Wings Over Talera by Charles Allen Gramlich

Author:Charles Allen Gramlich
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Wildside Press
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

BROTHER’S KEEPER

I heard the words that spilled from Diken Graye’s lips.

And they were Bryce’s words. In Bryce’s voice. The shock of it was like a sluice of cold water. The tree in which I sat seemed to rock beneath me. Fear clawed in my chest. Not for myself, but for Bryce.

“No,” I whispered.

“Oh, yesss,” he said. “Your one and only brother. Even if I don’t look much like him at the moment.”

If hearing Bryce’s voice issuing from Diken Graye’s mouth was meant to panic me, that plan came close to success. I felt the panic rising, but underneath the horror I felt also a bitter, burning anger. And the anger was winning.

This was Bryce. Somehow, his spirit—his khi as the Talerans call it—had entered and possessed another being. Yet, this was also not my brother. Not truly. Something had been done to him, something terrible enough to warp the basic fineness of him.

“No!” I said again, more forcefully. I cleared my throat. “You are not my brother. My brother would never take delight in cruelty. He would never even steal a coin, much less another man’s body.”

Sparks whirled in Bryce’s cinnabar eyes. He shifted from foot to foot, his mouth opening and closing—like a fish on a pond bank. Then the crimson began to fade around his pupils and his shoulders hunched. I heard a faint gagging sound.

My muscles tensed. Something was happening. Was Graye fighting from inside? Was Bryce losing control? My hand locked about the hilt of my rapier. I shifted my boots on the wide branch where I squatted, lifting up onto my haunches, preparing to act.

The moment passed.

Once more it was Bryce who looked up at me, his eyes blazing brighter than ever, like flaring coals.

“Do not try to task me, Ruenn,” he snarled. “I am no longer your little brother. Following you around. Wanting to be just like you.” He snarled again. “I could tear you apart.”

It was my turn to chuckle. Without humor. I gestured at the half circle of beasts that backed him.

“Then send away your little pets and face me.”

He shivered, as if with ague. His eyes dulled again, but in the next instant rekindled. He straightened, body stiffening as a spray of scarlet light misted like smoke from his sockets. His mouth fell open and he spoke, though the lips no longer moved.

“You’re gonna die now, Ruenn. Gonna die now.”

A convulsion swept him. The eyes rolled back and a total collapse followed, as if he were a sail hacked free of its masts during a storm. Bryce had moved on. The body of Diken Graye dropped, thudding to earth.

From all around in the darkness there arose a howling. Then the red-eyed beasts came swarming, mouths open, distended as they voiced their wails. For the first time I saw them clearly, in the saffron light of the fire that Bryce/Graye had built. They were maybe four feet tall, over a hundred pounds each. Their baboon bodies were squat, bristle furred, with arms longer than the bowed legs and yellow talons at all four paws.

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