The Curse in the Gift (The Last Whisper of the Gods Book 2)

by Berardinelli, James

  * * *

  The path to consciousness provided Alicia with a slow, torturous journey away from the sanctuary of temporary oblivion. As soon as she realized the destination, she fought against it but, like so many other things, it wouldn’t be denied. Still, her return to wakefulness was sluggish; her thoughts were muted as if wrapped in muslin and her eyes remained closed. She felt much as she had while under the influence of the fever that had nearly brought a premature end to her quest.

  Groggily, she sat up. Or tried to. Her heavy eyelids lifted, but the fuzziness in her mind wouldn’t go away, nor would the throbbing behind her left temple. Distractedly, she lifted a hand to touch the tender spot. She was seated on something soft and was wrapped in a thin, scratchy blanket. It chafed her skin but she hardly noticed the discomfort or, if she did, she didn’t care about it. Her mouth, so dry she couldn’t manufacture spit, tasted like something had crawled inside and died.

  “It may take a while to gather your thoughts. Greenberry cider is a potent sleeping draught. It muddles the senses. Up here in the North, it’s often drunk instead of hard spirits; it delivers the same end result but faster and without an unpleasant morning after.”

  Alicia knew the voice but couldn’t place it. She tried to think, to remember, but gave up. It wasn’t worth the effort. She gazed at the speaker through slitted eyelids. An old man with a bald head and a beard and mustache. His expression was unreadable. He looked trustworthy enough although some part of her urged caution.

  She licked her lips. They were as dry as the inside of her mouth. Parched. The sour taste made her want to retch. The man proffered a skin of cool liquid. Without considering that it might not be safe, she took a long, deep swallow. It was water. As she drank, her thoughts sharpened and her memories seeped back.

  The most amazing thing was that she had survived the portal. If it wasn’t all a dream - and the images of what had transpired within possessed too much heft for something as insubstantial as a figment of her subconscious imagination - she had survived a transformation she had never expected to attempt. A transformation that had killed Kara. A transformation that might kill Sorial.

  Rexall had pushed her. Not out of malice, she realized. It was a gift from Ferguson. If the portal had killed her, ripping her to shreds the way it had Kara, Maraman would have lost his most valuable hostage, thereby freeing Sorial from his yolk. In the event of her survival, she would have been what she apparently was: a wizard. Not that she had any idea what that truly meant. If she had powers, she was at a loss how to access them. Maybe the greenberry cider was retarding them.

  Maraman: that was the name of the man standing before her. Wise not to trust him. She opened her eyes a little more - still an effort - and regarded him and her surroundings. They were in his tent, only the two of them. Furs all around. Light coming through the vent hole - it was day outside. Which day, though? Maraman was crouched in front of her, not three feet away, watching her intently. A predator, sizing up a meal. Probably trying to decide whether or not to kill her. She was naked under the blanket but, because of the heat emanating from the small fire pit, she was sweating.

  “Do you know your element?” he asked. “Kara once said she could read it in people, but I never had the skill. Or maybe it never seemed important enough to cultivate.”

  Alicia shook her head in the negative, although she knew the answer. Water. Every cell of her body spoke of it to her. She could feel the water all around: frozen on the ground, oozing through the earth far beneath, gathering in the clouds above to drift downward as snow. It was everywhere. Water - the bringer of life and hope, the bane of fire and dust. It was hers to control. If she could figure out how and if she could escape the influence of the greenberry cider.

  “You represent a complication, although not necessarily an unwelcome one. Time will decide that.” Maraman scratched his beard, a habitual gesture common to men with facial hair. “Now, instead of encouraging Sorial to enter the portal, I have to keep him away. Wizards don’t make good hostages. Either they have to be kept drugged, which makes them useless, or they won’t stay a hostage for long. I have no desire to continue dosing you with cider but you can understand my predicament. So I’m willing to make a deal with you. Work with me and I’ll stop it. Pledge your support to me and, when Sorial arrives, he’ll be well treated. You both will. Partners, not captives. You two can marry if you like. I just can’t let him chance the portal. Any result of that would be bad - a dead man or a living wizard.”

