by Ulff Lehmann
Gwen smiled, squeezing his arm once more. “Let’s go. Time to cut down your fears.”
The pole with its iron hoop he had planted into the ground was still there. When the horses’ reins were secured, he knew he could no longer postpone the inevitable. For a brief moment, just before they came to a halt in front of the door, he felt the reassuring pressure of Gwen’s hand come to rest on his forearm once more. Then, as he raised his left hand to sound the knocker, she let go. He knew he had to do this alone, face the last of his demons, and still the absence of her touch made him pause.
“Come on,” she reminded him, her voice teasing yet stern. How was it possible that a woman so young possessed so much wisdom? Right now, it mattered little, but he decided to find out in the future, hoping things would resolve themselves once he got his answers from the Sons of Traksor. The surge of rage he felt the instant this thought crossed his mind halted his hand in mid-air. For a moment it felt as if the terror hidden in the back of his mind howled in triumph. Then, as he saw his fist clench and unclench before his eyes, he felt Gwen’s touch. The fury receded.
Taking a deep breath, Drangar took hold of the brass ring and knocked. Her hand was gently squeezing, the contact made him feel more confident then when they had entered Cherkont Street. “Thank you,” he said. She smiled.
He wanted to say more, felt there was more that needed be said, but the sound of a bolt sliding back checked his words. The door opened and he peered into the face of none other than Jasseira. Two years hadn’t changed her much, although she looked tired, and her hair was cropped short. For a moment it seemed as if she didn’t recognize him. He couldn’t blame her, the past years had changed him, and with his hair in patches he doubted many of his old friends would be able to identify him. “What?” Jasseira asked. Then, he was just about to reintroduce himself, her eyes widened with surprise. “Drang?” she asked. Whether it was concern, joy or anger tainting her voice, he couldn’t tell.
“Aye, Jass,” he said.
She scrutinized him, most likely weighing the options of what she was to do. “Tell me one thing.”
“It’s a long and bloody complicated story.” Gods, how many times would he have to retell this tale? “The short version is that I did not kill her.”
“Why did you disappear?”
“Because I thought I had to.”
“You swear on Jainagath’s balls you did not?” she said, squinting at him. He didn’t blame her for being suspicious. Everyone else had been, himself included.
“On Jainagath’s balls.”
Jass waited on the god’s reaction. When nothing happened, she nodded, a flicker of relief flashed in her eyes, yet the rawness remained. “Those your horses?” In the dark one barely saw the steeds’ outlines, only their snorting was audible. “Take them to the stable. You know the way.” Jass closed the door once more but did not lock it.
It was the middle of the night when Drangar had finally explained the events surrounding Hesmera’s death in every detail. Jass was more inquisitive than anyone else he had spoken to. Even Gwen, who knew most of it already, had, after an initial interest, nodded off, snoring fitfully in a chair near the fireplace.
Not much had changed, although Jass had merely given a brief tour, showing them into the common room quickly. Here nothing looked the same. There was a carpet on the dark wooden floor. The panels covering the wattle and daub had been replaced, and the patina of the floor showed much use, but also that the wood had been replaced. Jass had made the place her own. He didn’t blame her, would have done the same had he been in her stead.
Jass looked thoughtful. She was nursing a mug of ale in one hand, her left; the sling around her sword arm reminded him of the battle that had happened here while he had been fighting like a blood mad demon. Until now he had done most of the talking, and was utterly sick of it. “I should write a scroll about it so I don’t have to ever tell this tale again,” he said, leaning back on his chair.
“Do you think many could read it?” Jass asked. “Not everyone has been reared in a monastery.”
Drangar snorted. “Monastery, right! Bunch of murderous bastards, if you ask me.”
“You need to find out why.”
“Thanks for telling me the obvious.” He hadn’t mentioned the mindless rage that had taken hold of him in Ondalan; it had nothing to do with Hesmera’s death. And he couldn’t stand another pair of eyes viewing him as some monster that had been spat into the world to bring carnage.
“So, you’ll head to Kalduuhn next?”
