The Last of Her Line

by Valerie Veden

  My curiosity piqued, I stepped to the nearest tree and touched its harsh bark. My threads moved through the tree veins, deeper and deeper to the roots interwoven with the roots of other wooden giants. My Self followed them, doubling, tripling, quartering, almost dissolving. I was many; I was everywhere in the dark frozen ground. My threads traveled hundreds of miles, through the connecting roots and up to the surface of the land again. I looked for any sapient race living in this unwelcoming cold place, but there was nothing except snow, ice and the dark trunks of the sleeping forest.

  Drawing in all my threads, I stepped back from the tree, suddenly weak and unsteady, my magic even more drained.

  “Do you know how dangerous that was?” Mervin asked from behind.

  “What was?” I turned to him.

  “You split your Self having neither practice nor insurance. Your soul could have been lost there. Do you wish to die?”

  I swallowed hard. I didn’t know why I had done it or even how I had done it. No one had taught me such things, never before I could travel with my threads even a tenth of such a distance.

  And no, I didn’t want to die. I wanted to live, very much so.

  “Riel, do you understand what is going on with you?” Mervin’s eyes were serious.

  “No. I… I don’t.”

  “Let’s go,” he turned, gazing into the depths of the forest. “We would better find some shelter before dark.”

  “What is the meaning of it?” I shouted at his back. “Those runes, that monster, that Portal-turned-Gate! And now this! I have never split my Self before but still I knew how… Tell me!”

  Mervin turned around, came up to me and took a firm hold of my wrist.

  “Come, Riel, we are wasting time. I don’t know the answer to your questions. I have some guesses, but I don’t know.”

  Mervin strode purposefully as if he was aware of what waited ahead. Perhaps he was.

  It was sunset in our world when we had left it and early afternoon here. Since our arrival, the shadows had grown long and dark, and my tiredness had grown, too. A few more hours and I would face a choice of either freezing to death or falling down from magic exhaustion.

  “Here it is.”

  We were in the heart of the forest, with nothing similar to any kind of shelter.

  The taheert smiled at my silent skepticism and said a string of words in an unknown language.

  I came up to a cabin which appeared out of the thin air, and touched its wall. It looked wooden but felt like smooth glass. Such a strange material.

  “No people live in this world. Where did it come from?”

  “They don’t live here, but sometimes they visit,” Mervin’s voice sounded tired. His skin looked paler than usual and deep shadows lay under his eyes. The rune might have cured his wounds but he still needed food, water, rest, and, most of all, time to replenish his magic energy.

  “Come on,” Mervin began walking around the cabin. “Usually they leave a good supply of food and fuel inside.”

  “They?”

  He stopped some distance from the door and made a sharp movement with his right hand. Nothing happened, or at least nothing visible, but the taheert nodded to himself, as if he had heard a response, and turned to me.

  “Surely you know the race which travels among the worlds and never asks for anyone’s permission.”

  “The Kadaries,” I breathed it out with such hatred that the intensity of the feeling surprised me. I had always disliked them, but not that much.

  “Right.” Mervin paused then said a few long sentences, of which I understood nothing.

  “Is it their language?”

  “One of the dialects.”

  The door opened with a soft creak, but Mervin didn’t show any inclination to enter.

  “Can you send a spying thread in there?” he asked.

  I glanced at Mervin anxiously. He must have been fully exhausted to need help with such a simple thing.

  The house appeared to be almost empty.

  “There is something sleeping there,” I frowned, trying to decipher the picture. “It is something warm, quite small and -”

  “Poisonous,” filled in Mervin for me. I nodded. Yes, the creature had an aura of death. “I expected that. The Kadaries often leave tamed Abyss creatures to guard their possessions.”

  “Do you know how to kill it?” The only thing I wished for at the moment was to rest in a warm place. It didn’t even matter that the house was tainted with the Kadaries’ presence.

  “I don’t know how to kill it but I do know how to subdue it. Wait here.” Mervin commanded before stepping over the threshold.

  Chapter 4.

