I gave her a brief explanation. She was already familiar with my abilities, so I didn’t have to say much. While I talked she finished removing her armor and sat down on the bed, clad only in her linen undershirt now. I sat beside her and put my arms around her. She leaned into me, resting her head against my shoulder.
She was dead tired, I could see that at a glance. Resting my chin on her head, I could smell metal and sweat in her hair. Not the sexy kind of sweat, mind you. Women often think they smell bad when in fact their perspiration can sometimes be almost an aphrodisiac. This was not that sort of smell. It was the smell of sweat that has soaked into a linen head covering, then been allowed to grow old and stale. Combine that with the pungent scent of iron and you begin to approach the stench of it. Anyone who has worn armor is familiar with it, and no one has ever called it pleasant.
She sniffed my chest. “You stink.”
If that wasn’t the pot calling the kettle black, I didn’t know what was, but her nose was probably blind to her own aroma. “You need a bath too.”
Years ago, inspired by the baths in the palace at Albamarl, I had built something similar for our mountain home. In fact, I had built two baths, one for the family, and a separate, private bath just for Penny and me. The water was provided by a spring-fed cistern some distance up the mountain side, and I had added an enchantment to heat the water coming from one of the pipes.
The family bath was small, accommodating only one person at a time, but ours was large enough for two, though we usually took turns anyway. Today, we bathed together, washing each other’s hair while she caught me up on recent events.
“I heard Irene and Lynaralla are sick,” I said as our discussion began.
“Which is why you are not,” responded Penny.
The strange visions I had seen during my madness came to the fore, and I wondered what had been real and what had been delusion. “What did they do?” I asked.
“I’ve never been so proud of our children, Mort,” said Penny. “I couldn’t do anything, but they—they pulled together and found a way.”
Dying of curiosity, I wanted to rush her, but I held my tongue and waited.
“It was Matthew’s idea initially,” she continued. “Something you said got him started. He talked to Elise, and then Gary, questioning them about how the body works.”
Gary was not human, he was a man-like machine Matthew had brought back from another dimension, an android. I could well imagine he might have a different viewpoint on the knowledge that the She’Har might have.
“He came up with some sort of plan, but only Lynaralla could do it. It required She’Har spellweaving, but she didn’t know how. So Moira forged a link between them, something beyond the normal telepathic communicating you all do sometimes, not that there’s anything normal about the things the rest of you do. Somehow it enabled him to control her seed-mind directly.”
What she was describing was fascinating, and I already knew what he must have used her spellweaving to do. They had probably created a spellweave to cleanse the blood. Some of my fever dreams made sense now. The ‘ritual’ I had imagined had probably resulted from that. The spellweave would have been used to slowly remove my blood, filtering it and returning it to my body.
“But it didn’t work,” continued Penny.
“Why not?”
“It was too slow, and we feared you would die before it could do you enough good. So, using a trick Gary told them about, they tested everyone’s blood to see if it was compatible with yours,” explained Penny.
“A trick?”
She nodded. “Matthew will explain it to you when he sees you. I didn’t understand it, but the end result was that your blood was compatible with some of us, but not others. If they had used the wrong person’s blood it would have killed you.”
I was confused now. “Use it for what?”
“To replace yours. Conall, Gram, Irene, Matthew, and Lynaralla all had blood that could be used. I wanted them to use mine, but it wasn’t compatible, nor was Moira’s.”
Gradually, I understood what they had done, and I couldn’t help but think it was a brilliant idea. If my kidneys were in shock or not functioning, they had used their own to do the work for me. Rather than wait on the spellweave to filter my blood, they had exchanged blood directly with me and let their own kidneys cleanse it.
“Conall and Gram were first,” said Penny. “They each exchanged roughly half their blood with yours, but afterward both of them became violently ill.” She saw the look of alarm in my eyes and rushed to add, “But they’re fine now. They got better after a day or two.
“You were still raving and very ill, though, so Matthew repeated the process using only himself the next day. They thought since you’d already had some done that maybe it would only take one person, but he got even sicker. He was throwing up until last night.
“Irene insisted they use her the next day, which was yesterday, but to make it more tolerable, they included Lynaralla too. Both of them became ill, but it was much less severe than what the others went through. They’ll probably be right as rain by morning.” Penny gave me a worried look. “There’s a catch, though. Elise warned me that we might be wasting our time. You might seem to get better, but your kidneys might not recover. If so, you’ll get sick again. We might have to keep doing this indefinitely, or watch you die.”
Smiling, I leaned over and kissed her. “Don’t worry. Whether my kidneys recovered or not, what I did today reset my entire body. I’m fine.”
She exhaled slowly, letting the last of her tension leave her body. Penny had been holding that fear back the entire time we had been talking. “I hope you’re right.”
I held her tightly, feeling her shoulders shake. She didn’t cry out loud. There had been too many tears over the past week, so this spell passed quickly. I wanted to do more than just hold her, but I could tell she was tired. So we dried off and went to bed.
The sun was still up, it was only late afternoon, but Penny was exhausted. Even so, she had trouble sleeping, so I used my power to give her a gentle push, easing her into a restful slumber. I wasn’t actually tired, but I stayed with her until the peace and quiet overcame my newfound energy, and I drifted off beside her.
