Ash and Silver

by Carol Berg

  “No. Set Benedik free. No more help until it’s done.”

  “You can let him out yourself, once you’ve shown me a way inside.”

  “Never again can I free him.” She stretched out her arms.

  “Oh, Safia!” My finger traced the exquisite silver vines that encircled her arms, the leaves on the backs of her hand just on the verge of unfurling, the tendrils twining her long fingers. Someone had methodically drawn a blade across every vine and tendril and packed red clay into the wounds. Horrid scars formed as the cuts healed, destroying the sinuous continuity of the gards.

  “I can no longer know his tree properly,” she said. “For me to bring him out could kill him or leave him half tree, half man.”

  “Kyr did this,” I spat through gritted teeth.

  “Kyr is lost,” she said with such grief as must wrench a stone’s heart. “That he cannot enter this land or heal it, that he cannot show Signé the glories of the Everlasting, is hurtful beyond a human’s dreaming.”

  “Come.” I drew her with me, slipping across the yard to the great oak as soundlessly as bodies could move.

  “Find a bit of silver left on the tree,” I whispered. My fingers had to touch the linked splinter to carry my magic to Benedik and the rest of them. “It will be tucked into the bark or beside a root, as small as the gards on your fingers. It might be high, but I’m thinking not.”

  Please gods let it be here. We’d no time to spare. Dozens of blue-marked Danae stood between us and the citadel gates, some on the causeway, others scattering into the wood on either side of it. Where was Signé? And where was Morgan? She could locate me so easily . . .

  “Here!” The silver splinter gleaming on Safia’s fingertip might have been a sliver of her broken gards. She touched the oak gently then backed away. “Do as thou must. I’ll keep them away.”

  I was already on my knees between the great roots of the oak, pressing the silver to the bark, ensuring my finger touched both splinter and tree. I had rehearsed this spellwork in my head a dozen times, but that was before the harrowing journey and Cavillor. The cries of hunting Danae split the air from every side; any one of them could be Morgan or Tuari.

  Sorely regretting Fix’s lost rubies, I closed my eyes and summoned magic. The power grew as I envisioned the chain of twenty thousand splinters, a spark of gleaming silver tucked in bark, in root, in branch or hole . . . each one marking a human spirit, itself like gleaming silver that hid such variety of enchantments. Children, women, men . . . duc and sorcerers and ordinaries . . . scholars and washwomen . . . farmers and artisans . . . fishermen and alewives . . . those who touched the divine with their magic . . . those who nursed infants . . .

  When magic filled my every muscle, every bone, lungs and heart and veins, I poured it all through the splinter and the oak.

  Never had I felt such an outrush of enchantment. Sheer power . . . heady and exhilarating . . . surely enough to dissolve the boundaries between heaven and earth, not just trees and humans . . . until the screams began. Men’s cries, women’s, the wails of children—all of them in pain. Hold on, I said. I’m sorry it hurts. But you’re free . . . you’re going home . . . they’re not going to hurt you any more . . . please . . . The cries rattled my skull and clawed my entrails, and I was sure I was going mad and everything in the world was shaking. . . .

  • • •

  “Stop.” The man’s hand gripped mine. A big hand. Rough. Made of bark perhaps. Or scribed in brilliant light, silver or blue. But I’d no strength to spare to open my eyes.

  “No,” I growled. “This ends today!”

  “Lucian de Remeni, get up. They’re coming for you!” The woman’s urgency pierced the roaring frenzy in my ears. Thunder in winter . . . or perhaps it was wind rocked the stones of Evanide . . . or an earthshaking . . . or the end of the world.

  The hand held steady—not my hand, because every part of me was shaking, and still the magic flowed out of me. I dared not move until all were free.

  “He’s yet feeding the spell,” said the man. “Only there’s no magic in it. He has to stop.”

  “Lucian, open your eyes!” A body crouched in front of me, near enough I could feel her warmth like a brazier. She smelled of good earth and green things. “Stop feeding the spell or you’ll die. It’s your life flowing now, not magic.”