  I had never heard Mervin sing before; he had a beautiful voice. The language of his song seemed pleasant and I listened, engrossed in the pattern of foreign words. Soon it started to feel as if a haunting melody joined in, exotic and familiar at the same time.

  Without thinking, I stepped closer and closer to the door until Mervin appeared on the threshold. The singing stopped. I blinked, coming to my senses, and only then noticed a small animal the taheert was carrying.

  The marvelous creature looked like a tiny colt, but adult proportions of its limbs disagreed with my first assumption. Its snow-white silky mane seemed so pretty that my hand, on its own volition, reached out to pet the animal; I had to make a conscious effort to stop it. The creature’s eyes were closed but many a girl could envy its long, thick, curled lashes. The animal had soft short fur, graceful outline of the body and a thin twisted horn in the middle of the high forehead.

  “Is it the guard you’ve mentioned?” I asked Mervin, almost sure he would give a negative answer, but the taheert nodded and put his load on the snow.

  “Look,” Mervin scratched the brows of the creature and it opened its eyes. I jerked back, stifling a scream; its eyes had no pupils and were the same poisonous yellow the worm’s eyes had.

  The guard yawned widely, showing long and sharp fangs, and nodded off again.

  “Have you put it to sleep?” I asked softly.

  “No, I haven’t let it wake up.” Mervin said and then asked abruptly, “Why did you come so close to the door?”

  I shrugged, puzzled.

  “I liked your song and wanted to hear it better.”

  Mervin nodded as if that confirmed his suspicions and strode to the house.

  “What about the guard?” I asked at his back. “Is it safe to leave it like that on the snow?”

  “Don’t worry, it won’t catch a cold.”

  I clenched my teeth, clamping on the desire to send at the taheert some nasty spell with a long-term effect. Mervin seemed to acquire a sense of humor, together with a knack of finding the most improper time for jokes.

  “May I enter now?” I raised my voice, irritated.

  “No. Wait.”

  Sighing again, I sat down a couple of steps from the false unicorn, took a small branch from the snow and began tousling the creature’s mane. The unicorn remained immobile, paying no attention whatsoever to my efforts. It seemed everybody had conspired to ignore me.

  I threw the branch away, drew my knees closer to my chest and hugged them. I felt miserable, tired, cold in spite of my magic, and hungry. My imagination stirred and decided to cheer me up with pictures of tasty dishes. Intricately decorated with fragrant greens, put on the thinnest porcelain, were a great number of deliciously roasted meats, vegetables and all kinds of baked goods. Golden cups were filled with refreshing drinks, giving energy and power. In my daydream, I brought one of the cups to my mouth and sipped a rich velvet taste with a note of iron saltiness that ever came with the Kadaries’ blood…

  At my terrified scream, Mervin dashed out of the house and stared at the unicorn trying to press its head to my lap and me pushing the creature’s muzzle away. The unicorn gave a pitiful neighing but didn’t stop.

  “Take it away!” I looked at Mervin pleadingly. “Please, make it go away!”

  The creature stared
at me with reproachful eyes and neighed again. But Mervin didn’t even try to save me.

  “It has accepted you.”

  “What?” in my surprise, I stopped pushing the false unicorn away. It used the opportunity and immediately snuggled to me with its whole body. At least it was warm.

  “Has it accepted me because I’m a virgin?” I clarified.

  Mervin gave an embarrassed cough. “I am afraid the creatures of the Abyss don’t care about that detail.” He said. “But the guard accepted you as his mistress. I saw them behaving like that only with Mothers of the Kadaries’ clans.”

  I shook with anger. “Don’t compare me with the Kadaries! They are damned, one day the Abyss will destroy them all!”

  Mervin looked me over as a previously unknown species, and nodded calmly.

  “Of course, She will. One day.”

  It sounded as if he was humoring me, and the thought caused a surge of anger. No wretched mortal was allowed to… l jolted as if doused with icy water. Everything was just wrong. I wondered why I had thought of Mervin as a ’wretched mortal’. I wondered why the furry beast was gluing itself to me. I wondered why there was blood, the Kadaries’ blood, in the imagined cup. There were no answers.

