by K. C. May
“Yeh, home o’the Elyle. Can you find your way home?” Gavin asked.
“Yes, Emtor,” the Elyle said. “I can run from here. Thank you for saving my life. Will you give the Nal Disi to me so that our elders can keep it safe?”
“What is the Nal Disi?” Kaoque asked.
Gavin raised his eyebrows in surprise. Kaoque understood the Elyle? That could be useful. “It’s a crystal that caused a terrible illness in my country.”
“You must not entrust the Nal Disi to anyone in this realm,” the Guardians said. “The kho-bent will wrestle it from the zhi-bent and draw from our essence to perform their magic.”
“The Guardians caution me against leaving it here. I’ll talk to the elders myself, once I get the other people safely home.”
The Elyle bowed and chirped a pleasant good-bye before running to the east with long, graceful strides and disappearing through the trees.
With a firm grip on the Cyprindian’s wrist, he went to the blue realm. They found themselves in a forest of mostly pines of various types with willow oaks, sycamores, sweet gums, and sugar maples. Gavin bent over, propping himself up with his palms against his knees. He didn’t think he’d ever get used to the dizziness of crossing the realm boundaries.
Kaoque fell to his hands and knees. “This is unpleasant.”
“It’ll pass.” Gavin wanted to pause a minute to let the dizziness subside before going back for the next pair, but he felt a sense of urgency.
“Why did the cat-person beg you to leave the Nal Disi in the midrealm?”
“Because that’s where it belongs.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because it’s the key to curing the illness.”
“Is it responsible for bringing people to that other realm?”
Gavin didn’t want to answer that. The fault, like so many others before it, was his own.
“How many other people will you sacrifice to save your own?” Kaoque asked.
Frustration and urgency tensed Gavin’s muscles. It was a fair question, but what was he supposed to do? Give up on curing the ones affected by the water? “Look, I said I’ll take it back, awright? I’m trying to manage one crisis at a time.” He didn’t have time for this.
“Good men, innocent men were slain by those creatures,” said Kaoque, his voice loud and accusing.
Gavin followed the hazy thread connecting his ring to Daia’s and opened the vortex. As he stepped into the yellow, Kaoque said, “Their murders are on your shoulders, King.”
A cold feeling settled across Gavin’s shoulders like a cloak of death.
When Gavin returned to the prison, people around him gasped in surprise at his appearance, but their surprise turned immediately to insistent expectation. “Take me,” many of them said, grabbing at his arms and mail.
One buck shouted, “No, I go next,” and slammed his fist into the face of another.
Gavin grabbed him by the shirt collar and jerked him to attention. “You’ll go when I say you go. All o’you. Get back or you’ll get home missing some teeth.”
“Gavin!” Edan shouted. There was an urgency in his voice that Gavin hadn’t heard in months, not since they’d fought Ravenkind in Sohan. His friend and adviser pushed his way over, followed closely by Calinor. “They took Feanna.”
He shook his head. “That can’t be true. I looked for her haze. She isn’t here.”
Tokpah stepped through the crowd. “The emissary gifted the queen with a token of our good will, an amulet that obscures her from notice. She is wearing it now.”
“You met her?” Gavin asked.
Tokpah gave a solemn nod. “She was with Emissary Kaoque and me when we were brought here.”
“None of us knew she was here. I’m sorry,” Edan said. “We tried to stop them. They took our weapons.”
A shrill scream filled the air and raised the hair on Gavin’s neck and arms. Feanna? He looked again with his hidden eye, and though he saw the Clout standing guard at the door to the room and the four Callers around the table, he didn’t see anyone on the table.
Not until she screamed again and kept screaming.
Her haze flickered into view. Gavin saw the flow of her essence through the Callers, the rods they held onto, and into the crystals. The red crystal gleamed more brilliantly than the purple as they filled.
“No,” he said, his heart falling into his feet. He ran, his steps heavy, to the part of the wall where the hidden door was and beat on it with his fists. “Stop! Open the bloody door.” He felt for the seam with his fingertips, looked for it with his hidden eye while with every passing second, more of his wife’s essence drained out of her and into the crystals.
