Prophecy's Daughter

by Richard Phillips

  Arn rode up beside Rafel.

  “Sir, John has the best night vision of any human I’ve ever seen. If you put him up front so he’s not dazzled by the torchlight, I think we’ll make better time.”

  “Tell him to move on up,” said Rafel. “We want to make our way around that ridge on the left and then south into the valley beyond.”

  Arn nudged Ax back along the column of soldiers to where John and Ty sat.

  After he relayed Rafel’s instructions, the three companions rode several paces out in front of the column, with John in the lead. At Hanibal’s command, the column picked up a walk that was the best they could manage with the reduced visibility.

  Arn found that he could not see much of anything, other than the occasional faint glimmer of torchlight reflected from a rock or tree up ahead. He could listen, however, and by doing so, kept himself close to John’s horse. John pressed the pace, calling out when the soldiers behind began to drift off track as he led them to the west, around a ridge, and into a canyon that led off to the south.

  “Rider coming!” John yelled back.

  Arn saw a distant rider surrounded by a bright circle of light approaching them.

  “Double echelon right!”

  Hanibal’s voice brought the column of soldiers around into double ranks, spread out and facing the front. The soldiers holding the torches formed up in the fore, while the others fell in several paces behind them, out of the torchlight.

  “It’s a woman on a gray horse,” said John, “and she’s carrying a child across the saddle in front of her. There are runners off to either side, staying out of the light. I can’t tell what’s causing the light. It just seems to move with her.”

  “What does she look like?” Rafel’s voice held a note of urgency.

  “Slender, long brown hair.” John paused. “Holds herself erect like royalty.”

  “Carol!” Rafel said. “Let’s go!”

  With a command, Hanibal brought the soldiers back into a double file, advancing at the trot. As the gap between the woman and the soldiers closed, Arn felt tension rising within. Would Carol shrink away from him as she had the last several times they saw each other? The pain of those memories spiked his brain.

  Carol came toward them now at a canter made possible by the bright circle of light that extended around her horse for ten paces in all directions. She pulled to a stop beside Rafel.

  “Father, this little girl is badly hurt. I’ve got to get her back to the fort quickly to see if Jason can save her. I’m afraid she’ll die. Her parents are following behind. Would you please provide them escort to our infirmary?”

  “Certainly,” said Rafel. “Hanibal, see to it. If the parents are willing, let them ride double with two of your soldiers.”

  As Arn watched Carol, his eyes locked to her stress-lined face. Everyone else faded into his peripheral vision. A tremor made its way into his hands, and he clenched them into fists before anyone noticed.

  She looked up and saw Arn within the circle of light. “What?” Carol’s voice sounded hollow, as if it came from the depths. “How?”

  She suddenly sagged in the saddle and would have fallen had Rafel not reached out to catch her. The floating light suddenly went out.

  “Hanibal,” Rafel yelled as he supported Carol and the child. “Get one of your men to carry the little girl and another to take Carol’s horse. Gently now; she’s been injured. And bring a torch over here. Carol’s head is bloody.”

  With a heavy heart, Arn wheeled his horse around and rode away from the group into the blackness of the night. A sudden constriction swelled his throat, making breathing difficult, as if he had taken an unexpected blow to the midsection. Carol had seen him and had passed out from shock and revulsion.

  She was hurt, yes, but that had not been bad enough to topple her from her saddle. Only the sight of him had been sufficient to accomplish that. Arn had seen the look of bewilderment on her face before she collapsed.

  The ride back to the fort seemed endless, as if time and space had been distorted. The darkness took on a dismal, oppressive quality that left Arn cold. He felt a sudden need to be alone. Perhaps that was his problem. He had let himself get too involved with other people, too open to feelings that he had long denied himself. He was left vulnerable to the kind of hurt he had not felt since he had turned his back on Carol to enter the king’s service.

