by T. A. Miles
We were on our way home from the harvest festival that autumn and my sister had a small pup in her arms. It was a prize the three of us boys had won for her. The attempts leading up to the victory had cost us all of the coins Father had given us. We couldn’t afford the glazed apples and spiced bread we had looked forward to throughout the year previously, but it was worth it, considering how much Brea loved the little beast. It was reward enough that she shared him with us by likening his blue eyes to mine and giving him the name Erschal, after Ervanien and Schalek.
“Da’ll like him, Merran,” my sister said. “You think?”
“Yeah, Brea,” I answered, touching her shoulder as we walked, since her hands were occupied with the pup. “Da will like havin’ him. Heard him and Mum sayin’ how we could use a good dog about.”
“He’s a good dog,” Brea said, nuzzling the animal. “Good puppy, Erschal. Yer a good little boy.”
“How do we know it’s a boy?” Ervanien asked, patting Erschal’s soft white head.
Always prepared to tease those younger than him, Schalek said, “How do we know yer a boy?”
“It looks like a boy,” I said, glancing at Schalek in reproach. When my father wasn’t around, I tended to act his part. He was always kind with us, and with Mother. There was no meanness in him, only endless patience, even when firmness was required. That was why I was surprised to hear him shouting as we were getting home. It especially worried me to see him up and about the way he was, since he hadn’t been feeling well for most of the past month. Seeing the wildly angry look in his eyes, I wondered if it was a fever that had him.
I heard his voice as we came up the road, but I couldn’t make out what he and Mother were arguing about. Noticing that the sun was near to set, recalling that we should have been home hours ago, I prepared to assume full responsibility for bringing about my father’s rare temper. It was so rare, that I didn’t recognize it. I felt genuine fear in me when he spotted us, and started walking in our direction.
“We took longer than we planned to,” I said at once. “I should’ve paid closer attention. It won’t happen again, Da. I’m sorry.”
Father didn’t say much as he ushered us indoors. “Get in. Now. The lot of you.” He took Brea’s puppy and dropped him just before we reached the stoop heading in. My sister was crying before he closed the door, but Father acted as if he didn’t hear her.
Mother finished preparing our supper and we sat around the table in a strained, foreign silence. Each of us wanted to speak, as we were accustomed to doing so, but none of us knew what to say while Father was in such a mood. It frightened us, to see him this way. I could see that it scared Mother especially. I watched her stealing glances at my father, as if she were looking at a stranger.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to say something. I had to try to make things normal again, and I had to do something that would give Brea back her smile. I hated to see her unhappy. “You were sayin’ a bit ago how you wanted a dog on the grounds,” I said to my father. “I know Erschal’s little now, but-”
“He’s on the grounds, isn’t he?” Father interrupted. He wasn’t shouting, but there was something about the way he looked at me and the tone in his voice that made me feel scolded, berated actually. My father might well have called me a stupid boy at that moment and it could not have hurt worse.
“I thought you’d like ‘im.”
“You think too much, Merran,” my father said, quietly. “Now, shut up and eat. When you’re finished, I want you in bed.” He lifted his gaze off his plate, and looked across the table at Mother. I didn’t like his smile when he said, “All of you.”
The crone chuckled and Merran stepped out of the small house of his memory.
Eisleth stood at the bedside of one of the war’s more recent casualties with a lack of expression that may have been considered castigation, had the subject been conscious to witness it. Merran was living, a state which had never been in question since his return from Indhovan with Ceth. The injury was not mortal, though it might have been for an ordinary man, if left unattended.
But Merran was neither ordinary nor unattended. His spirit suffered more than his overall health at the moment. And the dismal state of his spirit had been such a lasting condition that many would not presume it an ailment at all, but an aspect of his personality.
