The Swithin Chronicles 3: The Comet Cometh

by Sharon Maria Bidwell

  * * * * *

  “I’m sorry, little one, little thief.”

  So far, Uly kept his fear and anger at bay. Neither were good things when fighting for your life. The anger bubbled up inside him so fiercely at the sound of Harton’s words that he feared his blood might boil. How dare Harton use those phrases? He was Ryanac’s little one, and Markis’s little thief, and no one had the right to call him little other than the two men in his life. They used it as a term of affection, for it had no bearing on his size or height. Uly stood taller than Markis’s shoulder, and Harton knew that. Harton used the term to provoke him, but he wasn’t stupid enough to fall for it. It took Uly a moment to register the “sorry.” Harton was apologising for having to kill him. It made no sense. Sweat trickled down from Harton’s forehead, making the tall man blink. Something was wrong, and Uly failed to understand what and couldn’t spare the time to question it. He was vaguely aware that Harton poured sweat in comparison with their exertion, that his muscles were tense rather than relaxed, and that his slashes with the blade were too jerky. Blood flowed where Uly had managed to slice Harton in three places.

  The tall man still looked mildly surprised that Uly had managed to cut him, but Uly couldn’t put those wounds entirely down to his skill for he was tired. Harton simply wasn’t fighting as well as he should have. The tall man looked even more surprised when he moved to swing the killing blow. Harton stopped, sword raised in what would have been a perfect swipe if he had let it drop. Uly would have struggled to parry the blow, and if that strike hadn’t killed him, all Harton would have had to do was follow it through with another. Uly was running on instinct and the desire to live, but Harton possessed greater skill and strength. Uly parted his lips, trying not to go numb with the realisation he would probably die in the next few seconds, when Harton…hesitated. Uly stumbled back, seeking a reprieve. He expected Harton to follow, and he did…for a single pace. Then he simply stopped. Everything grew still, motionless for a precious heartbeat.

  Harton’s gaze slid to the side as Meira emerged from behind him. Whatever she had used, she left it impaled in his back. Blood marred her hand. Harton stared at her, his mouth agape, blood spilled over his lips. His arm started to lower in what would be a wide sweep that would take the woman’s life. Uly knew he had killed the day men attacked him and Ryanac, but that didn’t feel real. This would feel real. Harton had been a friend. This was the moment Uly dreaded, but when it came to it, he didn’t hesitate. He scrambled forward, pulling the reaper blade free as he did, and drove it in deep.

  Harton stared at him from a heartbeat away. The man’s sword clattered to the floor.

  “You don’t get to call me little,” Uly said, as though he needed to back up the physical statement of the blade. Even as he finished speaking, pain exploded in Uly’s head.

  * * * * *

  “No.”

  The word belonged to Mairtin, not Markis. Markis was winning, but he didn’t know at what cost yet. He could see his brother’s face as though through a mist. The other man grew weak, but Uly’s mind might yet be ripped apart before he died. Markis was beginning to wish he’d let Meira use a stronger dose, but he hadn’t wanted to kill Mairtin, just cut his connection to the power. Mairtin pulled on the comet, healing himself even as he attacked, but it cost him. He couldn’t destroy Uly and save himself at the same time, but he was trying. Mairtin no longer attacked Ryanac. The power itself was what now kept Ryanac out. Markis couldn’t help Ryanac get closer to Mairtin and he couldn’t raise a personal shield. If Markis dropped the power he sent to shield Uly, the young man would die. That left Markis open to Mairtin’s attack.

  It happened so quickly that Mairtin pulled back from the power even as he struck. Markis had no choice. He let go of Uly and struck back, not certain what he did. Gold flashed, and then went out. Everywhere Markis looked, he saw only black.

  * * * * *

  Uly rolled over on his side, hands flying to his head. He shook, convulsions throwing him on his back. He was only vaguely aware of others in the room. Tressa eased him into her lap while Meira held him down with her weight. “Thank you for staying hidden, as I asked,” Tressa said.

  “I found it difficult to obey, but you were right. I don’t usually take orders so easily, not even from a queen.”

