by Carol Berg
Like dust motes floating on the light, her macabre humor failed to settle. Voushanti’s pacing slowed. Perhaps he might refuse the enchantment…which seemed a vile and wicked hope.
Saverian paused in her preparations. “Do you wish a sleeping draft? I know Prince Osriel does not offer, but I could—”
“No!” None of his answers had approached the ferocity of this one.
Without further argument, the seething warrior removed his leather jupon, gray tunic, and wool shirt, exposing broad chest and shoulders mottled with ugly red burn scars, old battle wounds, and patches of black and gray hair. He laid his garments on Saverian’s chair and reclined on the leather bench.
At Saverian’s direction I moved to Voushanti’s side. He averted his face, and neither twitched nor fidgeted.
With a flurry of brusque steps and clinking glass, Saverian added a few vials, tapers, and small dishes to her supplies. Then she doused the magical lamp and brought a lighted candle to her table. Drawing her stool beside mine, she thrust a stained but clean wadded sheet into my sweating hands. “Be ready with this,” she said softly.
I could not think what she meant, but didn’t ask. My eyes would not leave the wide flat handle of the lancet that lay snug in her hand.
“Mardane Voushanti, is it your will that I take you past the brink of unlife and work this magic to restore your breath and blood?”
He jerked his head in assent, but fixed his eyes on the far wall.
“Speak your will, or I’ll have none of this,” she snapped. “No man will say I chose this way.”
Voushanti swiveled his head to glare redly at the both of us. “You’ve not bound me to this bench. Obey our master’s will. Take this life and give it back.”
He turned away again. Saverian probed his neck with two fingers and without hesitation jabbed her lancet in between.
Blood spewed from Voushanti’s wound like the liquid fire Aurellians discharge from their warships to set their enemies ablaze. Only by fortunate reaction did I hold up the wadded linen to catch this monstrous volley. Voushanti jerked and gripped the edge of the bench, emitting only a grunt.
Saverian, her hands gloved in gore, snatched up one of her smaller folds of linen and held it to the surging flow, channeling it into the long lip of the tin basin, a river of red that threatened to overflow the vessel. The chamber fell silent, save for Voushanti’s rapid, shallow breaths.
I rubbed my arms through the thin shirtsleeves, afraid to let myself feel anything. I had experienced a man’s death once. Saverian must wear steel beneath her plain garb.
As the pulsing flow of blood dwindled, Voushanti’s breath began to labor. The half of his face we could see was a morbid blue-white and sheened with sweat. His hands that had gripped the bench now lay flaccid on its cracked leather.
Saverian had me set the heavy basin aside while she wiped her hands clean. Then she turned the warrior’s head to face us and slipped another square of folded linen under the wound to absorb the waning trickle of his life. His scarred face was slack, his stare dull, even as his chest strained and heaved to draw each breath.
I labored with him. The walls bulged and writhed around us. The flat iron stink of blood wakened reminders of battlefield nights, of wails and screams and dread visions. The physician dipped a finger into a small jar and dabbed a yellow ointment on Voushanti’s eyelids, flooding the thickening air with the pungent perfume of ysomar that the Karish said would summon angels to carry the soul to heaven, and the Sinduri claimed would call the Ferryman to the earthly shore to transport the soul to the Kemen Sky Lord’s feasting halls or Magrog’s land of torment. But what if a man’s soul was “fused to his body” and could not journey onward? What if a man had no soul?
I had stabbed Boreas for mercy, drowned a pack of Harrowers to save other lives, and slain Navronne’s enemies for my king. None of these deaths rested easy in my mind, but at the least I had believed that those victims would be granted some existence beyond this life. Every god I knew promised a continuing for those who had a soul, so I’d never imagined I was sending them to endless nothing. But this…what was this we did here? A certain horror gripped my breath and bone. I could no longer sit still.
Grabbing Saverian’s arm, I yanked her off her stool and dragged her away from the couch so Voushanti could not hear me. Scarlet cheeked, she wrestled to get free. “Are you mad?” she spat. “I need to watch him.”
