himself to explore the intruders' emotions or allow his thoughts to wander from his invented vision.
Although Vidarr was more familiar with Larson's trap, Bramin recovered his senses first. He smirked, his voice echoing in the confines created by the wall. "Very pretty, Allerum. Sturdy, too. Perhaps the king might hire you as mason."
Larson gritted his teeth, mentally following Bramin's pacing. The outer edges of wall crumbled. Quickly, he turned his attention back to the structure, allowing the dark elf to wander as he would.
Vidarr remained silent, but Larson suspected the aura of hatred which tainted his thoughts came as much from the god as from the half man.
Bramin seemed more amused than thwarted. "You made a fatal mistake, Futurespawn. You trapped me here with lots of playthings."
Larson resisted the urge to track Bramin's path. He knew he had enclosed coils of recollection with Vidarr and Bramin, and the realization chilled him.
"Hmmm." Bramin spoke with exaggerated attentive-ness. "Where shall I start. Which memory will make you suffer most?"
Larson ignored the threat. He kept hold of his creation, not daring to speak or consider anything else. He needed time to think, but the concentration his trap required would not spare him.
Vidarr's voice boomed in warning. "Touch at your own peril, Bramin, and earn the wrath of a god."
Larson felt someone lurch within the realm of his trap. The scent of rain-washed evergreens filled his nostrils, summer sun glinting from droplets perched between the needles. Fifteen years old, Larson pressed his back to the trunk, his rifle clutched to his chest. Wind ruffled the treetops, showering him with stored water. The memory of a deer hunt in New Hampshire threw Larson off-balance. The bricks of his mental wall toppled to dust, and Bramin sprang for the opening.
Larson hovered on the brink of sanity. He clawed for the remnants of his previous control, just as Vidarr dove for Bramin's retreating form. The collision scattered Larson's reason. Bramin and Vidarr skidded through his mind, crashed, and tangled with Larson's memories.
Larson walked through a steamy murk of underbrush in a jungle of palm, teak, and rubber trees so dense he could not guess the time of day. Ahead, he could hear the hushed whispers of the point men. The six soldiers around him reeked of sweat and mud. Beside him, the staff sergeant, Buck Curto, seemed uncharacteristically nervous. It was Larson's second sniper hunt, Curto's twenty-fifth. Curto was a Texas farm boy, a muscled giant who had grown up branding cattle and had spent some time on the rodeo circuit. Larson knew Curto as a hero, afraid of nothing, seven times decorated in the first six months of his shift. This time, though, Curto had a premonition. "I don't know what," he confided to Larson, his drawl apparent even at a mumble. "Something ain't right."