For the last hour, an odd, uncomfortable feeling had been prickling at Lysandra. It did not come from the walking; tiring as it was, by now it held nothing unfamiliar. Nor was this feeling a return of the Darkness that had so nearly destroyed her.
What she felt now was unknown to her, a whisper from that part of her newly enlivened by the melding of Wisdom and Truth, when her mind and Selia’s had touched. But it was a feeling too new for Lysandra to interpret. Until experience taught her otherwise, all she could do was wait until knowledge came of its own.
Suddenly, understanding dawned. She knew.…
“Renan, we have to hurry,” she said in a rush. “They’re coming. They’re behind us, but not far enough. Run… we have to run…”
Vague pictures were forming in Lysandra’s mind. People… on horseback… The vision was clearing; Lysandra nearly stumbled as she lost the awareness of the ground beneath her with the power of the new Sight forming within her mind.
A woman leading… soldiers… black power radiating in waves… power of anger and greed and hunger… coming closer…
This new manifestation of her Sight had caught Lysandra completely unawares. Now its gift gave them their only chance to get Selia to safety.
“Run,” she said sharply. “Now—and don’t stop until we reach the boats.”
Renan put his hand beneath her elbow to guide her. Ahead, she could hear Talog and Selia running; behind, she could feel the approaching danger as if the horses’ breath were hot on her neck.
As she ran, Lysandra silently reproached herself for not having recognized the warning this new part of her Sight had been trying to impart. Next time—if there was a next time—she would give it closer heed.
For now, she hoped and prayed that Talog and Renan remembered correctly where they had hidden the boats. If not, there was no hope, and all the running in the world would not save them.
Chapter Thirty-three
The river was ahead—but their pursuers were too close behind. Renan no longer needed Lysandra to tell him of the danger. He, too, could feel it… and he knew what he had to do.
He had made his decision while they ran—for their lives, for Selia’s life… for the life and future of Aghamore. There was no denying the touch he felt, questioning and malevolent, trying to find and stop them. It reawakened a core in himself he had long ago buried and vowed never to resurrect again.
But such vows meant nothing now. A greater good was served by its breaking than by the keeping of it.
Reaching the place where they had hidden the boats, Renan left the women panting while he went to help Talog. Together, they maneuvered the boats free of the concealing branches and brought them to the water’s edge.
Talog got in the first one. “Selia,” Renan called to her. “You’re next in. Hurry.”
Selia came without objection and was quickly settled. Renan called for Lysandra next, but she refused.
“No,” she said. “I’m staying with you. We’ll put Cloud-Dancer with them and send them off—but I’m staying to help you.”
“Lysandra,” Renan began, but she shook her head.
“There’s no time to argue with me, Renan,” she said. “I know what you’re planning, and you need me. But Selia must get away—now.”
She was right, there was no time… but how could Lysandra know what he was planning? He only knew that to stop their pursuers he must again embrace what he had forsworn; what he had most feared must now happen.
What will you be then? a trembling corner of his soul asked.
The only answer he could give it was the desperate need of the moment. As long as Selia got safely away, Aghamore’s hope and future survived.
And Lysandra? The trembling now filled his heart. Her safety was far more precious to him than his own. Or Aghamore’s. Alone, he would not care if his next act demanded the last breath of life and spirit to accomplish; once he broke his vow, he broke faith with his honor—and without honor, how could a man live on?
He was aware that seconds had passed while his internal debate raged. Renan wanted to pick Lysandra up and put her in the boat—but one look at her face told him that he could not make her stay there. Lysandra would be here, with him, and therefore he would choose life, even without honor. He would do what must be done, and then survive so that he could be certain she was protected.
“All right,” he said. His questions now resolved, he turned to Talog. “Get Selia to Eiddig-Sant,” he said. “We’ll follow as soon as we can.”
“But thee, and the Healer—“ Talog began.
“Will be all right,” Renan finished for him.
He turned to see Lysandra, just straightening from giving Cloud-Dancer a farewell hug, signal the wolf into the boat. As soon as the animal was settled in, Talog pushed away from the riverbank and began to paddle upstream, the strong muscles in his arms working hard against the current.
Renan watched them for a few more seconds, then turned again to Lysandra. “How did you know?” he asked her.
She gave a little shrug. “As soon as you made the decision I knew,” she said, “and I knew what you’ve been hiding. Why didn’t you tell me you were a mage before you were a priest?”
“No one knows,” he said. “When I entered the Church, I vowed never to use magic again. But now I must break that vow in order to save the land, and the Church, I love.”
“Let me help,” Lysandra said. “Tell me what to do.”
Her voice contained no judgment, no condemnation, nothing Renan had feared to hear, and he marveled as he knelt on the soft grass. He glanced around and found a stone, white and round, nearby. This he put in front of himself to use as a focus.
“Stand behind me,” he told Lysandra, “and put your hands on my shoulders. It’s been almost twenty years since I last tried anything like this. I hope I remember how—and that between us, we’ll have enough strength for this to work.”
