by Sandra Waugh
“Rune! Help! Help me!”
Rune reared back, bloody hooves lashing up, neighing from a depth impossible to ignore. A clarion, a warning. And Evie lifted her head, stunned to see the Troth springing at her with claws and teeth spread wide—her mouth barely parted in surprise.
Rune was too far away. I whimpered, “No,” but the Troth, at the height of his leap, was suddenly gone, sword-stabbed and flung by Laurent galloping between beast and prey. Evie never flinched; she simply looked at the Rider as he reined and turned, a barest moment of acknowledgment—
I was back on the cold stone of the Myr Mountains, huddled and shivering after the scorching heat of the market square, eyes unable to adjust to the sudden darkness. But I was laughing too, in hysterical relief. “You heard me, Rune, you heard me!”
“You dare,” Erema whispered. After the roar of battle I could barely hear her words, but I felt the ugly anger beneath them.
I didn’t care. Rune’s cry had saved Evie, and that was all that could matter. I curled into a tighter ball, laughter fading to gasps, trying to squeeze out the wretchedness of the vision. I’d never felt so sick. It was not only the vision that made me ill; the poison was spreading. I groaned and rolled on my back and wiped the cold sweat from my damp cheeks. And then I heaved over and retched, for in the blue dimness I saw Raif’s blood staining my hands—a remaining vision or impossibly real.
“You dare,” Erema repeated. “You dare manipulate.”
And then somehow, ridiculously, I was incensed. Raif, Gharain, the amulet; I could not give up. I would not give up. I struggled to sit upright, the room so close, I could barely breathe. I forced out, “You are but threats and fury as empty as whatever is within you. You cannot kill me; you need me for the amulet. And Rune will save the others.”
She shrieked at me then, and there was nothing pretty left in her. “Look!” she screamed. “Look at me! Look at what you’ve done! Look at what you need!” And she wavered from one image to another to break me and to tempt me: she was Gharain, she was Evie, she was Ruber Minwl, she was the king, she was Raif. Each one called to me in voices that stirred or crushed, yet those I could force myself to ignore, realizing too that Erema was only repeating in image what she’d learned I’d been exposed to. The Breeders might read my energy, but they could not create from it.
I was on my knees now, my wrists wobbling as I pushed to straighten, to stall, to work it out in my sickened brain—how I could take the amulet. “Give me the orb, Erema,” I gasped. “You cannot kill me.”
“That,” she hissed, “is where you are mistaken. Destroy the orb or I will destroy you.”
My ally token; I needed words of help. My fingers scraped along the floor, reaching for the pack where it had fallen away somehow.
Her laughter bellowed, vulgar. She reared up, seeming to fill the space, stamped a foot that shuddered the mountain, and with lyrical sweetness cried out, “Rider!”
And from beneath her, the stone broke and opened. Gharain rose as he had in my dream, torso gleaming naked and wet with cold sweat and damp of the mountain. He stood there blankly, his long sword glittering in the blue light, passion emptied from his most expressive face.
“Gharain!” This could not be; it was too soon. My death dream made real, but too soon—this ending was too soon.
“He won’t hear you, Lark. I’ve claimed him.” Erema reached her hand and slid it over his shoulder, leaning in from behind to press a kiss against the curve at his neck. “Do you see?” Then she smiled, her vile mouth against his skin. “But I can give him back. Break the orb and you can be with him. Look, Lark. He waits for you.”
“You ask me to choose?” I rasped.
“You choose?” Her voice was ever musical in its taunt. “Nay, the choice is mine. You are here because of me. You will destroy the amulet because I wish it, or you will die because I demand it. Either way I win.”
“I will not give you what you want,” I mumbled.
“No?” Erema laughed back, “But you already have, Lark. You are here.”
This was the world upside down and meaningless. It was all for naught—I’d journeyed far and achieved nothing. Too soon! I mouthed to no one. My hand fell listlessly from the pack—nothing. It was simply my time to die.
And Erema was speaking in her lovely voice, gaily saying what I already knew she’d say: “Now, Gharain, finish what you began. Finish what you meant to do.”
My time to die. I looked up at my Complement. I’d do this the Merith way, with dignity.
