by Richard Due
Lily stole a glance at Cora, who raised her eyebrows ever so slightly.
“One thing is certain,” said Keegan. “Curse will know if a dread-knight was involved. And that is of the utmost importance in the here and now. Where did it come from? Did it cross over from Darwyth? Does it live here on Dain? Has Curse had dealings with it before? Are they in league?”
“The answer to any one of those questions would be of great value,” acknowledged Dubb, looking at Raewyn. “Tavin would want us to know.”
Raewyn nodded.
“Of course,” she said. “But it will take me a little time to undo the spell. I spent half the night placing it upon him. Do we have the time?”
“No. I think not,” said Keegan. He passed his open hand over Tavin’s face, and instantly, Tavin began writhing on the table, gasping, grunting, and struggling with his bindings. His eyes fluttered open, but he was disoriented.
“Tavin,” said Keegan in a commanding voice. “Tavin, tell me about the dread-knight.”
Tavin’s face twitched with pain. His head whipped around to face Keegan. He let out a high cackle, and when he spoke, it was in a strange language.
“That’s the gibberish I was talking about,” said Raewyn.
“It said, ‘I rather hoped you were dead,’” said Lily.
Tavin’s eyes shifted to Lily, and recognition kindled in them. His face changed, and Tavin clutched his balled fists to his chest, rocking side to side to face Lily better. Savagely, he flung his head back and forth, as though trying to clear his vision, flicking sweat from his knotted hair.
A bit of Tavin surfaced. “Lily,” he said in a low voice, the odd accent faint. “Where,” he croaked.
Lily took a small step forward. “You’re in Raewyn’s house. What does she need to do?”
Tavin shook his head violently. He reached out one of his shaking, balled fists. “Where,” he repeated, and his eyes rolled back in his head, showing the whites. His head banged heavily on the table.
“Tavin!” called Keegan. “Tell me about the dread-knight.”
Tavin’s head twisted toward Keegan. Despite his mighty effort, the real Tavin had submerged again. When he spoke this time, the strange, heavily accented tongue was strong. The very last word he pronounced was clearly “Keegan.”
“Curse recognizes you,” observed Dubb. “Lily, what did it say?”
Lily blushed. “I’m not going to repeat that, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t want Keegan talking to Tavin.”
“Tavin!” said Keegan. “Tavin, did you know this dread-knight? Had you met with him before?”
Tavin arched back his head, the muscles in his neck straining. He beat his balled fists together and spoke to no one in particular.
Lily continued to translate, “‘Do not trouble yourself with the dead.’”
“Tavin doesn’t know, does he?” asked Keegan. “But you do, don’t you, Curse?”
“‘Demented. Insane. He is useless now, useless. So close. Now let us die.’” And some of the fight went out of Tavin’s body.
“So close to what?” Lily asked Curse.
Tavin’s face fell sideways toward Lily, his eyes narrowing.
“Little maggot, you live?” said Curse.
“So close to what?” Lily repeated.
Tavin’s eyes blinked. “I’m fading,” and he laughed a cruel laugh. “Are there no more?”
Lily felt her recent memories roiling in her head. Did she have what she needed to solve the puzzle? Had she heard and seen all the clues? She felt like a fisherman with too few lines in the water.
Lily looked at Cora. And suddenly, she had it.
“I know what Curse needs to live,” Lily said to Cora in the common tongue.
Cora nodded her head and gave Lily an encouraging smile.
“And I know something else.” Lily stepped closer and looked into Tavin’s eyes. She willed herself to speak in the exact manner of Curse, but in trying to bring the words from her mind to her tongue, she realized it was too difficult. Picking one language she could tell was very old, she asked, “Why is Tavin so important to you?”
“In seeking his end I have found my own,” whined Curse.
“You went to destroy the dragon clutch.”
“Foul, poisoned beasts! Kill them! Kill them all!”
“But you found something else that night, as you were coming back, didn’t you? You found a dread-knight. So you set out after it. What happened next?”