“It will,” she assured him confidently, and when she stepped behind him and placed her hands as he had directed, she tightened them briefly upon his shoulders in a gesture of encouragement. “It will work,” she said again, softly and yet loudly enough for his heart to hear. “I know it will.”
Renan looked down at the stone. He began to focus, to see it alone. There were many ways to call up the power men named magic. Some mages, male and female, used words of incantation to focus their intent. But magic required no voice to make it real and Renan had never been one to whom such spontaneous phrases came easily. As a priest, it would often take him days to prepare even the shortest of sermons.
Other mages used special types of breathing or chanting, and some preferred physical objects such as wands or crystals, water or fire, for focus. A student of the arcane always developed some specific combination of techniques that silenced the mind to outside distractions so that the forces of magic could be harnessed and made to flow on command.
Renan, whose powers had always been in Earthmagic—magic aligned with the forces of nature—this time was using a round and shiny white stone.
It seemed incongruous to pray at this time, but Renan did. He prayed for forgiveness at breaking his vow, and he prayed for help, for memory, for strength. Most of all, he prayed for success, at least long enough to slow their pursuers until Selia—and Lysandra—were safe.
He could feel Lysandra’s hands warm on his shoulders. He could feel her strength and her trust in him. He prayed he would not let her down.
He stared at the stone. Focus, he told himself, trying to remember back to the days of his youth when all of this had seemed as natural to him as breathing. Focus, he told himself again, trying to quiet his mind and to reach that place where his magic might still be found. Focus, he told himself a third time, urging himself more deeply inward.
The world around him faded as, slowly, memory was reborn. He took a deep breath and followed it, seeing it fill not only his lungs, but feed the power that had lain dormant for so long, to breathe life again into that
tiny flame.
Now there was only himself and the stone. No longer could he hear the river or feel the grass. Lysandra’s presence was something he felt with his heart, no longer with his body. With his conscious mind, all he could see was the stone and all he could feel was the approach of danger.
With each breath, his awareness traveled deeper… deeper… until at last he touched it, and the sleeping beast that was his magic awoke. Now Renan was ready. He began his first spell in twenty years, hoping—praying—he still knew what to do.
Everything he needed was around him. He put aside his fear, born of buried shame and guilt; he silenced his doubts, born of two decades of shunning this part of himself. He concentrated only on what he wanted and needed to do. Later he would accept whatever the toll and recriminations that would come.
Deep within his mind, he drew a wall between himself and those who were fast approaching. From the land beneath him, he gathered the coolness left of the night just passed. From the air, he gathered the warming of the sun, now risen. From the river, he gathered moisture, the drops that were cloud and dew. Then he mixed them, formed them, and sent them forth, holding the image of his intent clearly in his mind.
Sharp and precise, he built the picture; layer upon layer, never wavering as his focus built and his power slowly, finally, began to blaze. Fog gathered at his knees and began to rise. It was not enough, not yet, to stop the creatures of Darkness who sought them. He poured more and more of himself into the fog, using his strength and then Lysandra’s to bind the spell.
The fog thickened; it rolled in billows into the trees, building and building until no light or sight could penetrate it. Then he sent it back, toward the river road and their pursuers.
So long out of practice, Renan could feel that he was almost spent. With one last effort, he sent a Spell of Confusion into the fog, binding it there until it was part of every drop of moisture that formed this earthbound cloud. As long as the fog surrounded the horses and riders, they would lose all sense of direction and purpose.
Renan tore his eyes away from his focus before he passed the point of survival. The stone, that for these last moments had loomed large enough to fill his vision, shrank back to its normal size. Renan slumped to the ground. He had done all he could; he prayed it would be enough.
He might have waited too long, he realized then. Breathing was difficult and he could not find the strength to move, but it did not matter what happened to him as long as the others were safe. He sensed Lysandra kneeling at his side. She took his hand into her own. At her touch, new strength—her strength—flowed into him. He did not understand how she did it, but suddenly he could move again.
He would wonder about it later. Hand in hand, they rushed to the remaining boat.
Aurya led the way eagerly. They had left the road and were galloping through the trees. In her mind’s eye, in her magic’s vision, she could almost see the child she meant to have.
Fools, she thought to the child’s would-be protectors, with your backs to the river, you’ll have nowhere to run. You’ll not escape me this time.
She could hear the river through the trees, see the mist that rose from it. She galloped on, into the mist…
… and mist became fog. Her horse whinnied and shied, nearly throwing her. The fog built, rolled, surrounded. All around her, the other horses were behaving the same as her gelding. Bewilderment spread across the faces of the men.
Aurya could taste the magic in the fog with every breath she took. Her thoughts began turning to shadows; her mind felt heavy, numb…
“No,” she said aloud.
Aurya fought to keep her thoughts clear. She wanted to ride onward; she wanted to leave the men and gallop after her quarry… but her horse would not be controlled. It took all her strength to keep the gelding from bolting away from this strange, magic-saturated fog.