  Clearly, Tressa had given Meira an order to stay out of sight until she gained an advantage.

  “I know the feeling. Uly, hold on.” An edge of panic crept into the small queen’s voice. Uly couldn’t help it; he rolled in her lap and a gurgling sound he couldn’t believe he was capable of making forced its way out of his throat.

  “Antal, help me,” Tressa cried out. So Antal still lived, although the moan he uttered announced that he was maybe the worse for it. Uly was aware of his blurred image as Antal stumbled across the room to fall to his knees at his side, and then Uly gave up trying to focus on the world and closed his eyes.

  Fingers pried at his lips, and Uly did what he could to help them open his mouth, fighting the cramps that seized his muscles, making him jerk. Something slipped between his teeth, keeping him from biting or swallowing his tongue. Somewhere in all this, he could hardly fathom that he heard Harton’s voice. “Hold on. Even now, Markis fights to keep you safe.”

  * * * * *

  Markis sensed movement, and a hand grabbed him, pulling him to his feet. He swayed. Somehow, he knew Ryanac stared at his face. “I can’t see.”

  A dim shape waved in front of him, and he slapped the hand away. Ryanac barked out a light laugh that was full of relief rather than mirth. Gradually, the world swam back into focus. Ryanac’s questioning expression grew serious. “You’re not talking about your sight, are you?”

  “I was partly, but it’s returning. The abyss is black.”

  Ryanac’s grip tightened and shook him. “What has happened to the comet? Where is Uly? Is the comet…gone? Is something blocking it?”

  Markis shook his head. “Not exactly. It’s…still with me, yet not with me.”

  “You’re making no sense.”

  Even as Ryanac said it, Markis knew what was wrong. “It’s stayed with Uly.” He looked into Ryanac’s eyes. “It’s…fighting to keep him alive.” He looked at his brother’s unconscious body. “Bring him.”

  Markis stumbled a few times in the first two corridors. After that, he ran.

  * * * * *

  Tressa looked up, tears pouring down her face. She didn’t sob, just wept. Markis found the sight strangely eerie. He fell to his knees and slid the last few paces. Reaching out, he took Uly’s head from Tressa’s lap where she knelt. Meira checked Uly’s pulse, laid her head on his chest. If he breathed, Markis couldn’t see it. She shook her head.

  “He lives but barely. I can’t tell what’s wrong with him.”

  They all ignored the ragged breathing coming from Harton’s throat. Somehow, the man remained upright, though a quick glance revealed Uly’s dagger protruded from the man’s stomach. His little thief had fought for his life, and yet he still lay here, so close to death. Markis’s heart swelled with pride and anguish both. Having put Mairtin down on the floor, Ryanac stood, staring down at them, so still he might as well have turned to stone. It looked as though he might never move again, until someone came into the room. He whirled, but Markis already knew the newcomers would be Kilan and the man he had sent his youngest brother to fetch. His brother shoved Stargazer into the room ahead of him.

  “You were right,” he said. “He tried to kill the Kita.”

  “I did nothing wrong. He tried to hurt ‑‑”

  “Shut up!” Ryanac warned.

  Markis ignored them and, more focused now, he eased into Uly’s mind. He found…nothing.

  No. That couldn’t be right. He closed his eyes and concentrated. Time slipped away too quickly, and he almost gave up hope. A single star winked at him. He followed it. It moved away, growing distant. He gritted his teeth, aware of a man protesting over his treatment. Stargazer.


  Markis opened his eyes. His throat was dry. Sweat trickled down his brow. Tressa wiped it away before it ran into his eyes. How many minutes had he been trying?

  He looked at Harton. He looked at Stargazer. The old man fiddled with his robes, taking care of his appearance. “No questions? No shock?” Markis asked him.

  Stargazer blinked, glanced at Harton sitting in a slowly spreading pool of his own blood. “I am sure there is an explanation.”

  Harton laughed. The sound rattled in his chest. A single drop of blood ran out of his mouth. “Don’t even try.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about, and I really must protest ‑‑ yee…ck.” Stargazer made a very strange sound as Ryanac grabbed his arm and twisted it.

