‘Come, Cous,’ Pagan said, when he had built up the fire and carelessly removed the Princess’s bandage to crouch and admire the wound. ‘Let us heal this scratch before you spill any more Guardian blood.’
‘Great bedside manner,’ the Princess said. Her hand, having been removed from the bandage, now lay on Talis’s chest and he could feel every slight movement it made. Her impatience for him to be healed was clear, but for Talis’s part, he could happily bleed to death to remain in such intimate contact with the object of his most desperate affections.
Yet if he should die, the Princess would then only have Pagan for a Champion. Or worse, Kert Sh’hale.
His eyes snapped open. ‘Lay your hand upon the wound,’ he commanded his cousin, then winced when Pagan quickly obeyed. His own hand he laid on top of that, and began the Rite of Healing, drawing the restless energies of Pagan’s untutored power along with his own into the shoulder the Raider had cut.
Pagan’s solemn voice broke the hush that had fallen over the clearing.
‘With Guardian power do I heal the broken flesh herein …’
A prickling warmth covered Talis’s shoulder and he directed it towards healing.
‘… Restoring strength and making whole, I order pain to end.’
Talis should now feel blessed relief. However, it was another minute before the healing was completed and he removed his hand from Pagan’s.
He felt air on his shoulder when Pagan removed his own hand, and heard a soft gasp from his Princess. A moment later he felt the site being swabbed with a damp cloth.
‘How did you do that?’ she asked, and Talis opened his eyes to find her startled gaze shifting from Pagan to the shoulder. ‘I thought you were only an apprentice Guardian?’
Talis shot him a glance before he could begin to boast.
Pagan squirmed, yet admitted, ‘I merely recited the rite. Talis performed the healing.’
Her gaze encompassed the shoulder again then shifted to her Champion. ‘I don’t know what to say. Wow doesn’t begin to cover it.’ She took one of the hands that laid on his chest and gently caressed the shoulder. ‘No scar tissue. Nothing. It’s as if it never —’ She looked back at Talis and broke off when she saw the expression on his face. Lifted her hands. ‘Did that hurt?’
Talis shook his head, his teeth clenched tightly against the sensations his Princess had awoken. ‘We must leave,’ he said harshly as he stood. ‘The Deep Sanctum is only an hour away. I would go to the nearby forest to find strength to help me guard you.’
Pagan’s eyes widened. ‘The Forest of —’
‘With My Lady’s blessing,’ Talis added, his eyes hard on his cousin.
‘Well …’ She looked up at him, clearly bewildered by his gruff manner. ‘Is it something to do with the healing magic you were telling me about?’
‘The forest will give me strength.’
She frowned at him a moment, then said, ‘I certainly want you strong. And back to normal.’ She stood, and seeing the blood which remained on his chest, she made to wipe at it with the dampened cloth still held in her hand. Talis flinched and she awkwardly handed it to him. ‘I’ll get my cloak,’ she said and turned away. Talis ached for the sadness and confusion in her eyes, yet he steeled himself to do what must be done.
‘Why do you choose to go into the Forest of Desires?’ Pagan hissed softly. ‘What strength do you hope to gain there?’
Talis turned to look into his cousin’s eyes, his words a measured whisper. ‘You must hold vigil in silence and tell the Princess nothing of the forest’s purpose. If you speak of this to anyone, my duty is forsaken. Do I have your assurance?’
Pagan was clearly moved by this petition and searched his cousin’s eyes well before replying. ‘You have my best obedience, Cous. I will not speak of it.’
Talis nodded, relief in his voice. ‘You are truly a warrior tonight, Pagan.’ He grasped his cousin’s arm. ‘I am glad to have your sword beside mine to guard the Princess.’
The way these words worked on Pagan was a pleasure to the eye. Back straight and eye steady his cousin said, ‘I will serve the Princess with honour.’
Talis nodded. Hoped that he could do the same.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Mihale lowered his sword and grinned. ‘You trifle with me, Sh’hale,’ he accused, then wiped the sweat from his brow with a forearm, never taking his eyes from his opponent.
‘My Lord, no,’ Kert replied, and feigned a strike.
Mihale dropped his arm and countered with the sword in his right hand. The grip was slick in his hands, but just such conditions might be experienced on the Plains and for that reason he had ordered the practice room heated. A huge fire roared at one end, and as far away from it as they could position themselves, the men of his private guard stood wilting near the door.
‘My Lord’s tutelage under the Guardian Laroque bears fruit,’ Kert said, although this compliment was undermined by the ease with which he worked his King back towards the fire.
Mihale struggled to break through this advance but could find no opportunity. Kert’s attack was impenetrable, his swordsmanship as dazzling as it was deadly. Soon heat roared at Mihale’s back, dizzying his mind. Sweat poured into his eyes and slicked his body beneath the thickly quilted battle jacket.
Finally, Kert gave him an opening. ‘Would My Lord care to break for the evening meal?’ he asked, effortlessly parrying two of Mihale’s attacking blows.