“I meant to kill it. But Tavin failed me. The dread-knight cut our leg.”
“You mean Tavin’s leg,” said Lily, anger rising in her voice. “And you didn’t say anything because you wanted Tavin to die.”
“Yes. No. It was a mistake!”
“So, if I save Tavin’s life, I’ll be saving yours as well?”
Tavin’s head stopped swaying back and forth.
“It’s too late,” said Curse, without much conviction. “Too . . . late . . . ?”
Lily smiled. She knew that if she didn’t want Curse to know what she was truly thinking, she would have to feign total confidence. “Of course, it doesn’t matter to me either way. The two of you are one, and much too dangerous. You’ve already tried to kill me once.” Lily steeled herself. “I’d feel much safer if you both were dead!” she spat.
Tavin’s eyes began to twitch from side to side. “How would you save us?” asked Curse, and Lily knew it had taken the bait.
“Tavin, Curse. I would be saving Tavin,” said Lily. “You would just be coming along for the ride.”
She moved away from the table and stood behind Dubb, biding her time, peering around him to watch Tavin’s face. Curse briefly pleaded to each person in the room, then turned to Lily. “Why do they not answer me?”
“Strange, isn’t it?” said Lily. “It’s almost like you’ve forgotten how to speak their language.”
Tavin’s body began to strain again under the bindings, muscles rippling across his frame.
“Save us! You must save us. You do not know what is at risk,” Curse implored.
“You are beholden to something—or someone, aren’t you?” asked Lily. “But you failed somehow.”
“I didn’t know,” whined Curse. “I didn’t know he was the last. I cannot allow the last to fail.”
“Who, or what, are you bound to?”
Tavin thrashed. “Not allowed to say! It is against the way I was spoken! You must save us if you can. You must!”
Lily stepped out from behind Dubb. “No! You tried to kill me! Die!”
“I have failed!” it wailed. “All is lost!”
Finally having created the opening she was looking for, Lily said, “Wait. Perhaps there is a way.” Lily’s eye drifted to Cora, who seemed to understand that Lily had finally reached a stage of bargaining.
“Be precise, Lily,” said Cora.
“What do you have in mind?” asked Curse.
“If I were to cure Tavin of this illness, then you would have to swear to protect my well-being, by the exact same contract that binds you to Tavin.”
“All right,” agreed Curse hastily, and Tavin’s face smiled a thin smile. “I promise. Now cure him.”
That was too easy.
“No. You must swear.”
“All right, I swear,” said Curse.
Lily hesitated. Until a short time ago, Lily would not have trusted Curse on any account. But now she understood that Curse was a spoken thing, and that Curse had a stake in Tavin’s protection . . . . Words ruled in this game. Words were something that Curse could be bound to. That changed everything, for where there were rules, there could be bargains.
“I’m not interested in playing games, Curse,” chided Lily. “Now repeat after me. And don’t change a
single word: I swear, upon him who spoke me that I will see to Lily Winter’s well-being from this time forward to the time of my lifting.”
“I swear upon him who spoke me—”
“Wait! I want to change that part.”
“Foul-tongued child—spit out your words and let them lie!” Tavin smiled grotesquely. “The bloom is off the rose, now,” he said coyly. “Would that it were to smell as sweet.”
Lily glanced at the scar on Tavin’s leg and was horrified to see a ridge of bumps forming underneath it, stretching the skin.
“You’re doing that!” Lily cried.
“Not much time for anyone, I suppose,” sneered Curse.
Dubb, who had started pacing, also took notice of the ridges forming along Tavin’s scar.
“I’m very sorry, Lily. But your time is up. We can’t allow these blooms to burst through his skin. The poison spore will become airborne and infect everyone here, including you. Containing such an outbreak would take the efforts of every healer within a hundred miles.”
“Just give me one minute!” shouted Lily. “Just one!”
“You have until I can fetch help to carry him to the pyre,” said Dubb, and he hastened from the room in search of Andros.
Lily turned to Tavin. “Repeat this: I swear upon the one who spoke me that I will see to Lily Winter’s well-being from this time forward to the time of my lifting.”
