by T. A. Miles
Merran hated hearing that. He drew in a breath and held back his complaints, and his fears.
Ceth gave him a moment, then rose to a stand again. “Of course, I’m no physician. On the other hand, you are. And the governor’s family has need of your experience and knowledge.”
Merran lifted his gaze to the patriarch, feeling almost ashamed by his lack of interest in the task being given him. But then he nodded, and lifted himself out of the chair.
Ceth led him from the room and across the central staircase in silence. It wasn’t until they reached the opposite corridor, that he spoke again. “You must push your worries out of your mind, Merran. All of them. What’s coming is the only focus we can afford. That’s why I’d like you to see Tahrsel. His son needs to stay focused as well.”
Merran only nodded.
“If it were so easy to at least temporarily alleviate your concerns as well, I would,” Ceth told him. “As would Cayri, and as would Vlas. As would Irslan, I’m very certain.”
“I know,” Merran made himself say.
“Then take that as a comfort,” Ceth advised. “Korsten left of his own accord. You must trust him to return when he’s able, just as we are forced to trust you and every other Adept who takes an assignment outside of the walls of Vassenleigh. All of you are equipped to bring yourselves back, even when you’re thrown from your course entirely.”
Merran stopped, which drew Ceth to a halt as well. When the elder turned to face him, he said, “Song has Emerged. He was casting Siren. I’m certain of it.”
“How certain?”
“Very.”
Ceth said nothing. His pause was too deliberate to offer any comfort, but he nodded anyway. He stepped closer to Merran, putting a hand on his arm. “He has to learn. There’s no one who can teach him this. But,” the elder said quickly, squeezing Merran’s arm through his coat in prompting Merran not to speak just yet. “I believe that he will learn. Recall what he’s done—how quickly he’s risen to his talents. He cares about this war. He’s driven enough to see it through to its end. Have faith in something, Merran. Trust someone, other than your teachers.”
Merran’s eyes stung unexpectedly. He blinked in a vain attempt to keep that to himself.
Ceth offered him a compassionate smile, patting his arm and ushering him forward again. “The worst aspect of this coming conflict, is that we don’t know how little time we have.”
Merran understood. He, of all people, understood the imminence of the threat the crone had made.
Korsten felt as if he were in flight. The world of his dreams raced by him, as if the water had become the sky...or as if he had become the water. It was cold, but the fluidity of the motion kept him oddly warm. He wondered the longer he drifted if he were even moving at all. It was a dream, after all...or had he died? Was his spirit returning to the garden?
Analee?
She was with him, but he couldn’t see her. It was as if he had her view...as before in the caves. Perhaps that was what it felt like to pass and go with them back to Vassenleigh. Except he hadn’t been dying before when he confronted the demons with Allurance.
Was he?
You’re not dead.
The voice was not a voice at all, but an impression, one—like Serawe—which felt female. But it wasn’t Serawe, was it?
The demon has passed from that state into one of rebirth. The spirit of that one will reform, but smaller...still malignant. It will grow.
The answers came as if from his own mind. He was having a conversation with himself...and he was not himself. He could only have been dreaming.
There are many of us. You are surrounded by us. We are of the Sea. Come with us. You are welcome among us.
Korsten could only consider the fact that even if he wanted to join these...spirits?...he could neither breathe nor live indefinitely in the water. He was dreaming.
We can preserve your form if you like it. Both of them, if you wish.
Both?
The little red wing suits you.
Analee. She wasn’t a form of his. The confusion of the voice in his head... He was having difficulty getting his bearings. This was the consequence of near drowning; delirium.
He tried seeing this dream rather than simply feeling it. He saw water, dark and voluminous, and cold. It rushed all around him. He felt as if he were moving through it, but could feel none of its resistance.
Your preferred form could not move like this. We placed it safely for you.
Korsten had to stop listening to the voice for a moment. He concentrated on the water...the ocean...
The wave!
There are more demons to quell. Come with us. This is your calling.
Korsten finally believed that he understood. Dream, though it may have been, he was following the wave...traveling with the spirits the crone may have summoned to carry it to Indhovan. But he wasn’t anywhere. This was all emotional...spiritual? Was it real?
Come with us, the bodiless coaxed and a pang of irony struck him. Siren was not something to wield necessarily, but a means of communication...a method by which promises were made on both sides. It was as using the voice of spirits, communicating in their language of emotion. He was learning as the emotive voice of these spirits combined lulled him as he had lulled the demons—and as the demons would lure him—that he was far from fluent. He understood now that these such conversations were dangerous beyond those he’d had physically with demons. Serawe outside of her vessel had nearly held him under and drowned him and these spirits were literally carrying him away.
If it were possible for his soul to breathe, then Korsten drew in a long breath. The sensation of movement was taken in more evenly. He felt more level with an understanding of direction and purpose that filtered in slowly through the rushing. He knew that he was in the sea, that there was water all around him, but it was comprised of spiritual essence that he could feel more intimately in this dreamlike state.
