by Dawn Cook
They settled themselves facing each other, the clean smell of the mirth trees mingling with the powdery scent of the goldenrod and asters. The dew had risen, and the moss was damp. Alissa was worried they would be caught and scared silly they wouldn’t.
“You’ll make it quick?” Sati said, her voice trembling.
Alissa nodded, recalling her own, accidental burn. “But it will seem to last an eternity. And, Sati?” Alissa hesitated until she looked up. “Promise me you won’t hide from the pain. The only refuge is death. You must endure it. It will be so bad you’ll pass out.”
“Then I’ll lie down.” Looking small and vulnerable, Sati settled herself upon the moss and clenched her wrap about her. She couldn’t be much older than Alissa but had died more times than Alissa dared guess. “Please hurry,” Sati whispered. “Please. They’ll stop you.”
“May I see your tracings?” Alissa asked, and at Sati’s uneasy nod, Alissa slipped a thin, unnoticed thought into Sati’s consciousness. The feeling of nausea rose full force. Beast took most of it, leaving Alissa to try to decipher the tangle of tracings Sati’s neural net was. It was hopeless. She’d have to burn them all. The pain would be hideous.
“I can’t burn everything,” Alissa whispered to Beast. “She would die from it!”
“Ask to see a resonance,” Beast said.
“Beast! You’re smarter than three Masters combined.”
“Faster, too,” Beast said smugly.
“Sati?” Alissa called, and the woman jumped, her eyes flashing open. “Show me what tracings you use by doing whatever it is you do to see the future,” Alissa said. “If I can burn only the parts that are wrong, the pain won’t be as bad.”
“You decide,” Sati said softly. “Decide who and the question. I won’t be responsible for knowing any more futures.”
Alissa drew back. She didn’t want to know anyone’s misery before it happened. Knowing Lodesh’s was bad enough. The sound of a pipe mimicking the song of a wren cut clearly through the night, almost as if it were a sign. “Ren,” she said firmly. Nothing bad could happen to him. “Do you know him?”
She nodded, her gaze beginning to go distant.
“Will he gain his Keeper status?” Alissa said, seeing no harm in that.
With a slow exhalation, Sati’s eyes unfocused and closed. The nausea rose high. Alissa’s tracings seemed to give a hiccup as fragmented pieces of a broken pattern tried to resonate in a harsh discord. Sati’s tracings were faintly glowing from the unsupplemented force the woman held. It was clear what needed to be burned and what could remain untouched. Sati was almost tripping the lines of time but using linkages Alissa didn’t have.
Alissa felt a stab of panic as Sati’s pattern began to overwhelm hers. Her thoughts became light and disconnected. She was going to trip the lines. She couldn’t stop! “Beast! Help!” she cried, but it was too late, and together they slipped into Sati’s dream of the future.
"Warden!” It was a hateful cry, filling the cold, dawn air with frustration.
“Warden!” This time it was a scream of defiance, pouring from Ren as he exhaled, the tightness in his chest giving it the force to pound against the walls surrounding the city he had once called his. A flock of birds upon a slate rooftop took flight and flew away in a smattering of feathers. He was alone. His army had abandoned him. He hadn’t cared. He hadn’t asked them to come; he had simply given direction for their separate pain.
“I know you’re in there, Lodesh. Talk to me!” Dust turned him the color of the walls. He slumped against the gates until he slid to the ground. “You owe me that,” he all but moaned.
There was a scuffling from the walk atop the wall, and a fair head peeked over. “By the Wolves, Ren? It’s been you?”
Ren gave a bark of sarcastic laughter. “You remember me,” he whispered. “I’m flattered.” He took a breath. Finding the strength to stand, he backed to face the city, its walls shining yellow under the new sun. He removed his hat and performed a low, graceful bow. “Are they feeding you well in there?” he called softly. “The plains and foothills are empty of all but death and famine.” His mocking words came clearly through the air, finally stilled of the sound of drums and marching feet. Even the insects had been crushed out of existence. Nothing broke the stark quiet but his harsh breaths.
“Ren,” Lodesh said warily. “Why did you do this?”