  “’Tis the silver in his hand,” said a different woman, impatient. Cold fingers pried my own apart. The biting splinter fell away. “See? Humans think they know everything.”

  The outrush ceased. Chaos battered me. Are they dying? Screams, wails, moans, and thunder made it impossible to hear my own question.

  “Open your eyes. You must get away.” Hands—Signé’s hands—cupped my head.

  “Are they dying?” It sounded as if I’d been the one screaming. “I’m so sorry—”

  Flames roared on every side of me—or was it trees burning?

  I leapt upward, spun around, and would have fallen over if multiple hands hadn’t caught me.

  They’d brought me inside the citadel walls. Torches burned, not trees. But tremors racked the ground and night had fallen, which churned my belly more than it was already, though I couldn’t say why. Depletion had my knees porridge, my head aching, and the rest of me shivering and sick.

  “Not dying,” said the man who stood between Signé and Safia. He was a big man, his thick hair the color of old honey, just like Signé’s. Their kinship was clear. Though he did not bear his sister’s terrible scars, Duc Benedik’s own were visible—shadowed eyes and deep lines on gray skin. Will alone kept him upright.

  “Emergence feels a bit like being sewn back together with broken glass and splinters. They’ve got to remember how to walk, see, and hear amidst a battle of the long-lived which makes the earth shake. My sister and I must go to them. But first we brought you inside for your safety. It seems the only thing the long-lived hate more than each other is you.”

  “We must get you to safety!” said Safia, tugging his arm.

  “No,” he said, and gently shed her grip. “Our duty is out there. My people and I are forever in your debt, generous one. And yours, too, Remeni. My sister says that Siever—”

  “Mighty Deunor! Even now, Siever is working the magic to repair the void.” Had it been three hours? “We must get Kyr and the others to Sanctuary.”

  The earth heaved and bucked as if a whale swam under its surface. Deep, hollow groans from below, scraping and sharp cracks from every side. New cries shrilled, nearer, as seams gaped in the outer wall. Mortar and rubble began to cascade from its heights . . . and from the citadel itself.

  “Run!” All of them shouted together.

  I could scarce stand, but Safia grabbed my hand and pulled me through dead gardens, broken gates, piled rubble, and down a perilously steep slope into a treed gully. More Xancheirans? How many were unchanged when I’d run out of magic? As trees swayed and earth buckled, ferocious shrills and shrieks resounded from every direction. Terror forced my legs to run.

  I stumbled, but Safia didn’t slow. Had I fallen, she would have dragged me.

  Upward again, through trees and rocks and snarled vines until a stitch in my side had me short of breath. We rounded a fallen slab, only to be staggered by a blast of wind across the hilltop. Safia’s hand slipped out of mine, but I could not move a step more or raise my head to see where she’d gone.

  Bent over, hands on my knees, I fought for breath and sense. Lightning flickered. Thunder rumbled through the ground in company with the earth’s own groaning.

  “Safia,” I panted when I could summon words. “Is the Severing undone? Are we too late?”

  “Oh, gentle Lucian, she cannot answer just now. Or is it faithless Lucian? Lying Lucian?”

  Morgan sat on a fallen slab. Safia sprawled unmoving on the grass in front of her.

  “Goddess Mother, did yo
u kill her?”

  “We do not kill our own kind as brutish humans do.” She smoothed Safia’s hair even as the wind snarled it. “Especially those who’ve gone silver.”

  “Do you transform them into beasts?”

  “Certainly not. They’ll be returned, disembodied, to the land . . . to the Everlasting which will embrace and reshape them.”

  “So you destroy the bodies, the spirits, the beings that they were. It sounds very like murder, especially here where they cannot return to the land of their own will.”

  Morgan’s skin blazed beneath her gards. “Our ways are merciful.”

  “Not to humans! The tales told of humans misled into storms and left to freeze or drown, tricked into bogs, or stolen from their beds, those are true, aren’t they? No mercy for my kind. If you destroy Kyr and Safia and their people, will you stay to tend the humans trapped in trees or feed those who’ve been set free this day? Or must they die, too?”

  “The life in this place is diseased, Lucian. It will poison the greater world for my kind and thine own.”