The heat of the fire behind him all but overwhelmed Mihale and he knew he could not win, and clearly, neither would Kert press his advantage. They would merely continue until Mihale collapsed of exhaustion. ‘Cease!’ he called, and they bowed, Mihale all but staggering as he straightened and stepped away from the fire. One of his guard jumped forward to take his weapons, another with a goblet of blessedly cool water which Mihale drank with a trembling hand. A great hissing came from behind as the fire was dashed and steam billowed across the room, dampening the pale timber walls and floor which were pitted from many strikes with the blade.
Still trembling, Mihale raised his head to address his opponent. ‘You are a harder task-master than Laroque,’ he told Kert when he had breath to speak.
Sh’hale bowed, ‘My Lord, I take that as a compliment.’
‘I don’t know that it is,’ Mihale admitted, wiping his face with a towel and loosening his jacket. ‘Laroque, at least, does not try to send his Lord and King to Haddash without the benefit of due ceremony.’
Kert laughed. ‘My Lord, it was your idea to light the fire.’
‘And a foolish one at that.’ Although it had distracted him for a brief time from wondering if Talis had been successful on the Plains. The waiting was intolerable. ‘Dine with me tonight, Sh’hale,’ he said, to distract himself further, ‘and tell me how I can improve my arm.’
Kert bowed, a smile still touching his lips. ‘My Lord, with pleasure.’
They parted then and Mihale returned to his royal chambers to luxuriate in his marbled bathing pool, going over the details of the fight in his mind. Sh’hale was the better swordsman and certainly cut a dashing figure, but in defence of his own performance, Mihale admitted that Kert was twice his age and did not have the concerns of a kingdom to steal into his practice time. Indeed, now no lord of a great House was required to concern himself with anything other than running his own estates.
Disbanding the Royal Council had been a bold move, and one Mihale would never have undertaken had The Dark not been insistent that The Balance
would benefit from the action. Harder still had been claiming authorship for the idea rather than revealing its source. Yet some time after the pronouncement, exactly as The Dark had predicted, the Lords began to look upon their King with fresh eyes, seeing not the boy of tender years who needed constant advice, but a king who knew best what his Kingdom required.
It was true that some had taken the change badly, the Elder Sh’hale among them, yet time would heal these wounds, so said The Dark, and Mihale trusted that his good service to Ennae would overcome their doubts.
Some wounds, however, defied time’s healing balm. The loss of Khatrene whom Mihale had loved deeply would not be reconciled. He simply could not find a way to live without her. When their father had been killed, Mihale had sworn to himself that he would take no queen, but would rule Ennae with his twin sister at his side, their bond of love strengthening each other, her wisdom balancing his reckless courage, her humour gentling his moods.
Yet just when he’d needed her most, war had cruelly separated them. The last time Mihale remembered seeing his sister was when he stepped into the Sacred Pool behind his mother, with Khatrene to follow them into exile. The next instant, or so it seemed, he was reaching out to clasp Talis’s arm. A year had elapsed; a year of which he had no recollection, but during which time his form had changed from that of a child to a young man.
What should have been a happy homecoming was drowned in anguish when neither his mother nor sister could be summoned through the Sacred Pool. Physical sickness from the journey between the worlds was replaced by hollow disappointment when he’d been forced to return to the Volcastle and rule alone. Everywhere there had been reminders of Khatrene: the garden where they’d made patterns on the paths with their mother’s precious ahroce petals, the sky platform they’d lain on after each year’s Air Ceremony, gazing upwards in the hope of a glimpse of Atheyre, the Volcastle furnace mouth where they’d thrown their father’s best shoes, the better to protect his feet should he die unaware and be called to Haddash instead of Atheyre.
Memories of their joyful companionship ached inside him and though two years had passed since his return from exile, he felt no lessening of the pain. This last journey onto the Plains carried his hopes and his heart. But if Talis should fail …
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Princess stood under the scalloped arch through which they had entered the Deep Sanctum an hour before. Still wrapped in her Champion’s cloak, she gazed outwards, her glittering royal-hued hair dancing on the wind that echoed through the hollow stone chambers with an eerie moan.
Behind her, Pagan sharpened the blades, more from a need to keep busy than from necessity, as his gaze strayed more often to the Princess than his work. Talis had left them an hour ago and tired though he knew her to be, Pagan could not convince his Princess to rest.
‘Will he be long, do you think?’ she asked and started to turn towards him.
Quickly, Pagan dropped his gaze to his knife, waiting until he was sure her glance rested on him before he raised his head. ‘I do not know, My Lady. Hours perhaps,’ he replied, as though drawn from contemplation of his task.
‘I hope he’s all right.’
Her frown of worry touched Pagan’s heart, and he thought his cousin lucky to have so singular a beauty as the Princess concerned for his safety. If Pagan had cause to hope she would tend him so carefully, he would take a wound himself.
‘I still don’t understand why we couldn’t go with him,’ she said, moving out of the moonlit doorway and into the shadowed light of the crackling fire Pagan had laid in the hearth. Around them the walls danced with frescoes depicting the Forest of Desire. So far, the Princess had not noticed them and Pagan was grateful for this. Their lurid depictions stirred Pagan even as they repulsed him.
‘There is danger in the forest,’ Pagan said, ‘that only a trained Guardian can survive.’
