It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be…
She looked down at the hand she was holding, saw the scars and the tan line where the bracelet should have been.
“Oh my god.”
Sara’s heart felt like it was going to burst out of her chest—she couldn’t believe it, but she was staring at proof against even the strongest denial.
She looked up at Beck, who was also staring, eyes wide. “That can’t be…”
“It is,” Sara replied, wiping tears from her eyes with her free hand. “Beck, it’s really him.”
She held up his wrist, and Beck saw what she had seen and gasped. “Holy shit.”
Sara ran her hands over Rowan’s face, afraid he would disappear, then kissed him, much to the medic’s consternation.
“Agent,” he said, “I really do need you to—“
“Okay, okay,” she said, moving back, but still gripping the Elf’s hand. “But I’m not leaving.”
True to her word, she stayed at Rowan’s side while the med team worked on him, then got out of the way to let them load him onto the stretcher and carry him out of the Temple.
Word had spread—the Elves had been mostly corralled into the field in front of the Temple, and med tents and shelters were going up. More of the Elves seemed calmer and were helping as much as they could. She saw Ardeth among them, sleeves rolled up, carrying one of the handful of Clan Yew’s children over to a woman who saw them and cried out with joy as she recognized her son.
As for the Agents…they came closer when they saw the stretcher, and nearly all of them moved forward to touch Rowan as the med team bore him to the surgery unit, some of them beaming, others awed, one or two in tears.
The noise and the light from the floods the Agents had set up made Rowan stir, and his eyes opened a slit. She wasn't sure if he recognized her, but she leaned over him and said, "It's all right, Rowan. You're safe now."
She nearly wept again when a familiar, gentle voice spoke into her mind.
[Sara...I remember you.]
*****
The next 48 hours were a blur. Sara barely got a chance to sit down for the first night and day; there were simply too many who needed help and not enough help to give. More and more Agents, especially medical personnel and counselors, arrived by the hour, flown in from Austin, Baton Rouge, and Tulsa. Elven Agents also came from all over the country to act as translators and to help soothe the jangled nerves of all the Elves who had never seen a human before.
The village was crawling with people of several races and all descriptions, and the roar of helicopter blades could be heard at all hours, bringing in personnel and supplies. Agents and Elves alike had to be fed, medicated, and clothed.
Sara filled as many roles as she could. She helped coordinate the supply drops and meals; she assisted the Healers; and she sent reports back to Ness about their progress.
That first phone call had been the best.
"WHAT?"
The Director actually dropped the phone, and it was a few seconds before Sara heard her ask, breathlessly, "He's alive? Are you sure?"
"He just came out of surgery," Sara told her, smiling broadly into the receiver. "He was stabbed, but they said he'll recover. They've got a Healer working on him now, too. As soon as he's stable we're sending him back to Austin."
"Sweet Jesus. I..." Sara had never heard Ness speechless before, and she held back her laughter for the sake of protocol. "So they gave him amnesia like all the others?"
"Yes. They tried to get our location out of him, but couldn't. This whole time he's been here, a police officer for the Council. I don't have the whole story, but somehow he figured out what was going on. He's the one who reversed the enchantments and gave everyone back their memories."
"Of course," Ness said, and now she sounded positively giddy. "Leave it to our Rowan. Get him home, SA-9. As soon as possible."
"Yes, ma'am. Is...how's Jason?"
She sighed. "No change. I'll go to the infirmary now and tell him--he might be able to hear me. At the very least it will be fun to see Nava lose her mind when she gets the news."
Another strange thing happened that first day: a handful of Elves emerged from the forest, dressed in ragged castoff clothing and armed with spears and knives, and asked after Rowan. The woman who spoke for them, Naia, seemed to be in the best shape, but out of all the Elves, their group was coping far better than everyone else. A number of them had tearful reunions with loved ones. Sara surmised they were some sort of outcasts from the Clan--yet another mystery that she hoped Rowan could solve when he woke.
When she finally got a break, she went to the medical tent and asked if she could see him. The medic in charge was reluctant, but showed her over to a bed surrounded by a canvas divider, telling her to keep her voice down.
"His condition is still delicate," the medic explained. "Don't hug him, or let him move around too much."
Sara agreed, and slipped inside the divider, where it was dim and cool, and the canvas cut down on all the noise coming in from the rest of the tent.
"Hey, gorgeous," she said quietly, sitting down on the edge of the bed and trying not to react too strongly to how he looked.
He was so thin, almost gaunt, though he had acquired a significant amount of muscle definition in the last ten weeks. The blood had been scrubbed from his skin, and he was clad in a plain Elven robe as hospital gowns had been notably lacking in the supplies; his short hair let his ears show, and the starkness of his cheekbones made him appear even more exotic than before, and even less human. He looked like a visitor from some immortal realm of stone and light, and if it weren't for the shadows under his eyes and the drawn, exhausted state of his face, he would be almost eerily beautiful.
