by JANRAE FRANK
Ommy shifted Yukiah to his own lap, took his cloak off, adding it to the blood stained pile tucked over the armsmaster in an attempt to warm him. Then he bent over him and added his own sheltering body warmth to the wounded armsmaster's. And he prayed. They needed their armsmaster; it was not yet time for his soul to be called to the Hall of Heroes. But Ommy knew his responsibilities and as he felt the man continue to weaken, he began the formal prayers for the dying.
* * * *
Osterbridge toed Milady's body over and knelt beside it, noting the blade through her in the light of torches held about him by members of the battle unit. "That's Yukiah's. And that's his sword over there." His mouth tightened, lips thinning. "He would never have left them behind. See if you can find him. Secure the perimeter."
Osterbridge shoved Yukiah's blades through his harness and that was when he saw the locket. The only way his mentor would have become separated from that locket with his wife's tiny portrait was if he were dead. Osterbridge scooped it up, dropping it inside his shirt.
"Lieutenant," Osterbridge turned to his second, "take charge. If I'm needed, I will be with the Patriarch. This monster here and all others should be staked and poled within the perimeters and under guard."
Then he headed for the temple to inform Eshraf.
* * * *
Isen ran hard through the halls, tears running heedlessly down her face. She had failed. Her father, the last prince of the blood, was dying. Battle units were already moving into position around the doors, myn striding smartly in ordered groups, the black and flame of the church's holy warriors assembled at the doors. Isen wore the wooden beads of a healer priest around her neck, which one of them had given her so that she would not be detained or questioned over her student robes. She guessed rightly that the Patriarch would be up and in his offices since the alarms had been sounded.
She knew everyone in the room. Edouina Hornbow was just entering when Isen walked up to them. "Please I need to see Patriarch Eshraf. The senior Healer sent me. It's about Master Yukiah."
Edouina nodded and let her pass. "You're?"
"Isen, if you please."
Eshraf went to the youth. "Yes?"
"You must come quickly. They think he's dying."
Everyone in the room came to their feet.
Osterbridge arrived as Eshraf was leaving. He laid Yukiah's things on Eshraf's desk. "We discovered these thing out front by the body of a vampire we identified as Milady. These belong to Armsmaster Yukiah Woodbourne."
"Come." Eshraf ordered him.
Isen looked up at Osterbridge and grabbed him, clinging tightly as they followed the Patriarch. "Yukiah?" he asked her.
"Yes."
* * * *
Arruth shrieked mindlessly across the compound, her voice driven up the harmonic scale by the power of rage, becoming in the darkness a banshee in truth. No one would sleep that night. All were awakened. Most of the catkin fled to darkened corners. The tigerkin and the lycans, alone among the wiros, skulked in the shadowed corners of the gardens and the alleys, along the edges of the city streets. All lesser shifters were afraid to emerge. Terror walked. The fire in the gardens burned and resisted the bucket brigade that the guardsmyn and servants threw together while the Guild stole along the edges, but they were not out in force. The Guild limited themselves to small hunting bands, hoping to stake some lesser bloods and if very good fortune were with them some Lemyari and other dark creatures.
Twizzle raced across the quad, darting from bush to bench to bush and found the tiny circular window left open for him into Queiggy's cellar chambers. He wiggled through with his message in his collar and dropped into the middle of the table where Queiggy, Leonè, and Aramyn sat with another mon. Queiggy's finger's deftly freed the message and he popped the seal, his eyes going first wide and then hooding and heavy lidded, his lips tight as a jar seal. His head settled chin on chest and cheek on shoulder. He pushed it to Leonè. "Seal the Wing. No one in or out. Twizzle, have all our units withdraw to the temple."
"What?" Aramyn asked.
"Yukiah's dying."
Leonè's face flushed with anger to the roots of his sandy hair and burned beneath his close-cropped beard. He pushed the paper to Aramyn and strode out, unable to deal with the news in front of them.
* * * *
It was turning into another nightmarish night for Sha as they rushed her from Jysy's rooms through the underground corridors to the temple, up closely guarded and warded passages that she had never known existed and only then did they tell her, once she entered the temple who they had brought her to see. She feared that they would be telling her that it was Eshraf himself who had been hurt.