She woke me a few hours later. Night had come, but the intensity in her gaze told me she wouldn’t return to slumber until a more basic need had been satisfied.
When I returned to sleep a while later, it was with a smile on my face.
Chapter 14
We woke early, very early, with nearly four hours until dawn, but that’s what happens when you go to bed before the sun has finished setting. It isn’t something I would normally recommend, but after being in bed for over a week it hardly mattered to me.
Penny was shrugging on her armor and buckling straps before I had even finished wiping the sleep from my eyes. Aside from the smell, she looked pretty good in it. Well, she always looked good to me. In all honesty, mail isn’t a good look for anyone. It sags in places, even if it’s well fitted, which hers was. It also completely obscures the form of whoever is wearing it, muscles, breasts, whatever you like about yourself, it won’t be discernible. Forget the romance paintings, real people wear a padded gambeson underneath, and it’s so thick it’s almost like sewing pillows together and then making a coat out of them.
The gambeson is more protection than the mail itself, truth be told, and if you had to forgo one for the other, it would be the mail. A good gambeson could stop most arrows all by itself, and it was the only protection you had against blunt force attacks, mail or no mail. That’s the power of fifteen plus layers of linen.
The mail she wore was enchanted, which made it impossible to cut or pierce it. It also protected the metal rings from rust and reduced the weight, but even with those advantages, it was the gambeson that did most of the real work of protecting my wife’s precious body.
I was glad I didn’t have to wear that rubbish. Being a wizard has a lot of perks.
&
nbsp; Not to be outdone, I started putting on my dapper black and red hunting leathers. They were stylish as well as enchanted to provide some protection. From what Penny had told me the day before, today was the day that our expeditionary force would ride out to confront the matter of Lancaster’s sudden jungle disappearance.
“What do you think you’re doing?” asked Penny, her eyes sending a clear message that I was once again doing something terribly wrong.
I assumed it was my decisions to come, despite my recent stint at death’s door. “I’m healthy as a horse. I’m coming with you.”
“Not wearing that, you’re not.”
“You prefer my naughty courtier look from yesterday?” I quipped.
Lifting her scabbarded sword, she pointed it at the armor stand in the corner.
“Oh, no! Not that! I’d rather go naked!” I stated bravely. She was pointing at my enchanted plate. It was some of the first armor I had ever made, and it was a match to the armor that my friend Dorian had once worn. I probably hadn’t put it on in over a decade.
Now, before I go on, let me state one thing clearly. Plate, even a full set of plate, is more comfortable than mail, lighter too, even if it isn’t enchanted. It still requires a padded gambeson, but the gambeson doesn’t need to be quite as thick. It also provides considerable freedom of movement, despite how it looks. I had long intended to make a set for Penny, but life always had more pressing matters for me to attend to.
“You’ll wear it, or you’ll stay home,” said Penny evenly.
Having just woken up, my good sense and good humor were paper thin. “Remind me again, which one of us is the Count di’ Cameron here?”
I flinched inwardly when I saw her face harden. Marching toward me, she gathered the front of my shirt in her fist and pressed me back until I felt the wall behind me. “You’re not the Count of anything until we walk out that door! You’re my husband! How many times have I seen you injured or nearly killed? How long was I a widow, thinking you dead and gone for good? This past week was just a reminder of that. How many more times do I have to be scared to death, thinking I’ve lost you? Do you care?”
And if I didn’t feel enough like an ass, she added, “Put it on, please—if you love me.”
Several of Chad Grayson’s favorite phrases came to mind, but they were all directed at myself. I nodded, and unsure how to apologize I said simply, “You’re right.”
So, I put the damned armor on, with her assistance of course. Despite its many advantages, putting plate on by yourself isn’t a practical undertaking. It’s possible sure, but it takes twice as long, and you’re likely to wind up with some of the straps too loose.
She gave me a kiss when we finished getting it all secured, and despite being a middle-aged man, I felt like a very good boy.
I fastened my belt of deadly surprises, took up my staff, and we went out the door. It was time to face the world.
The rest of the house was just beginning to stir. There would be no breakfast at home today, we’d be eating in the castle with the rest of the armsmen. Every single one of my children intended to come, and we allowed it, except for poor Irene. She was too young, and still hadn’t come into her power yet, and she didn’t have armor, or any training.
If Penny had had her preference, none of them would have come, and I felt much the same, but today wasn’t a day for half-measures. Plus, we intended to keep some of them in ‘reserve’ rather than putting them in harm’s way. There was another, smaller argument, when they were all forced to wear armor.
Conall was fine with it, though he didn’t have enchanted mail. He wore a gambeson and normal mail. Matthew objected to his magical armor, arguing that his enchantments and other devices provided far better protection already, but I overruled him immediately. Moira and Lynaralla had no armor at all, but we found gambesons that would fit them, and they were destined for the reserve portion of our force anyway.