  “Just one more word,” the big man warned. They all just stood or knelt there, a silent and peculiar tableau.

  “Why, Harton?” The question slipped from Markis’s lips. He didn’t even care, but he could stand the ominous silence no longer.

  The tall man grimaced, though possibly not from pain. “It was your father’s wish. Mairtin was his favourite. You know that. Your father was Samir to me, but I was never Samir to him. I loved him even when I hated the things he did. Your mother and I shared that in common. I made your father a promise before he died, one he wrung from my lips.”

  Markis’s gaze narrowed. “I love Ryanac, and he is as good as Samir to me that I may as well call him such.”

  “You can’t have two ‑‑ guggkkk.”

  Ryanac silenced the old man yet again. Markis continued. “Still, I would never…”

  Harton laughed, and then coughed as the gesture spilt more blood from his lips. “When your father wanted something, he had methods to make you see things his way. You’ve not read everything in that damn book yet. I hope you never do.”

  So when Harton said his father had wrung a promise from him, maybe he literally had. He’d also lied when he’d told Markis that his father had no knowledge of it. No, he hadn’t lied. He’d parried the question.

  “Then why help us rescue Uly only to see him die now? How?” Ryanac asked the question, and for a split second, Markis hated him for it. Yet the big man only asked what Markis was wondering. Markis could not accept that Uly would die. Aware the pain of that possibility cut as deeply into the big man, he didn’t know how Ryanac managed to utter the words.

  “Believe me…” Harton began, only to have his words taken over by another fit of coughing. When he managed to breathe again, he said, “I have done everything I could not to be a part of this. I’ve been under a compulsion to live, unable to tell you the truth, and unable to disobey, but I gave nothing away. I kept the fact that Ryanac was alive a secret. I could because Mairtin and Stargazer never thought to ask me if he lived. I had no orders not to help you rescue Uly, so I could do that too. I did what I could, when I could. Mairtin suspected you would try to keep the book so he sent me as the threat. He once forced me to…look at the abyss.”

  Markis grimaced. He’d taken Ryanac’s spirit into that strange place more than once, but his guard had always been willing.

  “Since then he’s been able to send me instructions over a short distance. If you chose to disregard the threat then ‑‑”

  “If you didn’t hear otherwise, you were to kill Uly. Your sword or Mairtin’s power would do the trick. If Mairtin couldn’t have the book, he’d take everything he could from me.”

  Harton nodded. “I hoped you’d win. Part of me has always hoped you’d win, despite…”

  The words trailed off. The man said the last of what he needed to say with his eyes. Markis could hardly comprehend the twisted logic. To kill for your Samir in order to save him or her was one thing. To kill after he was gone, not out of revenge but because he wanted you to, and to kill someone you liked, that you even considered a friend… No, he could not get his mind to grasp that, even if Harton wasn’t responsible as he claimed. Was the comet truly capable of rendering such a compulsion on a human being? Especially since Harton had hoped to fail from the beginning?

  Harton hoped to fail from the beginning. Harton wanted to die.

  Markis tried to imagine carrying that kind of anguish inside him while turning a cheerful face to the outside world, and he couldn’t. Even in the midst of horror when taking lessons to control the comet, he hadn’t wanted to die. He had wanted to be free from the stress, from the agony, from the loneliness of it, but he had delighted in life.

  Markis’s gaze flickered to Harton’s hand over the blade. Uly’s dagger was the only thing stopping the guard from bleeding out right now. He could offer to save him. The man must have read it in his face. He shook his head. “Don’t. Use your strength to do what you can for Uly. I never wanted to hurt him.” He glanced at Mairtin’s immobile form. Even as he did, the prone man gave out a soft moan. His skin looked flushed. Meira’s toxin, the heart’s ease they had used to poison Ryanac, was now doing its job on Markis’s brother. “It’s finished. If you can take my life and give it to Uly, then do so.”