As it was, she hurt for him. God only knew what he'd been through here. She'd seen the torture room, the cells made of iron bars. Everyone in the Clan had been subjected to unthinkable treatment at the Council's hands.
At least leaving the Council alive had borne some fruit. Ardeth and some of the Healers had interrogated them and then torn through the books and scrolls in the Temple, finding out everything they could about the memory magic they'd used, and had been able to ease the trauma of the others. Several of the unresponsive Elves had come back, and most of the minor cases were fit again, though fully half the Clan was still in a dangerous state close to insanity and healing would come slowly, if at all.
Sara touched Rowan's hand, twining her fingers through his, resisting the urge to squeeze him as hard as she could or throw herself on him. After so many weeks of missing him, and mourning him, the fact that he was alive was still impossible to digest.
She sat with him for over an hour before he started to wake, eyes fluttering, fingers tensing. Finally he opened his eyes to half-mast and after a while longer seemed to see her.
"Sara," he whispered. His voice sounded like it had been raked over coals. "Is it really you?"
She smiled. "Yeah, it's me."
"How...how did you get here?"
"We tracked you," she told him simply. The full story could wait.
"How are the others?"
"Most of them are going to be okay. Some have already left--they had family alive with Clan Willow or one of the other intact Clans. I think some are planning to stay here and start over. This woman named Naia has been organizing them."
He smiled weakly. "She got her voice back?"
"I guess so. Did she lose it?"
The smile faded. "They took it. Just like they took our memories."
Sara nodded. "We know. The Healers are doing what they can to fix things. How do you feel?"
"Like shit."
She had to chuckle at that. "Yeah, well, you look pretty awful. Have you eaten at all since you've been here?"
"Not much. I was never hungry. I think it was the magic...it has a lot of side effects. I tried to eat...Kir was a good cook, he always said that..."
He trailed off, and she saw the shine of tears in his eyes, spilli
ng over the bandage on his left cheek where he'd had a fairly nasty laceration.
"Who's Kir?" she asked.
He lifted his eyes to the ceiling. "He was my lover. Sethen's lover. We lived together for a month. He's dead...shot...he died in my arms."
"Oh, honey, I'm so sorry..." Sara kissed his forehead and his lips, then each of his hands, wishing so badly she could hold him and let him cry on her shoulder; but orders were orders, and he could damage himself badly if he moved too much.
Rowan looked back at her and asked, "Where's Jason? Is he here?"
She took a deep breath. "No. He's in Austin. He's...there was this spell, a trace we did to try and find you, and it left him in a coma."
He was still crying, and made no move to stop; he didn't have the energy. "Yes...I felt it. I remember now. I have to get home to him, Sara. When can I go home?"
"Soon. The doctors want you to stay where you are until morning, then you should be fit to travel. Another Healer's coming in this afternoon--they've cut your recovery time in half already."
"Good," he murmured, closing his eyes again. "I need to go home."
"I know," she said, running her hand down the side of his face and neck. "We need you too."
*****
In the end, it was two days before the medical team cleared Rowan to leave, and when he did, Sara, Beck, and Ardeth accompanied him in one of the vampire-friendly Agency vans. Ness wanted Beck in Austin to resume her usual duties, and Ardeth had requested to return to his own Clan now that the situation with Yew was well in hand. There were ten or more Elves joining Clan Willow, and he wanted to be there to help them adjust. Sara was recalled because her particular skills weren't of much use there anymore. She was about sick of sleeping in a tent anyway.
Rowan dozed in the front bench seat, doped up on pain medication so the bounce and jolt of the trip wouldn’t cause him distress. The Healers had practically worked a miracle on him; aside from residual pain and exhaustion, he was recovered. He just needed a few days of rest.
Sara still watched him in bewildered awe. He was here, and alive, but she kept expecting to wake up and find she had wistfully brought him back only in her dreams.
She felt eyes on her and turned in her seat to face Ardeth, who was smiling. "You are not dreaming," he said. "Or if you are, so are we all."
"You're reading my mind again," she accused without any real accusation.
His eyes were sparkling as he said, "There is no need, really. Your emotions are remarkably easy to sense considering your shielding."
"Are you saying I'm obvious?" she asked.
The smile turned a touch enigmatic. "Not at all."
Behind them, Beck chimed in via the intercom between the blacked-out half of the van and the windowed half. "Oh, just hop in the sack already," she said.
Sara felt herself turning beet red. "Beck! That's not what--"
The vampire snorted.
Sara stole a glance at Ardeth, who was pointedly looking out the window. The tips of his ears were pink.