  Alicia said nothing. She was trying to process Maraman’s words but they eluded her. He was making an offer but she couldn’t grasp its meaning.

  “I’m loathe to employ the alternative. That would be to kill you now and transport your body to a place where the blame would fall on Ferguson. Sorial, in his grief, would turn to me. That was the plan before you blundered into my camp. It would be a wasted opportunity, but it could be the plan again.”

  Alicia attempted to speak but the words came out slurred. “Where arth otherth?”

  “The others? I’m not sure why you’d care about them. Ferguson’s lapdogs, all of them, including dear, departed Kara. You may not believe it but I cared for her in my own fashion. You don’t fuck a woman that many times and not feel anything. And, after she had some experience, she made some of those long nights spent in Sussaman pass pleasurably.” For a moment, he seemed to be looking into another time, another place. Then his eyes snapped back into focus.

  “The others?”

  “I had the two younglings from Sussaman executed. No sense feeding useless mouths and I wasn’t going to send them home. Their heads are on pikes; you can visit them if you so desire. Aiden and the red-headed boy are awaiting questioning. Any suggestions what I should do with them?”

  Alicia was spared answering by a loud crash from somewhere outside. It was followed immediately by shouts of panic, screams of pain, and a general uproar. “What the fuck?” cursed Maraman, grabbing a knife from the table and throwing aside the tent flap. What he saw out there provoked a torrent of profanity the likes of which Alicia had only ever heard from Vagrum. She wondered what could have caused such an extreme reaction.

  Turning away from the open flap, Maraman approached her. She saw in his face a combination of fear and anger. He jerked her to her feet but, since she lacked the strength to stand on her own, he had to support her as a dead weight with an arm across her chest threaded through her armpits. He placed the blade of his knife to her throat as he dragged her out of the tent with him.

  * * *

  Sorial dismounted and allowed the rock wyrm to slide beneath the surface. It did so, leaving behind the mound of shattered rock through which it had emerged. It was a resilient creature but there was no sense risking it in these circumstances. Its hide was tougher than any armor, but an arrow or a pistol shot through the eye could wound or kill it. That was how Warburm had driven it off during their encounter in The Forbidden Lands.

  He knew before emerging from the underground that he would face a large number of men, having felt the vibrations of their footfalls through the earth - a trick he had learned during his period of isolation. The area around Ibitsal was infested by men: hundreds of them, perhaps as many as a thousand. He had no idea if Alicia had been here, was here now, or was still on her way, but the encampment was as good a place as any to start. Find someone in charge, ask a few questions... His hope, to get through this without a pitched battle, was dashed the moment he broke the surface and found himself under attack.

  His unorthodox arrival, exploding through the ground on the back of a monster, threw the encampment into chaos. The men closest to him, perhaps a dozen, took a few seconds to overcome the shock of seeing a naked man riding on the back of something out of a nightmare. Recognizing the threat and not considering that conversation might be a possibility, they did what came naturally and attacked. The wyrm might be imposing but Sorial, unarmed and unarmored, looked like an easy target. The attackers were dead before
they got within ten feet of the wizard, their bodies crushed and broken by the volley of fist-sized rocks that burst from the ground in front of them at lethal velocity. It was a wasteful, extravagant expenditure of energy, far in excess of what was needed, but its effectiveness was undeniable.

  Other men, possibly comprising as much as one-tenth of the assembled force, hesitated in their forward charge when they saw the fate of the first responders. Some began to back away. They weren’t stupid. There was a danger here they were unprepared for. Sorial had no wish to cause a massacre but he was in a hurry and being assaulted upon emerging from nearly a full day underground hadn’t improved his mood. A few more bodies might convince the rest to rethink their aggression.

  He acted quickly, without pausing after his first action, to strike at those nearest, using his power to scoop a giant’s handful of small stones, none bigger than his thumbnail, from the top layer of the ground near him. The rocks were airborne within a fraction of second, impelled like bolts from two-dozen crossbows. Their trajectory was unerring, their speed deadly as they crashed into a group of thirty mercenaries. The results were predictable. Men fell - some wounded, some dead. The cries of the injured pierced the late afternoon air, adding to the building tumult. Nearly half of the tightly-packed group went down. The rest, unnerved, retreated. No one stayed behind to help their injured fellows. Throughout the camp, men who had initially been moving in the direction of the disturbance reversed their course.