“Is there a chance this spell won’t revive him?” I said, harsh and quiet. “Have you done it before…you yourself?”
“I’ve seen it done. I know what to do.”
“But is there a chance? Could he not revive?” I shook her, unwilling to release her until I heard yea or nay.
“No spell is proof against failure,” she said. “I’ll do my best, which is better than most. Now let me go, lest his heart stop for too long, for then the magic will fail.”
I let her go, and she hurried back to her work, examining the blood that dribbled slowly from Voushanti’s neck. Briskly, she sprinkled herbs and powders from her vials into three glass dishes and used a thin brass spatula to dip blood from the basin and drip some on each dish. With thumb and forefinger she used one mixture to draw sigils on Voushanti’s forehead and cheeks. With another, she marked spiked crescents under her own eyes.
Wiping her lancet clean on another folded square, she beckoned me back to my place. “The time approaches. Stop now, and you murder him.”
Furious at myself for not questioning earlier, furious at Saverian, at Osriel, I returned to my stool. We might have already sent this man to his end. Alone. Before Saverian could stop me, I laid my hand on Voushanti’s spasming breast.
“Valen! What are you doing?”
So near, linked by touch and his blood on my skin, I existed with and in him. I opened my senses.
The cold of Navronne’s untimely winter was as nothing to the bitter hour of Voushanti’s dying. One gouge of fire seared my neck…one grating burn marked agonized lungs…elsewise, waking mind hung suspended in a world of freezing black. Utterly alone. Anger rumbled faintly in the dark like retreating thunder. No fear, though. No grief. Not his, at least.
One more straining breath and the body could do no more. The candlelight retracted to a pinpoint, only bright enough to serve as a reminder of loss. And as light and pain flared and faded, Voushanti and I shared one silent cry of such piercing hunger as tore the fabric of the descending night…
“Valen! Give me your hand. Now!”
I gasped, blinked, and snatched my hand from the clammy, flaccid body. Shuddering, wagging my head, I tried to clear out the morbid darkness, but patterns of light and shadow, more than could be explained by one small candle, shifted and wavered on the walls and in the very air itself, overflowing that chamber as the mardane’s blood did the tin vessel. Saverian’s cheekbones, flushed under the blood marks, and her green eyes, fiery with purpose, supplied the only sparks of color. The angel canister stood open on the table, whatever enchantment it had contained now released.
Murmuring words I could not distinguish, Saverian scooped a fragrant green liquid from her third glass dish and traced patterns on my cheeks and forehead. Then her warm fingers clamped my wrist and pressed the back of my hand to a leather cushion that rested in her lap. Quick as lightning, her sharp little blade scored my thumb. Pain far beyond the wounding shot through my hand and up my arm as if traveling through my gards.
She pressed my bloody thumb to Voushanti’s lips, crying out in Aurellian, “Rise and live, mortal man, all desire and worth bound to thy master’s will until heart stops, bone crumbles, and breath fails.” Her marks on my face grew hot, as if Kol were at his work again, and I felt the varied parts of the spell engage, as if they were the shafts and cogs of a mill wheel.
Shadows whirled over our heads, raising a wind that flapped book pages and rattled the shelves. Glassware tumbled to the stone floor and smashed alongside metal containers that clattered and bounced. The candle win
ked out. And still the physician held my bleeding thumb to those cold lips.
Then, of a sudden, Voushanti’s head jerked beneath my hand, and a shaft of red lightning shot from his dead eyes straight into my own head. For one soul-searing moment, I could not look away…and then it was over. Darkness engulfed us again, the quivering excitement of air and life that signified enchantment vanished. Saverian released her grip.
Blind in the absolute blackness, I cradled my cut hand to my breast, hoping to ease the pain in my arm and in my soul. The marks on my face cooled quickly, and the rattles and clatters ceased as the whirlwind dissipated. A choking noise came from the bench in front of me.
“Come away,” whispered Saverian in my ear, drawing me up and away from the muffled sounds. “Careful. Mind the lintel.”