Gharain raised his sharp sword over his head, arms stretching long, muscles flexing across his chest. In that suspended moment I saw him in the too brief days we’d shared: I saw his glorious smile, his beautiful face, felt the connection radiating through his vibrant touch. Stay true, I heard the hare’s whisper. Stay true. I remembered Nayla’s words, remembered repeating them to Gharain under the oak in Dark Wood: It is what we give to the Earth that allows her to provide.… And I remembered Gharain murmuring, What, Lark? What do I give to you? Say it.…
Complete the circle. I would finish what he’d begun; I would admit out loud what I could not before: my truth. I smiled up at Gharain—his blank gaze glittered, for my own eyes were filled with tears. And I repeated clearly, despite the hoarseness in my throat, the same words he’d offered to me, returning freely what I’d claimed from him: “I love you.”
Erema growled. And beneath that growl, Gharain murmured, “Trust yourself.”
The sword came slicing down.
A THOUSAND LARKS soared in flight, pulling the colors of the Earth with them on their wings and returning to her their cascading song. Four of us stood high on a peak watching them: Evie, the ragged waif, the girl with red-gold hair, and I. A bounty spread out below us—a sweep of color and texture: grays and browns of rock and soil, brilliant greens and ochers of grass and tree, the vibrant blues of lake and stream, and fruit and flower sparking the landscape with splashes of scarlet and plum. A nestling of valley within the arms of encircling hills, the depth of a lake against the soaring reach of mountain …
Awaken! The word shuddered on the breeze. One by one the three other girls lifted arms to sky and soared up, to be lost among the larks. And for a moment I alone remained.
This is what I give to you, Guardian, came the whisper. This is what I give. I was filled with the richness of it all—it poured into my body, radiated outward; it strengthened my bones and charged my blood.
I lifted my arms like the others, exuberant. I was rooted; I flew high. I was power. I was home.
And the voice of the rowan tree echoed through my entire being:
Bring light into dark.
Erema’s growl contorted into a howl and then a roar. It was the first thing I heard, the first thing that made me realize I was still alive, still in the middle of the Myr Mountains.
And then it was cold, and my body roiled with the hukon poison.
I was very alive.
Gharain stood above me, breath heaving as if he’d forged through battle. My gaze slid down to where the point of his sword had gouged the rock beneath my tumbled legs. He’d struck straight through me. I looked up. His eyes were no longer so blank.
He forced something of a smile. “The sword … is not for you.”
No weapons for you. I lay there, still stunned that I was breathing, stunned that I could be alive, but comprehending the Rider Laurent’s words fully for the first time—weapons forged from the Earth could not be used by the Guardian of Life, but neither could they be used against her. The metal had sliced through as if I had not even been there.
Erema’s roar became a shriek as terrible as the swifts’ screams, making the stone tremble. Gharain’s expression turned fierce, his eyes leaving mine at last, and with his own roar of anger, he wheeled on Erema, shouting, “You do not claim me!” Like a blur, his sword went winging sideways, catching the Breeder full across the front.
He did not kill her; maybe he knew he could not, or
maybe he understood this was a revenge far more powerful. The sword sliced across, cleaving the hukon from its prize. A strike through its roots and the crystal orb sprang from Erema’s chest like a gasp. We watched the amulet fling against the hewn ceiling: Erema’s shriek gurgling in thwarted fury; I cringed, thinking it would shatter—but it was a silly thought, for the orb rolled safely to one side, brighter now that it was free from its bonds. I groaned, reaching for it—
Erema lunged at Gharain—pushed, threw, I never knew. Gharain was simply launched against the wall, slamming into it with a sickening thud. I screamed his name, I watched him crumple to the hard floor, and I rolled back to face Erema—she was moving toward me, toward the orb; she was pulling strands of hukon from her breast, braiding it. She lashed out at me with it like a whip, throwing me back, keeping me from my amulet.
“Mine!” she screamed. And lashed with the hukon again.