  “Mervin, what’s going on with me?”

  The taheert sighed. “Let’s come inside, it is safe now.”

  “What about this one?” taking a firm hold of the creature’s mane, I tossed the animal aside. The last thing I needed was a unicorn under my skirts.

  “Tell it to stay outside and guard us,” Mervin offered.

  “Eh -” He didn’t seem to be joking, but... “How?”

  “It’s up to you. Such a creature will understand an order no matter the language or the choice of words.”

  Feeling a bit silly, I turned to the unicorn. “You. Stay outside, don’t enter the house and guard us from all evil.”

  The creature’s eyes filled in with canine devotion and an honest joy to serve. The unicorn neighed happily and ran to the corner of the cabin.

  The windowless house seemed gloomy and unwelcoming, burning wood in the hearth its single source of light. Yet the warmth from the furnace was the only thing I cared about. I had finally released my magic and shivered with cold. Frosty air bit at my bare legs, slid along my arms and under my summer dress. Any commoner could protect herself from winter better than I could now.

  “How much time will it take to restore your reserve?” I asked, but Mervin, his back to me, was busy with something and didn’t answer. Who in the Abyss had gotten the crazy idea to make this bad-mannered el’Tuan my el’ero, I wondered.

  The thought made me smile: my el’ero, my taheert, mine…

  “I don’t know, Raisha,” Mervin finally turned to me and handed me something wrapped in a large withered leaf.

  “Kadaries left some supplies here, so we won’t famish,” he explained.

  Unwrapping the leaf, I stared at whatever it was.

  “Right,” I muttered under my breath. “We won’t famish, we will die from this.”

  “Don’t be picky,” Mervin took the yellowish plate from my hands and broke it into halves. “I have eaten thej-lo many times and didn’t die.”

  “Are you sure?” I looked at him measuredly. “Because your constant paleness is quite suspicious. Deathly paleness, I’d say.”

  The taheert returned one half of the thej-lo to me, bit at his, chewed it and said thoughtfully, “All the more reason for you to try this dish. Perhaps your looks will become more suitable for a real princess and less so for a red-cheeked peasant girl.”

  For a few moments, I gaped at him.

  Mervin’s dark eyes sparkled with amusement.

  “You’ve got a fever,” I announced resolutely and placed my hand against his pleasantly warm forehead. “You are already delusional. That’s the only explanation for your improbable comparison of the most beautiful girl of our kingdom to some poor peasant. Yes,” I nodded sagely, looking into his incredulous eyes. “Only illness can explain your mistake. But fear not, a few hours of rest and you’ll see the truth again.”

  With that, I looked down humbly, as a good-mannered daughter of a noble house was supposed to, and started to re-braid my long hair. Mervin made a sound that could have been both a dying groan and a stifled laugh. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye in case it was the former and froze. Behind Mervin, shadows were creeping, inky black and twisting, like tentacles of a giant octopus, soundless and almost invisible in the gloom of the house.

  The taheert noticed my changed expression and turned around swiftly.

  “They are not dangerous; just shadows, similar to our spying threads,” he squeezed my hand gently. “It’s all right, Riel. Whoever sent them won’t come through the Kadaries’ defense and harm us. This place is still safe.”

  I shook his hand off and jumped to my feet.

  “Out!” I ordered the shadows, my voice oddly distorted and harsh. “Get out of here. Or I will send your master to the deepest layer of the Abyss.”

  The shadows stopped, as if wondering, and I felt the anger boiling. No one dared to disobey my will.

  “Now!” it was a whiplash command and the shadows shrank fearfully, creeping back, while I stood there with fury smoldering inside of me.

  Mervin’s hands touched my shoulders, seeking to calm me down. Were he anybody else, this movement could have cost him his life. Yet he was my el’ero and I wouldn’t harm him. For the first time in many centuries, I had a mortal body and a soul, divided into two halves. It might have been a bit odd and even painful, but I didn’t want to lose it, couldn’t afford to lose it.

