What “but”? she wondered. Now she really wanted to know, but with only one side of the conversation….
“Dead.”
She quivered with curiosity. It was only a dream, but a dream of consequence apparently.
“Why? How?”
Damn. He mumbles in riddles.
“Mine! Go!!” He thrust his arms out, as though pushing something away. And then, as quickly as the dream had begun, it appeared to end. He relaxed, and a smile hinted at the corners of his mouth, his face peaceful again.
Lorain stared at him. He wouldn’t remember a thing later. Dreams had a way of slipping back into the dark recesses from which they had sprung. But this dream, or perhaps nightmare, would not slip into nothing forever. Sooner or later, she’d know the meaning of it, and in the meantime, she could wait. The one thing Lorain Zanlot had no difficulty with in this world was the waiting. Answers always came; you just had to wait.
CHAPTER EIGHT
MUD AND POWER
The going proved slow through the foothills. The captain insisted on the most hidden of routes, traversing gullies and streams, and this left Lisen to thoughts better left unthought, thoughts which plagued her with images of destruction and loss. It wasn’t her own end that frightened her most—it was the other lives in the balance. The captain here, and Heir Tuane. Holder Corday and Eloise the Elusive on their way to Avaret with the late Empir’s body. And Solsta, which wouldn’t escape the Heir-Empir’s scrutiny. After all, it had been the scene of the crime. He would force the hermits to submit to questioning, perhaps even probing, and they and the haven would suffer.
And what about the Heir-Empir himself and who knew how many others? How many would be altered by the assassination of Empir Flandari and the revelation of a previously unknown Heir? She might not be able to see past this one moment, but Eloise had seen the future. She’d sent Lisen to Earth to save Garla, and now it all hinged on her. It all depended on how well she accepted change and how quickly she could relegate the past to the past. It was up to her to step into a world she’d never known—the world of the mundane as many hermits called it. A world afraid of those gifted with magic. And, in the middle of all this, she had to find a way to gain acceptance from those who didn’t trust her or her talents. The captain didn’t trust her, but at least Heir Tuane did. Perhaps there was a little hope after all.
A breeze caught her cloak and blew it up into her face. When she pulled it out of her way and looked around, she realized the fluffy clouds from earlier had formed themselves into something more threatening.
“Captain?”
Ahead of her, the captain neither halted nor slowed. “Aye?” He didn’t even turn.
“There’s a storm coming,” she said to his back.
“I can see that,” he replied.
“We should find someplace safe to wait it out,” she suggested.
“We’re not stopping,” he declared.
“But….”
“We must make camp on the other side of the peak tonight.”
The captain’s flat tone and blunt words should have ended the argument, but Lisen forged on. “It looks really bad.”
“Then we ride until we can ride no more.”
Lisen slumped down on her horse. These storms hit the north flank of the mountains hard, yet by the time they made Avaret, the cliffs and crags of the intervening peaks had subdued them. But, if the captain chose to ignore her warning, then let him. If he thought he knew better, then perhaps he did. Maybe the clouds weren’t as vicious as they seemed. Maybe the storm wouldn’t prove as powerful as it appeared at the moment. And maybe the Destroyer is but a tale told to children to make them be good, she thought. On Earth, it would have been the boogeyman although the Destroyer was far more potent. More like the devil.
“Don’t let him bother you,” Heir Tuane said. Lisen turned to look at the young woman riding beside her, at this ray of warmth in an otherwise cold, bleak day. “He’s taking this all very seriously. If it were up to me, I’d say deadlines be damned; I don’t want to get wet.” She laughed, and Lisen smiled in spite of her gloom. Like Betsy, this Jozan Tuane made her happy.
“Well,” Lisen said, “we’re definitely going to get wet.”
“Inevitable, huh?”
Lisen nodded and pulled her cloak up around her more tightly. “I’m afraid so.”
“Well, a little water doesn’t scare me.” Heir Tuane winked at Lisen, and Lisen shrugged and smiled back. “We’ve met before, you know,” the heir continued.