  Arn shook his head as he rode along, trying in vain to clear it of muddied and repetitive thoughts. How could such a simple encounter affect him this way? Carol’s revulsion should not have surprised him. She had avoided him for years, turning away on those rare occasions when they had chanced to meet during his travels to Rafel’s Keep to discuss the king’s business.

  “What’s up?” John’s voice brought Arn out of his reverie. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Arn turned toward him. “I keep forgetting about those eyes of yours. What if I said I had seen a ghost?”

  “I’d say you were full of it.”

  “Yeah. And you’d be right about that, too.”

  John fell silent but continued to ride close to Arn, as if he somehow sensed his comrade’s yearning to fly off into the darkness.

  Arn’s mood lifted somewhat as the group reached the westernmost fort and had almost returned to normal by the time they entered the upper fortress and dismounted. Carol had recovered during the ride, confirming that her head wound was relatively minor. However, what shocked Arn was the brief glimpse of the mark on her shoulder as Rafel lowered her to the ground.

  He had gazed upon that same brand on the left shoulder of the huge marble statue of Carol beneath Lagoth. That statue was the mirror image of the illustration contained within the Scroll of Landrel.

  Arn shifted his attention to the child, whose eyes stared outward without seeing. She was clearly unconscious. If he did not see her chest gently rising and falling, he would have thought she was dead.

  Rafel led the way rapidly between angular structures, turning into a lighted doorway in a building that butted up against the fort’s eastern wall. It was an infirmary, with several rows of wooden beds completed and a number of others under construction.

  Arn was struck by the room’s cleanliness. Despite the ongoing construction, there was no sign of sawdust or dirt. A young man in the white robes of an acolyte came toward them as Hanibal laid the little girl on a table.

  “Go get Jason,” Carol said, seeing the questioning look on the acolyte’s face. “Tell him to come quickly.”

  “Yes, Lorness.”

  The young man turned, breaking into a run as he exited the building. Carol’s hand stroked the child’s forehead, tears welling in her eyes.

  Just then, Kimber entered and stepped up beside the lorness. The Endarian princess paused for several seconds, her eyes passing over the child and then lingering on Carol, who met her gaze with an unmistakably awed expression.

  Rafel joined them. “Carol, this is Princess Kimber. I’m sorry that I’m not able to introduce you under better circumstances, but she is your half sister.”

  Carol’s eyes widened in shock. Several moments passed with an ever-deepening silence before she threw her arms around Kim. When the two parted, questions spilled from Carol’s lips.

  “My sister? How did you get here? Did Arn bring you?”

  A sudden charge, as if he had just rubbed his head with a wool towel, raised the hair on the back of Arn’s neck. Carol had said Arn and not Blade. She had not called him by his given name in ages. What could it mean?

  Arn told himself she was just caught up in the emotions of the moment and forgot who he was. His hard mood returned as quickly as it had lifted.

  “I will tell you all about our arrival when I have a chance,” Kim said. “But right now, I need to examine the child. I have some skill with healing.”

  Just then, Jason hurried into the room, his priestly robes swirling about his legs as he strode rapidly to the table where the little girl lay. He ben
t over her, placing his hand on her forehead, gently lifting each eyelid. After several seconds he stiffened and turned to Carol.

  “This child is elemental possessed.”

  “I am aware of that,” said Carol. “Can you help her?”

  Kimber leaned over the table, murmuring softly beneath her breath. The lights in the room dimmed visibly.

  “By the gods,” Rafel said.

  Arn placed a hand on the high lord’s arm. “It’s Endarian magic.”

  Almost instantly the tension seeped out of Rafel’s body. At that moment, Hanibal escorted a man and woman into the room; they were the little girl’s parents. The man’s face was frozen into a mask of dread, while the woman wept openly. She clearly wanted to move to her daughter’s side, but seeing Kim and Jason examining the child, the man held his wife back.

  Kim spread her fingertips above the girl, starting at the feet and moving slowly upward. When Kim’s hands reached the girl’s head, she stopped. Along the right side of her skull, an angry red glow laced with orange and green crawled beneath her fingertips. Several seconds passed as Kim studied the spot before she turned toward Carol. With the dropping of her hands, the lights in the room returned to their earlier brightness.