“Me?” It was an unreal bark, and he replaced his hat to cover his eyes lest Lodesh see the pain. “I’m not the one hiding behind walls thicker than Mav’s pestle pudding.”
There was a guilty hesitation. “I didn’t cause the plague of madness,” Lodesh said, “but I must protect my people. I’m their servant. I have no choice.”
“There’s always a choice!” Ren all but screamed, feeling his head begin to pound. “Unless your reason has been stripped from you and you’re a beast.” He looked defiantly up at the top of the wall. “Are you a beast, Lodesh?” he taunted.
“If we had let them in,” Lodesh called down, “the plague would have ravaged the city as well. Everyone would have been lost.”
His strength left him, and Ren sank to his knees. “They weren’t all sick. She only wanted you to save her children, our children.” Ren caught a sob. “Those she kept from my murderous hands.” A low, eerie moan stirred from him, and he let it grow, frightened at its sound but more afraid of what it would do to him if he didn’t let it go. It rose to an unbearable feeling of despair until it broke in a sharp sound of anguish. He took a gasping breath, wondering if he was still sane.
“I couldn’t stop,” he whispered. “The dreams burned in my head. Horrible dreams, Lodesh. Urging me, goading me, promising release if I only made them true. I thought I was alone, and I hid my dreams from Kally, but she had them, too—and the children. Oh, the children! We went mad, along with the rest of the world. All mad,” he moaned, “with the soft thought of killing keeping us from sleep. It promised if we could only kill enough, that it would go and leave us in peace.”
Finding strength in the telling, Ren raised his voice, unable to stop. “The children succumbed to the promise first,” he said dispassionately. “Murdering the livestock. You could tell it must have been difficult, especially for the younger ones. They weren’t very strong. They used whatever they could. What they left was painted over their killing field.” He took a breath. “The trees turned early that year, Lodesh, painted rust in the summer’s heat.”
The walls were silent.
“I tried to stop,” Ren said, feeling ill and lightheaded. “The promise never grew, never lessened, and never ceased. I know what I did. I watched from behind myself. I could hear myself screaming, but those hands around my daughter’s neck weren’t mine!” Ren raised his head. “They weren’t mine!” he raged, his voice echoing against the walls. His eyes were dry. “The sound of her fear, I might forget, but the silence after-wards—I never will.”
“Ren,” Lodesh said, his voice hushed in horror.
“Shut up, Warden,” Ren snarled. “I won’t call you by your name any longer. You aren’t a man. You’ve traded your humanity for your cowardly walls.”
A small stone slid from the top of the wall, making a puff as it landed with a muffled thump. “I didn’t start the plague,” Lodesh said. “I’m only protecting what I can. The rest of your army has left, come to their senses. Go home with them.”
“I have no home,” Ren breathed, but he rose, brushing at the dirt out of habit, not making a difference in the dust-caked cloak. “Are you that blind?” His voice was a thin, weary ribbon. “You may not have started the plague, but your Masters did.”
“That’s enough!” Lodesh shouted, anger coloring his voice.
“What are you going to do?” he said with a bitter laugh. “Come down and thrash me?” His arms hanging at his sides, Ren stared at the gates and Lodesh standing atop them. “We’re nothing but stallions and mares to them,” he said, “designed to bring Keepers into existence. But not too fast
!” he admonished, becoming agitated. “Oh no!” he taunted. “They might lose control, and that,” he finished gaily, “wouldn’t do.”
“Ren,” Lodesh protested, “what you say—”
“Makes perfect sense!” he shouted, pointing with a trembling finger. Slowly his arm dropped. “It takes a very specific background to make a Keeper. And they had lost control.”
Lodesh sank to his knees atop the wall, horror etched in his face in the bright sun.
“First they reduce the population,” Ren said. “Then they divide it. This time they decided to use hatred to keep the foothills and plains apart. Much more certain,” he mocked, “than a physical barrier. And just as hard to surmount.”
Ren paced before the locked gates, his anger growing as the sun warmed. “The foothills blame the plains. The plains blame the foothills. And the coastal folk!” he raged, spittle coming from him, “conditioned to believe in magic, won’t cross the mountains for fear of the winged demons that inhabit them!” Ren stopped. “Perfect, isn’t it,” he said with a false calm.