“In Thaw, going earlier would be suicide.”
“Until then?”
He shrugged. “No idea. Practice, maybe train with some warriors. It’s not really a plan at all, never considered what I’d do until the roads are clear again.”
“Threatens to be a bitch of a winter,” Jass said.
He remained silent, small talk had never been one of his strengths, and she knew that. Yet the crackling of the fire reminded him how little there was to say now that his tale had been told.
“Who’s she?” Jass finally broke the quiet.
Gwen had shifted on the chair, the mane of hair covering half her face. In the cave he had tried not to watch, not to stare while she slept. Now, he couldn’t get enough sight of her. Peaceful, he found no other word. Not only her features, but also her pose. Did he have the same look when he slept? Somehow, he doubted it. “Chanastardhian noble, Gwennaith of House Keelan,” he said.
“You love her?”
He scoffed. “What?”
“You keep looking at her. I’ve eyes, you know.”
“I hardly know her.” Had he really?
“She’s good for you.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Even with Hesmera you were restless, and with all the shit you’ve been through recently I would have thought you’d be even more so. Yet here you sit, calm, the first I’ve ever really seen you this way.” When had Jass become so perceptive? Had she always been this way and he just hadn’t noticed?
Drangar remained silent. Then, finally, he said, “I don’t want her to be in danger.”
“She’s already in danger, idiot. What do you think will happen to her if her people take the city next year? She’s a fugitive already.” Jass cocked an eyebrow. “There’s more you haven’t been telling me isn’t there?”
He hesitated, then nodded. “Aye.”
“Wanna talk about it?”
He shook his head. “No, not really.”
“As you…”
“Things are happening around me, with me, and I can’t explain them,” he interrupted her.
“What things?”
“Remember what we joked about back in the Watch?”
“You being blessed by Lesganagh?”
“Aye.”
“Given how you went about fixing things that needed be fixed between people, I’d have said Lliania favored you.”
Cursed sense of justice, he thought. “Well, you always made fun of me when Hesmera told another war story.”
“No one believed what she said, not really.”
“They were true, nonetheless.” Now he had her attention. Jass sat up straight, regarding him. “I don’t know who or what blessed me, though it feels more and more like a curse.”
Then he told her about Ondalan, and the helplessness of being trapped in his own body, able to only watch as he tore through the enemy warriors. When he had finished, Jass remained silent, while Gwen stirred on her seat, saying, “We need to find out what the Scales is going on with you.”
How long she had been listening? He hadn’t realized she was awake until now. She already knew most of it, but not in its entirety. He felt her stand and move next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll get through this,” she said with such conviction that all worry and doubt momentarily vanished.
“Listen to her, Drang,” Jass said, managing a weak smile. “Gods, I’m tired,” she yawned a moment later. “I m
ade the attic habitable, it’s just a hole, really, but you can billet there.” To Gwen she said, “There’s an extra cot in my room, you can sleep there if you want to.” She threw a meaningful glance at him, winking.
Gwen squeezed his shoulder. “Thank you, yes.”
He didn’t begrudge her the privacy; it was enough to know she was there. Some things in the house, Drangar noticed, hadn’t changed at all. Jass barred the fireplace with an iron grille that prevented sparks from leaping onto the carpet, thus keeping the place warm throughout the night. They took the two lamps illuminating the room upstairs. The women held the lamps, lit his way into the attic and helped him arrange some blankets amidst wicker chests and baskets, and waited until he had lain down. Then they left him in darkness. There were a few muffled sentences spoken below, and then silence, and he tried to sleep.
Sleep doesn’t come to him, not in this place. It is dark again. The same oppressive absence of light he has been in before. Voices sing, but he can’t make out the words. Screams. Is he dreaming, he wonders? A light appears in the distance, and he walks toward it. Does it come closer? Is he making any progress? He can’t tell.
A figure peels itself out of the gloom, falls into step beside him. He doesn’t see its face. It speaks words he can’t hear. Where is he?
This is unlike any nightmare he has ever had before.