With a greater sense of how to cope with the sensation, he tried to perceive a greater visual. The speed of motion created a feathery, prismatic effect on the water. Amid the colorful swaths of light were traces of form; gentle, spiraling curves and long trains falling away in their wake. They gradually came to look like an army of seahorses, but with vaguely humanoid faces.
It reminded him of his childhood, and how his mother had told him stories of sea faeries. He would always look for them when swimming or playing along the shore with his sisters. It was easy for him to rationalize that he would draw inspiration from his childhood imagination in order to provide himself with a visual interpretation of these spirits.
One of them flicked its gaze at him, hues of iridescent green, pink, and gold sparkling in the blue darkness. He wondered how he appeared to them, and then remembered what they’d said before about his “forms”.
He replayed the rest of their words, coming to the topic of demons and his calling in regard to them. He was meant to quell them, yes, but not like this. His place was among priests and in particular, by Merran’s side.
He had been on a flight of instinct before. It had carried him much farther than he’d meant to go—or ever would have planned to—given the time to think it through rationally. This talent, more than any of the others, was going to have to be mastered. It would lead him to disaster otherwise. He wondered if it had done so with Adrea. He wondered if it was doing so with him now.
The demons, he reminded himself. There were none left in Indhovan that he was aware of. He’d already brought them out to sea...them and their mistress.
The Vadryn have spread, like a killing fungus, all over the world. They are a swarm, bearing poison. The spread of their range is beyond the world you know, but you have come near the nest. You know that they will choke all others out of life if they themselves are not expunged. This reckoning is but a small measure taken on behalf of th
e Greater World.
The Greater World...
Korsten’s curiosity reached for the concept as readily as if he’d been in a library pulling down a book. It had been introduced to him by Leodyn, when the archdemon took it upon himself to speak of an historic reckoning, one that he believed could come again. Korsten had not been of a mind to fully comprehend what Endmark’s archdemon had been telling him, but with the topic returned to him, he found himself compelled to listen.
But now was not the time, any more than his meeting with Leodyn had been. Korsten had to pull away from his sudden and intense desire to know more. In spite of a world beyond what he or anyone in Edrinor may have known, Edrinor was the world they knew, and all of them had to live in it. They had to survive to be able to explore what lay beyond the borders that Morenne was even now trying to seal off.
Edrinor was so very small; Korsten was beginning to understand that. It may have been insignificant or unheard of to whomever else was out there, beyond the sea and the mountains...on the other side of Morenne even, but it was home to everyone within it. It was the country the gods had chosen to inspire the building of the Vassenleigh Order, perhaps because they were so close to the heart of the Vadryn’s corruption.
If the world were a body, Edrinor and Morenne are twins...the lungs...one damaged and the other decaying. The heart failed long ago and the lungs are trying to resuscitate a lifeless body.
An unconscious body, Korsten reasoned, disliking the tone of the spirits’ metaphor.
Some believe that it might recover. Others believe that it should be allowed to die completely, in order to enable a proper renewal.
Korsten knew immediately that his hope was for recovery. And he saw instantly the clashing views of many of the witches, versus himself and other priests. The crone had believed that destruction would clear the way for nature’s renewal. But if nature—or the gods—were so bent on that solution, then why empower men and women to work against the Vadryn? Why give people the power to save themselves, if they shouldn’t try?
The spirits didn’t respond to that thought. They didn’t have to.
Abruptly, the sensation of a population of souls overtook Korsten’s awareness. There wasn’t time to try to affect the spirits in the water—or of the water—to changing their intentions. He doubted that he would be able to convince them to change their course for him in the same way he had coaxed the demons. The demons craved power, as much as they could consume and more; these spirits were power.
He had to return to wakefulness, if it was still possible, and he had to return to the others...to Merran. He knew that waking to his body would put him at too great a distance. He had to do something here, in this dream…or this reality.
Release me, he requested of the spirits.
There was a measureless span where he felt they were going to refuse him. He felt them moving closer around him and had a fleeting sensation of the demons and their greed.
We will return you to your preferred form, the spirits offered.
Korsten felt a sensation of relief radiate through him at the knowledge that they could and would do that. A sigh of calm radiated through his soul and at this proximity, he felt as if the spirits found something endearing in that.
Not yet, he replied to their offer. Once again, he made his request. Release me.
He realized after the fact that he had no real idea what he was requesting, or if that would take him beyond their recovery, ultimately losing him. Losing him to death, he imagined.
A city of souls was fast approaching. It didn’t matter what would become of his beyond this moment.
The sensation of so many spirits surrounding his own fell away, but not all at once. As with the demons, he felt himself rising from them, drawing some of them with him in a wake he couldn’t quite comprehend. They did not cling desperately or hungrily, as the demons had. Rather, they seemed to be moving with him for the abstract pleasure of it, simultaneously helping to offer him the lift to separate himself. Beyond that, he had no idea what would happen to him, or how.