  The first arrow nearly caught Sorial in the throat and reminded him that, despite his powers, he remained vulnerable to the most mundane methods of death-dealing. An ax would split his head as cleanly as that of any man; a sword could skewer his heart, and a well-aimed arrow could bring him down. Fortunately, this one hadn’t been well-aimed. Sorial identified the shooter before he could reload and opened a sinkhole beneath his feet. The confounded man lost his footing, tumbled into the fissure, and was buried alive when Sorial re-sealed the earth. A quick scan revealed other archers. Sorial dispatched each in the same manner. The immediate path before him was clear.

  For the first time since arriving, he had an opportunity to survey his surroundings. He was in a clearing that stretched from the ruins of Ibitsal to the edge of a vast forest - a clearing that was the product of many strong arms and axes. Sorial couldn’t estimate the number of felled trees, but it was in the hundreds. The lack of available lumber testified to the abandon with which the numerous campfires had been fed. It was late afternoon and his view of the city’s remnants were fading into shadow but he could see the tower that presumably marked the location of the portal. That would have been Alicia’s destination if she had found a way past those settled here.

  Instead of heading directly for the ruins, Sorial moved in the direction of the largest tent in the settlement, most likely that of the chieftain. If he could establish that his intentions weren’t hostile - an admittedly difficult task now that he had killed more than twenty men - he could proceed without having to worry about being ambushed or shot at. It seemed the most prudent move. Plus, if Alicia had been here, the leader would know.

  A small reception committee awaited Sorial’s arrival at the tent. Standing just outside the entrance flap were two people. One was attired in a manner befitting the leader of a military establishment such as this. The other was smaller in stature and appeared to be naked. As he drew closer and the figures became distinct, he received a shock to the system - the naked person, whom he had initially taken to be a boy, was Alicia, with her hair cut short and dyed dark. Even at this distance, there was no mistaking her. The man had her pinned against him and was holding a knife to her throat.

  Sorial’s recognition of the situation set his heart to thudding in his chest. Fear, tinged with a panic he hadn’t felt since Havenham, threatened to overcome him. It lodged in his gullet, making breathing difficult. If the man drew the knife across Alicia’s throat, there was nothing Sorial would be able to do to save her. To have come so far, to have come so close... He couldn’t lose her now. His mind screamed at the unfairness of it while, outwardly, he did everything possible to appear calm.

  Alicia wasn’t struggling, but he could tell she was alive. Possibly not in good health - her posture suggested that she was drugged, drunk, or injured - but alive. That was something at least. A hope to cling to like a lifeline.

  Sorial had closed the gap to twenty feet when the man finally spoke. The words stopped his progress. “Welcome, Sorial. I think you’re close enough. This isn’t how I planned for us to meet. But circumstances today haven’t at all gone the way I planned. Just goes to show how little men control things even in an era when there are no more gods to meddle in our affairs. I wonder what His Eminence Prelate Ferguson, our mutual friend” - he spat the word - “would think of that observation.”

  “Let her go,” said Sorial. He intended it to be a cold, emotionless command - the order of a wizard to a mortal, a dictate that couldn’t be refused. But the note of pleading in the words was unmistakable.

  “That wouldn’t be wise, would it? Let her go and my life would be worth shit. The only thing keeping me able to talk to you is this knife at her throat. You and I have to reach an accommodation, although perhaps not the one I hoped for. I expected you to come here looking for a portal, not after having visited one. What happened to poor Langashin, I wonder?”

  “Let her go and I’ll make sure you die quickly rather than in agony like him.”

  “Don’t be hasty. We’re two reasonable men. We can work this out.”

  “You say ‘reasonable’ when you’re holding a knife to her throat? What have you done to her?”

  “Just a little greenberry cider. What you don’t know is you’re not the only one to have stepped through a portal. Your woman has as well. I’m sure you can see how that complicates matters.”

