“Mine,” he muttered in Sarai’s ear. “Mine forever.”
***
Bannor watched Wren stumble out of the mud house smoothing her hair and rubbing her eyes. She stared up at the morning sun now only a bell before noon.
She looked at him where he sat next to Sarai playing a game of sticks and stones.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” Wren asked in a thick voice.
He shrugged. “What’s the point? A few bells one way or the other doesn’t matter much now.”
“It doesn’t?” Wren sighed and rolled her head around to get the cricks out. “Look, Bannor, we aren’t even close to beat, okay? You’re not done until you’re dead.” She stared at him. “Sometimes not even then…”
“Didn’t die,” Sarai said. “Slept. Stone keep you.”
Wren frowned. “Bannor, what did you do to her anyway?”
“I didn’t do anything to her,” Bannor said in a tight voice. “Nystruul shot her with one of those blasted darts. Some kind of poison must have been on it. She hit her head and—” He glanced at Sarai. “She hasn’t been herself.”
“Poison and a hit to the head.” The savant rubbed the bridge of her nose. “Ishtar only knows what Nystruul used.”
“You think poison could be doing this to her?”
Wren shrugged. “She’s a changeling elemental, filled with stone magic. Some poisons don’t break down for a long time. The stone magic could be sustaining her while the poison keeps eating at her.”
Bannor felt his stomach twist. “You know, Wren, you have an ugly imagination.”
Wren fixed him with unblinking eyes. Her cheek twitched. “It’s an ugly universe with some really despicable people in it.” The savant rubbed her stomach as if she were hungry. She glanced at the pond before returning her gaze to Bannor.
Sarai shuddered. The twigs she held in her hands snapped and she appeared to be focusing herself. “Nystruul’s poison-is-gone.”
“Oh, my, she can talk right.”
Bannor held up a hand to stop Wren. “You know this for sure?”
Sarai nodded. “Stone power make it gone.” The creases in her brow showed how much effort it took for her to speak coherently rather than in fragments.
Stone power. It made Bannor flash on something Nystruul said. So much magic, too little elf. “Wren, could it be there’s too much power here? Could it be affecting Sarai?”
Wren bit her lip and thought for a moment. “I suppose. She is an elemental avatar—perhaps the power is overwhelming her. I don’t know. Her power going away then coming back is what has me puzzled. It shouldn’t happen.”
“Regardless, do you think returning to Titaan would mend it?”
“Possibly. Don’t expect it to happen soon, though, unless you expect to become skilled with the Garmtur overnight.”
“I want to forget the Garmtur,” he said clenching his fists and staring out into the forest. “I never want to use it again. It nearly killed us all.”
“It also saved us.”
“Yes?” He glared at Wren. “That was lucky! I didn’t realize how fortunate we’d been until I was staring myself in the eye. Time and space shaking like a rickety building in a windstorm. What kind of idiot creator would make reality so fragile? It’s insane! Nothing should be able to make everything come apart. Nobody can be trusted with that power—no one.”
Wren put a hand on his shoulder. “You’re not the first,” Wren said. “Mages have sought the ultimate pattern throughout the centuries. Bannor—you are the ultimate pattern. It can be controlled, made to operate on a level that’s safe. We simply need to erect barriers to prevent you from accidentally touching those sensitive patterns.”
“To do that we have to risk destroying everything. We don’t have the right!”
“We don’t? Bannor, have you ever wondered what will happen when you die?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what will occur when you die.”
Sarai stood. “He not die.”
“I know Sarai. It’s only a question.”
“A stupid question,” Bannor said. “I die. I’m dead. What’s to happen?”
Wren shook her head. “Says the man who hasn’t thought it through. As a person expires, their will fades. The time it takes to die is a long while by the standards of your Nola.” She gestured around them. “Look at what I did in a few instants. Tell me what happens in those moments when you have no will to control the Garmtur?”
Bannor’s mouth went dry. “My death throes?”
“Muscles twitch for a while after someone expires, Bannor. Your Nola is like a muscle. What happens when the Garmtur starts twitching, hmmm?”