Merran’s depression was a minor concern to Eisleth. Their Hunter had a far worse challenge than his heart now, and that was his hand. Though not life threatening, his fight along the eastern shore had cost him more dearly than if he had died. His primary hand—his Healing hand—had been mutilated by the grip of the Ancient. The bones had been crushed, the muscle pulled to tearing and the flesh pressed to separation. The witch who had wrapped it might have done him a better service had she severed the hand altogether. It was no wonder Merran claimed to have not felt it; it had been virtually removed from his body.
Eisleth looked upon the mesh of metallic thread Ceth had created, one of his gadgets finding a use in covering the remains of Merran’s hand while its owner slumbered, spared his conscious misery. Normally, Eisleth might have held some contempt for Ceth’s mesh—Ceth’s inventiveness had its place, kept separate from healing and the body—but as Merran’s hand scarcely held any blood flow, the carefully crafted weave enabled the magic a more stable current and, under the circumstances, could not be justifiably protested. Through that, Eisleth was expected to craft a Healing. Thus far, he had managed to mend flesh and bone to varying states of imperfection from ruin.
Lowering his hand to the deceptively soft-appearing blanket of metal, Eisleth focused on what used to be, and on bending what was in that direction, toward a restored version of itself. A spiraling line of silver light created an illuminated trail beneath the sleeve of his cassock, wrapping around his arm and down to his wrist. The ribbon of magic’s manifestation and channeling coiled around the base of his hand and spun off his fingers, snaking into the mesh and following the course it was given into the hand of his patient.
Eisleth concentrated on the casting for several moments. It created a pattern like stars in the darkened room, as if the fall of night had occurred first within the room rather than the sky above Vassenleigh. He had performed several such castings since Merran had been brought back to them, as he recalled having done for Korsten not so long ago. But Korsten’s injuries had not been crippling, in spite of their depth and the severity of threat they posed. At the time, their youngest Adept had lost blood and was continuing to lose it, but the circulation of it had not been halted and therefore the circulation of a Healing throughout his body was more readily achieved. When the blood had been stopped, or cut off, as was the circumstance with Merran’s hand, the task became nearly impossible.
“Nearly impossible,” he said, for his brother’s benefit, when he detected Ashwin’s presence nearing. There were always ways with magic, ways that even included the reanimation of the nearly dead, which was, of course, the result of the perverse and toxic magic of the Vadryn’s venom. Making things wrong by use of magic came without boundaries, but reordering things, making them right came with parameters, and limits.
His blond sibling appeared in the doorway and looked upon Merran first, then raised green eyes to Eisleth and said, “Nearly impossible, but possible still.”
Nera drifted into the room in the wake of Ashwin’s permeating aura, stirring Eisleth’s own soulkeeper from her shadows. Isevka drifted with red tails dripping from her black wings, across the motes of magic adrift in the air, toward the bright green dragonfly. Trails of green, white, red, and black light coiled and mingled, and both Eisleth and Ashwin felt what the other was feeling with no spells required.
Between priests with a long-lived or especially strong bond, the soulkeepers constantly reconnected and reinforced, ensuring that such bonds were never forgotten, not in all the years of the most ancient of them. And there were none at Vassenleigh more ancient than Eisleth and Ashwin. They had been broth
ers longer than the Vassenleigh Order had been established, since long before the Rottherlen family had been put upon Edrinor’s throne…and they would remain so long past it.
And on those familiar terms, Eisleth spoke without reservation. “I was never in support of allowing his path to be forced from the beginning.” While he spoke, he withdrew the magic and the Healing it was casting. He would examine the results later, enabling the magic time to further saturate the target.
“No,” Ashwin recalled easily. “It was another of my ill-guided decisions.”
“Unguided, perhaps,” Eisleth corrected. Ashwin’s incomparable guidance was available to everyone, it seemed, but himself. “Your leadership, at times, feels as spontaneous and enthusiastic as Ceth’s inventing.”
Ashwin took the comment in silence and in the spirit in which it was given, setting it aside because it was true, or because it was not important enough to argue. “I still see no safer path for him to have taken.”