“My lord?” Lisen asked.
“You don’t remember.” Lisen heard disappointment in the heir’s tone.
“My memory is a little off these days,” Lisen replied, hoping this vague explanation would satisfy the heir.
“I was seven, and my sister Bala was four. You must have been…five?”
“And what were you doing at Solsta?” Lisen tried to remember two little girls, at least one of them blond, but the further back she tried to go, the fuzzier her recollections became.
“Hermit Eloise is my aunt,” Heir Tuane said. “She usually came to see us, but that year, we traveled to her.”
Lisen shook her head. “I’m sorry. I’m afraid I don’t—”
“Oh, don’t worry about it,” the heir interrupted. “It doesn’t matter.”
Lisen’s eyes remained fixed on the ears of her horse, but she smiled. This holder’s heir sparkled. There couldn’t be many who forgot an encounter with her.
“Tell me something,” Heir Tuane said.
“Anything,” Lisen responded.
“You were the one my aunt nursed just out of the pouch, weren’t you?”
Lisen nodded. “It takes an exceptional hermit to be able to do that. I could never do it.”
“And you’re a necropath. I know I couldn’t do that.”
“Sometimes I wonder if I can,” Lisen said absently, her attention on the captain’s back, his sexy, dark braid trailing halfway down, swinging back and forth to the rhythm of the horse’s gait. Had she seen him stiffen at the talk of hermits and their gifts, or had she only imagined it?
“So many misunderstand.”
“What?” Lisen asked, shifting her attention from the captain back to Heir Tuane.
“It’s a shame. People are so frightened, but it’s only out of ignorance. My aunt—your Hermit Eloise? We’re very close, especially since my mother’s death. We write all the time, and I love it when she comes to visit my father. I can spend hours with her, just talking. Yet her arrival always sends several of our servants from the palace.”
“They refuse to be there while she’s visiting?” Lisen asked.
“Yes.”
“And do they return once she’s left?”
Heir Tuane nodded. “It’s not their fault. It’s what they’re taught.”
Lisen sighed. “Yeah. And if I succeed…when they find out what I am…it’s not going to make my job any easier.”
“No, it’s not,” Heir Tuane responded, gracing Lisen with a luminous smile.
“And here comes the rain,” Lisen remarked as the first drops started to fall. “Right on time.”
“Great,” the heir muttered.
“We move on,” the captain ordered from up ahead.
“What a surprise!” Lisen fired back, but the captain responded with nothing more than silence. She rewrapped her cloak around herself, hoping it would protect her from the soaking, but she knew it would be in vain. Without a good umbrella, or at least a waterproof tarp, this storm would soon have her dripping wet and miserable.
“You trained at Rossla, right?”
“Pardon me?” Lisen asked, once again turning back to Heir Tuane.
“You’re a necropath. Did you train at Rossla?”
“Rossla? Uh, no.” Lisen knew that most necropaths, as well as those with other gifts, were mentored at Rossla Haven for at least a year, but not her. “I’m still too young for training. I would have left after my eighteenth outcoming d
ay.”
“Which should be coming up soon,” Heir Tuane commented.
It took Lisen a moment to remind herself that this was Garla’s February, not Earth’s June, and that her March fourteenth birthday was “coming up soon.” “Uh, yeah,” she managed.
“But if you’re not trained…,” Heir Tuane began, then trailed off.
“How did I know what to do with the Empir?” Lisen asked. Tuane nodded, and Lisen worked up an explanation. “I’ve had some practice with a few of the hermits as they passed. When there’s no one else to do it, you do what you can. But I have no idea how I managed last night. It was…harder…than I expected.”
“My aunt told me Solsta has no other necropath,” Heir Tuane commented.
“No,” Lisen answered.
“And now they have none,” Heir Tuane said.