Bannor put his face in his hands. All of his avenues of escape were being cut off. He couldn’t even die safely. When it came to painting a bleak picture, Wren was unparalleled. “Do you have any other happy wisdom to share?”
“No, that’s enough I think.”
“Thank Odin,” Bannor breathed. He put an arm around Sarai, and she snuggled close. He closed his eyes and concentrated on trying not to think about it.
“Let’s find something to eat. I’m hungry.”
“Oh fine, be hungry after you ruin my appetite.”
“Come on, Bannor, this isn’t anything to worry about—at least not right away. We all have our burden to bear.” She smiled. “Mine is you.”
He sighed. Had the preceding hours of his life not been so filled with pain and fear, he would have laughed. “All right, but if we’re going hunting, I lead.”
“Why?”
“Another of your burdens is that glow. I’d rather the game not know we were coming…”
Hunting with sticks sharpened with Wren’s sword turned out to be impractical. Bannor still hadn’t recovered all his strength from the ordeal with Nystruul. The partially healed burns on his chest remained tender and made movement difficult. The cliff climb had also taken its toll on hands, feet and muscles.
In desperate hunger, Wren ran down a lop-ear in a dazzling display of foot speed. The winding zigzag chase around the trees with the cursing savant in pursuit was a memory Bannor would keep for many summers to come.
After all the effort and only one lop-ear to show, Bannor decided to make some simple snares using cord made from braided lengths of thread pulled from their clothing. After setting a few, Bannor started foraging for the rest of their meal. A search turned up some tart tasting berries that dulled the ache in their bellies.
A stream proved to be the best provider where the sharpened sticks and some patience caught them a half dozen notch-fin.
Only an orange sliver of the sun remained when they finally returned to their camp by the pond.
The glow around Wren looked even more pronounced in the long shadows. She stopped by the water and held up her arm. She stared at her hand, opening and closing the fingers, studying it as if it belonged to someone else.
Bannor and Sarai stopped by her. He put down the stringer of fish.
“Why are you glowing?” he asked.
Wren glanced at him and knelt by the pond. “Don’t know. Maybe it’s a piece of the light I was going toward when you jerked me back. I held on tight.” She shook her head. “Funny. Over the summers I’ve fought hard to survive. When I saw that light, I fought equally hard to stay dead.” She put her hands in her lap. “I remember the light slipping from my grip and peeling under my nails. Horrible—like the most precious thing in my existence was being torn away.”
Bannor squirmed. The passion in Wren’s voice made him uneasy. He felt Sarai shifting nervously too. That infinite blueness in Wren’s eyes made him feel vulnerable.
Wren took a breath. “I woke up on that alien beach alone. Everything was different. I saw, heard and smelled things better than I ever had. I was clean and revitalized—totally new. Even my scars were gone.” She pulled up the side of her tunic and drew a long line across her side with her fingernail. “I used to have a scar that went from here to here
. Given to me by that bastard.” She gestured to ashen remains of Nystruul on the other side of the pond. “Came close to crippling me for life. Gone, along with every other little blemish and injury I’d gotten over the summers.” She paused. “I don’t know what this glow is, but I know what it isn’t.”
“What’s that?”
“A godsend.”
Bannor’s jaw tightened. “What do you mean by that?”
“What I mean is, glow aside, this condition has nothing to do with the afterlife. It has to do with you and whatever in Hades you did to me.”
“All I did was wish you to be alive.”
“Yes?”
“Yes. What—you think I shouldn’t have tried? Without you, we were stuck here for sure. Hades, even with you here, we’re still trapped.”
The muscles in Wren’s jaw twitched. “You don’t know the half of what’s been done to me. I remember everything I’ve ever seen, done, said, experienced … back to when I was an infant. At first you might think that’s a real boon, but when it’s every little detail it’s like a nightmare. My mind and body are doing all these strange things. You might have wished for something, Bannor, but you must have wished for a lot more than alive.” She took him by the shoulders. Her hands were hot the way Sarai’s were. “What in Hades did you wish for?”
“I don’t remember. There was a lot going on at the moment. I had an avatar trying to kill me.”
“Try.”