  Kim shook her head, sadness shining in her eyes. “The elemental has injured a major blood vessel in this child’s brain. Right now, that elemental is the only thing keeping the vessel from bursting. If it is expelled, the vessel will rupture, and the girl will die.”

  Arn saw Carol’s desperate gaze switch to the priest, but Jason merely shook his head.

  “I am truly sorry, Lorness. There is nothing I can do for this child.”

  The moan that escaped the mother’s mouth as Carol wrapped her arms around the woman shrouded the room in sorrow.

  11

  Areana’s Vale

  YOR 414, Late Summer

  It was well past midnight when Arn stood outside gazing up at the moonlit cliffs that enclosed the hidden valley. The rustle of footsteps caused him to turn toward the newcomers. With John in tow, Ty halted and gazed skyward.

  “Would you look at that sky?” he asked.

  Arn snorted in disgust. “Is that why you searched me out? So you could ask about the stars?”

  “A little testy tonight, are we? I didn’t realize that High Lord Rafel affected you that way . . . or is it his daughter?”

  The mild irritation Arn had been feeling flared up into unadorned anger. “Go away.”

  “Don’t get worked up over nothing,” said Ty. “I didn’t realize I was prodding a raw nerve.”

  Arn doubted the truth of the statement but he didn’t feel it worthwhile to argue the point.

  “What I was trying to get you to notice is how bright the stars are tonight,” said Ty. “There’s not a trace of cloud in the sky. Doesn’t that strike you as being strange after the thunderstorm we had earlier this evening?”

  “Not really. Storms build and dissipate quickly in the mountains.”

  “Not as quickly as that one came and went. Apparently you didn’t notice how the clouds just faded away into nothingness a short time before we found High Lord Rafel’s daughter.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “Did you see the way that circle of light moved with her, then went out when she fainted? It strikes me that we may have found the wielder doing all that conjuring.”

  “I had the same thought,” John said.

  The revelation stunned Arn. “Deep spawn! I was so surprised to see Carol again that I was blind. I knew that she was a pupil of old Hawthorne’s, but I never dreamed that Rafel would let him train her in magic.”

  “What we just saw,” said John, “matches Landrel’s prophecy.”

  Arn paused, rubbing his chin. “Whenever high-powered magic is at work, strong opponents are usually involved. If Carol was calling the storm, whom was she fighting and why?”

  “We’re not going to find out until after she gets done caring for the little girl,” said John. “And from the look of her, Rafel’s daughter is going to need some sleep. We won’t get the whole story until morning.”

  “I must be groggy myself,” said Arn. “I wasn’t thinking too clearly this evening.”

  “I doubt that lack of sleep is causing your fogginess,” said Ty.

  “Is that supposed to mean something?” asked Arn, feeling his irritation flare once again.

  “Ty,” said John, “can’t you tell that this female wielder has affected Arn’s mind? She seems to have placed him under a powerful enchantment.”

  “I’m getting the urge to do a little cutting,” Arn said, his anger fanned by the enjoyment these two were taking in seeing him uncharacteristically flustered.

  “You’re right, John,” said Ty. “She has enthralled our dear friend here, turning him against his friends.”

  “Shocking,” John said.

  “That does it,” said Arn, turning to stalk off down the alley, letting their jeers fade into the distance.

  He moved quickly, eliminating any chance that the others would follow him. Rounding a corner, Arn found himself facing the fort’s log wall that butted up against the south face of the cliff. He thrust his fingers into a crack between logs and began climbing. The wood was rough, knotty, partially covered with peeling strips of bark. The evergreen smell was still strong in the logs, and the sticky sap clung to his hands.