  “Not if Sanctuary can heal the silver madness. Love helped Safia hold on to herself all these seasons, as she guided me here. She believes that as the land is rejoined to the Everlasting, Sanctuary will be restored. Everything she’s told me along the way has been true.”

  I knelt at Safia’s side. Her breathing was easy; her blood pulse even. No blood or break was visible.

  “You are not cruel, Morgan. Your father would condemn fifty of your brothers and sisters to die because of pique—because their deeds of kindness were done for humans. And if they die and the Severing is not repaired, twenty thousand humans will die. I can’t get them all back to the greater world before they starve.”

  “Thou canst not comprehend our duties.”

  “If my friend cannot undo the Severing, none of this matters. But if it is undone, as I pray will happen this night, and if Safia and her kin are held in this pool, isn’t it possible Sanctuary can return them to their true natures? Isn’t that what the tale of Rhiain says?”

  She snugged her arms about herself. “I should not have told thee Rhiain’s tale.”

  “But you did. You wanted me to understand. And here is Rhiain’s Sanctuary right in front of you. Healing cannot come from murder, however gentle. Nor will it solve the illness of our own world to leave Xancheira separate. You once told me that your nature is to heal and nurture the living world, and that you’re free to choose the recipient of your gift. Morgan, what if this breaking has, at least in some part, caused our demon winter?”

  She waited so long to answer, I feared we would be lost. I had to move. “So, how can we get Safia’s people to Sanctuary to await the change? It could happen any moment.”

  When Morgan laid a hand on Safia’s head, I moved to stop her. But her other hand held me back. “I do but wake her.”

  Safia stirred. When she saw Morgan, she scrambled backward, straight into me.

  “Morgan won’t hurt you.” I hoped.

  Morgan lifted her chin proudly. “If she will bring her people here, I’ll bring mine after. I’ll tell them I’ve found the proper place to seal our aberrant kin into the Everlasting, and I’ll persuade Tuari to drive the silver ones into the water. If the change comes soon enough . . . and if they can be healed . . . so be it. But I make no promises if they harm one of our own.”

  “Is this one trustworthy?” asked Safia.

  “Yes. We are bound together by love from our youth. And though we’ve drifted apart, she knows I speak truth, and I know she does as well.”

  “I’ll tell Kyr thou’rt he whose magic intrudes on our peace,” said Safia. “That thou dost threaten Sanctuary. He’ll come.”

  “Whatever you think will draw them here. And, Safia, when I call your name twice over, send me.”

  She nodded. Then grabbing my head, she kissed me full on. She smiled wickedly at Morgan, and vanished in a streak of silver.

  Morgan laughed, her sad humor giving texture to the night. “Clearly she does not know I betrayed thee. I’ll tell my father that I spied thee here, without salt this time. I’ll need no other tale to draw him. I am sorry, friend Lucian. I do love thee in my way. But I am the daughter of the archon and perhaps not so faithful as this Safia.”

  “You’ve saved my life ten times over. Helped me learn what I needed. Guided my friends safely. I’m grateful for that . . . friend Morgan.”

  Pleasure illumined her face more than did her gards. But I didn’t feel it anymore.

  It wasn’t so long until I heard Kyr’s bellowing. Silver streaked the wood down the hill. I stood beside the pool, close enough no one could squeeze between.

  “Step away, meddler,” said Kyr, his body sculpted by the gathered light of his kind, who quickly moved to encircle the pool and me. “So thou’rt the one who has ensured the doom of so many. Signé’s people will suffer for thy deeds. They cannot survive until we heal the land.”

  “I cannot step away,” I said. “And a healing will come. If not this night, then tomorrow or the next day. Lord Siever works, even now, to undo the Severing.”

  “Prideful fool,” cried Kyr, anguished, “thou’lt destroy the Everlasting!”

  I explained to him our plan for his people’s healing in Sanctuary. But he sneered and hefted the spear in his hand. What madman ever recognizes his illness?

  “Break Siever’s magic, human, or I’ll root thee myself. And when the humans begin to die again, thou’lt feel every whisper of their pain. . . .”