The look in her eyes made him shiver. He went over the words in his head. “Wren, I told you I can’t recall.”
“Bannor, don’t lie to me. You’re a savant of reality. Your specialty is seeing and remembering patterns. You have a terrific memory, damn it—tell!”
He sighed and spoke the words. “I wish your mind and body undamaged, perfect and alive.”
Wren stared at him with blazing eyes. The corner of her mouth quirked. She let out a single harsh laugh. “Terrific, Bannor, great—just PERFECT.”
* * *
Perfection, some of our kind are convinced they have already achieved it.
Others of us waste time in pursuit of it. I would never feign to be so silly as to think of myself as being without defects. As to seeking to be perfect—why in all the heavens would I aspire as to be so colorless? The only enjoyment living creatures have comes from their flaws…
—From the Dedriad, ‘musings of an immortal’.
Chapter Thirty-Five
« ^ »
Interlude.
Journal Entry 34: Spring (?), 1102 New Ivaneth Calendar.
Mother, Father, Azir—it is both in surprise and dismay that I write this journal entry. Events have gotten further out of hand than I ever could have anticipated. Mother, it seems your first-born has been magically transformed into your most perfect child. That is only one event of many that has occurred recently. I’ve been to edges of insanity and death, and I have stared into Hethanon’s eyes and watched him die.
With these happenings come problems that I must deal with alone. Mazerak waylaid us on our trip down river to Bravadura. He captured my astral form, caged Bannor and drugged Irodee and Laramis. He somehow took control of Bannor’s mate, Sarai, too. Fortunately, Mazerak did not know how powerful Bannor’s astral abilities were. Bannor slipped free and took control of my body. In the ensuing confusion, Bannor made it possible for me to take control of his body.
The strength of his Nola is beyond even my wildest imagining. Each time I deal with the Garmtur I am forced to increase my estimate. I am now convinced that the Garmtur is not a Nola but a sentient force, the ultimate universal pattern given form. Even as I write these words I know how preposterous it sounds. I’ve felt its aliveness twisting beneath my grip. I struck at our enemies with it and watched them shrivel like parchment in a bonfire.
I have also felt its fury at being controlled. The Garmtur is wild. It lives in a host like Bannor and operates to guard the host’s life. Beyond that, it is difficult to manage and utterly dangerous. I’ve come to realize there is no safe way to fetter Bannor. His death might mean the end of all things as we know it. Such a comforting thought for a man to realize he actually is the center of the universe.
I am frightened. I don’t have Irodee. We’re trapped on this alien world because I tried to control the Garmtur. My mind is crammed with memories because Bannor wished me perfect while trying to revive me from poison (see further entries for details on the misadventures we’ve had here). As of this writing, I’m still not fully cognizant of all the side affects of this revival. If I am truly perfect, it doesn’t feel like it. At best, it’s an odd interpretation. Perhaps the perfect me? I have speculated on this matter for bells and it only gives me headaches. I am not the same woman that left the castle a month ago. I don’t know who or what I am anymore.
Euriel, my mother, give me strength and wisdom. I will wait a while, hoping we may be found. Providing time doesn’t move differently here, you should be back from the jousts in Asgard now. If you cannot locate me through the magical beacon in this book then it will be up to me to get Bannor out of here. The only way to do that is to train him in the rudiments of his power and use it to take us to Irodee. It is a horrible risk; Bannor should be in the care of an arch-magi like yourself or father, someone who can keep the Garmtur subdued. I have little choice though. Wish me Hodi’s luck. I will need it.
End of Interlude
The smells of roasted fish and lop-ear still lingered in the smoky air. Leaning against the wall, his arm around Sarai, Bannor watched Wren writing in her metal bound book. The firelight shone red-gold reflections on the savant’s skin. The soft white glow coming from her formed an aura that danced in cadence with the flickering of the fire.
“What do you write in that book anyway?” Bannor asked.
Wren looked up from the metal bound pages put the quill down and blew on the ink to dry it. Her voice was low and reserved. “It’s an account of what I’ve done. It helps me to organize my thoughts.”
“A lot about me in it I bet.”
Wren nodded.