‘What sort of danger? You said there were no animals.’
Pagan dropped his gaze to his work. ‘Danger cannot always be seen,’ he said, not daring to look into her eyes lest she see there was more to the tale than he was telling her. ‘For some distance around the forest the land is taboo. To walk its paths and to take shelter in its sanctum is to risk the call to madness.’
‘Madness?’
The fear in her voice forced him to look at her. ‘You are in no danger here, My Lady. At this distance from the forest, my presence and the warding my cousin has given me protects us both.’
She waved his words away. ‘I’m not worried about me. You pair do enough of that.’ Then she surprised Pagan by moving to sit beside him, her back against the wall beside his, her head tilted to face him. ‘But I am worried about Talis.’ She held Pagan’s gaze a moment. ‘I think he might … There’s some sort of sacrifice. I don’t know.’ She shook her head, the snowy hair spilling forward as she pressed her cheek into the shoulder of her Champion’s cloak. Pagan watched as she breathed in its scent. ‘I just hope he’s all right,’ she said. ‘If anything happens to him …’
Pagan heard her tone and dragged his thoughts away from wishing it was his cloak she wore and drew such comfort from, to reassure his Princess. ‘Your Champion uses his powers to draw strength from the forest,’ he said, repeating his cousin’s words yet finding no sense in them for himself. ‘There has been no Guardian born with the power your Champion possesses. So my father says.’
The Princess smiled at this. Not even you, Pagan?’
He shook his head, sharing her smile. ‘It pains me to admit as much, My Lady, but it’s true. This was the reason he was chosen to aid your family into exile and return you when Ennae was safe again. My father may be the elder Guardian, yet Talis’s strength is the greater. You need not fear for his safety.’
She nodded. ‘I’m probably imagining danger where there is none.’
Such is the way of Magoria, My Lady,’ Pagan said, ‘where you lived an imaginary life.’ He rose to tend the fire which had begun to smoulder, stoking it with more of the funguswood he had gathered along their journey. It was damp and smelt faintly acrid, but without any sea-ash there was little he could do to sweeten the smoke for his Princess. ‘It is not our way to imagine danger where none exists,’ he went on, touching his palm to the pale firestone above the hearth, where he snatched a spark and tossed it into the fire.
Behind him the Princess gasped, then said, ‘What was that?’
He turned, frowning.
‘How did you do that? Show me your hands.’ She scrambled to her feet.
He opened both palms, then turned them over for her to inspect the backs.
‘How did you make that spark you put into the fire?’
Pagan glanced at the fire which had begun to burn steadily again, then back to his Princess. ‘From the firestone,’ he said simply and repeated the gesture. Again a spark flew from his palm into the fire and the damp wood in that corner burst into flame.
The Princess started, much alarm on her face. ‘Show me your hand,’ she demanded again.
Pagan held both out for her careful inspection, soft fingers running over his palms and sliding deliciously between his fingers. He was just beginning to enjoy himself when she dropped them and gazed at him expectantly. ‘Was it magic?’ she asked.
‘It is just a firestone,’ he said, and taking her palm, laid it flat on the pale stone, then quickly snatched it back and flicked it towards the now blazing fire. A spark fell in and the Princess jumped backwards, almost losing her balance and falling onto him.
‘Ohmygod.’ She inspected her hand then looked to Pagan with eyes of wonder. ‘I did that? I m
ade that spark?’
Pagan nodded. He was taking great pleasure in the close proximity her antics had allowed. ‘The firestone is quarried in the Echo Mountains and taken wherever sparks are required,’ he replied.
‘So … the stone makes the fire?’
‘And we do but harvest it,’ he replied.
‘You’re telling me there’s fire inside the stone, and when I put my hand on it —’
Pagan was momentarily distracted from his thoughts of seduction to frown at her. ‘I hear disbelief in your voice, Princess,’ he said. ‘Why is that, when you have used the stone yourself?’
‘I know I did it, but …’ She seemed not to understand herself.
‘Your time spent on Magoria makes you believe this is an illusion.’ Pagan nodded wisely, pleased with his insights. ‘That is why Magoria is aptly named an illusion world.’
The Princess gazed at him for some time, as though deep in thought. At last she nodded. ‘You’re right, Pagan. The people of Magoria wouldn’t believe in a firestone even if they could see it. Even if they had proof. They’d say it was friction, or static electricity, or a carnival trick.’ She said nothing for a moment and her gaze became distant. ‘And because they refuse to believe, the reality ceases to exist for them. By denying reality, they … live in an illusion.’
Her strange words confused Pagan, yet he knew she spoke the truth.
The Princess reached past him and touched the firestone again, then flicked her hand, releasing the spark into the fire. Straightaway she touched that hand to her cheek, ‘It’s not even hot,’ she said and looked at Pagan again, ‘but it’s real. Magic is real.’
He smiled. ‘My Lady, you sound amazed, but fire from a stone is like fruit from a tree. It is part of the natural world.’
‘That will take some getting used to,’ she replied. Then he saw her yawn, her hand rising to cover her mouth, her tired eyes closing a moment.
Destiny of the Light: Shadow Through Time 1 Page 14