He quickly opened the vortex to the blue realm and stepped through, unmindful of the dizziness. He took two steps forward and another for good measure, and then returned to the yellow realm. The room spun wildly.
He drew his sword and started swinging.
Chapter 56
Aldras Gar.
Feanna’s screams had faded to whimpers. She was still alive. He would save her.
Gavin’s first swing struck down the Caller at the end of the table closest to him. The black robe collapsed to the floor in a heap of bones and dust. The other three didn’t even flinch. They were so intent on wicking Feanna’s essence out of her body and into the crystals, they seemed not to notice he was there. He stepped back, drawing Aldras Gar straight back, intending to drive it through the Caller to his left, but movement to his right caught his eye. The two Clout were bearing down on him with hooked blades raised. He lifted his sword to block the first blow, turned it aside and drove his blade into the belly of the other Clout. Red rage rippled down the blade, searing the wound as he pulled his sword out. The Clout grunted. The room filled with the stench of smoldering flesh.
“Caller,” he cried, pressing a hand to his wound.
The first Clout swung his blade again. It glanced off one of the rods and barely missed Gavin’s upper lip as it passed. The Clout’s blade struck the wall with its hooked point and stuck there. The Clout yanked hard, trying to wrench it free. With a mighty swing, Aldras Gar severed his head from his body. The corpse collapsed to the gray floor, and the head rolled under the table.
The terrible image of Rogan’s head rolling across the dirt came unbidden to Gavin’s mind. Anger fueled him—anger and pain and desperation—and he stabbed the other Clout with three deep plunges of his blade—one to the abdomen, one to the heart, and, when he fell to his knees, downward through the shoulder to the waist.
Gavin struck down the two nearest Callers to the left and right. They, too, fell in a heap of cloth and bone and dust.
The last Caller, standing at the head of the table, was too far away to reach. Gavin went around, ready to end the last Caller and whisk his wife to safety.
The Caller released Feanna and the rod and turned. The opening of its hooded robe gaped wide, revealing a face with bony protrusions and long fleshy tendrils rotting away from the skull. Three eyes glowed at him from the darkness, one so terrible, Gavin cried out.
His hands went cold. “Die!” he said through gritted teeth, swinging his weapon. Aldras Gar froze only inches from the Caller’s torso as if it had struck solid stone. Gavin felt the force of the blow shudder up his arms to his shoulders. Pain arced through his body. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t even ask the Guardians for help.
“You’re the Wayfarer. Baron Flisk will be pleased.” The Caller walked around behind him, and Gavin felt it poke him, shocking his hidden eye shut. No, he realized, it was poking his knapsack with the Runes of Carthis and the Nal Disi inside.
Oh hell.
“What is this you have?” it asked. “A curiosity. Equal parts zhi and kho contained within a crystal. We’ll add its essence to our collection.”
Use the Nal Disi’s essence? No, the Guardians wouldn’t let it do that. They would come to his rescue, if only in the interest of self-preservation.
The Caller let out an unearthly sh
riek that ripped Gavin’s eardrums to ribbons. He was unable to cover his ears or even wince in pain. His eyes watered. The Caller fled, vanishing from sight and relieving the pressure and pain from Gavin’s ears.
The Guardians appeared in front of him. “You can defeat the magic that binds you, Emtor. Use the heat of your healing magic.”
He used his hidden eye to examine himself and found that his body was covered in what looked like a thin layer of mystical frost. Heat would counter ice. If he were injured, his healing magic might break through the frost.
Both hands were locked onto Aldras Gar’s hilt, but his dagger was still in his calf sheath. He didn’t see it in this stance, but he knew it was there. He imagined it in his mind’s eye and used his magic to pull.
It slid out of his sheath. The dagger struck the underside of his outstretched arm and fell. The blade glanced off his boot and fell harmlessly to the floor. He tried again, this time pulling harder. The knife shot upward, striking his arm, but as it fell back to the floor, he pulled again. This time, the blade struck him in the thigh.