“Me, too,” Sarai added. She narrowed her eyes. “Bad things about Bannor and me.”
The savant stiffened. She stared at Sarai. “You’ve read this?”
Sarai’s eyes glinted, and she glanced at Bannor then back to Wren. “Your lips move when you write. I watch.”
Instead of getting angry like Bannor expected, Wren let out a sigh and rolled her head against the wall. “Ishtar, I thought I broke myself of that habit.” She trained a level gaze on Sarai. “For a princess who spends most of her time accusing me of being a thief, she certainly knows a lot of guilder tricks herself.”
Bannor raised an eyebrow and glanced at Sarai. His mate looked smug.
“Guilders aren’t only ones who know sneaking.”
The way Sarai said ‘sneaking’ made Bannor’s neck prickle. “You’ve been watching Wren all along.”
Sarai nodded.
Bad things written in the book, that would explain Sarai’s sudden dislike of Wren. She was talking, too. Maybe more of his mate lay behind that childlike façade than he originally thought. Perhaps there were two Sarai’s competing for ascendancy. A battle much like the one he fought while in Wren’s body. In Sarai’s case, it would be a fight with the elementalism that now lived her body. The poison and the hit to the head had weakened Sarai and given this more primal personality a foothold. It would also explain some of the changes she went through early on when she received the power. The snappishness and mood swings. She’d probably been fighting this all along. She simply didn’t tell him before because she wanted to keep the power.
“Some things are starting to make sense,” he said. “What did you write that would make Sarai distrust you?”
Wren’s gaze tracked to his mate then back to him. The infinite blueness in her eyes clouded. “Business, Bannor. You know how bad it would be if the avatars got control of the Garmtur.”
Bannor felt a cold wave rush through him. He n
odded.
“I knew how bad it might be when I set out after you. This journal is how I communicate with others that come after me. It’s instructions to do what needs to be done.”
His jaw tightened. “Sarai wasn’t exaggerating. You actually were ready to kill me rather than risk the avatars catching me. That’s why Sarai was angry with you.”
Wren sighed. “Guilty.”
He didn’t care if was the reasonable or logical reaction. The fact that this woman could act as his friend and plot his death at the same time made hot anger race through him. When he spoke, it came out a growl. “What gives you the right?”
The savant stared at him, apparently expecting his anger. “Nothing gives me the ‘right’, Bannor. Get chased around by Nystruul for a decade instead of a few hours and see how desperate you get. Every savant they’ve caught ends up as a weapon against my family and me. Look what Mazerak did to you and Sarai. If you were in my place what would you do? What if the avatars were going to get the Garmtur as their newest weapon? It wouldn’t be long before I’d be fighting Bannor the avatar. How much of a chance do you think I’d have? Would anybody have?”
Bannor shuddered. She spoke the very argument he knew she would use. It still felt like betrayal. “You could have said something.”
“I did. Haven’t you been listening? I’ve been stressing how imperative this has been to me.”
Bannor frowned. “Imperative to you?”
Wren waved as if to dismiss Bannor’s words. “We’re being truthful now. So why confuse things with obfuscations.” She drew a breath. “Yes, in the end it comes back to me. I’m no shining paladin like Laramis. My basic interest is in me. When I get rid of Hecate, then I can relax. We can relax. We won’t need to always look over our shoulders. When I find the weapon capable of getting rid of the avatars, I’ll use it and everyone will benefit.”
He ground his teeth together. “Except for your poor used weapon.”
“Poor Bannor—you’ve been so abused. You haven’t been raped. You haven’t had a loved one die in your arms. Your family hasn’t been enslaved. Your life hasn’t been destroyed—yet. The fun is only starting for you, Boy. Like it did for me twenty summers ago.” Wren stood. “So don’t try to look down on my actions. I’m trying to survive. Before things are over, Bannor, you’re going to have to make tough decisions like mine to stay alive. Deciding who lives and who dies. It’s ugly. Nobody should need to make choices like that—but they do. I do. You do. I’d be more than happy to sit back and watch you lead.” She ran a hand through her hair and looked at him sideways. “Think you can do better? Go right ahead.”
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