“And now they have none,” Lisen muttered, a crushing sadness rolling over her.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what? For leaving Solsta without a necropath? That’s not your fault. Ah, I know. You’re sorry for ripping me from the life I’ve lived thus far. No. No, that wasn’t you either. That was your aunt.” Lisen hated herself for taking her anger out on this woman who’d done nothing but apologize for something she hadn’t even done, but Lisen couldn’t help but keep the tirade going. “Oh, I know. For allowing me to believe any number of impossible fantasies about my parents. No. No. Wrong again. That, too, was your aunt. How about for manipulating my life in ways beyond anything you could ever imagine along with the lives of the Empir and the presumed Heir-Empir and only the Creators know who else. Damn. What a freakin’ farce.”
“My lords,” the captain shouted back from up ahead, silencing Lisen’s rage.
“Yes, Captain?” Heir Tuane replied.
“The path narrows up ahead. We’ll need to go single file. Heir Tuane, you’ll take up the rear.” He never turned, just issued orders as he moved ahead.
“I can but serve.” Heir Tuane dropped back, and Lisen laughed silently. She did like this heir and her twisted sense of humor.
The road rose, not sharply, but enough so that soon the horses seemed to drag. The rain—blowing through at times in sheets, at times just merely trickles—hampered their footing, and Lisen wondered if her misery should be the worst of her immediate worries. She was pretty sure they wouldn’t reach the summit before dark, so they were already behind the captain’s schedule. And where could they camp once they were forced to halt, unable to travel forward any farther? Rocks on one side of the path; rocks or, worse, sheer cliffs upon the other. They’d be left standing in the rain. Where was that umbrella? Or better yet, a tent.
A lifetime of service to one Empir, Korin thought. Well, less than half a lifetime thus far, he realized. Yet, a lifetime nevertheless, coming to this—guiding a young hermit from Solsta Haven to the seaport of Halorin and from there on to a challenge which could end not only her life but his lifetime of service as well. All he had done was answer the call when the Empir had said, “Accompany me to the Isle.”
Damn. A dirty business. Who would’ve suspected it would turn out like this? Everyone had known Heir Ariel was a threat, but when Korin had reported to the barge and surveyed the passenger list, no name had set off alarms in his head, especially not the name of a trusted servant. He’d allowed himself to grow lax, and he had only himself to blame. Damn.
He squinted up at the mountains, then wiped the water from his eyes. This rain could let up any time as far as he was concerned. They wouldn’t make the peak before the end of the day, and falling behind so soon seemed a bad omen. Thankfully, they were at least away from the haven. His skin no longer crawled the way it had in the presence of those cursed hermits. The one here with him, young as she was, had read him well in spite of her denials of the skill, and he’d had to fight to remain with her up on that tower. He didn’t trust hermits, but he’d committed himself to keeping this one alive until her safe return to Avaret, whatever it took. He smiled at the irony. He, of all people, saddled with this mission. It made him wonder if everything in life was guided by fate, including his involvement here now, or if it all happened randomly without any hint of divine interference.
What in the name of the Destroyer had happened last night? He’d sensed nothing before the Empir had called out, “Assassin!” The memory chilled him. He’d run but had arrived too late. The deed done, the assassin falling, the Empir fading. He’d ridden that stallion of hers nearly to death, and still he’d failed to save the ruler in his charge.
And the ruthless rain kept pouring down.
A sudden urgency gripped him. He turned, whipping his head around to the rear, hypersensitive after his failure the night before, and that’s when everything changed.
He reacted without thought as the scream began, the Guard’s imperative ripping at his gut. He’d thrown his right leg over the horse’s neck and had slid off, his back to the horse, landing on his feet before he’d even realized he was moving. He slipped and slogged through the mud until he reached the Heir-Empir who stood where she’d landed after jumping from her own mount. He shook his head as he eyed the scene—a chunk of trail now gone, the Heir of Minol and her horse vanished.
“What happened?” he yelled, the rain flying like spit from his mouth, soaking every pore and muffling all sound.
“I don’t know,” the girl said, breathless, her voice less strained than he’d expected. “She was behind me. And then she wasn’t.”
“There. Yes, there. I see her horse.” He pointed to where the poor creature lay far below them, unmoving, broken on the jagged rocks “It’s gone,” he told the Heir-Empir. “But where…?” The question dangled in the air between them.