  At the top of the wall, Arn paused. He moved sideways, running his hands along the cliff face. It was vertical, nearly smooth, with hairline cracks and small edges jutting here and there. Once again he began climbing, his pace much slower now, wedging a finger into a crack here, jamming a toe against a small outcrop of stone there, all the while feeling his way upward along the stone face.

  Sweat beaded on his forehead, then dripped downward to sting his eyes or dangle at the end of his nose, defying the chill of the night air. A ledge above his head made itself known to his exploring fingers, then yielded to a swinging heel as he hefted himself up. The ledge was only as wide as his hand, but it was enough for Arn to sit upon to peer out over the fort below.

  The light of the full moon lit the opposite cliff. Arn guessed that he was at least a hundred paces above the top of the log walls, barely a start at climbing the towering wall that rose above him. He sucked in a deep breath and released it slowly. His irritation had departed and been replaced by the exhilaration of the climb. He tilted his head sideways against the stone and gazed upward.

  Something about free climbing had always fascinated him. To stand on the edge of a high wall, feeling the magnetic pull of the depths, made his pulse pound. The danger magnified life, stretching the eternal now, altering time in a way that nothing else did. The exertion required to climb a sheer wall added to the feeling, so that all the nerves in his body seemed to vibrate.

  Arn’s mind drifted. The young woman he had so adored had become a wielder of considerable ability. She had been marked with an elemental brand and somehow survived. A fresh storm of emotion rocked him at the thought of Carol’s body being scarred. Once again, he thought of the giant statue in the caverns beneath Lagoth. What exactly was happening?

  He slid off the ledge, turning in the air to catch hold of it. The descent took longer than the climb, mainly due to a dead end at an overhang that he could not see in the darkness. This forced him to climb back up ten paces and move to his right before resuming his descent.

  Arn made his way down the log wall and through the empty streets, working his way back to the infirmary. A light still glowed through a crack in the door, dimly illuminating the guard who stood just outside. This fellow was shorter and stockier than the one who had been on duty several hours earlier.

  “Hello,” Arn said, stepping forward.

  The surprised guard jumped backward, struggling to pull his sword at the same time.

  “Hold on,” Arn said. “I’m no enemy, just one of the travelers who came in yesterday.”

  “What do you think you’re doing, jump
ing out of the dark at me at this hour of the night? You could get yourself killed doing stuff like that!”

  “I’ll try to be more careful in the future,” Arn said.

  “See that you do.”

  “Mind if I go inside?” Arn asked.

  “My instructions are to let you and your friends come and go as you wish. You just caught me by surprise.”

  The guard was still muttering as Arn moved through the door and closed it behind him. A hooded lamp burned dimly on a table across the room. The little girl lay unconscious on a padded bed against the far wall, covered with a thick quilt. Carol lay on a mat close to the child’s bed, with John and Kim sharing an adjacent mat while Katya’s parents slept on another, all bundled into warm-looking quilts. One of the priest’s apprentices moved about the room, seemingly lost in prayer. There was no sign of Ty, who had apparently gone off to sleep elsewhere.

  Arn moved to a corner opposite the child’s bed and lay down against the wall. As his head sank to the floor, a wave of fatigue took him, whisking away the last of his busy thoughts, leaving his mind an empty place where sleep could gently settle.

  “My, that looks comfortable.” The sound of Kim’s voice brought Arn awake.

  He raised himself up onto an elbow, momentarily disoriented. “Ow,” he said, rubbing his stiff neck.

  “We do have beds around here, you know,” Carol said.

  “By the time I came in, I didn’t see the point of disturbing anyone.”

  “This is intelligence,” Carol said, making Kim chuckle.

  Arn got to his feet, yawned, and rubbed his hand through his hair. His tresses had gotten long and shaggy on the journey from Endar. And his two-day growth of beard didn’t enhance his appearance, either.

  “How is the child doing?” Arn asked.

  “There is a possibility that we may be able to help her,” said Kim.

  “It will be risky,” said Carol, “but with Kim using her Endarian magic to heal while I expel the elemental, we might be able to save Katya.”