By the time we reached the main hall in the keep it was bustling with activity. The kitchen had been hard at work for an hour already, and the food was beginning to come out, even though dawn was still almost an hour away. Armsmen were everywhere, sitting down, moving around, entering and leaving, it was organized chaos.
At the center of it all were Sir Gram and Captain Draper. As a nobleman, and the only knight present, Gram was nominally in charge of the men, but Captain Draper was far older and more experienced. Carl Draper had been the captain of my guard for years and with Cyhan wounded, it fell to him to organize the men. Gram assisted primarily by standing nearby and paying close attention. On any matters that came up for debate, he settled them by supporting the captain’s decision.
The hall fell temporarily quiet as I and my family entered. During normal dining activities everyone waited to sit until I had arrived, but this was no normal breakfast. Raising my voice, I addressed them, “Forget about formalities for now. Finish your preparations and fill your bellies. We leave in less than an hour!”
Gram nodded to me, and Captain Draper resumed talking to the knot of men around him. The noise and clamor returned to its previous volume. Penny and I sat at the high table and began eating.
Chad Grayson appeared moments later, clad in the mail I had crafted for him years ago. I couldn’t remember the last time I had seen him wear it. There was an enchanted sword on his hip that I didn’t recognize and a heavy warbow in his hand. A quiver of arrows rode at his hip and my magesight could detect still more bundled away in the pack over his shoulder. All of them had enchanted metal points.
“You almost look heroic,” I told him as he sat down beside Conall.
His face puckered in a sour expression. “I feel like a jackass in all this shit. My only consolation is seeing you all dandied up in yer fancy plate like a prize show horse.”
I couldn’t think of a decent reply, so I just whinnied at him instead. A few of the kids were kind enough to laugh, though it wasn’t funny enough to warrant it.
An hour later, we were on the road, well some of us were. My fifty men at arms were on horseback, led by Captain Draper. Conall and Lynaralla rode with them. Penny was on dragonback, and I sat behind her, marveling at how large Layla had grown. The beast was as long as four wagons placed end to end. Matthew was mounted on his dragon, Zephyr, who though he was relatively newly hatched, had grown large enough to support a single rider. Gram and Chad were astride Grace, and Moira rode her dragon, Cassandra. Their dragons were nearly as large as Layla.
We made an impressive sight, fifty horsemen on the road and four dragons flying above them. Just as impressive, though not visibly so, was the fact that our group included no less than five wizards. Penny and I weren’t taking any chances today.
The dragons could fly much faster than the men on horse could travel, so we went ahead to examine the edge of the newly arrived ‘jungle’. It would take the soldiers almost four hours to reach that point, but on dragonback it was just a matter of a quarter of an hour’s flight.
We landed a good distance from the edge, and I relayed my orders to the others. “Moira, you and Cassandra fly back to the riders, let them know the road is clear, then return. The rest of you hold this position until they get here. Penny and I will fly over and get a good look at things from above.”
Gram objected, “My lord, I don’t think it wise for you and the Countess to do the scouting. You should let…”
I cut him off, “Noted, Sir Gram, now do as I command.”
“Yes, milord,” he responded.
That was rude, said Grace, Gram’s dragon, projecting her thoughts to my mind.
The same goes for you, I told the dragon. Whenever I heard her thoughts or voice I couldn’t help but remember her as a stuffed bear, which is how she had started her life. She had been a spellbeast created by Moira to animate one of her toys, but our family had grown so fond of her that she was later used to give life to one of the new dragons. This is a military expedition and I expect everyone to follow orders, I added.
She sniffed mentally. Well I, for one, am not a soldier.
I didn’t respond to that, and Gram must have started talking to her, for she said nothing more to me. Penny sent the command to Layla and with several great downstrokes of her wings, we were airborne once more.
“How would you like to do this?” asked Penny, leaning back and yelling into the wind.
It was easier for me to reply, since I could put my mouth close to her ear, “Take us up a thousand feet or so, then fly east. Stay just beyond the boundary.”
She did, and we flew that way for several minutes while the miles vanished beneath us. One thing became immediately apparent. The boundary between the new jungle and the old land that we expected to see was impossibly straight, as though it had been drawn by a giant hand with a ruler. In a few spots the massive trees at the edge looked as though they had been cut in half by a razor, perfectly obeying the boundary line. Then at some point, the line changed, angling away from us in a northeasterly direction. Again the line was perfect, and it met the previous one creating a precise angle.
Maybe a hundred and twenty degrees, I guessed mentally.
We followed this new direction for a while, and after traveling a similar distance it changed again, heading to the northwest. If there was a similar shift ahead it would take us west, parallel to the first part of the boundary we had seen. I tapped Penny on the shoulder. “I have a hunch. Turn Layla around and follow the same route we came. I’m going to fly above and see if I can get a better view.”
She wasn’t fond of my plan. “We should stay together.”
“This will only take a few minutes. I can do it much faster this way.” Then I stood and let the wind sweep me off of Layla’s broad back.
Sometimes being me is pretty damn awesome. I used my power to shape a shield around me, catching the wind, and then I caught the air itself with my aythar, directing it according to my will. I spun head over heels in a graceful loop and then rocketed straight up toward the grey clouds above.
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