“Ren. You’re wrong,” Lodesh whispered. They wouldn’t go to those extremes.”
“Ask Redal-Stan,” Ren interrupted coldly. “Or better yet, Talo-Toecan. I would be willing to wager he was the one who suggested your cursed walls to begin with. Didn’t want to lose,” he taunted, “his precious city, no doubt.”
“Talo-Toecan has been gone these last three years,” Lodesh whispered.
“Coward!” Ren cried.
“Ren,” Lodesh persisted. “I can’t believe it.”
“Can’t—or won’t? Did your precious Masters lift even one wing tip to help or offer a suggestion to combat the sickness?”
“No.” It was a hushed whisper.
Ren looked down at his hands. “I didn’t think so.” He looked up. “And I’m left with the blood of those who looked to me for protection staining my hands. Well, I won’t take the blame for this!” Ren raised his hands stiffly to the sky. “I will not accept the responsibility for the deaths of Kally and our children. Do you hear me, Warden!” he screamed. “I give my guilt to you and all who hide behind your walls of shame and fear!”
The air began to tremble, stirred by a force so low it could only be felt.
“You!” Ren scorned, an ebony glow enveloping his upraised fists. “You will be cursed, though you should live for a thousand years, Lodesh. My anguish, my pain, my shame shall be my gift to you, and you will never rest until you prove yourself worthy of the name! Do you hear me, Warden!” he sobbed, as his upraised hands became lost in a darkness even the new sun couldn’t penetrate. “The death of the world is on you!”
A cry of rage escaped him, and as it reached its peak, the blackness silently exploded from his hands. For an instant, it was as if the sun winked from existence.
Then the blackness was gone.
A cock crowed from behind the walls and was silent.
Ren slumped where he stood, shattered and drained. He was done. As he turned to go, a gentle rumbling began. Feeding upon itself, it grew to a great unrest as the very earth protested the curse. From the east, the noise echoed along the walls in twin paths to the west. They met at the gate, and with a mighty shudder and groan, the gates fell, outraged at the strength of the ward set upon those it once sheltered.
Ren never looked back. “Believing you had no choice has made it so,” he whispered.
With a frightening snap, Alissa’s awareness returned. She gasped in panic of what she had seen. “Burn it!” Beast screamed. “Burn it now!”
So she did. The icy wash of hot thought filled Sati’s resonating pattern. The horror of what Alissa had learned was cauterized in the sharp, clean flow of destruction. Alissa took her share of the pain, then reached for more, multiplying her agony, trying to take it all, to find release, to make amends for what she had witnessed.
It was too much, and as Alissa silently screamed into her phantom agony, she fell unconscious to see no more.
27
“Burn it to ash, Alissa!” Lodesh shouted over the noise of drums and stomping feet. “Why didn’t you tell me you could dance?”
“Huh?” Alissa blinked twice and stopped dead in her tracks.
“Hey! Watch out!” someone shouted, and she was knocked from behind. Her ankle gave a twinge, and she stumbled. She would have fallen if Lodesh hadn’t hauled her off the dance boards. Alissa stared in bewilderment at the spinning figures. The music and pounding feet were overwhelming. It was all she could do to not cover her ears. What was she doing on the dance boards, and how had she gotten there? The last she knew, she had been with Sati.
“Sati,” Alissa whispered, turning to the edge of the torchlight.
Lodesh leaned close, his breath fast and his eyes bright. “You want to sit down?” he asked, misreading her motion, and she nodded. They picked their way through the watchers, the noise becoming almost bearable. Alissa pointed to Marga’s empty blanket, and he angled them to it. It was as far from the dancing boards as they could get without retreating into the darkness.
They sat down beside each other, and Alissa took her sore ankle in hand. Worried, she checked her tracings. They were clean. The pain had been only a phantom. “Beast?” she called.
“What?”
She sounded guilty, worrying Alissa further. She wanted to talk to Beast but was afraid Lodesh might hear; he was terribly perceptive. “Lodesh?” she said, fanning herself dramatically. “Would you fetch me a drink, please? The dancing has made me thirsty.”