I jerked away hard against the cavern wall, her threats ringing off the stone, into me, then wormed my way forward again, sobbing that Erema already stood over the orb, blocking it, weaving a new web from the lengths of hukon she pulled from her own body. I saw my palms pushing on the rough floor, thinking inanely of my ability to calm the Earth through my hands.…
Power of hand renders dark into light. The verse from my fate rushed through me, so similar to the rowan tree’s whisper: Bring light into dark. Twig’s voice called over: Understand a moonstone’s power within the hands of a Guardian.
But I’d lost the moonstone long back. It was probably cold and dark now, only a simple blue gem that—
A simple blue … Power of hand … I pushed myself from the floor with a wrenching groan, stumbling to stand upright—leaning into the walls and beginning to laugh as I did so, for I felt already the little buzzing beneath my palms as I pressed against the blue-tinged rock.
Erema’s head jerked up at my noise, glaring at me. “What do you do?” she hissed.
Her hands held the net she’d created, complete, ready to capture the little orb that gleamed in the corner. But my hands had bested hers, for the cave was already shimmering. I pushed palm against wall, against ceiling, against anyplace I could reach, sparking the stone, raging at her through pain and joy. “What do I do, Breeder? I bring light into dark.”
And the boundary of moonstones caught my energy and mirrored it back, and the hall burst into dazzling radiance.
Moonstones. These caves were carved from them; maybe the whole mountain was carved from them. Everywhere I pressed, light exploded, until there was such brilliance I had to squint against the glare. They were rougher; they’d not the precise clarity of the palm-sized oval that Twig had cut for me. But however this cave was hewn, facets had been created, and they pulled a Guardian’s energy and reflected it.
“You … clever … girl …” The words hissed out of Erema as she stood stunned. Then, with venomous and turbulent violence, she began hurling her net with shrieks of need, of wrath, looking to sweep the amulet back within its folds. But the room was too brilliant now; she could not see where to throw. And if hukon burned me, then this light burned Erema. Suddenly she was no longer the image of the beautiful lady; she was whatever desire looks like when it contorts to fury—something huge and dark, of glaring eye and gnashing ferocity. And yet that was neither she, for as soon as that monstrosity appeared, it was gone, spiraling in the room like a whirlwind and exploding with a wail and a shriek. As if it turned her inside out, the bleakness within her unleashed. She was vapor, and then she was nothing. Her cloak fell to the floor in a puddle.
She’d been consumed by Chaos.
There was no time to consider her ruin. The whirlwind shuddered through the tiny room, shattering the moonstones, my eardrums. It tossed me to the floor even as the floor cracked and lurched upward, and I threw myself sideways toward Gharain, wrapping my arms around his still form, rolling us both to avoid being crushed or stabbed by shards of ceiling.
We had to move. We had to leave. I let go of Gharain, twisting up to look for the orb. It shone still, steady and true and unharmed by all the bits of rock cascading like rain from the ceiling, wedged in that corner between floor and wall. I crawled my way to it, ducking my head, dodging pieces of moonstone as they hit the floor, their light fizzing out in streaks. And then at last, my hand wrapped around the little sphere and I pulled it to me, holding it the way I once held its image when I first learned of the forces and Balance.
The crystal orb, amulet of Life. Its pulse throbbed with a tiny burn in my palms, but it did not hurt, and for a brief moment the feel of the glowing thing alleviated the sickness of poison and gave pause to the heaving cave.
The four who alone may carry them, I heard the king say to me of the amulets, who alone may hold them in their grasp, and who alone can return them to their rightful place in Tarnec.
The crystal shimmered with the threading of gold and green. There were filigrees of blue as well I could see, now that it was close to me. The elements of Life—Fire of gold, Earth of green, Water of blue, encased by the crystal to represent Air—all of them at once in this founding piece: simple and exquisite, solid and delicate, ancient and alive. Everything in the palms of my hands. And in my hands the orb glowed with renewed strength, though my own body groaned from the poison.
The ground shifted again, and I fell back against the wall. I pressed the orb briefly to my cheek and then scrabbled for my pack, wrapping the orb in Gharain’s tunic, tucking it in snugly beside the ally token, and shouldered the bag. Panting, I crawled back to Gharain.
