Blood of the Red

Chapter 13 - Sindri

Chapter 13 – Sindri

Sindri sat on the edge of a broken marble coffin, watching Corlothis.

"You can read my mind?" It was a disturbing thought, but then everything about Corlothis disturbed him.

"Well, yes. The surface of it at any rate, but I try not to judge a book by its cover."

The shade's dry, slightly amused, tone reminded Sindri of the Sarkasian tutor his father hired two summers back, to teach him logic and tactics. Sindri still thought of Corlothis as a shade, but he had proven solid enough, more than solid, when he stopped the axe.

"Oh I'm solid." Corlothis tapped an ebon finger to his chest. The sound was of stone on stone. "Woven darkness. Sounds worse than it is . . . Nice axe by the way."

Sindri frowned, "I thought . . ."

"That I'd be dignified and ancient, that I'd make solemn pronouncements about the great mysteries of the world. Oh, I shouldn't finish your sentences for you - bad habit. You know there's no law that says you have to be a dried up old stick just because your thousandth birthday has come and gone."

"Why aren't you dead? Why are you made of the night?" Sindri spoke quickly, determined to get the words out.

The levity left Corlothis' voice for a moment. "When you drink too deeply of it, the Blood of the Black will not let you die."

Sindri snatched up his axe and jumped to his feet, "You're of the Black?" He shook his head. "The message was wrong . . . the Ghost Raven must have sent me here to destroy you!"

"Ghost Raven?" Corlothis remained seated, paying Sindri no heed, "Ghost Raven is still whispering to the northmen? Well, well. That is one persistent old spirit. He always did have a soft spot for the northmen."

It was too much for Sindri. He sat down again, letting his axe trail. "You know the Ghost Raven?!"

"We've spoken. I wouldn't say I know him exactly. We've met in . . . other places."

"But you're of the Black." Sindri's fingers tightened on his axe haft again.

"Come." Corlothis stood. "Let's get out of here. It's comforting to lie among the dead when I'm resting or busy elsewhere, but it's a morbid place to entertain guests."

Sindri re-emerged from the tomb, following a jet-black legend out of the oldest songs.

"Snow!" Corlothis stood knee deep in the drift before the doorway. "I'd almost forgotten about snow." He stooped and ran black fingers through the powder.

In the sunlight Corlothis looked stranger than in the tomb. The light fell into him and none returned. He looked like a man-shape cut into the world. Darkness steamed about him like a mist.

"These trees spring up fast," he complained.

They went to the river and sat on rocks by the water.

"The Priests of the Black do evil - so men assume that the Blood is evil; that it makes them evil. It's understandable. It's easier to swallow than the truth. The Blood gives them power. Evil men crave power, power corrupts good men."

"The Ghost Raven told my father that you were the last hope of my people," Sindri said. He had not come to listen to philosophy.

"Did he now? Did he indeed?" Corlothis tapped black fingers to black lips. "The Priests of the Black are knocking at your doors are they? It's the nature of such things. Northmen are an unruly lot, the Priesthoods always like to control. You could just pay them fealty - it would be much easier all round." Corlothis turned and met Sindri's unwavering gaze, "Ah well, perhaps not."

"Are you truly the son of Arthur?" Something in Corlothis's manner made Sindri bold. The man may have seen a millennium pass, he might be bones robed in the stuff of night, but still he's more prissy old maid than monster.

"Old maid?"

Sindri bit his lip and stared at his feet, trying desperately to think of nothing.

"Well I suppose the ancient always seem that way to the young." Corlothis seemed to have taken no offence. "No, I'm not Arthur's son. He did name me his heir though, for I helped him greatly in his works." He sounded sad now.

Corlothis turned to regard Sindri. "So, you've come for my help. Tell me, why should I help you? In what currency might you pay me?"

Sindri frowned in puzzlement, "The Ghost Raven said you would help us."

"Well and good, but I don't make a habit of taking direction from ravens, ghostly or otherwise. Or avians of any flavour come to that."

A noise rippled past them, a cracking creaking rush. The river before them had frozen, all in a moment, the swirls and eddies written in the ice.

"Ah." Corlothis stood. "It seems that the Priests of the Black take your mission seriously, even if I do not. They have found you again."

Sindri couldn't take his eyes from the frozen river. "Again?"

"Do you think you the Carthachin just chanced upon you, Hearteater?"

Sindri felt a picking behind his eyes, a tingling beneath his scalp - Corlothis was reading deeper, digging for memories.

"Your friend Melchem was correct. The storm was sent by the Black. Neither did the sea-wraith find you by its own devices. When you lay poisoned and unconscious the Black Priests thought you dead. They have learned of their error."

"They're coming?" Sindri turned in a circle, axe at the ready.

"The Three do not leave their silent towers. And they do not care to face me. They will send minions. There are darker things than the Carthachin in the deep places of the Myrdrin."

A hundred yards or so down the river a white fog rose among the trees. Tendrils of mist spiraled up the trunks, throttling like ivy. It grew colder. Cold as midwinter night in the Greyloft, when the waves stand frozen in their march to shore.

"What is it?" Sindri got the words past chattering teeth.

"Winterkin." Corlothis started back toward the tomb. "Elementals from the snow clouds."

The mist rolled forward in a steady tide, inches deep at the leading edge, fifty yards off now.

"What are we going to do?" Sindri glanced at Corlothis's retreating back and hurried to catch up. Feeling his wounds as he thumped down the steps into the tomb. "What are-"

"We?" Corlothis paused to look at Sindri. "They can't hurt me. You couldtry running. It won't save you though."