He grunted in pain. The healing magic burned in the pit of his belly and spread to his leg. Warmer, he thought. He didn’t want the magic to finish healing his wound before it melted this frost. Warmer.
Little by little, his body began to burn its way through the magical frost. First, he found he could bend his knees and wiggle his toes, and then his shoulders, elbows, and hands were free. He pulled the dagger out of his thigh and wiped his blood off the blade. The healing would continue on its own. Now his only thought was to get Feanna to safety. He turned around, intending to gather her up in his arms and take her through the vortex, and froze in stunned disbelief.
She was gone.
“No!” Gavin cried. The Caller had moved her. They would finish draining her essence and his son’s essence, and then his family would be dead. She could be anywhere. How would he find her in time?
Something about the table didn’t look right. The wrist and ankle cuffs were strapped and in their positions, not dangling from the table or lying flat upon its surface as they would have been if she’d been moved. He reached for one of the wrist straps, and his hand touched the lace of her cuff. A moment ago, she was gone, and now she was there, in plain view on the table in front of him.
“Feanna,” he cried, his heart filling with relief. He began to unstrap her from the bindings, whispering, “You’re awright now. I’m here, sweetheart. I got you.”
She didn’t move. Not even her eyelids fluttered. He gazed at her, but he saw no haze. No, she couldn’t be dead. The amulet the Cyprindian had given her was on a thong around her neck. He pulled it off over her head and then slid his hands under her shoulders and knees and scooped her up. Still she didn’t stir, nor did his hands warm to heal her. He looked down at her limp form with his hidden eye.
Her haze was gone. His son’s haze was gone. He was too late.
His wife and unborn son were dead.
Once again, his irresponsible actions had caused the death of his family.
How could I let this happen?
In his mind’s eye, he saw himself crawling across a floor sticky with blood to Talisha’s slaughtered body, pulling her to him, rocking with her and his daughter clutched tightly to his chest while he wailed in agony.
He threw his head back and let loose the only sound his heart knew how to make.
The shouts of someone pounding on the wall seeped into his consciousness. Someone was calling his name. It was Edan’s voice, muffled behind the thick door and walls.
A lever on the floor near the door was in a backward position. He used his foot to kick it forward, and the door rumbled open. Edan and Calinor rushed in, their faces filled with relief. Tennara followed.
“Is she alive?” Edan asked. Calinor picked up the Clouts’ hooked swords and handed one to Tennara.
The question burned in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t answer it, because to say no would make it real. Even his head refused to shake.
“Found some of our weapons,” Tennara said. She handed Edan his bow, and Calinor took his sword back, giving the Clout’s weapon to Tokpah.
“Get her to safety,” Calinor said. “We’ll hold them off as best we can.”
Gavin opened the vortex and took his wife’s body home.
Chapter 57
Gavin laid Feanna’s body in the grass. Kneeling beside her, he saw peace in her face for the first time since she drank the tainted water. He shook his head, disbelieving it had come to this after everything that had happened. I’m sorry, Feanna. He moved her legs and arranged her arms so she looked comfortable, while his own felt heavy and disconnected. A hollowness in his chest made it hard to breathe.
All this for a bloody journal. Once again, the consequences of his actions had turned out to be far more serious than he’d expected. How could one man do so much damage and mean so well?
He put his hands on her rounded belly and leaned down to kiss it. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered. His son, not even born yet, had become another unfortunate victim of his shortsightedness. Everything was his fault. The crushing pain in his chest was excruciating. He shut his eyes and let loose the sobs that spilled from his soul.
The whisper of something moving in the grass reminded him that Kaoque was there to witness his emotional display. He looked up, ready with an apology, but no one was there. “Kaoque?” He looked around but saw no sign of the emissary. With his hands cupped beside his mouth, he yelled for Kaoque. His echo was the only response. Using his hidden eye, he found a lone haze on a narrow road in the distance, floating at a fairly quick pace. Kaoque must have been running for help. Gavin gave a mental shrug. Those other people needed him, and he’d be damned if he let more of them die while he wept for his family. With a deep, steadying breath, he entered the yellow realm.
