By the flickering light of the torch, Desmeres watched his own gem-studded sword flick through the air. Through a lifetime of honing his skill at creating such works of martial art, he’d always suspected he would one day watch the supernaturally sharp edge of one of his swords meet his flesh. It was unique, almost mystifying. Had he not seen it happen, he scarcely would have known it had happened at all. There was pain, certainly, but it came to him as short, sharp sensation that left behind a vague warmth and numbness. There wasn’t even much blood, as though his body had yet to notice the injury.
The mercy was short-lived. Epidime dropped his sword and pulled his wrist to the torch, cauterizing it. Desmeres’s screams echoed through the cave. Epidime reached down and tore the pendants from about his neck enduring a spark and flash as he did so, then hoisted him to his feet.
“Let that be a lesson to you. Never trust your safety to a part of your body you can live without.”
The terrifying pressure closed in about his mind. It was a fierce, clawing sensation. He could almost feel it tearing at him. This wasn’t the gentle, nefarious attempt to claim his mind unnoticed. Perhaps nuance required a level of mystic effort that the cave would now allow. Perhaps this was an attempt to ruin him, to eradicate him. It was something beyond pain, pushing past the throbbing agony of his wrist. But as horrific as it felt, it remained at the surface.
Desmeres clenched his teeth and met Epidime’s gaze to see a look of angry realization come to his face. He threw Desmeres down again and tore back his hood. After grabbing a handful of hair, he revealed a fresh mark tattooed on his neck, the same complex sigil that had been branded on his hand.
Epidime released Desmeres and let him slump against the stone again, cradling his wounded arm.
“Well, then,” he said, wheezing through the pain. “You did tell me all you needed was the head. It seemed prudent to add some extra protection. And now… that you’ve made your move and failed. I would say the game is done. Push your body to its limit. Take every last minute you can wring out of that broken body. It won’t be enough. I assure you, you’ll die here, or you’ll reach the outside again to find what I’ve got waiting for you there. But you won’t have Entwell…”
Epidime reached down and pulled him from the ground. He slammed Desmeres against the half-collapsed wall, causing a cascade of gravel to trickle down and splash into the water. Desmeres’s single healthy arm lashed out, clutching at the jingling chain he’d hoped would be his salvation.
“Oh, I’ll have Entwell. You came from that place. Myranda came from that place. Lain came from that place. It may take me a generation to break Myranda and claim her memories, or to find another one of your fellow Entwellians who has made the journey to the Northern Alliance… But before that happens, am going to hold you under this wretched water until I see the life leave your eyes.”
Epidime focused intently on Desmeres’s eyes, as though hungry for the fear and despair he’d hoped to instill. Instead, Desmeres simply smiled, a look of relief on his face.
“Thank you…” Desmeres said. “It seems fitting to be reunited with Trigorah by the man who took her from me.”
The D’Karon offered a soul-twisting smile in return. “Reunited? No… That sigil you so cleverly marked yourself with? The one that has locked me out of your body and could have locked me in that of the woman? … What do you suppose it will do to your spirit? And hers? Your soul will be locked inside your motionless husk until the mark is destroyed, and then will be trapped within this cave just as surely as mine would have.”
“I see… Then the least you can do is keep me company.”
Desmeres whipped the chain at Epidime’s neck. It wrapped tight and he drove a boot into his foe’s chest, stretching the chain taut.
“Fool!” Epidime growled, his voice labored. “This body is already dead!”
He squeezed Desmeres’s neck tighter, then turned and plunged him down into the shallow water. Desmeres struggled, but there was no breaking Epidime’s grip. His one hand instead came to rest on the grip of his fallen sword. Already the life was draining from him. Wielding the weapon would do little good. His numb fingers dragged across the grip. A ring at the base of the cross guard turned… and finally aligned with the other runes of the handle.
The stored magic should have been monumental, but the cave’s effect dampened it terribly. Still, lashing tendrils of white-blue light coiled forth and struck the stone wall. Gravel and stone began to pour down.