I shuffled my feet to keep from stumbling over the debris and extended one hand at head height. Just as my fingers encountered stone and I ducked my head to clear the doorway, a pale light burst out behind me, illuminating Saverian’s face and hands. Two fingers of her right hand were pointed at a lamp in the room behind. I turned to look, but glimpsed only Voushanti’s back as she pulled the heavy door closed.
“He prefers to be alone as he recovers,” she said. “It takes him an hour or so to gather himself, somewhat longer to heal from whatever has brought him to the point of death. He likes it quiet.”
Not quiet, I thought. Private. I could hear the groans of pain and despair that burst through his choking silence, only to be buried in his thick arms and in layers of bloody linen and leather.
“I need to get out of here,” I said, as the torches that lit the long passage swelled into glaring banners of hell. The entire weight of the fortress pressed upon the back of my neck.
“You did well,” said the physician, hurrying her steps and pointing to a stair that I knew led to light and air. “I was worried about your tolerating the chamber. But for me to attempt such a working anywhere else would have been—”
“Never again,” I said, taking the steps three at a time, leaving her behind. “No matter who commands or who begs, I won’t be part of that again.” The enchantment clung to my spirit like dung to a boot. I had touched earth with magic and glimpsed its patterns of life and death and growing. Nowhere in that grand display was there a place for what I had just experienced.
Saverian rejoined me in the well yard where I sprawled on the dry grass inhaling great gulps of air and sky. Despite the hazy blue overhead, evening had already come to the little garth and the stone-bordered well, enclosed as they were in the heart of the fortress. “Osriel and his magics seem to have that effect on everyone.”
“Are there others like Voushanti?” I said.
“Osriel says Voushanti is the only one.”
“Is this what he plans for the solstice, Saverian?”
“That’s impossible,” she said, averting her eyes. “Osriel does not collect bodies. This enchantment cannot be worked on those dead more than a few hours.”
But the weakness of her denial only made my conviction stronger. I rolled up to sitting. “I’ve little enough knowledge of sorcery or natural philosophy. But I know that such magic as we just aided will not repair what’s wrong with the world. I won’t let him do it.”
Her color flamed like a bonfire. “You cannot leave Osriel with Sila Diaglou! The danger, if she identifies him…”
“I’ve said I’ll do my best to get him out. But if none of you will explain what he plans, then he’ll have to tell me himself, and I’ll be his judge before I set him free to do it.”
What if Sila wanted to bleed him? Osriel had said that sacrificing a body consecrated to Navronne might have consequences beyond the poisoning of one sianou. I needed to ask Kol if that was true.
Of a sudden my chest tightened with a longing that left me breathless, a wrenching ache I had known since childhood, never able to name its cause or its object. I had believed it only another symptom of the insatiable disease that drove me wild. But now images raced through my mind: of my uncle’s grace and beauty as he strode through boundless vistas of earth and sky, forest and sea. Of the power he had brought to healing one small garden meadow. Ah, gods, I wanted to be in Aeginea dancing and not setting out to war.
“Valen, are you ill?” Saverian seemed to speak from a vast distance, as if the few steps that separated us were the Caurean Sea. “What’s wrong?”
“Naught,” I said, blinking rapidly and stroking the blade of healthy winter-dry grass that grew in this little yard. Tears were surely but stray remnants of my long madness. “Naught.”
From Renna’s walls the watch called the second hour past noonday. So late in the year, sundown would follow in little more than two hours. Time to be traveling.
I left Elene’s retiring room bearing a small case with my extra clothes, the vials of Saverian’s potions—some for me, some for Osriel, some to use as weapons should the opportunity arise—and the fervent prayers and good wishes of Elene and Brother Victor.
The lady and the monk had read me the letter to Bayard they had composed while Saverian and I had been engaged in murder and resurrection. Had I not been so disturbed at my own part in Voushanti’s ordeal and this entirely ludicrous bout of homesickness for Aeginea, a home I had known but a few hours, the scroll’s contents might have given me a laugh.