Curse repeated the sentence perfectly.
“I have done what you asked. Now you must fulfill your end of the bargain.”
Lily paused. “I’ll need to speak to Tavin.”
“What! I told you that was not possible. He is too far gone! Are you telling me you don’t know how to save him? How did I not see your lies?”
“I didn’t lie. I have a piece of knowledge you overlooked.”
“Carrion of lies! You have tricked me, but it will get you nothing!”
“On the contrary, it will get me everything. You are correct that I don’t know the answer myself. But, I know that Tavin does. And by suppressing him, you’ve hidden it from yourself. You’re lying about Tavin not being able to talk. You’re holding him back!”
Tavin’s eyes stared at Lily with awe, but it was Curse who looked out from behind them. “You are a formidable little maggot. Fair enough.”
Tavin’s eyelids fell shut, and the rate of his breathing increased.
“Tavin!” said Lily. “Tavin! You said it’s not too late. How?”
Dubb and Andros entered the small room.
Tavin lifted one of his raised fists. “Where,” he croaked, only this time he spoke in Dainish.
“Has she gotten anywhere?” Dubb asked. Raewyn shook her head. “Andros, you take his shoulders. I’ll get the feet.” With their daggers, they cut the cords binding Tavin to the great wooden table.
And then, in a flash, Lily understood everything. Outside the walls of Bairne, even in his delusional state, Tavin hadn’t been striking out senselessly at the blackmage. He’d seen something—something he thought would help. Lily leapt to Tavin’s hand and tried to pry apart his fingers. But his fingers were sealed like a vise.
“It’s in his hand!” she cried. “He’s not saying “where” as in what place. He’s saying “wear” as in to put on!”
Dubb glanced at Raewyn. She shook her head. “I would have detected anything magical in his hand,” she said.
Dubb and Andros lifted Tavin. Lily wrapped her arms around Tavin’s forearm and held on tight.
“You don’t understand! After Tavin cut off the blackmage’s arm, Grimm saw them fighting over it. Don’t you see? Tavin saw something: an amulet, a ring, something he thought could help.”
Dubb sighed. “Lily, a blackmage, with a single word, will destroy all his magical artifacts before he dies.”
Unwilling to give up, Lily grasped the first thing that came to her mind. “But if it was in Tavin’s hand! If he’d closed his hand around it—he’s Dragondain, right? He’s resistant to lunamancy. So anything in his fist would be out of reach of the blackmage’s spells.”
Dubb and Andros froze. “There could be something to that,” said Andros.
“The body of the Dragondain can act as a shield,” said Cora, joining in. “I should know, all the times I’ve hidden behind you three.”
Andros and Dubb returned Tavin to the table.
“Raewyn,” said Keegan. “Quickly, try and open his hand.”
Raewyn tried to pry open Tavin’s hand. “His hand is like stone.”
Cora quickly formed her peerin. “I don’t see anything upon it.”
“What if the blackmage created something around it, like a cage, but not actually touching him?” said Lily.
Keegan placed a palm over Tavin’s closed fist. “Lily, come here. I want you to do something for me. I want you to imagine you are holding me to this place, like an anchor. Do you think you can do that?”
Lily gripped the moon coin in her right hand, then closed her left hand around the folds of Keegan’s sleeve and tried as hard as she could to think anchory thoughts.
Keegan looked at Raewyn and Cora. “I’m going to do a little hunting. Maybe I can bring it a little closer to us. Be ready to assist if you think you can.”
Keegan closed his eyes, speaking words Lily didn’t understand. A light flared in his open palm, and as it faded, a dark network of tightly woven lines materialized around Tavin’s hand. It was as though his hand were encased in thinly spun wire.
“I see it,” said Raewyn.
“So can I,” said Dubb. “What is that?”
Keegan did not speak, but continued murmuring his incantation.
Cora peered intently at it through her peerin, “It doesn’t appear in my peerin!” shouted Cora.