Epidime released Desmeres and tugged at the chain about his neck. Desmeres rolled aside and staggered to his feet, coughing painfully as he threw his weight against the D’Karon. The combined force and the mad struggles did their work. Larger and larger stones began to rain down.
For perhaps the first time in his existence, Epidime showed genuine fear. He abandoned battling and dragged the now slackening chain behind him, fleeing into the water to escape the cascade of stones. Desmeres scrambled after him, doing his best to trip and stagger the fleeing monster. There was little need. In the final moments of the torch’s light before it was snuffed out, the wall itself appeared to be chasing the pair. A landslide of rushing water and loose stone rolled forward.
As massive stones struck the water, a wave of the frigid stuff swallowed the them, carrying Desmeres away even more quickly than the current had. Epidime was not so lucky. The last thing Desmeres heard before he slipped under the water was the cold clank of the chain going taut once more and the first half of a vicious cry of anger.
The exertion, the cold, the pain, and the raw damage to his body finally pushed Desmeres beyond his limit. In the blackness of the cave he distantly felt himself strike the stone of the wall and then… nothing at all…
#
Genara stood at the base of a wall, gazing upward in despair. Dowser had led her to this point, and now barked and howled upward. She would never be able to climb the wall and bring Dowser along. And without the pup she wouldn’t be able to continue following the trail.
“Damn it, Desmeres…” Genara said. “Why would you go somewhere I can’t follow. Just what am I supposed to do now?”
Dowser stopped howling for a moment and raised his head. His floppy ear rose slightly, and he suddenly howled far more aggressively down a side tunnel before scrambling back. Genara plucked up the dog.
“What’s gotten into you now?”
A low rumble shook the tunnel around her, one Dowser had heard before her.
“I don’t need a dog to track that…”
She rushed toward the ongoing tremor. The thought that the whole cave might be collapsing and that at any moment the ceiling could come crashing down upon her head flitted through her mind, but she pushed it aside. Desmeres was in trouble, and worse than that, he had a job to do that was too important to remain undone. The slippery floor of the cave threatened to send her tumbling each time she found an uneven patch, but she pressed on. She abandoned any attempt to keep track of the way back to safety. This rumble wouldn’t last forever. Already it was dying away. She needed to find her way to the source before it ended, because if she didn’t there was no telling if she would have another clue of his whereabouts.
A dozen twists and turns into her frantic run, Dowser dislodged himself. Rather than sprinting away from the fading rumble as she expected, he tumbled to his feet and galloped onward again, howling and pausing to sniff at the air every few moments. He’d found the scent again, or at least a scent to get excited about, and it was in the same direction as the rumble. The pup picked up speed and it was all Genara could do to keep the little creature in the pool of light cast by her torch. The floor of the cave became slicker, the walls wept moisture, and the rumble entirely faded into a more general rush of water.
Without warning, the running puppy abruptly vanished from view, yelping a few times as a scrabbling, bouncing roll ended in a splash of water. Genara skidded to a stop at the edge of a long slope of lose debris. Dowser had heedlessly charged over the edge
of the slope and tumbled down it. When she raised her torch high enough to catch a glimpse of the little dog, he was paddling and splashing across shallow pools scattered amid great heaps of fallen stone. As always, the puppy seemed through some combination of luck, resilience, and lack of sense to escape any injury from his tumble.
“Dowser, slow down! Stay where I can see you!” Genara called, for all the good it would do.
She navigated her way down along the pile of stone. Much of it was still unsteady, shifting in terrifying ways as she attempted to traverse it, but with a bit of care she reached the bottom of it and stepped onto a comparatively solid bit of stone wrapped about a flowing pool of water. The liquid sparkled under the light of the torch, little flecks of dislodged crystal catching the light of the torch with an eerie beauty.