The shrill and frightened sounds of the horses built around her. The murky air filled with the equally frightened voices of the confused men trying to remember who they were and what they were doing while they struggled to keep atop their shying mounts.
Aurya pulled on her reins until her arms ached. Her knees and thighs burned with the effort of keeping her seat. She heard one man go down, and muttered a curse as his horse went galloping away. Her magic was giving her more protection than the others, but it was not enough. She kept feeling the tendrils of the fog trying to enter her brain, threatening to suffocate her thoughts, her will, her purpose… her magic.
Magic, that was the key; she knew that she should do… what?… the fog… she could not think… Slowly, struggling to find the words, she began to chant a halting, barely connected Spell of Protection over herself.
Word by word, second by long second, the mist was lifting from her mind; slowly, it was being driven off. Seconds turned to minutes… how many?… each one was a little war—of her will against the horse’s, of her magic against the fog’s.
Finally, her thoughts began to flow again into words of impunity and power. Now, at last, she could think well enough to form a counterspell that would free herself and her companions from the confusion that had trapped them.
As she spoke, each word became charged. Her power became heat, it became light, evaporating the fog with the speed of the summer sun. The horses began to quiet, the men to look around, trying to regain their sense of identity and place.
Aurya ended the flow of power. She felt drained, physically and magically. Having spent itself on this spell, her body desperately craved sleep. But Aurya would not, could not, give in yet.
Once more she reached down into the depths of her being. The bright flame that usually burned there was sputtering, like a lamp whose oil had been used up. Still, she could not rest. Whatever the physical source within her body that her magic had to take for fuel, whatever price she would later have to pay, did not matter. She would not stop until she had the child.
Aurya fed the flame of her power with fuel of herself and felt the magic respond with new strength, banishing her weariness and preparing her again to give chase. Later, she would pay for this false and arcane burst of energy, with a true weakness from which she would not easily or rapidly recover. She did not care. When the child was hers, she would have its power to return her strength.
Giraldus was approaching her. “That fog,” he said, “was it—”
“Magic?” she finished for him. “Yes—they’ve a mage with them, whoever they are.”
And this changes everything, she thought but did not say aloud. Giraldus and his men would be useless in a battle of magic—as this fog had proved.
Or maybe not, Aurya thought. Giraldus had said he wanted to feel the magic again, to become her partner in the arcane. If there was time before she met with this unknown sorcerer, perhaps she could establish a link between herself and Giraldus, so that his strength was at her call. It might give her the advantage she needed to prevail.
Aurya glanced around at the men. She saw the one who had lost his horse, but she would not wait until he found it again. Whether he rode pillion behind someone else or did not ride with them at all, she did not care.
“Let’s go,” she called, and once again led the chase.
She quickly pushed her horse into a gallop, bending her body low over its neck as it ran through the band of trees that grew between the river and the bogs. Her horse, eager to be away from the place that had terrorized it, needed little urging.
Even so, the pursuit was too slow. Aurya would gladly have sprouted wings and taken flight to find the white dove and lock her black talons around it.
Coming finally out of the trees, Aurya pulled back on the reins. Here, for a time at least, she had to go slowly enough to find their trail. But the mage had made that task easier by revealing himself. Magic would touch magic, leaving traces that she needed no elusively written scroll to follow.
She kept her horse to a walk while she searched the riverbank, every sense of magic extended. She knew, she could feel, th
at she was close. A small, white stone suddenly caught her eye. It shimmered with a brightness far beyond its natural appearance, pulsing with the magic it had so recently channeled.
I have you, Aurya thought as she quickly slid from her gelding’s back and picked up the stone. He was clever, this mage, to have used so small a focus. Anyone else, less sensitive, less driven than Aurya would have easily ridden past it, losing the trail without knowing where or why.
Aurya closed her fingers around the stone. The magic thread between the focus and the mage was fraying, but it had not broken yet. It glistened like sunlit dew upon spider silk.
“They’re on the river,” she said aloud, opening her eyes to look at Giraldus. “That’s where we must go.”
Giraldus looked at her, dumbfounded. “Are you crazy, woman?” he said at last. “We have no boats. Do you expect the horses to gallop along on the currents? It’s over, Aurya. I’ve humored you enough.”
“No!” she shouted. “Send the horses home with some of the men. Their swords will make little difference in a battle of magic. It will not take long to tie a raft together—enough for ourselves and a few others. But I will go, Giraldus, even if I must swim the entire way. Now is not the time to turn coward—not when the child is almost in our grasp.”
Giraldus looked as if someone had struck him, which was exactly what Aurya had done when she called him coward. Quickly dismounting, he strode up to her, his height and brawn dwarfing her body. But not her spirit. She met his eyes unflinchingly.
“Once more,” he said through clenched teeth, “and then it is finished. If we do not catch them this time, it’s done. Do you understand? It’s done.”
That said, Giraldus turned to his men and began issuing orders.
Lysandra paddled the boat as hard as she could, matching Renan stroke for stroke. It had taken three days to ride the current downstream. They had no such luxury now. Their only chance of safety was to reach the Realm of the Cryf.
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