She had to change the way she was sitting to relieve the low-down tickle that started up just considering the possibility. She wanted to change the subject, but couldn't think of anything to say; her mind had gone completely blank with all the blood flow directed into her pants.
"Ignore her," said Rowan without opening his eyes. "She's feeling her oats today." He raised his voice slightly and added, "Behave yourself, Beck, or we'll turn off the intercom and you can ride in your carrier like a pet Chihuahua for the next eight hours."
Beck gave him some rather urgent, profane advice about what he could do with a Chihuahua, and the tension was effectively broken for the time being.
Sara reached over the seat and took Rowan's hand, and he smiled sleepily. [Soon,] she said. [By tonight we'll be home.]
[Yes. It's all I've thought about since I woke.]
[How are you doing? Really?]
He passed his emotions to her in a complicated cloud: relieved, yet worried; happy, yet grieving; himself, and yet confused. There were still a lot of things he didn't understand about what had been done to him--the tampering with his mind had affected his psychic abilities, and he wouldn't know to what extent until he was well enough to work with them. But somehow, he had regained his ability to shield; if it held, he would be able to go out in public without the inhibitor.
[There's more,] he added. [Valana told me there's something different about me, but she wouldn't say what. They knew something I don't know, and it bothers me.]
[We'll figure it out. Don't worry.]
Rowan didn't reply, but drifted back off to sleep again, and Sara stared out the window for a while, her mind wandering nowhere in particular.
Out of nowhere Sara thought about the night she had spoken to the land where Clan Cedar had lived, and what it had said to her.
She turned back to Ardeth and asked him quietly, "What does Eseteleth mean?"
He didn't seem surprised by the question. "Village," he replied, also keeping his voice low to avoid waking Rowan. "Although the connotation is more of a sanctuary than a town. It's the word we use for a Clan's home."
"Okay. What about Jenai?"
Ardeth frowned. "Say again?"
"Jenai. I heard someone say it, and I've picked up some Elvish in the last few days but that one got by me."
"Well...nai means 'lost,' and the accent on the second syllable would suggest it means 'the lost,' but the prefix isn't one in common usage. To me it sounds the way Elizabethan English would sound to you."
"So it's an old word?"
"Most certainly. Whom did you hear say it, and in what context?"
"Oh...I don't really know. Maybe it stuck out in my mind because it was a weird word even for Elvish."
"We would have to ask a linguist to be sure, but if I remember correctly, je is a formal pronoun. Many languages have formal and informal--the word 'you,' as you would say it to either a friend in the first case or an elder in the second. English does not have this distinction. Elvish once had another formal class, one considered even higher, used only for liturgical purposes."
"You mean like for priests and priestesses?"
"No," he replied, " for gods. You would use je if you were speaking directly to or about a deity."
She stared at him, eyes widening. "So you're saying that Jenai would translate as..."
"The lost gods," Ardeth confirmed with a nod. "Although that might be an oversimplification. As I said, I am no linguist. I can find out more, if you like, from others in Clan Willow who might know."
"Please," she said. "I'm...I'm curious."
She looked over at Rowan, curled up under a blanket and sleeping peacefully, and she wondered...and wondered.
Part Fourteen
Nothing had changed, and yet everything had.
Rowan stood in the doorway of his quarters, his eyes roaming over couch and chair and television, across the bookshelves whose titles he should know, over the bar that separated living room from kitchen. It was all so familiar, and yet so alien.
He wandered from room to room, touching things. His bedroom was exactly as he'd left it, though the bed was rumpled and there was a stack of folded cardboard boxes on the floor. There was also a layer of dust over everything. He opened the closet and ran his hands over his clothes, looking at a shirt here and a robe there, trying to remember where they had come from, which were his favorites.
The knowledge came slowly, but it was there; it was all there, but everything was still confused inside him, old memories and false ones vying for dominance. To the Agency he had only been gone a little over two months, but for him it had been a year. A year and so much more stood between him and his life. Coming back to it he felt like a stranger.
He opened the door to the smaller bedroom and stood at the threshold for a while, inhaling a scent he knew so well, yet had forgotten for so long. He smiled faintly--the room was in a disarray as always.
In the corner, in her place of honor,
was the Tempest.
Her, he remembered clearly. He walked over and placed one hand against the wood, and it was surprisingly warm, the old magic contained in the swirls of varnish stirring at his touch.
"Tell him he can wake now," he said into the tomb-like silence. "Tell him I'm home."
He had wanted to go to Jason right away, but Ness had insisted on speaking with him first; he had at least argued her down to a short debriefing here in his quarters after he'd had a few minutes alone to shower and change. He was ready to be done with the borrowed Clan Yew uniform once and for all.
The Agency, Volume II Page 33