Dowser released a long and insistent howl, just beyond the edge of the light. Genara exchanged as much care for speed as she dared. Dowser, his shaggy fur drenched with freezing water, wadded toward her and barked with clear desperation, then tromped through the water into the darkness again. Genara slipped and slid along the stone until finally she found what the beast had.
Desmeres’s battered form had been washed a fair distance up the rocky bank of the underground river. The collapse must have blocked the flow and raised the water level somewhat. The puppy scampered all over him, nosing under his chin and slathering his face with urgent licks. She knelt beside the injured man and set down her weapon. Placing her ear to his mouth, she listened. The quiet, ragged release of breath assured her that, for now at least, he was still alive.
Glorious, joyous relief rushed over her, but lingered only briefly. The half-elf was in a bad way. A thousand little scrapes covered his body. One shoulder lay in an unnatural angle, pulled out of proper alignment. And then there was his arm. She covered her mouth and felt a wave of shock and nausea roll over her as she realized his hand was missing.
Desmeres coughed, startling the puppy and Genara alike, then squinted at the light of the torch. In that moment, a cold thought drifted into Genara’s mind. She tightened her grip slightly and reached aside for the crossbow.
“Desmeres?” she said.
“You shouldn’t have come this far,” he wheezed. “Too dangerous.”
“You look like you’ve had a rough time of it,” she said, humor glimmering amid the swirl of heady emotion.
“Not as tough as Epidime,” he said, one edge of his mouth fighting into a grin briefly.
“Where is he?” she asked, squeezing at the crossbow.
“I don’t know… There… Somewhere beneath that stone.”
His voice was beyond labored, like it was taking every ounce of his strength to muster even the near-whisper.
“And we’re… sure he’s gone…” She asked.
“We… don’t want him gone…” he said. “We want him there… forever…”
“And is he there? Or…” She touched his face. “Is he here, Desmeres…”
He coughed violently. “I suppose there is only one way to tell.”
She leaned low and gazed into his eyes. In them she saw pain, but also peace. They were deep, calm. These were they eyes of a man who had reached the end of his road, and was satisfied with the journey.
“Convinced?” he said.
Genara dropped the crossbow and placed a hand on his cheek, tears welling in her eyes. “You did it, Desmeres…”
“I did what I could. I hope it is enough.” He coughed again and looked in her eyes. “But if this is the last sight I get to see in this life… I must have done something right…”
His eyes slid shut. His breathing slowed.
Genara pulled his arm over her shoulder and dragged him from the ground.
“Oh, no… You’re not dying yet. You’ve got more work to do,” she growled, tears running down her face.
#
Desmeres’s eyes opened. For days he had been in and out of consciousness. He had the vaguest memories of travel, time spent in a carriage trundling along the roads of the Northern Alliance. Now he found himself in a warm bed, oil lamps casting dancing shadows across sturdy furniture and glorious paintings. Oddly, a full-size harp was set before a chair in one corner, and three different string instruments hung like showpieces on the wall. A warm weight upon his legs turned out to be the sleeping form of Dowser. Genara dozed in an overstuffed, upholstered chair beside the bed. She was dressed once more in elegant, graceful clothes rather than the heavy layers of travel. Her genuine, honest beauty hadn’t faltered for a moment while they traveled together, but seeing her now reminded him how truly exquisite she was.
She stirred, her eyes fluttered open. Upon seeing him awake, her face lit up with relief and joy. She quickly tempered the look into a wry smile.
“Well, it certainly took you long enough,” she said.
“Where am I?”
“New Kenvard,” she said. “Myranda and Deacon are away, but the, uh… malthrope recognized you and insisted you be treated by the court healers.”
Desmeres lay his head back. “Ivy… I wouldn’t have expected her to speak in my favor.”
“She’s really rather delightful,” Genara said. “We are in a spare room in her home. She’s off getting a dress fitted, I believe.”
“How did I get here?”