  If this man was telling the truth, Ferguson had been right; his gambit had paid dividends. But it changed nothing. It didn’t lessen Alicia’s danger. And, even if she was a wizard, she was in no condition to help herself. She was insensible of her surroundings.

  On the periphery of his vision, Sorial saw men moving toward him. Although still a distance away, their progress was slow and inexorable. The chieftain was stalling for time, hoping to prolong the conversation long enough for his subordinates to attempt a rescue. Sorial took a step forward.

  “Stop. No closer. I don’t want to kill her, Sorial. Eliminate a wizard I saw created not six hours ago? But if you take another step in this direction, I will. If you do anything threatening, I will. Now, here’s my proposal. I have a flask of greenberry cider in my tent. It won’t do any permanent harm but it should cloud your mind sufficiently to make it difficult to attempt magic. Take a long, deep draught of it, swear on Lady Alicia’s life that you won’t act against me, and we’ll talk. I think you’ll find we have more in common than you might...” An expression of disbelief crossed his features. After doing little more than gently nicking Alicia’s flesh, the knife dropped from senseless fingers and his body collapsed immediately thereafter. The small rent in his left temple was the only evidence of the high velocity pebble Sorial had blasted into his head. There was very little blood, but death didn’t always demand copious amounts.

  Sorial sprinted to Alicia, who had crumpled without support from her captor. She was conscious although confused and was having difficulty struggling into a sitting position. He lifted her to her feet, cradling her shivering body. Using his one hand, he held her against him, skin to skin. It was the most intimate contact they had shared thus far. When he looked into her eyes, he saw recognition.

  “Sorial,” she whispered, smiling. “I thought it was you. Head’s all fuzzy. My Lord of Earth, come to my rescue.”

  He wept unashamedly. “I love you, My Lady of Water.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: THE SHORT ROAD

  As night fell, Sorial and Rexall stood outside Maraman’s tent, the mood between them icier than the terrain. Inside, Alicia and Aiden sle
pt. Neither would be ready to travel until morning at the earliest; Alicia was still suffering from aftereffects of the greenberry cider and Aiden was recovering from beatings that had comprised a preliminary “softening up” at the hands of one of Maraman’s underlings. While those two rested, Sorial and Rexall stood guard, peering into the growing darkness around them. Although many of the encampment’s denizens had quietly departed since their leader’s demise, the settlement wasn’t deserted, at least not yet. It was unlikely an attack would come; those who remained were inclined to give Sorial as wide a berth as possible. They were here because they had nowhere better to go. Nevertheless, with Alicia’s life at stake, he wasn’t going to chance anything.

  Sorial was still reeling from the double blow of learning that his mother and father were both dead - the latter by his own hand. Rexall had provided an account of events at the portal - of Kara’s sacrifice and Alicia’s transformation - but there were gaps in the story and Sorial hadn’t yet addressed Rexall’s role as Ferguson’s paid informant with his friend. The issue hung in the air between them, more impenetrable than the lowering darkness with its promise of snow.

  Sorial felt no grief over his father’s demise although he was surprised to learn of the warlord’s identity. Gazing at the dead man’s face, he had tried to remember if he had seen him pass through the stables at The Wayfarer’s Comfort but there was no sense of familiarity. This was just another old man; the scarring diminished any familial resemblance.

  He mourned Kara. His relationship with his mother had been fractious and characterized by misunderstandings, but he would miss her. They hadn’t been as close as either might have preferred but she had always been there for him in her own way, seemingly spending her entire life at the farm awaiting his visits. The things she had done were accomplished out of true belief in a cause. He now wished he had told her about Ariel. Knowing rather than merely suspecting that her daughter was alive might have prevented her final, desperate action. Kara had died not knowing whether Sorial had fulfilled his destiny, the one she had helped map out for him. One of the things he had planned to do upon his return to Vantok was to move her to a house more worthy of a wizard’s mother. Now, there would be no need. If he visited the farm, it would be an empty shell. The property would revert to whatever noble owned the land. He would find new farming tenants and there would soon be a new family occupying the ramshackle cottage.