When she found herself in the Guild school wing she began to breathe a little easier. And then to worry again when they turned into the teacher's quarters.
"It's Yukiah, isn't it?"
The priest nodded.
"How bad is it?"
"It happened just outside the doors, he managed to stagger inside. Collapsed in the Common Room in front of two students. It's defying all our efforts to control the bleeding."
She entered Yukiah's bedroom and found Eshraf and Edouina there. Sha wondered how they had managed pry Edouina from Dynarien's side. Isen sat closest to Yukiah with Osterbridge's arms around her shoulders. She held Yukiah's hand in both of hers and Sha wondered briefly what it meant. Their people were taking a beating and she wondered what they were accomplishing. She had not yet had any word about the casualties on the quad and the gardens around the guardsmyn's wing since the palace healers were refusing the go near it until the fire was firmly under control. Bunch of wusses. And the Guild was refusing to risk their own fighting the fire until they knew the area was secured. The palace healers were thinking fire and the Guild were thinking vampires and traitors. The mood would change a bit once dawn arrived.
For the first time Yukiah actually looked fifty-three years old, lying there in his blankets. His neck and the arm laying atop the blankets were bandaged. The neck wound could only mean vampire. Sha knew they had at least one dead Guildsmon. She had seen Jarisse's body brought in to the post-mortem room at the Guild Wing.
We're getting too old for this, Yukiah, Sha thought.
Sha started to move Isen, and Yukiah opened his eyes. His swollen, torn lips moved with an effort. "No. My daughter stays."
Sha glanced at Eshraf
The Patriarch nodded. "Isen is Yukiah and Alysyn's child. She has Alysyn's gifts."
Sha took his wrist and Read him. He was badly torn inside by a spear. Myn rarely survived that. Level two blood loss, bordering on level three. There were some Guild healers on the northwest coast trying to perfect a way to do successful transfusions, but they did not have it yet. Sha wished they did. Then she could have been more certain of Yukiah's survival and a lot of others. Talons had also set the question of it to a Nerien healer. They needed that or the Abelardian spells. As it was? "What happened?"
"The Guild took out Wrathscar's three vampiric daughters," Eshraf told her. "And Lord Westli."
"You realize we are losing Yukiah..." Sha said, her voice dull.
"No," Edouina said suddenly, rising from her chair and heading for the door. "We're not losing Yukiah."
Eshraf went after her. "Edouina. Edouina, wait. I don't think Dynarien has regained enough of his strength to fetch Josiah again. I know how you feel about your mentor. But you must not trade one for the other. It is far more complex, even than that. Listen to me."
Tears glistened in Edouina's eyes like a shining curtain across their hard depths. "Nah, you don't know nothing, honey." Then she shoved away from him and strode off. Eshraf let her go, ignoring her rudeness because he understood where it came from.
Yukiah's hand closed on his daughter's, tightening and then relaxing only to tighten again in a half convulsive manner. Sha had managed to get Yukiah comfortable with drugs and he had drifted again into a transitory state of semi-consciousness. All the memories had come unlocked wh
en Isen revealed herself and Yukiah knew who and what he was. His eyes focused suddenly on Osterbridge standing behind Isen, pinning him. "Take her hand."
Osterbridge had no idea what was up, but he obeyed. Obedience to Yukiah had been too ingrained in him over the years for him to question it. He held the Isen's hand and moved closer to the bed. She looked up at him, expectantly. Isen had that hard and strong body characteristic of Guild students who were trained from birth.
"Mikkal..." Yukiah's voice hoarsened and faded away almost to nothing before strengthening again, "you will sanctify the union."
Mikkal nodded.
Osterbridge blinked in shock. No one had asked him. Isen was fourteen to his twenty-six. He loved her, but he still feared to touch her, knowing she was so young.
Mikkal began, "Do you Ceejorn Osterbridge accept the troth of the Princess Isen St Jon de Dulac?"
Osterbridge swallowed. "She's Sinjin?"
Mikkal nodded. "Her mother is the Black Swan. Yukiah is the last prince of the blood of the branch clan. Now plight her your troth and kiss her."