He felt for a peculiar instant that he might have some better perspective on Release and on the soul at all. Again, he found his mind on the tip of some epiphany, but there was no time or real want to carry it through. In the periphery of his surreal consciousness, he felt the sea moving…and he saw Eolyn.
The wave is coming, he said to the moth beating her wings against what felt like a dream rapidly leaving. It’s here!
Thirty
The evacuation and transfer of people took place over the course of the next few hours. The wave was still absent.
Merran stood along the highest outdoor balcony the governor’s mansion offered them. He was still well below the cliffs, but well above most of the other high places within the city. He should have been in plain view of at least one of the witches who would be watching for his signal.
“People are moving away from the water,” came a voice from beside him as he was joined on the balcony by the governor’s son.
By no fault of the younger man, Merran felt helplessly harassed by his presence, as it reminded him that he could do nothing for the governor. He hadn’t done more than assessed the fact that Cayri had successfully stabilized him and that, based on accounts, his faculties had collapsed under strain. There was nothing more he could do without full use of his Healing. It occurred to him also that there may not have been anything to do for Tahrsel regardless; the man was aged and his health may have simply faded.
“Will this work?” Deitir asked, perhaps to remind Merran that he was there and had spoken.
“There’s no way of knowing,” Merran answered plainly. He couldn’t elevate his mood beyond stressed and irritable. Granted, he wasn’t really trying to. He’d moved away from despairing. That would have to do.
“Well, I hope it does,” Deitir said in spite of Merran’s plain answer. “This is my father’s nightmare. I never imagined it would manifest so literally.”
Merran turned enough to look at him.
Deitir was stood at the railing, dark eyes filled with emotion he may not have intended to share so openly and a profile that showed a very distinct nose. It wasn’t a trait the young man had inherited from his mother, to look at her. Upon meeting Ilayna Tahrsel, it became clear that her most distinguishing features were her eyes and her mouth. Both had a confident and unwavering set. In fact, she seemed the type of woman who kept her emotions very easily in check. She also seemed very reasonable. That may have been a trait shared between mother and son.
Returning his attention to the sea, Merran said, “I’ve never been a part of anything of this magnitude. Not quite in this way. But I trust Ceth.”
In his peripheral view, he saw Deitir nod in response.
In the peripheries of his senses, he felt a sudden, familiar presence. It was like a fleeting brush of the wind across his face and shoulders, a glimpse of red, and then words whispered in tremendous haste.
It’s here!
“You’ve all done well here,” Ceth said to Cayri and Vlas as they stood watch with him at the highest point in Indhovan they could manage.
“We’re not finished,” Vlas answered.
Cayri translated. “We’re worried about Merran and Korsten.”
Ceth nodded, his gaze remaining vigilantly on the ocean.
Cayri wondered if a part of him was simply taking in a rare view.
“I’ve taken a cursory look at Merran’s hand,” the patriarch informed. “Eisleth will have a better time assessing the full extent of the damage and what’s to be done. As for Korsten...of course, we all have to consider that he has a habit of returning, one just as pronounced as Merran’s.”
Cayri accepted that in silence. There was not much else she could do or say, knowing very little of what had actually happened.
“From an enemy stronghold, he returned to Ashw
in specifically,” Ceth added. “For the moment, I have to think that the bonds he’s formed will ultimately protect him.”
There was something else behind Ceth’s words, though Cayri couldn’t say what. By her perception, it seemed almost nervousness. Did he not believe his own words? Or was something else troubling him about the situation…or about Korsten? Cayri didn’t pry.
Ceth drew in a breath in her silence, and on its release, he said, “There it is.”
Cayri looked to him, then followed his gaze. She’d half expected to see a wall of water, but she was surprised to instead see the water at the shore lowering. It was shrinking away from the land, as if a giant were inhaling at the edge of the horizon, sucking it all in.
Merran’s Lantern came to life at the governor’s mansion, rising up.
Ceth took another of his orbs from his pocket and held it out. “Concentrate your spells here,” he instructed.
As they’d discussed at the start of their vigil at the edge of the cliff, they cast the Barriers directly at the edge of the land they stood upon.
“Continue to cast it,” Ceth told them, and tossed the orb at the aligned and scarcely visible wall of magic before them. The orb spun as it reached the wall, drawing energy from it into itself. Ceth then took another orb and cast a small Reach gate in the air beside himself, through which he tossed the second orb. It vanished, notifying them of its arrival at its destination when a spark of evening light shone off it above the water.
In her mind, Cayri could see it spinning, casting out the Barrier to either side of itself, as if unfurling wings to shield the city. It required all of her concentration not to be awed to distraction by the chain reaction of events that followed.
Crystals throughout the city came to life, from small embers to full-bodied luminaries, to minor stars hanging impossibly low in the sky. They lit the city from previously unknown places, forming a web of glowing strands toward the sea, and toward the Barrier, which swelled to gigantic proportions, casting a veil of light between the city and the sea. It may have been the single most beautiful display Cayri had ever seen.