His feet tread liquid. The light reflects starry into the dark, and still he can’t see what the liquid is. Growls echo from walls unseen. Feral and baleful they surround him. Shafts of radiance break the void, but instead of being reflected by whatever he steps through, the liquid remains unseen.
Danger lurks close; he can feel it.
This time no sword leaps into his hand. There are no dancers, no music, and no monstrosity feasting on her body. No hands clutch at his legs; and still he fears this more than what has gone before. He tries to speak. No sound reaches his ears, not even the distorted bit of his voice usually going around one’s head.
The light draws close. Or is it he who is closing in? Mechanically he puts one foot before the other, heading for the light. The growl becomes purr. It is meant to calm, yet panic surges up in him. Now, inside the radiance he sees flashes, mere fragments of what lies beyond. The web like fence of light seems more fragile now, more distinct. A face, if it can be called that, surges into sight and drops away.
A moment passes.
Memories rise.
He looks to his feet, naked in the flow of… blood.
He remembers. Helpless, so helpless, unable to intervene, unable to control his hands, arms, feet, only able to watch in horror as his body tears them apart.
Run! Obeying the command, he turns and flees. The web of light is only a step behind, inexorably closing in on him. Blood splashes up his legs, coating everything. Faces surge toward him. Hesmera, the Chanastardhians, the villagers, they all look worried, afraid. They fear him. He runs on, passes them, but they reappear to silently curse him.
No!
Yes.
He has only been a witness, and in her case not even that. His body is his, no one else’s.
Laughter.
The faces are gone.
Frightened he looks back, stumbles, and splashes into the river of blood. Now he struggles to stay afloat, find safe footing to escape. This is not what he wants. He never wanted this… death.
No!
Yes.
An altar. A screaming woman. She swears revenge. Hair surrounds her head like a bloodstained halo, the petals of a flower, shredded and dipped in gore. “No!” she screams.
Again, the feral, lack-of-comfort purr. Yes.
And still he drowns. His mouth fills. He knows the taste. Gods, how sorry he is to know that taste. Splashed onto him from numerous battles, unnumbered victims.
A hand plunges down beside him. Claws wrap around his legs, tugging. The stranger’s hand takes his, and pulls…
Drangar woke with a start, a scream half-formed in his throat. Slowly the light that surrounded him registered in his mind. A dream, he told himself. Yet it felt as real as those about Hesmera. His old house’s attic. Warm, despite the lack of blankets. And why was a light shining?
Out of the glare a face solidified. Gentle blue eyes looked down at him. Her hand stroked his cheek, while the other held one of his.
“Hush,” Gwen said gently. She had cradled his head on her lap. “I’ll protect you.” Again, she caressed his cheek. “Sleep. Rest. I’ll watch over you.”
He wanted to tell her how much he appreciated her being here, but she silenced him with a gentle yet stern look and the shake of her head. “Sleep, I won’t leave you.”
Cradled in her lap Drangar felt safe for the first time in many days. He looked at Gwen, basking in her radiance. Then darkness, and sleep.
CHAPTER 28
Dalgor couldn’t look any more famished. No, Lloreanthoran decided, not famished. The sorcerer looked starved, almost indistinguishable from a corpse. And still the human kept running and fighting. He had used bloodmagic sparingly, but Dalgor’s hands and arms were in tatters nonetheless. Both of them were sporting numerous bandages, and his clothes hung in ruin about them. How Dalgor stayed alive, the elf didn’t know, didn’t want to know. The fuel that powered the human’s magic was life itself, a type of magic he had thought extinct when his ancestors had beaten the masters into exile. At the same time, after two days of desperately trying to harness magic the way he was used to, he began to realize—and dread—that the human’s magic was the only chance they had in defeating these mountains.
The Kumeens were alive. There was no other term. Even when heading toward the rising sun, the ground warped, turned and twisted in a way he could not understand, altering their course ever so slightly yet steadily back to the forbidding cliffs. His magic had been of some use. He had killed two more monsters. Compared to the scores Dalgor had destroyed he felt like an acolyte.