The priest finished the rites, and when all was said and done, Yukiah's expression looked more peaceful. He drew his daughter to him and held her a moment, kissed her. Then Mikkal rushed both Osterbridge and Isen from the chamber with a battle unit about them. They took the secret passage beneath the temple through the caverns, opened by a secret word that only Queiggy sensed, crossed to the Guild Wing, and swept into the annex.
"What does all this mean?" Osterbridge demanded. By then he was carrying Isen who wept on his shoulder.
"It means, my friend, that Yukiah chose you as his successor. Once you and Isen have consummated the marriage, you will be secretly anointed Grand Master of Creeya."
"But, I can't ... I mean ... I can't."
Mikkal patted the young mon's arm solicitously. "Of course you can. For now, however, we will not speak of these things to anyone outside our small group. Especially Mohanja and those of questionable loyalties. We need to let matters move more firmly into place. For now, protect your bride."
"You don't still question Mohanja?"
"His loyalty, no. His judgment? He still has inner conflicts. However, he has promised to act on any proofs we can provide him, but first we must find those proofs and they must be convincing ones."
* * * *
Edouina walked into Dynarien's bedroom, her eyes going sad and misty as she looked at his battered face. In three days some of it had already started to fade, which amazed her, considering how badly he had been beaten. Jimi dozed in a chair. Edouina swallowed and then sucked in a deep breath. She could not let Yukiah die if there was the least hope of saving him and yet she prayed she would not be risking Dynarien either, since she had come to love this mon as passionately as Talons did. Edouina bent over him and touched his head away from the bruises. "Dynarien, honey, wake up. We've got trouble."
"Edouina? What is it?" He woke instantly, clear and clean, without any of the haze that sometimes obscured other people's waking, even injured as he was.
"A vampire got Yukiah. We need Abelard or he's going to die."
"You need the spell. Josiah taught me before he left." Dynarien's eyes strayed to the window and the bright light across the quad. "The northwest gardens are burning. There are people out there."
"No one's saying it, but I suspect something got hit with Iradrim fire," Jimi said.
"You can help Yukiah?"
"Yes. I don't have a lot of strength back yet, but yes." Dynarien tilted himself out of bed, and paused, extending his hand and summoned Dawnhand's staff. Edouina gaped at the sheer majesty of the thing, seeing it again without the illusions.
"Holy hell shit, honey, like I said before, when you summon a staff, you summon a staff."
Dynarien used the staff to rise and started walking. "I can only access a fraction of its power. I'm not an Abelardian. It's my sister's. She stole it from the mon who stole it and murdered its owner. I can only borrow it from her sometimes. At least until she gives it away. Then I can't borrow it any more."
Edouina followed him through the corridors. He would normally have Jumped, but he was conserving his strength. "She's simply going to give something like that away?"
"Yes. It's a Kalirioni mage-paladin's staff. Very rare. There hasn't been one of those guys in five hundred years, not since Josiah Abelard died."
"But he's alive."
"Yes and no. He was murdered and his soul stolen. My sister raided a soul vault and I got him reborn. Put him on an island as the last of his descendants. But we tended to be rather irresponsible." Dynarien sighed deeply. "I'm trying hard not to be that way anymore after I saw what happened to Josiah. We didn't keep a watch or ward on him as a child. Just went our merry way. An apostate priest got hold of him, burned the magic out, and damaged him as a child. He's twenty-five, but he looks nearly fifty. The magic came back, but it's twisted in its channels and he's dying. And it's my entire fault really. I messed up his life and I can't fix it. I've tried."
"I am so sorry."
Dynarien went silent for a long while, his expression growing more and more worried. "What is even worse is that the return of Josiah Abelard was supposed to be an omen, the return of the mage-paladins, of victory at the beginning of a godwar we think may have already started. But he didn't become a mage-paladin because he never regained his full powers. They are always pan-elementalists. That's what an Abelardian is. Now I'm wondering what the prophecies meant. The lifemages are gone. The Abelardians will soon be gone. Many, many yuwenghau have been slain by mysterious assassins over this last century. Are the Gods of Light about to fall? Will the Gate of the Hellgod finally be opened?"
Edouina had never heard him speak so grim or so openly about the dark possibilities and she shivered. "Hadjys help me, I hope not."