I have enjoyed controlling Magnus’s infamous streak of rebellion, but find him much less interesting without it. His myriad lacks—reading, writing, education, combat training, and even rudimentary sorcery—leave him somewhat bored and lacking purpose. As I cannot imagine what use the priestess has for him, I have decided that his best use might be to discover her intents.
Though my life’s purpose remained determinedly unclear, the past few weeks had been anything but boring. Elene and Brother Victor had sealed this missive with Osriel’s signet. I wondered which of them had come up with the wording.
I hurried along the Great Hall gallery, where Saverian and I had spied on the warmoot. The hall sat dark and deserted, smelling of old smoke, old ale, and the old wood of the massive ceiling beams.
Our ragged little cabal of three had agreed that Elene and Brother Victor would send a long-planned alarm to Prior Nemesio at Gillarine. The coded message would bring the prior and his flock to shelter at Magora Syne—Osriel’s most remote stronghold, deep in Evanore’s mountains. A sevenday without word from me, and they would command Osriel’s warlords to muster at Caedmon’s Bridge on the winter solstice.
I had insisted that Elene and Brother Victor, as the last lighthouse warders, should not attend that solstice confrontation, but retreat to Magora Syne as well. “You guard Navronne’s future in many ways,” I said. “You must keep Saverian informed of all circumstances…see that she goes with you.” I made sure Elene met my gaze and caught my double meaning. Should Osriel fall, she carried Eodward’s rightful heir.
My footsteps clattered and echoed on the downward stair, and I emerged into late afternoon. Wind whined and blustered about the fortress arches and towers. Despite the hazy sunlight, the smell of the wind promised snow before morning. Halfway along the covered walk that led past the Great Hall to the kitchen alley, I switched the small, heavy case to my left hand, as it was irritating the cut on my thumb.
“I can carry that, sorcerer.” Mardane Voushanti appeared at my left side, matching me step for step. Impeccably garbed in a spruce green cloak and a silver hauberk blazoned with Osriel’s wolf, he kept his gaze straight ahead as he held out his hand for the case.
“That’s not necessary.”
I did not slow my pace and did not stare. I’d not quite believed he would meet me here as Saverian had promised when she left me in the well yard.
“You should take this, though.” I passed him the scroll bearing Osriel’s seal. “Max—Prince Bayard’s pureblood—will meet us at my family’s house with a small escort. If you sense anything amiss, we’ll turn right around and come back here.”
“And once you are in t
he custody of Sila Diaglou, I am to wait for some signal from you—a bonfire or magical explosion—at which time I am to charge into Fortress Torvo and pull you out. That is, unless you have burst from her dungeons with the prince and the thane or crawled out along some escape path given you by a generous not-brother who has always loathed you. That is a fool’s plan…no plan at all.”
If it sounded ridiculous, it felt impossible. “I believe I can do this,” I said. “But I’ve no idea how long it might take to discover where Jullian is or to find the opportunity to get to the others. If I think of anything else between here and there, I’ll be sure to tell you. Just stay close and be alert.”
The mardane halted. I kept walking. “I’ll give you two days,” he called after me. “Mistress Elene has given me a well-filled purse. Bring the prince out before midnight two days hence, or I’ll buy me some fighters and come in after you.”
I stopped and looked back at him. The scarlet centers of his eyes had heated in defiance, but I had not even asked Saverian how to call up the power I had over him. I had no desire to wield Osriel’s red lightning. “Three days,” I said. “But buy your fighters and have them ready beforehand.”
“Done.” He jerked his massive head and caught up with me. The unscarred half of his face was the color of chalk. We resumed our walk and rounded the corner into the alley that so resembled the lane in Palinur. “You will abandon me and get the prince straight back here if we cannot rendezvous,” he said.
“I will. I assumed that’s what his sworn protector would wish.”
When we reached a certain dark little gap between two deserted storage buildings, I stopped and set down my case. “If you’ll be so kind as to keep prying eyes away, I need to…uh…change my clothes.”