“You have got to learn,” the human panted as they huddled underneath a ledge, momentarily out of sight. No place in this area was outside the enemy’s awareness. The mountain was their enemy. Dalgor uttered a frustrated growl, initially his arguments had been angry, but now his display of frustration was only mewling. “Listen, I am too weak to get anyone out of this place. I can teach you. If you don’t use it, we both will die and not one soul will be the wiser. They’ll all think the Kumeens merely a cursed area, not the blood-sponge it really is.” He paused, struggling for breath.
The human was right, but the utter rape of the natural order was a line he had always been unwilling to cross.
Dalgor must have sensed his struggle, for he said, “Listen, I do not kill others to work magic. Never have and never will. It shall be your will getting done what must be done, because if you don’t, those bastards will get us, and, believe me, you don’t want to be part of their menagerie!”
Failure, a word the elf had always dreaded, and if he were to deny this option, he would fail not only his people, but the entire world. If the monstrosities they had battled were just the vanguard, what kind of creature would they unleash next? And what if the fiend Danachamain would make his threat come true? He shuddered at the thought, no matter how vague the memories of his last few moments inside the Aerant C’lain truly were. With great reluctance he said, “Teach me.”
There was very little Dalgor could tell him about the theory of bloodmagic, and Lloreanthoran felt the young Son of Traksor knew just as little. What he learned was both dangerous and frightening. Rage, it seemed, was one of the components, if used uncontrolled, however, that fury would consume the spellhurler. Spellhurler he called himself, not mage or wizard. A warrior whose weapons were both kinds of magic as well as the sword, but in the past two days he had not seen Dalgor use a blade in battle. The scabbard hung untouched at his side, the sword nothing but dead weight.
“Remember,” Dalgor told him as he drew his own dagger and set the edge to his palm, “the land here drinks your blood. Don’t ever let a d
rop of it touch the ground.”
Lloreanthoran remembered the lifeless monstrosity, how its blood had been drained. “What then?”
For a moment he thought the Swordpriest had dozed off. Given the wounds he had inflicted on himself, the human truly needed rest, and he expected at any moment his companion would succumb to the call of sleep. Dalgor blinked, shook his head, and regarded him. “You force the world into the shape you desire,” he said. “The type of magic you employ is based on memory, possibility; this type is brought into existence by sheer will.” He paused as if he was gathering his waning senses, and then continued, “A drop suffices, mostly, sometimes you need more, but whatever you do, don’t lose control over your emotions.”
“Why?”
A broad gesture, encompassing the rugged terrain around them, a grim smile, then Dalgor said, “This place is an example of what will happen if you lose your grip. The land doesn’t need blood to change its shape, yet more of it makes things even easier. Whoever worked magic here either did this on purpose, or lost all control. If your focus slips, or your emotions run amok, the magic will demand more and more and more until there’s nothing left.”
“So, there is no special need to cut myself?” he asked, reluctant to prick his skin.
“If you think you can control the amount of life force necessary to power spells without seeing how much blood they consume,” Dalgor replied acidly, “no.”
The problem to such an approach was evident. No being could gauge just how much of his life was still left, otherwise a battle crazed combatant withdrew before it was too late. He understood. “What kind of emotion is best?”
“Any kind of anger will do, but the best is that which is so deeply ingrained that one thought of it could make you lose your temper.” The patter of feet on snow interrupted Dalgor. “Here they come again.”
“You want me to…”
“No, fool, I want us to die, now get started!”
Whirling around, Lloreanthoran’s first instinct was to draw once more on the possibility of events. The monster, a grotesque mix of goat, wolf, and eagle, came into view, its deformed head poking around the nearest bend. There was no time to concentrate. In this soiled land it had become more and more difficult to use magic his way, so he summoned the most enraging memory. Lilanthias, Aureenal, Bright-Eyes, each death senseless, hurtful. The edge of the dagger cut into his palm. A glance back at Dalgor, a last silent plea for support, showed the Son of Traksor had fainted. He was on his own.