Dynarien shook himself free. "I'm sorry, Edouina. It's the pain and exhaustion speaking."
"I understand, honey. I'm just sorry I had to ask you to do this."
Dynarien walked on ahead of her. That was when Edouina saw that Eshraf was coming from another room away from Yukiah's which could only mean a single thing: they were already too late.
Edouina went in first and stiffened when she saw Sha drawing the blanket over Yukiah's face. She cried out sharply in denial and Eshraf caught her by the shoulders, pulling her aside, holding her tightly against him.
"We lost him, Edouina. A few moments ago."
Dynarien let out a cry of grief and shoved past all of them. He knocked Sha away from the bed, dragging the blankets from Yukiah's face. Raw power surged around him in response to his emotions. The room changed, altered in shimmering waves of energy, Edouina tried to reach him and found her path blocked by a rush of rose briars thick with blue flowers, laced with all the colors of creation as more and more spirits filled in the lacework patterns with their own presence and powers. Eshraf chanted their names, half in terror, half in awe at the tremendous gathering. The Twice-Born Son was forcing a confrontation over the life of a friend, the last prince of the nethergod's sacred kings, the younger lineage that Hadjys had hidden away against such a chance as Galee had forced upon him.
"That hell bitch has corrupted and destroyed faster than even I dreamed possible." Eshraf cursed and Edouina glanced at him sharply in response to his uncharacteristic language.
Edouina tried to push past Eshraf when Dynarien collapsed across Yukiah as sound and light burst forth into the room, but the Patriarch restrained her from throwing herself at the wall of briars. Power roared in sweeping movements. Trapped behind the wall of briars with Dynarien and Yukiah's dead body, Sha cowered on the floor, making no attempt to reach the unconscious yuwenghau. Then Dynarien straightened and brought the staff free from beneath Yukiah. Edouina released the breath she had not realized she had been holding at the sight of this only to catch it again when he turned to face them. She screamed.
His face was a mask of flame. He laid his hand upon Yukiah's chest, speaking words in a la
nguage she did not know, commanding and intoning.
Eshraf said to Edouina as gently as he could, "Be silent. By the wish of Hadjys, through the vessel of Dynarien, a boon has been granted. Kalirion Sun-Lord, God of Healing has come. Whether this is good or bad... I do not know."
"What will this do to Dynarien?"
"I don't know," Eshraf whispered. "Frequently, when a human asks, the payment is a life for a life."
"No." Edouina struggled to pull free.
"It's too late. You cannot stop it now. You should have listened to me. You may have traded Dynarien's life for Yukiah's."
"Then Yukiah is saved...?" Edouina's words emerged in a sob.
"I don't know. I told you it was complex. Yukiah's soul could simply shatter. This has never been done before. Hadjys and Kalirion are opposites. Should their powers connect too closely it could explode. I think that is why the vines are shielding us, keeping us out. And Dynarien has only a fragment of a divine soul. That he lives at all is a miracle of Willodarus. We could even lose both of them. You should never have told Dynarien."
Edouina began to weep.
"And if the divine energies explode, we could lose Sha as well."
Edouina closed her eyes. "Merciful gods."
* * * *
Dynarien lifted Yukiah's body up crossing the staff behind his back and shouted, "Spirit of Dawnhand help me!" Then he placed his hand over Yukiah's heart and poured in a surge of power like a lance of electricity, covered Yukiah's lips with his own and breathed his power in. And nothing happened.
"Hadjys, you cannot have him, yet! Damn, you! I'll tell my sister on you." Again nothing happened. "Kalirion, for the love of my sister! Help me! Come Kalirion! Come or my sister will never speak to you again! She will never kiss you! Never touch you!"
And then he tried one last time, even though he knew he had probably crossed the line – in fact he was in serious trouble now since Kalirion and Hadjys were not only rivals for his sister's favors, he was standing in an annex to Hadjys' temple while calling to Hadjys' rival to save Hadjys' armsmaster... Dynarien sighed and expected to be hit by a bolt of sunfire or netherflame at any minute, but instead thought he heard two grim gods laughing. He did not like the sound of it. "I think I'm in trouble. Serious trouble." Then he grew suddenly angry. "Dynanna will hate you both!"