  All this time, Markis had been stroking both sides of Uly’s face with his thumbs along the cheekbones. He looked down. He felt numb, yet was aware that the pain of loss hovered so close that he could almost taste the salt of tears on his lips. Anger lay barely suppressed. Anger and grief warred, combined, revolved, called on the stars that were his to command. He realised he was gritting his teeth, that his expression surely displayed a terrifying rictus when his jaw began to ache.

  All he had ever wanted was to keep good people safe, to rule well, to find love, and have some peace in his life. Was that really asking for so much? His father had often made Markis cry when he was a boy; as an adult, Markis’s relationship with his father hadn’t amounted to much. Still, he’d held on to faith that his father had done what he thought was right. That his father had treated him in such a way that he believed would make Markis strong for the greater good. Now, even from the grave, his father reached out to take what he loved. He hadn’t even aimed that animosity at Tressa. That, Markis could have at least understood, for his father had hated all Azulites. Instead, his father reached out to take the one pure thing Markis had in his life, and in doing so, he’d almost taken Ryanac from him as well. His father wanted to leave him broken, and had used Harton, someone he knew that they all trusted, in such a despicable way… Markis couldn’t imagine using Ryanac that way. He couldn’t. It was unthinkable. Unacceptable! Take Harton’s life and give it to Uly… If he could, he would. Wrong or right, Markis just didn’t care. If he could, he would…

  Markis at once called the abyss, went into it, following a path to his brother. Mairtin cried out as though he felt it coming. When he found Mairtin, Markis enclosed him in the abyss.

  * * * * *

  What?

  Mairtin’s confusion swirled as a pulsing green and yellow nebula. The colour reminded Markis of bile. Knowledge and realisation brought forth small, black empty spaces that grew as though they would expand and suck in the comet, and then Markis’s consciousness. For all he knew, maybe they would. His life for Uly’s; Markis could live with that. Even as the thought occurred to him, he felt the comet shudder at the very idea; it wouldn’t let Markis exchange his life, but it gave him an alternative. The black holes started to draw in all that yellow and green sickness.

  You can’t do this. You daren’t. You don’t want to. I know you. You don’t want to do this.

  Markis drew in a deeper breath and almost sighed. I DON’T, BUT YOU LEAVE ME NO CHOICE.

  Mairtin started another protest, but Markis filled the abyss with his intention and determination. He didn’t even know if it were possible. He just fed his heart’s pain into the void, let the comet see the truth of who he was and what he wanted, and what it would mean for them. The comet replied. Mairtin gave them no choice, and in that, the power granted Markis absolution even as it did the impossible.

  A hand shook him. Markis tried to respond but was aware only nonsensical noises fell from his lips.
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  “Markis, you’re not making any sense.” Ryanac’s voice sounded close by. “I don’t know what you did, but it’s…impressive.”

  The words made Markis open his eyes; the slowly moving ball that hung in the air just a few feet in front of him drew his attention. He blinked, trying to make sense of what he saw. When he realised what he had done, a sharp cry left his lips. “I did this evil thing?”

  “To do something horrible does not make you evil. Concentrate.” Ryanac offered good advice, but even so…

  Markis stared at his brother, who was dead and yet alive. Yes, this was evil, but he hadn’t intended this. The perfect sphere was the only thing holding his brother together. The comet had…separated him. Each bone, muscle, vein, and sinew were perfectly connected yet perfectly detached. Mairtin still lived, but only because this state had halted the progress of the poison and kept him contained. Even if he wanted to, Markis had no idea how to put him back together.

  He feared to look at the other people in the room, to witness their expressions, but he gazed at them anyway. He was surprised to see none of them looked especially shocked. Surprised, amazed maybe, but not exactly disgusted. Perhaps they had suffered too many shocks for one day.

  “Even I would not have taught this part of the book to Mairtin.” It was strange to hear Stargazer say such a thing.

  “I haven’t read this.” Or had he? Perhaps he didn’t need to or… “Maybe I should.”

  “How? I thought we destroyed the book,” Ryanac said.

  “You did wh-ahhh?” Stargazer twisted under Ryanac’s grip with an agility belying his age.

  “I didn’t destroy it. Just its form. I put it back where it belongs. I’ve given it to the abyss.”