  “Hold!” I said, as blue light glimmered in the wood behind him. “There’s more to this.”

  I stepped up to the rim of the pool and extended my hand. Not to Kyr but to the one who waited at his right hand. “Safia, Safia.”

  And then did the world shatter. The ground shook. The stars exploded. Safia rushed forward and touched my brow, just as the blue Danae yipped like hunting kites from every side and Kyr let fly his spear. As I jumped backward into the Sanctuary pool, Safia toppled after me in a spray of blood.

  “No!” I cried into blackness.

  Entirely depleted, powerless to change my destination, I opened my eyes to the Marshal’s dressing chamber, dead silence . . . and Damon.

  CHAPTER 39

  Damon sat leisurely thumbing through a large leather folio, his chair set squarely in the doorway of the dressing chamber. It would be hours before I could summon magic. I might be able to throttle him, but at least five people lurked on the other side of the dressing screen behind him. Likely they were Order knights, capable of killing me before I could break Damon’s neck or fracture his fingers, both of which appealed to me just now.

  Thus I remained sitting on the floor, leaning on the wall, and shivering uncontrollably.

  The spider glanced up and produced that smile of paternal satisfaction that I loathed. I’d best wait for better odds before wiping it from his face with a fist. And then I would confront the Marshal, too, for how did Damon know I’d hidden here unless the Marshal had told him?

  Damon closed the folio—my damning portraits?—and leaned forward like that pleased parent, watching his child learn to walk.

  “My, my, Lucian,” he said and blew a large sigh. “Someday you must teach me this astonishing veil magic. Had I not witnessed your occasional disappearances in those days you worked in the Registry Tower, I’d have had Ferenc’s hounds scouring all of Cavillor at the first report of your vanishing. Instead I have spent this very long night in a closet, waiting for you to reappear. Would you like to hear how I knew you would?”

  “Certainly.”

  “The spell produces a slight change in the quality of the air, as if you leave a hole in the world. Indeed it fills with oddments of scents and breezes as it waits for your return. But you don’t leave, do you? It would be so much more useful if you could actually creep away while you hide—especially
on a night when you believe you’re going to die.”

  Laughter near choked me to think how close he was to understanding what I did . . . and yet so far. The laughter held no merriment, not while imagining thousands of people half emerged from trees when my magic failed, not while smelling Safia’s warm blood on my jaque, not when I imagined the poisoned vines of Xancheira devouring Navronne or the dread alternative—thousands emerged from the trees starving all over again to the sound of Morgan’s feral shrieks.

  To die not knowing if any of the plan worked was bitter. To believe I’d left matters worse was insupportable.

  “Do you think the Marshal would mind if I b-borrowed his gray cloak for my visit to the executioner? Holding the . . . vanishing spell . . . for so long has drained me dry. I’d not thought to have curators taking up residence in the Marshal’s closet to prevent my escape.”

  He popped up from the chair and rapped on the dressing screen. “No cloak and no food. You will just have to shiver for a while. Thanks to your small rebellion, the Fifty have had all night to mull my proposals. It was unfortunate we could not produce you at your trial. After the grooming of your journey from Evanide, it would have saved a deal of persuasion. You look quite savage, and every one of these judges knows . . . knew . . . Lucian de Remeni as a quiet, well-disciplined young man of good family. Soft. Weak, save in magic.”

  The dressing screen was removed. As I feared, guards were ready with shackles and silk cord. Not Order guards, though. These wore Canis-Ferenc’s crimson and silver. It cheered me to imagine Damon didn’t trust Order knights to shackle one of their own at the word of an outsider. He couldn’t know which knights might recognize me despite my savage appearance.

  The first man who laid a hand on me crashed backward with a broken nose. The second would be feeling my boot in his balls until the moon fell. The third grabbed my hair and near twisted my head off. But the fourth laid a blow to my middle that near rammed my gut into my throat. I could tell I’d hurt them by the lack of consideration as they yanked off my boots, hobbled my ankles, and silkbound my hands. Damon likely approved the bloody split on my cheekbone.