The Hob's Bargain(82)

She turned her face away from Kith's death as wild grief sliced through me. Her gaze passed by the other berserker, and I could see the pain on his face. The low-lander had loved Kith, too.

Failure and agony almost distracted me enough that I didn't see what lurked behind the berserker, but no one could miss the solid thwack as Caefawn's staff hit the berserker in the head.

Caefawn's cloak was gone, and his remaining clothes were in rags. His charcoal gray coloring was somehow more foreign, exposed so openly. The neat silver-black braid of hair was loosed, spilling in a wild curtain about him. His right knee was bandaged heavily, and his ears, pinned tightly against his head, were free of ornamentation.

"Bloodmage," growled Caefawn, sounding something more than human.

Hope flared inside me for a moment, but I'd lost my belief in the hob's omnipotence sometime since the day I'd ridden up to fetch him from his mountain. The hob did not have the power to take on the bloodmage, not on this side of the river. I could feel the bindings that held him to the mountain and drained his strength. For the first time I understood that not only did the mountain augment his power, but he also fed her.

I would get to watch him die while I wondered if I could have fought the bloodmage better if I hadn't weakened myself by taking the spirits for their power.

"So you're the thing that's got my berserkers chasing their tails," observed the mage, sounding fascinated. I could hear nothing in his voice that suggested killing Kith had bothered him, though he'd sounded like a love-struck boy just moments before. "What are you?"

The hob snarled like a cornered lynx, beautiful and inhuman. His red eyes glowed even in the full light of day. "I am Death," he hissed.

"No," breathed the bloodmage. "I am."

Something dark left his hand, something vile that made my spirit flinch and step back. It hit Caefawn and spread down his chest. But as if it couldn't adhere to his skin, it dripped off him to puddle on the ground. The dirt beneath the hob's feet melted and steamed beneath the force of Fennigyr's magic.

Caefawn sprang onto the mage but hit some invisible barrier a foot away from Fennigyr's body. It propelled the hob backward a bodylength, and when the hob came to his feet he was clearly favoring his bandaged knee.

"I am your death." There was mock sorrow in the mage's voice.

Frenzied by the hob's danger, I pushed the edges of the broken place inside my head where the mage's spell was slowly unraveling.

Fennigyr waved his hand gently and the hob staggered back. The mage laughed and displayed the earring he held. "Yours, I believe?" He closed his hand on it. "It is enough to make you mine. I have just been forced to kill one of my children - was it you who set him free? But you will make an admirable replacement. Whatever you are, you have magic to feed me with."

The hob was frozen where he stood. I could see the sweat gathering on his forehead as he fought the mage's hold. But it was no use. If he could have forced the battle into a physical contest, Caefawn would have won, but magic for magic, the mage was an easy victor. I didn't think the bloodmage could tamper with the ties binding the hob to the mountain because they were part of the hob, not an addition like the berserkers' ties to Fennigyr. But I never doubted the bloodmage could kill Caefawn.

I was so tired, and my head hurt and itched in places I couldn't scratch. I rubbed my temples, trying to get some relief.

I rubbed my temples.

I'd broken through the spell at last, at least part of it. I had a moment to savor it, then the spell unwound. The shock of it left me lying on the cobbles, but my body was my own again.

A groan from Caefawn caught my attention. Neither he nor Fennigyr appeared to have noticed my momentary fit. Caefawn's face was drawn back in a grimace of pain and effort.

Neklavar, I thought, giving Caefawn the name he'd told me while I dreamed. True dreams they'd been, for my vision cleared and I could see far deeper into Caefawn's spirit than I had before - as it had when I'd used Kith's real name.

Thick cords of green and gold reached from his soul through his spirit into the ground, his ties to the mountain. With spiritsight, I could see the bindings that the bloodmage was trying to put on him. They looped the hob loosely, but slid off without attaching.

The bloodmage didn't have the hob's real name.

Fennigyr, my father had called him when the mage came to collect my brother's body and raged over its uselessness. The lowland berserker had called him Fennigyr as well. But this spring, on the top of Hob's Mountain, Kith had called him Nahag.

It might have been a nickname.

I focused on the bloodmage, whose face was smooth and blank, though his body shook with the effort of the magic he was using. I tried to say his name, but my throat wouldn't work right - I just couldn't form the word. So I thought it instead.

Nahag.

It wasn't just a nickname.

I could see the reason bloodmages all went insane. Rather than looking like a brighter version of a ghost, Nahag's spirit was like a beggar's cloak, rags and tatters covered here and there by different colored fabrics, pieces of other people's spirit. I thought of the little bits I'd taken from the noeglins and the bits of myself I'd had to give in return, and was sickened.

When I'd looked at Kith or Caefawn with his real name held tightly to me, I'd seen his soul, a rich, warm form enveloped in body and spirit. But the bloodmage's soul was small and dark, turned upon itself as if it could not bear to touch his corrupted spirit.