by C. E. Murphy
With the thought came the gut-wrenching warning of an approaching Timeless. Lorhen looked over his shoulder to see Ghean, only a few meters down the hall, open the door he'd just come through, a rapier sheathed at her hip. For an instant, neither of them moved, as Ghean took in Lorhen's wetsuit and the backpack slung over his shoulders. Then her eyes widened as she deduced the meaning of the costume, and she started forward.
Lorhen ran.
He had the advantage of longer legs, a short head start, and the impetus of running for his life, while Ghean was only running for his head. He didn't bother with the first set of stairs at all: a long, low leap sent him to the foot of the steps, wet feet slipping in a hard landing. He scrambled forward before he'd really regained his footing, tearing down the hall to barge into his cabin before Ghean reached the head of the stairs.
So close. He'd been so close to getting away with it, and he was not, dammit, fighting to the death in a wetsuit. With one hand Lorhen slammed the door shut and the lock closed on it, and with the other, flung the soaking wet backpack onto the bed. The wetsuit clung, ripping at his nails and fingertips as he struggled to free himself of it, but the material had not been designed to come off quickly. Lorhen cursed, yanking the zipper down and jerking the rubbery outfit off, leaving his arms clammy. He hopped up and down on one foot, pulling the suit down while trying to reach for his sword with the other. After two futile attempts, he fell sideways on the bed, kicked the wetsuit off, and struggled into the jeans he'd left on the floor the night before.
He heard Ghean try the door, and opted for his sword instead of his shirt. He barely managed to button the jeans, and stuck a knife into the back of them just as a sharp crack fragmented the door frame around the lock. Ghean kicked it open a fraction of a second later. Lorhen flung the sheath from his sword and brought the blade up to a defensive position. "Witnesses," he rasped. "We can't fight here, Ghean." More to the point, he couldn't fight there; the room was to her advantage, both for her size and her blade.
"Everyone's asleep," she snarled. "We most certainly can."
Without taking his eyes off her, Lorhen reached for the backpack. "I'll destroy it."
Her eyes flickered to the pack. "You're bluffing. You want it as much as I do."
"I assure you," Lorhen said through his teeth, "I want it far less than I want my head." He threw the pack full force at her face. Ghean stumbled backwards, sword dropping as she tried to catch the heavy backpack. Lorhen rocketed past her, back the way he'd come, up the stairs and tearing back out onto the deck. He could hear Ghean's curse, and a pause before her footsteps followed him: she had the Book, too precious to pass up. He slid across the deck on wet, bare feet, spinning to face the door as she came charging out.
She was far better prepared for the fight than he was, clad in battle colors, even: a crimson blouse tucked into smooth black pants that met soft black boots which clearly had traction, from the ease with which she moved on the slick deck. Her eyes were bright, with both anticipation and the light of the coming dawn reflected in them, and her color was high from the dash between decks. The Hunter’s necklace glittered against the blouse, and as she dropped into a guard position, Lorhen saw the Lion’s ring bounce the early sunlight. She'd come prepared, all right; she'd been planning, he expected, to murder him in his sleep, if she could.
And what an easy target he'd have made, or at least, knew he looked like he would have made: bedraggled, barefoot, jeans half buttoned and clinging uncomfortably to the salt water left on his skin. Goosebumps were collecting where water didn't roll down his bare arms and chest, and he could feel his hair drying in random spikes where it was escaping from the slicking back that the sea had given it. Despite himself, the opposing images made him twist a smile, and Ghean's expression blackened. She threw the backpack across the deck and fell into a guard stance. The pack cracked against a bulwark, settling into a heap, an enigmatic prize for the winner to collect.
"No!" Lorhen backed up hastily, lifting his blade. "I'm not laughing at you. Ghean, we don't have to do this. All I want is the Book. Go live your life. God knows you deserve the chance."
She advanced without breaking form, scooting easily across the deck. "We do have to do this," she corrected. "All I want is your head. The Book is just an extraordinary second prize." She smiled tightly. "All you came here for is the Book? That's not what you said two days ago."