He had not moved. Not dead, not dead, I knew, for I could feel his energy passing through my touch. I put my lips to his brow, gritting out, “I will help you,” though in all honesty I’d not thought how I could do so. With its sheer drop, we could not go out the way I’d entered the mountain. I’d have to find another route.
Erema’s cloak. I reached for it, tumbling against Gharain as the floor shook violently. I refused any fear that it might be a magic cloak, for I had no other way of carrying Gharain. I spread the wide fabric and rolled and pushed him into its center. He was impossibly heavy. I might have wondered at the amulet, why it could not endow me with some mystical strength, but I’d seen how the hukon had trapped it. The orb could not expel the hukon poison from my body any more than it could break from its bonds. Everything has its weakness.
I forced myself up, gathered folds of cloth to drag Gharain from the narrow room. The silky sheen of Erema’s cloak ran smoothly on the rough floor, but it was barely enough. I panted, I strained, I twisted the fabric in my grip until my hands were chafed raw, any progress achingly slow. The more effort I made, the deeper the poison burned.
Into the large passage at last, and straight into the midst of Troths. I lashed out at their nearness, watched them jump back in fear. But they crowded me, suffocating my breath and body with their filthy stench, their violent energy. Their clawlike fingers hovered, wanting but afraid to touch. I reeked of hukon; I was both familiar and terrifying to them. I ducked my head and bore down, screaming through gritted teeth as if noise could help me forward. The Troths clung to the cloak, petting it, snuffing it, dragging us slower with their added weight. The passage heaved and threw us all sideways—I fell against two Troths and they rolled away, singed and screeching. I could not do this alone. I had no idea where to go.
I screamed at the creatures, “Let us out of here! Show me the way!”
A hundred opaque eyes stared at me. Then the cloak was gripped and pulled from my fingers, drawn so that I was behind suddenly, stumbling after it. The creatures scurried through the dark, through the collapsing tunnels. I forced a run, barely, following the trail by sense more than sight. Along one passage, then another—the scrape of padded feet, the snorts and grunts and vile, vile smell … I clung to my pack, pushed through the pain, and scrambled after the Troths.
And then all at once I crashed into the beasts, paused and huddled at the side of a tunnel, at a dark opening. I shrieked, �
�Where’s Gharain—?” for the cloak was empty in their claws. But with one great move, they swept the cloak behind me, forcing me forward through the gap. I was released like a slingshot.
My scream cut short when I hit the ground hard, rolling, tumbling downward. An incline, steep and bumpy, an endless slide. Senses no longer mattered; time no longer mattered. I rolled and skidded, groaning from pain. And when I slammed hard into Gharain at the bottom, I turned into his side and braced there, wracked with agony at the poison closing in—the abuses of the mountain clenching every bone, every muscle into a taut fist of pain. I dragged my arm over Gharain, searching for his right hand. It was futile, almost silly, this attempt to charge my strength with his, his with mine.
“Help us, Gharain!” I mumbled, clawing my tunic away from my neck, rolling to push his hand against my bared shoulder—my mark to his mark. “Rider …”
It wasn’t working. The hukon had been stabbed there; maybe it had erased our connection. I screamed at him, crushing his limp hand into my skin. He couldn’t be dead, I swore at everything around us. He couldn’t be dead.
No. There—a tiny thread of energy pulsed. I gripped his fingers harder. The give-and-take of energy, the Balance, allowing life to … Hand to hand, I wrapped the length of my body against his. “Thrive,” I whispered, knowing he could not hear the word.
Sometime later I felt Gharain’s renewed warmth; I felt his breath, faint but steady. I wrenched myself to a sitting position, and then managed, somehow, to stand. A breeze was coming through the passage—the dark tingeing to something more like gray. We were nearly out of this tomb.
“We’re there, Gharain,” I gasped, and reached down with exhausted limbs to catch his wrists and tug him forward, crying, “I’m sorry,” as I scraped him across the stone flooring.
It was but a few lengths and we were outside in the early dawn, at the base of the Myr Mountains. There was grass, scrubby though it might be, grass and warmer air. I wept with the pleasure of being free and sank back down next to my Complement, nesting the pack between us, putting my arms around him with face to the sky. I’d no strength to do more.