“Shh,” the girl said, dropping to her knees.
He looked at her, and for the first time he actually saw her. The long light-red hair now braided down her back, not unlike his own. The pale skin and its faint freckles. He couldn’t see her eyes. She’d closed them, and he realized she’d slipped into a trance. He reached out to touch her, bring her back. She knelt too close to the edge. He couldn’t lose her, too. Not after he’d so stupidly lost her mother. “My Liege,” he said.
With an abrupt shrug of her shoulders, she jerked away. “No. I have to find her.” And she closed her eyes again.
“You can’t. She’s buried and we’ll never reach her.” He started to touch her once again, but this time she turned to look up at him. The rain beat down upon her face, and she blinked to clear the water from her pale green eyes.
“I can and we will.” Impatience and stubborn determination filled her voice, her entire being. He backed up a step to rethink options. Even if the girl found the heir with her mental talents, they’d never be able to dig her out. The mud would just keep coming, wouldn’t it? And they were in jeopardy themselves if the earth should shift again. He had to convince her to give up; he could not lose her, too.
“There!” she proclaimed, pointing to a spot a foot or so out from where she knelt. “She’s there.”
“No. The mud will bury us, too.”
She rose, and he sighed, relieved that he’d convinced her of the folly of a rescue. He reached out to guide her back to the remaining horses, but she never turned to him. She only backed away a few steps from the slide, then paused, slipping into perfect stillness, closing her eyes again. He’d failed. “A moment. I’ll tell you when.”
“When what?” he shouted above the din of the rain. “The earth is moving like a damn river.”
“Now!”
He stared at her, but she remained fixed in trance, arm outstretched and pointing. He turned to verify what he knew was true, that the mud kept sliding, no hope for the Heir of Minol. But….
“Now!”
Later, he’d find it impossible to explain and hence would give up trying. What had swayed him? The force of authority? From a seventeen-year-out hermit unaccustomed to barking orders? The realization that somehow the earth had, indeed, ceased moving? Or the gi
ft of instinct honed over his own twenty-five years? Whatever it was, whatever he’d never be able to explain, it forced him into an action that logic, if he’d consulted it, would have defined as foolhardy. He jumped into the momentarily stagnant quagmire of mud—the rain continuing on relentless—and he began to dig where the Heir-Empir had indicated. He held out no hope, not for Heir Tuane, nor for himself.
Forward and downward he burrowed. Debris cut into his hands and arms. His hands grew cold, less sensitive to the feel of flesh. He would touch her, and he would never know.
No, he thought, pausing in his search. Wait. He moved numbing fingers around the object. Is it? Yes, there. Small, supple. A finger, maybe. He stretched and grabbed, the give of skin and sinew unmistakable. A hand. He pulled with all his might. He turned to confirm that the Heir-Empir could hold out a little longer, give him time to extricate the heir of Minol. The girl seemed resolute, and he returned to tugging, realizing as he did so that for a moment there he’d believed his mission lost.
His hand reached the surface of the mud and with it came an arm. Despite the damming effects of the girl’s concentration, the mire remained a resistant foe. He leaned back, toward the shore of firmer earth, hoping to use the weight of his body as a weapon in the fight. Heir Tuane’s head emerged, and he grabbed her under her shoulders and pulled with all his strength, dragging her up onto the slippery shore. As he did so, he backed into the girl, purposely forcing her away from the slide and breaking the flow of her meditation.
“Move!” he ordered her. The mud resumed its destructive course, and the girl shook her head and backed away from the deadly torrent. He set Heir Tuane down and began clearing the mud from her nose and mouth. If she’d swallowed it, no matter, but if she’d tried to breathe…. He didn’t want to consider the consequences of that. He’d dealt with drownings and the resultant water in the lungs, but never with mud and only the Destroyer knew what else.
“Blow into her mouth,” the young Heir-Empir said as she knelt on Tuane’s other side.
Fractured (Lisen of Solsta Book 1) Page 10