His eyes went wide in mock dismay. Jumping to his feet, he performed one of his extravagant bows. “How beastly of me!” he cried. “I have neglected you sorely, milady. Would you perhaps desire another mulled wine?”
Mulled wine? Alissa thought. Was that the odd taste upon her tongue? “Tea, I think.”
“But, of course.” Lodesh bent to retrieve her hand, and she laughed as he continued his pretend bowing and scraping over it. A final flourish, and his fingers slipped reluctantly from hers. He strode away, giving those he passed a friendly nod.
Alissa watched until he was gone, then centered herself. “Beast,” she called warily. “Why were you dancing with Lodesh?”
“I wasn’t dancing with Lodesh,” she protested. “You were.”
Alissa took a breath. “No. I was unconscious.” Though her tone was casual, she was concerned. Beast had relinquished control when Alissa woke, so it wasn’t a breach of their arrangement—from a certain point of view—but such slips had been happening a lot lately.
“It’s not my fault,” Beast whined. “You took more than your share of the pain, almost all of it.”
Alissa shifted on the blanket, remembering. “I had to. I needed it, deserved it maybe. How can I look at Ren and Kally, knowing all that? Sati was right. Her life is misery.” Alissa shuddered, wishing she had a shawl. She had met Lodesh knowing his past, or future rather, but Ren and Kally . . . They, perhaps, she could spare without shifting what had to be.
“Where is Sati?” Alissa asked. “What happened?”
Beast seemed to sigh. “You fell unconscious,” she accused, “but you weren’t lying down at the time. Your arm was pinned. It hurt.”
“You feel my pain?” Alissa asked in surprise.
“It’s my pain as much as yours,” she said jealously.
“Oh.” Alissa frowned at this newest revelation. “Sorry.”
“So I sat you up. Sati woke before you. She smiled at me,” Beast said, a wondering tone in her thought. “She said thank you and gave you something. I put it in your boot so you wouldn’t forget and accidentally break it down when you next shift.”
“What is it?” Alissa asked, realizing the bump under her toes wasn’t the stone she assumed it was. She began to unlace her boot, but Lodesh was coming, and she desisted.
“I don’t know. A white pebble?”
Lodesh had an expectant look in his eyes as he approached. “Here you go. Fresh brew.”
Alissa ginge
rly accepted the thick-walled mug, took a sip, and set it beside her. Lodesh sank down with a contented sigh, sprawling himself out every which way until, with an embarrassed grunt, he straightened, glancing at Alissa as if to see if she had noticed.
“But why were you dancing?” Alissa whispered into her thoughts. She watched Lodesh closely, but he didn’t seem to hear.
“I was good. I stayed where you left me. But Lodesh found you and asked if you wanted to dance. I didn’t want to speak. We don’t sound alike.”
Lodesh turned to her. “I’m sorry, Alissa. Did you say something?”
“No.” She gazed up into the fragrant cloud of unfallen mirth blossoms.
“I had to say yes,” Beast whispered. “I could do nothing but nod my head.”
“You could have shaken it no.”
“But I didn’t want to.”
Alissa sighed. Beast was very much like a child.
Lodesh heard her sigh and bent close in concern. “Tired?”
“No, not really.”
His eyes went to her hands, wrapped securely about her ankle. “Is your foot all right?”
Alissa smiled ruefully and wiggled it. “Yes. It’s fine. It’s given me problems ever since I twisted it falling into a ravine.” Reminded of Strell, her face went slack.
“You’re jesting,” Lodesh said, disbelief arching his eyebrows. “I’ve been watching you all night. Everything reminds you of Strell.” He reclined upon an elbow. His eyes were twinkling, but she could tell there was a sliver of truth to his contrived sadness. “The music, Sarken, the mirth trees, the fire, and now your ankle.” He fell back against the moss. “How can I compete with that?” he said to the sky.
Alissa laughed. This was the Lodesh she recalled, and she clung to the memory as if it were the only thing real left to her. Perhaps it was.
He sat up, his green eyes glinting. “I’m determined you will enjoy yourself tonight!” he said as his hand found hers. “There must be something here that doesn’t remind you of him.”