Mickey Zucker Reichert - Shadows Realm Read Online Free Page A

into madness, perhaps kill him. At the very least, it would open his thoughts and memory to cruel manipulation. And the later possibility caused Bolverkr to smile. He harbored no wish to take his enemies’ lives. Not yet. He wanted to return the anguish they had directed upon him, if possible, ten times over.
    Bolverkr gathered vitality to him, unable to guess how much energy this spell would require, but certain it would demand more than any other spell he had ever known or used. Supplying too little would cause the spell to fail; too much would cost Bolverkr his life. Once properly cast, the spell would claim as much of the Chaos-force and of Bolverkr’s life aura as it needed, draining power too fast for him to control. Like any untried magic, it held the risk of requiring more stamina than he could feed it, of sapping him to an empty, soulless core. But Bolverkr never doubted. The Chaos-force seemed infinite, and its vows of service drove him to impulsive courage.
    The location triangle faded as Bolverkr reared to strike. Braced for pain, he smashed into the presumed area of the elf’s mental barriers. His attack met no resistance. Alien surprise flowed around him as he skidded through a human tangle of thought processes and crashed into the side of an unwarded brain. The elf’s involuntary cry of pain reverberated in his own mind. Bolverkr’s confusion mimicked the elf’s in perfect detail. No mind barriers? Thor’s blood, no mind barriers!
    Bolverkr actually heard the sorceress’ words with the elf. “Allerum, are you well?”
    Ideas tumbled through the elfs mind, some leaking through Bolverkr’s contact, others fully his own. Did some god or sorcerer invade my mind again? Or did I burst a goddamned blood vessel? Bolverkr went still, holding his emotions in check. He watched in fascination as the elf probed his own mind, ungainly and haphazard as a hen in flight. My enemies are dead, and I’ve gone paranoid. No need to worry Silme. The elf shaped his reply. “I’m fine. Just a headache.”
    No mind barriers. Bolverkr kept the realization to himself, careful not to allow his surprise to slip into the elf’s thoughts. Alert to the elf’s defenses, he began a cautious exploration of the dense spirals of thought. Only one other person in Bolverkr’s experience had lacked the natural, mental protections. Geirmagnus, the man who unlocked the secrets of Dragonrank magic, had come to Midgard from a future without sorcery or the necessity for defenses against it. Bolverkr held his breath. Already, he detected incongruities. The elf’s mind was decidedly human and flawed as well. Trailing along thought pathways thick as the deepest strings of a harp, Bolverkr found evidence of tampering. Someone had cut and patched blind loops and inappropriate connections. Others remained, frayed and easily sparked by stress.
    With effort, Bolverkr resisted the urge to incite painful memories to torture the elf. Instead, he tiptoed through the intricacies of thought, collecting the information he needed for a full-scale attack. Through the elf’s perceptions, Bolverkr learned the identities of his enemies. The elf knew himself as Al Larson, though his companions called him Allerum. The sapphire-rank Dragonmage was Silme, and Larson’s love for her rivaled Bolverkr’s for his slaughtered wife. The garnet-rank sorceress, Astryd, served as Silme’s apprentice. Larson knew his little accomplice by the alias “Shadow.” Further probing revealed his true name as Taziar Medakan.
    Uncertain of Larson’s abilities to police his mind, Bolverkr delved deeper with guarded enthusiasm. He focused on the ideas that brought Larson pleasure. Should Bolverkr accidentally trigger a memory, he hoped Larson would pass it off as fancy, and discovery of the elf’s devotions would supply Bolverkr targets for attack. Eagerly, Bolverkr selected a childhood remembrance:
     
    Thirteen years old, Al Larson perched on the ledge of a tiny sailboat