“It wasn’t easy. After I hauled your battered carcass out of the cave, I figured out which of the tied-up Elites were from the queen’s entourage originally. It seemed they would be the more… reasonable ones. After seeing what had happened to you, they were justifiably disturbed. I may have slightly stretched the truth regarding what happened to you in order to convince them to help me.”
“How so?”
“The details aren’t important. Let’s just say they somehow got it into their head that I might be responsible for your hand being cut off. And I might be inclined to do it to anyone else who didn’t offer up their help. A weapon the gnomes gave me turned out to motivate quite a bit as well.”
He smiled. “Well done.”
“Don’t compliment me yet. To keep them loyal over the long trip, I offered to give them each one of your weapons, since I knew where they were hidden.”
He narrowed his eyes and tightened his lips.
“I don’t know if you would have survived if I hadn’t. The two Honor Guard Elites agreed to take the two of us and my brother to New Kenvard, since the capital was nearly as far away, and the Duke and Duchess would have the best resources to hold and restore you. We’ve not been here long.”
“What do the people here know about what happened?”
“Not much,” she said. “Ivy, bless her, didn’t need to be told what had happened. She just wanted you to be safe and insisted her people leave us alone while you recovered.”
“Good. What happened to your brother?”
“He’s on the road back to Verril to see to my father.”
“And you stayed behind?”
“I’ve still got to have a word with Myranda about the Elite… I did leave instructions for the gnomes to release them after we’d had a bit of a head start, but I can’t imagine it’s left them in a forgiving mood.”
She glanced nervously to the window. “I think they might be in the town… Ivy’s been holding them at bay, I think. But even if that wasn’t a concern, someone had to be here. Together we did something remarkable. After what you’ve done, what you’ve been through, it wouldn’t seem right for you to awaken alone and confused. Or not at all.”
A voice came from the doorway of the room. “Quite true. It was a job well done, both of you.”
When Genara looked to the man who had spoken, her expression shifted swiftly through surprise and recognition before landing firmly on anger.
“Oh, you’ve got some nerve showing up now, after what you put us through,” she hissed.
Oriech stood at the door. Though he was undeniably present, the world around him seemed less so. The flame of the oil lantern shifted slowly, almost motionless.
The air stood still. Color around them became muted and lifeless. The room and its contents had stepped back, reality itself giving the trio a moment alone.
“What right did you have to put that weight upon our shoulders!”
“It was a task that needed to be done, and one few could have completed. Had I selected anyone else, I assure you, it would have ended in failure at best, and at worst the consequences could have been far more dire.”
“Oh? Are these consequences not dire enough? I’ll be lucky if I can put the pieces of my life back together, and Desmeres was nearly killed. He lost his hand.”
“A terrible price to befall a lifelong artisan. Though one I suspect Desmeres will be able to rise above.”
“He shouldn’t have to! What difference does it make if he’s strong enough to continue after a tragedy like this, who are you to require it?”
“Genara…” Desmeres said.
“You hush, I’m not through with him. You are the hand of fate! You’re supposed to shepherd the world! And yet when you do a poor job of it you step forward to pluck people from their lives to do your bidding for no crime greater than being intelligent and capable!”
“I’d committed a fair number of crimes in my life,” Desmeres said.
“I said hush! That doesn’t change the fact that this man uses people like you or me rather than stepping forward to get his own hands dirty. To think I revered you when we first met, treated you like some heavenly messenger. Well, maybe you are, but if you’ve got any more messages for me, I don’t want them. I’ve done my share!”
“You have,” Oriech said, stepping forward. “You each have performed beyond our hopes. The world owes you a debt. Genara, your reward will come in time. But I have been granted the honor of delivering Desmeres’s reward personally. It isn’t much, but it is well deserved. Give me your hand.”
Desmeres held out his remaining hand. Oriech felt for it and pressed something cool and heavy into Desmeres’s palm.
“Don’t squander it. It is very precious,” he said, closing Desmeres’s fingers over the prize.
The Redemption of Desmeres Page 38