Lorhen made an apologetic little gesture with his free hand. "I lied."
Ghean's eyes went darker. "You're a very good liar, Lorhen. We even believed you." She lunged forward with the words, making first contact with the blades, nothing more than a faint scrape of metal.
Lorhen knocked her blade away with a tap, shaking his head. "Ghean, let it go. What possible good will killing me do? The years are never going to come back to you."
"What good will it do?" Ghean lunged again, another quick attack. "It'll make us feel a hell of a lot better, that's what."
"Us?" Lorhen danced back, stepping around a heavy pile of chain on the deck. "I assure you, it won't make me feel any better. Forgive me my selfishness, but I'd really rather you didn't feel better at the expense of my head."
Ghean drew herself up momentarily, looking at Lorhen down the length of her blade. "Your selfishness," she said precisely, "is exactly what we cannot forgive."
Sometimes, Lorhen thought, he had a real talent for finding the one irrevocably wrong thing to say. He suggested, "Try," anyway. "You'd be surprised how much easier life is if you can forgive people their little faults."
Ghean surged forward again, keeping her attack on a low line. The tactic was sound for a woman of her height; a high attack would bring her opponent's sword into play at a level uncomfortably near her neck, and the lower attacks kept anyone of greater height slightly off-balance in meeting them. "Little faults," she snarled, in time to the clash of blades. "Failing to mention our immortality. Refusing to fight for us on our wedding day. Leaving us for dead when you knew we would waken again. Abandoning us to hell for five thousand years. Saving our mother. Sleeping with our mother. Which of those, Lorhen, is a little fault? We'll be happy to forgive you for it." Each sentence was highlighted by a swift attack, less designed for blood than eventual weariness.
"I would have mentioned the immortality," Lorhen protested. "I thought we had time." He no longer backed up, but nor did he go on the offensive, merely answering the attacks in a steady pattern. "Ghean, this could go on all day. People are eventually going to wake up."
She smiled, a flash of teeth in the early light. The sun broke the horizon, shooting spires of red through the clouds above them, and it began to rain. "Our healing will be your death. So much fun, we thought, to pretend we still loved you, to use you and then to kill you. And you even proved Atlantis for us. You did very well, Lorhen. Now it's time to die. They won't wake up if it's over soon." She shifted her attack, moving from low to high in a smooth, rapid sequence, then dropping it again.
"Dammit, Ghean! I'm better than you are, and we're in the middle of the ocean on a metal ship full of mortals. If you press this, don't you think it's probably going to end badly for them? Never mind you?"
Ghean straightened again, falling back out of his reach. "You won't even take us seriously," she said quietly. "Fight us, Lorhen. The challenge has been made. You can't walk away from it."
“Us,” he echoed again, softly this time. “We. What are you talking about, Ghean? Who are you talking about?”
“We haven’t been whole in a long time,” she whispered. “So patient. So frightened. Holding her together in the darkness. In the silence. We could do nothing else. She had to stop screaming somehow.”
“Ghean.” Her name sounded helpless on his lips. “Ghean, you need help, not a Blending.”
“A Blending, your Blending, will set us right! All the years we should have lived, all the memories and all the power that should have been ours, we will have it, Lorhen! We will have it.”
“Ghean.”
Lorhen closed his eyes, then spread his free hand upward, meeting her gaze again. "All right. Have it your way."
Ghean's jaw set, and she nodded, satisfied. Her next lunge Lorhen met with no more enthusiasm, but greater dedication. He could see the surprise in her eyes at the power behind the blow. Then something else colored her expression: pleasure. Lorhen took the fight to high ground, throwing a blow at her shoulder with the two-handed sword he used. Ghean tangled her rapier in the other sword, thrusting it away, and retreated.
They tossed offensive and defensive back and forth, blades sparking as they smashed together, bleeding red with the rising sun. The ring of metal on metal was loud to Lorhen's ears, but the mortals on the ship continued to sleep, protected from the sounds of battle by the heavy steel floor and walls.