  I slid through Mervin’s fingers and moved to the exit. Somebody had started his own game, had chosen to challenge me. I would find the culprit and feed his flesh to the beasts of the Abyss.

  “Wait!” Mervin called. I stopped and turned to him. What did my el’ero want? The man’s expression was unreadable but I sensed a storm of interweaving emotions in him, so many it wasn’t possible to distinguish them.

  “Why do you need Riel?” he asked.

  I raised my brow.

  “I am Riel.”

  “No, you are not. What are you?”

  “Am I to report to you, mortal?” I felt vaguely amused. “The taheert master can’t see the obvious?”

  “Where are you going?” He changed the topic.

  “I’ve got a problem,” I said patiently. “I’ll return as soon as it is solved.”

  “I will go with you,” so much stubbornness in his voice, such a devoted el’ero. Would he really follow me to the Abyss? It seemed he would.

  “You need to stay here and regain your strength,” I told him gently. “Your wounds were quite serious for a mortal.”

  “Raisha,” Mervin looked at me with a sudden and deep tenderness and my mortal body trembled. I had never seen such an expression on his face. The taheert came up to me slowly while I stood, frozen, unable to avert my eyes from his face. He hugged me, touched his lips to mine, and a sudden shock made my body quiver.

  Wrong reaction, said a somber part of me, but my will and my mind became the hostages of my mortal body. The body trusted, the body didn’t feel any danger. One more kiss, deeper, harder and a whispered word, which cocooned my awakening Self into an invisible cobweb and put it to sleep.

  Interlude 2.

  Mervin caught Riel before she fell down. Her deep blue eyes were slowly losing the freezing cold of eternal winter. Her eyelids fluttered and closed. The ethereal shell melted, leaving the girl in the real world.

  Riel stirred, whispered something inaudible and smiled through the charmed sleep. He could fancy this smile being only for him. He could forget what Great House Riel belonged to, forget about her father and brothers and see only a beautiful girl, barely out of childhood, sometimes hotheaded and vain, sometimes naive, trusting and kind.

  Yet the most difficult task was to forget what had taken root in her soul and soon, very soon, would break out of
its mortal prison.

  Chapter 5.

  Softness and warmth surrounded my body, but the air I breathed was still cold. Without opening my eyes, I cuddled deeper under a fluffy blanket, smiled and fell asleep again.

  Waking up next time, I wondered drowsily if it was day or night. I couldn’t tell because those crazy Kadaries had forgotten to cut windows in the cabin.

  The Kadaries!

  The cabin!

  I recalled coming here, recalled the unicorn, the shadows, and my decision to go and punish the one who had sent them. I also recalled the first kiss and the second, which had put me to sleep. I recalled it all but nothing seemed real.

  Mervin. I would make him tell me everything.

  Jumping to my feet, I stepped forward and belatedly remembered to look where I was going. Mervin lay on the floor quite close to my impromptu bed and I almost squashed his hand. Fortunately, the taheert had a quick reaction.

  “I’m not a bedroom rug,” he informed me politely, sitting up and examining his fingers.

  “Sorry,” I murmured, embarrassed, and asked, “What are you doing here?”

  “Sleeping.”

  Right. Silly me.

  “Explain,” I sat down back on the fur blanket. “Whatever has happened to me – is it the Abyss seduction?”

  The taheert shook his head slowly.

  “I wish it were that simple.”

  “Simple? What is the Abyss seduction?”

  Mervin shrugged. “It’s a strong desire to return to the Abyss, to open the Portals or the Gates over and over. Those seduced see the most beautiful night sky you can imagine and hear the haunting voices, calling for them. Sooner or later they decide to stay in the Abyss forever.”

  I bit my lip - Mervin was right, I hadn’t experienced anything like this. “What has happened to me?”

  The taheert stared at his hands. “I wish it were a mistake -”

  “Mervin!” his omissions began irritating me.

  He finally raised his head and looked me in the eyes. “You are possessed.”