Rhymer by Gregory Frost

Author:Gregory Frost
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fantasy, Epic, Action & Adventure, Historical, Fiction
ISBN: 9781982192662
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2023-06-06T04:00:00+00:00

“True name spoken,

grants control.

Say it full to

Own the soul.”

She could have burned him with her glare. “That is enough of you, little man. I won’t bother to joust nor justify what comes now. We need a new teind.”

He glared at her defiantly.

“Oh, not you. I took possession of you already well before now and you are mine, toy. However, we’ve timed our taking of you to coincide with our culling.” She turned to Ađalbrandr. “Where are the pilgrims?”

“They are coming,” answered the knight, rising.

The Queen of Ailfion said, “Thomas Lindsay Rimor de Ercildoun, your family have indeed given us much. One final thing from you will settle our debt.”

“My life?” he asked, his throat suddenly constricting.

She replied, “Why, mayfly, I have that already.”

Slowly, out of the dark rain, the remaining three pilgrims emerged from around the ruins of the abbey, the leader distinguishable by his wide-brimmed hat. He held a rope that tugged a stumbling fourth party along behind him.

She said, “Tonight, we’ll have your wife for our teind.”

Thomas screamed but no sound came out. He wrestled to break free of the Yvag holding him, but his body remained still. She had spoken his name, his full name, his true name, and now controlled him exactly as his own riddle had surmised. The magic, it seemed, cut both ways, and he only knew a part of hers. Perhaps he had stung her, but he could not take her over, could not win against her.

Queen Nicnevin gestured with both hands as if pulling the air and re-collecting it. Something like a wind, a stream of energy, flowed out of the hole to the other world and into her hands, where it pulsed and glowed like a small sun. She threw it in his face and a searing pain roared through him. He fell to his knees, unable to resist. His mind seemed to crack apart, to scatter upon the night before it coalesced again, into something alien and confused.

Where he had stood, a shaggy ram had replaced him.

The Yvag who had held him knocked his skinny legs out from under him and he fell. He tried to shout but it emerged as a trumpeting bleat. The Yvags tore the remaining clothing off him. They bound his legs—his hooves—with straps, tight, secure. Another handed them a pole and they jammed it under the straps and lifted him into the air, where he hung upside down. Helpless.

Upside down, he watched a woman stumble forward on the end of the rope tied round her neck, a hood drawn over her head, her clothing sodden with mud, her feet bare despite the cold. Even as he took her in, she was pulled out of his line of sight.

He strained to no avail, bleated his rage. Tried to shout her name: “Janet!” It came out as another fearful blat.

The pilgrim leader handed the rope to Ađalbrandr. To the Queen he said, “According to our Yvagvoja in Roxburgh, he married his neighbor’s daughter. But tonight that Yvagvoja is no more.

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