Wind picked up, knocking Ghean's hair into her eyes a moment. She brushed it back, a fighting grin growing wider as none of Lorhen's blows hit home. He remained serious, scowling as they fought in the rain. Ghean's moment came as they whirled around each other, Lorhen's footing bad on the wet deck. A thin ray of sunlight broke through to bounce off Lorhen's own sword, reflecting brilliantly off steel and water alike to blind him momentarily. Ghean lunged forward, scoring a thin red line across his belly before he could knock the rapier off course. He fell back, touching his fingers to the cut to test its depth. It stung, but it would heal within the minute.
"We can draw your blood," she said into the abrupt silence, "but you'll never take ours." Secret delight crackled in Ghean's brown eyes. "We’re surprised you didn't recognize it." She lifted her sword hand to display the ring she wore around her thumb. "The ring of the Lion, Lorhen. It protects us. You're going to die." The words were a sing-song, mocking and light.
Lorhen looked at the blood on his fingers, diluted by the pouring rain, then raised his eyes to Ghean. She split a grin of triumph at the horror on his face, and laughed as he whispered, "Oh, Ghean," very quietly. "I did love you."
Ghean laughed, throwing her arms wide to the sky, embracing the morning sun. "Too late!" she crowed. "Today you pay—"
The blow that sent her to her knees was identical to the one that brought her the first death aeons ago. Lorhen's sword came down in a wide arc, half gutting the tiny woman. Her rapier fell from numb fingers as she crashed to her knees, one hand wrapping disbelievingly around her midsection. Incredulous, she lifted her head, brown eyes staring as life drained from them. "How—?"
Another voice, thin and terrified, broke from her lips: “We never tested it.”
And another, deeper, calm, even through shock: “He told us himself. ‘An arrow embedded itself in Minyah's arm.’ She wore the ring that day. He told us and we didn’t hear, we never thought—”
“The larger the artifact is, the more effective it is in providing physical protection,” Lorhen said, still softly. “The ring offers eternal life, not protection from external harm. I did love you once, Ghean," he repeated, his voice gentle. "I'm so, so sorry. For everything. And I wish I could just let you go, my love. I wish I could let your Blending go free, so you could be reborn and start over, and over, and over. But you’re mad, Ghean, my poor beloved. I can’t release that, I can’t poison so many potential Timeless with your insanity. I’m so very, very sorry.”
“No.” He could hear it in her voice now, threads of panic and notes of calm, making resonances that had never been there before. “No, we would rather die, die forever, die for good, than be part of you for eternity!”
“You won’t be,” Lorhen whispered. “You’ll be gone, Ghean. I’m that much stronger than you. There will be nothing left, I promise. I’m so sorry.”
Ghean whispered, “Lorhen,” and he moved swiftly, first drawing and driving the heartstrike blade home. Without taking his eyes from hers, he swung the sword up and over, the weight and speed of nearly a full circle racing down to sever her head from her neck.
I did love you.
The thought burned through Lorhen's mind, and for an eternal heartbeat he stood in the sudden stillness, letting grief be his companion. Then necessity spurred him into motion: the Retribution would conduct the Blending’s electric power. Ghean would bring the ship down with her, unless—
Lorhen turned and ran for the edge of the ship, vaulting one-handed to the waist-high railing. He took one deep breath as the sky began to boil, and launched himself from the railing out into the sunrise.
The lightning caught him as he hit the water. Already colored golden-red by the rising sun, the Mediterranean added blue fire to its palette, flashes of electricity slicing through Lorhen as he fell deeper through the sea.
Memory sent a scream of panic and pain through him, out into the water, as Ghean's life pounded into him with her Blending. The terror of the water closing over her head in the temple made him scream again, reaching for the grey skies above the surface. Waves pushed him further down, pain rocketing through his body as lightning struck again and again, bringing with it thousands of years of solitude and fear, whispering voices and mindless despair. Lorhen held on to himself, on to his own memories of those many centuries, forcing what Ghean had been deeper into himself, acknowledging it, accepting it, but not surrendering to it.