Raewyn quickly formed her healer’s peerin. “Nor mine!” she confirmed.
Keegan stopped chanting. “I’ve brought it partly into our world. We must act quickly! We need something sharp.”
Andros stabbed at the densely packed lines with his dagger, but to no avail: the knife passed through easily, but the lines remained.
“Dubb,” croaked Tavin, in the common tongue.
“Tavin!” Dubb cried. “What is it?”
“Sharp . . . sharp as moonlight.”
Dubb leapt away from the table and unsheathed his moon sword. “Stand back,” he commanded. Plunging the tip of his blade into the dark mass, he flicked his wrist and sliced through the dark lines. Tavin pushed his hand though the breached area, and with great effort opened his fist.
Inside, resting on his open palm, lay a gold ring with a crudely set black stone, dusted with tiny speckles of a garish, purplish-pink color. Lily seized it at once, even as Keegan protested, and slipped it onto one of Tavin’s fingers.
Once on his finger, the tiny speckles burst into fiery light. Instantly, Tavin’s body began to convulse. He began to scream so loudly that Lily was certain he was dying. The flesh covering the death-blooms blackened as if burnt. Dubb and Andros struggled to keep Tavin’s hands from clawing at his darkening flesh.
Slowly, in time with the dimming of the ring, Tavin’s flailing subsided. His breathing steadied, like an athlete getting his wind after a great run. His eyes regained their focus.
“I’m all right,” he gasped, and Dubb and Andros released their holds. Tavin pushed himself upright on his elbows. His skin looked healthy, and a brightness that Lily had never seen before flickered in his eyes. He was reinvigorated.
Tavin reached out, offering his hand to Lily, who took it. He gave her a very grave look. “You bargained with Curse,” he said. “I could hear you, as though I were listening from some faraway place.”
“I don’t know how successful I was,” confessed Lily. “It seemed too easy.”
Tavi
n smiled. “Curse wants you to doubt yourself. It wants you to think you’ve failed, and there is no surer way to fail, Lily, than through self-doubt. But I could feel—very clearly—Curse’s intense anger. I believe you succeeded. I owe you my life. It is not a debt I will take lightly. If you should ever—”
“Promise me that at first crossover you will meet with Greydor, the Pride of the Rinn, and offer to him your services as a Dainrider.”
Tavin blinked. He took a deep breath and held it.
No one spoke, although Dubb and Andros grinned at Lily in frank appreciation of her triumph. She’d accomplished something no one had ever done, though many had tried: she’d bested Curse.
Tavin nodded. “Aye, I will do this thing—at first crossover.”
“We will do this thing,” corrected Dubb. He leaned down to Tavin and said, “How do you like that, my friend? No sooner are you out of the frying pan than you’re falling—”
“—into the mouths of Rinn,” finished Andros, who had knelt down to join them. The three men burst into a laughter so fierce that any sane person would have thought all three of them escapees from a lunatic asylum.
Chapter Twelve
The Unexpected Party
Lily wanted to stay for the party that followed, but Cora wouldn’t allow it.
Ember, riding a horse far more beautiful than the nag pulling the wagon, accompanied them. She kept her hood drawn down low, shielding her eyes, and often drifted quite far afield. She started no conversations, and Cora asked her no questions. Lily wondered if Ember had been the woman she’d heard crying in the woods. Shortly before reaching old Pym’s homestead, the lunamancer continued on toward Bairne alone.
“Cora?” said Lily.
“Yes?”
“I don’t want you to tell them what I did.”
“They’ll find out, you know.”
“Yes. But not today. Not this first night. Not right now.”
Cora gave Lily a nod. “That I can do.”
The news of Tavin’s recovery affected everyone differently: Grimm, Darce, and Andra pumped their fists to the sky and cheered. Ren and Prin burst into happy tears. The triplets danced in a circle around Ridley and Teague. Falin gazed up at Rel’ Kah and squinted. Making an O with his thumb and forefinger, he pressed it over his heart. “Looking after one of your own, eh?” he said to the moon, shaking his head and smiling.