“Some consider ignorance a safety.”
“And you and I both know that it is a hazard pending, for others if not for those sheltering in it. Look where the imposed ignorance of many of Edrinor’s people has gotten us.”
“You needn’t remind me,” Eisleth said. “I wasn’t arguing.”
“I argue with myself.”
“Some would consider that a method to guiding oneself, yet your arguments always occur after decisions have been made.”
“Yes, I know,” Ashwin admitted, because he had no delusions about how he had always lived. For the most part, his methods had been successful. He held what was currently among the most influential positions anyone in Edrinor could have, with the love, respect, and support of students and peers alike. Conversely, he was among the more feared and the more loathed of anyone living. He had made enemies of men, of priests in his time, and of demons. There were some who might have believed he had been forsaken by the god, themselves, and perhaps there was some truth in that. Perhaps the same could be said of Eisleth, or of any priest. Concern for such things was secondary to Eisleth. He had set out on this path, to this destination, with and for his brother. They had the means to bring method to chaos. It had taken millennia, but the Vassenleigh Citadel had been built and yet stood. Eisleth held no illusions about seeing it stand forever; forever was not a natural realization for anything. Even the everlasting changed over the course of its existence. Eisleth and Ashwin had both changed considerably.
Ashwin stepped further into the room, arriving at Merran’s bedside, where he seated himself and looked upon the Priest-Adept’s sedate features. “Still,” he eventually said. “His path has been one of devotion for more than three hundred years. Whether or not it was an ideal route scarcely matters. I also believe that he can continue.”
“The tool he was given is all but destroyed.”
“But he has mastered that tool, as you call it, and by now understands the application in such a way that he may be able to substitute something else.”
Eisleth knew immediately where Ashwin’s path of thought was going. He elected not to dignify it especially by looking at Merran’s hand or Ceth’s mesh lain over it. He considered also saying nothing more and leaving, but then his brother spoke.
“We would need your help, Eisleth.”
“I am uncertain as to whether or not I’m open to constructing something of that nature.”
“We can’t lose a hunter now, not one with his experience and skill. Beyond helping Merran, it’s to help us in this war.”
“This war has to end, yes. I’m uncertain as to whether or not we’re the ones to end it, brother.”
“Not us alone,” Ashwin said. “Of course, we both know that.”
“I don’t know that we should persist with this endeavor,” Irslan whispered.
From their place of relative protection, crouched beneath a stairwell along a street edging the harbor, Vlas scanned the increasing darkness that would undoubtedly herald a very long night.
“You would prefer to hide in waiting for a direct assault on your home?” he whispered back to his reluctant companion.
“What benefit is there to going to the Islands now?” Irslan demanded to know, though he maintained a quiet tone, which may not have been entirely necessary, given that none of the Morennish soldiers appeared to have set foot on land yet. “The attack has already happened.”
“Yes,” Vlas conceded, regathering his bearings since the last time he was in this very area.
There would likely not be a boat where he had set off the first time with Vaelyx and Imris, but a boat was not what he was looking for. He intended to never be on one again, if he could avoid it and in this instance, he could. It would not be necessary to travel by water. Since he had been to the nearest Island already and retained memory of it, a Reach could be accomplished. The primary concern was to not focus unintentionally on the well, but as that had not been a problem in revisiting the day prior, he didn’t anticipate that it would become a problem now. Particularly not with another as his responsibility. He would never dare to dream of putting Irslan into his uncle’s tomb.
In all honesty, he had not even a morbid desire to go into the rubble himself. Whether or not it was possible—it might well have been completely filled with rock and earth—self-affliction had never been of any interest to him, emotionally or otherwise. The purpose in walking to the harbor was to shorten the distance to the island and to witness the state of the battle. Thus far, the fighting remained on the water and to the north. People moved through the streets with undeniable purpose, but none of those individuals were the enemy, yet.