When he returned to the captives, people were crying, begging to be taken next. Again, hands grasped at him, pulling and tugging. He was too weary to be angry. He simply opened the vortex to the blue realm and stepped through, bringing with him whoever was hanging on the tightest.
Four people stepped with him.
“Four?” He was sure Carthis had told him he could bring two. If he could bring four, perhaps he could bring however many touched him as he went through the portal. He could save everyone much faster that way. “The dizziness’ll pass,” he told them. “Stay here until I get everyone back. We’ll find a port city and I’ll pay your passage home.”
He brought six people back with him next time, and seven after that. The seventh claimed that she’d taken the hand of a man who’d been touching Gavin, but he didn’t truly believe that. On the third return trip, he asked people to try it, and it worked. The chaining stopped there, he discovered on the next trip. People holding the hand of someone holding the hand of someone touching Gavin didn’t make it through, but bringing twelve at a time beat six.
The holding cell was emptying quickly, but after five back-to-back trips from one realm to the other, the dizziness had gotten so severe, he fell to his hands and knees, unable to stand upright, and puked into the grass while sweat poured from his brow.
“Get him some water,” someone said.
He felt someone tug at the water skin tied to his knapsack, and he turned violently and struck the hand away. “Not that water. It’s poison. No one drinks this water.”
The woman he struck held her forearm to her chest, tears brimming in her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I was only trying to help you.”
Another woman shot him a glare, put an arm around her, and led her away. He felt like a cad. A worthless cad at that. “Sorry,” he called after her. “Sorry for striking you.” Sorry for making such a horrid king. Sorry for letting so many people die. He would gladly trade places with his son. Gavin should be the dead one.
Someone squatted in front of him. “King, there are others who need saving.” It was Tokpah the Cyprindian. “Only you can help them
, and the wizards and warriors will return.” He stood and offered a hand to help Gavin up.
Gavin nodded and took the offered hand. “Yeh, I know.” Edan, Calinor, and Tennara were still there, guarding the rest. When he rose, a wave of dizziness rocked him back, but Tokpah held him upright.
“It’s almost done. Finish this,” Tokpah said. “Then you can rest.”
He stepped into the yellow vortex.
Aldras Gar.
Tennara, Calinor, and Edan, once again unarmed, faced a half dozen Clout, each swinging a weapon, driving the battlers back into the crowd they tried to protect. Three Callers floated behind the Clout, one carrying a pair of swords and another Edan’s bow. They started to turn around. Gavin drew Aldras Gar and rushed them.
Though his steps were off-balance, his swing was wide enough to take the heads off the two on the left. He shifted his feet, spun around, and drove his blade into the last Caller before it had time to raise its bony arm. He picked up the bow and swords and tossed them over the Clouts’ heads to his friends. The Clout swung their weapons more frantically now.
Tennara screamed, her face a mask of agony. A sword clattered to the ground. The scent of blood overpowered the smell of sweat. Gasps and cries of horror came from the corner where the remaining prisoners were huddled.
Two of the Clout turned to fight Gavin, and one took an arrow in the back and Aldras Gar in the chest. Another fell to Calinor’s sword.
Calinor and Gavin fought harder. Arrows continued to pierce flesh, and the remaining three fell quickly.
Tennara’s sword arm still lay where it had fallen. Gavin picked it up. “Tennara!” he shouted.
She was sitting against the wall, shivering. Blood spurted in regular pulses from the wound.
Gavin fell to his knees in front of her, curling his lip at the blood hitting him in the chest and soaking into knees of his trousers but not letting it stop him. He didn’t know if he could heal the arm back on, but he would be damned if he didn’t try. “You’ll be awright,” he said under his breath as he pressed the top of her arm to the bleeding stump below her shoulder. “Hold it here. Tennara, listen. I need you to hold it in place.” Tennara’s gaze glided languidly to his as if she were drunk. The arm was slippery with blood. He wouldn’t be able to hold it while he healed her.