The sea seethed, flinging him back out on an outburst of water, to meet lightning falling from the stormy sky. It danced down around him, a ragged pattern of rapid-fire shocks that surged into the water and back up through it, up through the soles of his feet and through his body, building toward the nerve-wrecking threshold between absolute pain and excruciating pleasure. Lorhen flung his head back in a wordless shout of pain and grief and release, the only release the Blending ever allowed. Time ceased, a few seconds lasting forever, before the Blending cast him back into the ocean, spent.
For long minutes Lorhen remained in the sea's cradle, choppy waves made by natural winds rocking him as the sky brought forth the storm that the red dawn warned of. Dazed, he opened his eyes, finding his sword still clutched in his hand. The hilt left dimples marked deep in his palm, and he loosened his grip on it a little, trying to right himself in the waves, energy drained. After a moment he oriented himself, turning wearily toward the ship.
Michelle Powers stood on the deck, hands light on the railing. She watched, silent, as Lorhen swam weakly back to the ship, and dove under to search out the submarine dock again. One-handed, he pulled himself up the ladder. Powers, still wordless, offered Lorhen a hand; after a moment's hesitation, Lorhen accepted it, letting the mortal help him onto the deck. The two stared at each other, Lorhen marked with exhaustion, Michelle with unhappy understanding.
"She told you what we were," Lorhen said when the silence drew out too long.
"Her ring didn't work," Michelle replied.
Lorhen shook his head. "No," he said, "it didn't." He glanced at the body, then back at Michelle. "There was a winter storm this morning," he suggested quietly.
Michelle licked her lips, and nodded, swallowing hard.
"Thank you," Lorhen said, and went to pick up Ghean's sword, pausing at the Retribution's rail. "Do you want it?"
Michelle shook her head mutely. Lorhen nodded, and dropped the rapier over the side. It made a tiny ripple in the choppy sea as it sank. "You don't want to watch the rest of this," Lorhen advised the mortal. Without responding, Michelle turned away, walking below-decks.
Lorhen closed his eyes momentarily, then crouched beside Ghean's body, hands steepled in front of his mouth. Wrapping his hand around the Hunter’s pendant, he took it from her body, and then slid the golden ring off her thumb, putting the ring on the chain with the pendant. He stood, slipping the necklace into his jeans pocket, and found a length of chain to weight Ghean's body with, sending it after her sword into the Mediterranean.
The storm did a fair job of washing blood away, but he found a bucket and filled it with seawater, splashing it over the deck. The deck was scored black under the blood, a long trail of charred steel where lightning had followed his leap off the ship's railing. Lorhen toed
at the burned metal, and then, still soaking wet, he went below to get the sheath for his sword. He took the wetsuit as well, finding another length of chain to weight it with before dropping it over the side of the ship. Sword strapped to his back, he returned to the submarine port, looking down into the pale water.
The Book. Lorhen looked up. It lay where Ghean had tossed it, crumpled against the edge of the bulwark. He smiled without humor, and went to collect it, retying the sword to the outside of the backpack. He glanced at the submarine port, but instead vaulted once again over the side of the Retribution, following the same path he'd sent Ghean on.
Seconds later he resurfaced and began, for the second time in his life, swimming through a storm, away from Atlantis toward the safety of shore.
34
A newspaper spun twice as it was thrown down the counter, landing with the text upside-down at Emma's elbow. A gold ring bounced after it, rattling to a stop a foot or two away from where Emma polished the bar. Emma glanced up to see who'd tossed them, then muttered, "An actual newspaper. How retro. I'll put it up on the wall to go with the decor," as she picked the paper up.
"The decor already looks good. You've tarted the place up a bit since I was here last." Lorhen sat down across from Emma, glancing over the club. A stage with vintage footlights and a velvet backdrop dominated one end of the room, with a couple dozen small round tables with two or three chairs each facing it. Booths lined two of the walls, and the bar curved down the length of the last, all of it done in a style now pressing a hundred years old. "I like it. And throwing a tablet down the bar just seemed too expensive and not really the same effect," he said with a nod at the paper. "Read the article. I like the part where it says I saved a lot of lives."