Sword Play by Clayton Emery Read Free Book Online

that had already sucked up so much of his blood.
    The raven interrupted his thoughts. “If you’re worthy, prove it. Or else lie here, pity yourself, and die.” With a flap of wide wings, it took off toward the south.
    “Prove what?” Sunbright groaned. “That I’m worthy of a raven’s power? Easy for him to say: he can fly. I don’t even have any blood left.”
    But this test is important, a voice urged. Follow the raven. Perhaps it was his mother’s voice, off in the east, or perhaps his father’s, speaking from the lands of the dead. Or perhaps it was his own. He was stubborn too, and made demands on himself. But could he follow the raven? He doubted he could walk.
    Still, he could crawl. Maybe that would do.
    Squinting, he located south, one of only two directions he could go in this narrow canyon. The ice worm had gone north, so south was better. He put out a hand, hissing as skinned flesh stuck to the ice. But the wounds continued to weep their salty tears and didn’t stick as badly as healthy flesh might. He put down the other hand, grabbed ice …
    No, he was forgetting something. Two hands empty wasn’t right.
    Sword. His father’s sword.
    Lurching in a circle on his hip, he found the long steel tool half embedded in the ice. He almost wept as he dug into the ice to free it with fingers that were already raw. But then he clutched it tight. And it worked well, helped him, for when he turned the arched blade down, it bit the polished ice of the canyon floor and gave him a brace to pull on.
    He shoved the sword ahead, chunked the edge down, pushed lamely with his toes, pulled with his arms, caught up to it. Did it again. And again.
    Hours later, he crawled from the ice shadows, then blinked, blinded. The morning sun, as big as a god’s face, rose in the east and bathed him in glorious, life-giving warmth.
    Laying his head on a steel pillow, Sunbright slept.

    Candlemas limped down a long, long hall wide and high enough for a coach-and-six to run flat out. The floor was black onyx and white quartz, the two colors swirling and interlacing in complex patterns hand-cut and meshed by generations of artisans. The surface of the floor was so shiny it was almost invisible, which made it difficult for the wizard to tell where to place his feet. And further, he limped, because his missing arm set him lurching off-balance.
    At the far end of the corridor, he heard maids giggling and chiding one another over some sexual escapade, but when he appeared, they hushed and scurried back to work. Each wore a white cap and short white dress with a black apron: the colors of Lady Polaris, which Candlemas found monotonous. At one time, the maids would have been glad to see him, a welcome distraction in their dull routines here in Sysquemalyn’s territory.
    But after five months the wizard’s arm was still regenerating. It had done so bit by bit, from the inside out, needing to be left in the open air. First the bones had grown, until he had a skeleton’s arm rattling alongside, with no muscles to pick it up. Then the arteries had stitched themselves, so he was bothered by the pulsing of his own heart’s blood. Then muscle, slowly knitting together. Now came the worst part, the spinning of nerves, like a thousand tiny spiderwebs, every one itching and burning yet sending electric shrieks from his teeth to his toes if he touched or bumped them. He prayed for the skin to grow back soon, for now his tingling arm looked like the work of a clumsy butcher. Maybe, with skin on it, the girls could stand for him to touch them again.
    Snarling at the once friendly maids, he learned Sysquemalyn was in the conservatory torturing flowers. So he stumped that way, careful not to brush his raw arm against any obstacles.
    Sysquemalyn was deep into the conservatory, which was longer and higher than some wizards’ houses and roofed entirely with tiny diamond panes of bull’s-eye glass. Green plants poured forth a riot of red and white and