“I still don’t see why we should make such a dangerous maneuver,” Irslan pressed.
“There may be troops embedded on the Islands,” Vlas reminded, his gaze catching on the forms of someone in the water. “Or further supplies stored.”
Irslan’s bravery was rapidly flagging. Walking him through the state of emergency in the streets might not have been to his benefit. “I fail to see what only the two of us would be able to do about that.”
“Look harder,” Vlas instructed. He would maintain faith in this nephew of Vaelyx’s. His family had become deeply involved, whether it was Irslan’s direct doing or not. He knew that Irslan felt the pull of his obligation as a Treir to assist with the unhappy legacy of his family. Did Vlas actually require his assistance? No, he did not. But he would have liked to have it and for now that was all the justification he was prepared to put onto it.
“There,” Irslan said, pointing. “I see someone, climbing onto the pier. An enemy soldier?”
“No…” Vlas said. He recognized the slim, athletic form of Imris the instant she had been hoisted out. As to the man with her…perhaps another constable. “Two of our own.”
“Two of our own?” Irslan repeated. “Who?”
Vlas didn’t answer. He ducked out of their hiding place and rose to a fuller stand. “This way, Master Treir,” he said to his reluctant companion.
Imris spotted and recognized them immediately. When eye contact was made, Vlas quickened his pace, holding on to that contact and putting an effort into ignoring the fact that he felt some definitive relief over her apparent safety. He did wonder about how she wound up swimming in the harbor and decided to inquire. His mouth formed words as if given license by the formation of the thought.
“Are you all right, Imris?”
“Yes,” the lady constable said easily, making it easier for Vlas to move beyond his moment of unintentional demonstration and to what was actually on his mind.
“What happened to the both of you?” He gave a glance to her companion in asking, recognizing Oshand, now that they were stood closer to one another.
“Our ship was put under by the enemy,” Oshand answered, his hawkish profile turned toward the water. It was evident that he was far less concerned with present company and rightfully concerned with the approach of further danger.
Thus far the enemy’s fire tactics had no
t reached as far as the pier they were at. In effect, the Morennish fleet was still in the process of entering Indhovan’s harbor and therefore concentrating specifically on the ships and structures at the north end of the city.
“There was a demon onboard,” Imris said to Vlas, recapturing his immediate attention.
“A demon?” Irslan inquired as he arrived and let himself in on the conversation. He earned a quick glance from both Imris and Oshand, and managed to greet the both of them with a nod.
Vlas wasn’t surprised to hear that they discovered a demon among them, but he may have been somewhat surprised—surely relieved—that they had survived the encounter. “Do you know where it came from?”
“No,” Imris answered.
And Oshand expounded. “There was a shadow on the water, after the point ship went down. I didn’t actually see it come onboard, and I don’t think anyone else did either.”
Imris shook her head to confirm that.
The captain continued, “Whether that was the demon or wasn’t, one of the bowmen was brought down.”
“And the Vadryn fed from him,” Vlas presumed.
Oshand looked at him now. His eyes narrowed as he focused on Vlas for the first time, and perhaps with some disgust for what he recalled of the attack on his soldier. “Yes,” the younger man said.
“It took another after the first,” Imris put in.
Vlas nodded, accepting the information, then asked, “How did you escape it?”
“By leaping overboard,” Oshand answered with an air of ‘how else?’ in his tone. He added, “But not before Constable Imris demonstrated the presence of mind to set the deck on fire.”
Vlas’ brow lifted only a little, and not because he was surprised. The account was reminiscent of the Islands cave, and the ghouls. He was glad she recalled the use of fire, however, demons and ghouls were only cousins to one another. Fire would have put the demon’s vessel or its option of further vessels at risk, but the demon itself might still have survived, depending on how thoroughly it had gorged itself. Not that it mattered currently. Either way they would have the Vadryn to contend with, as they’d been expecting.