“He won’t leave at all, not yet he won’t, if I’ve any say in the matter.”
“Even a healer can’t stop poison this deep in him.”
There was no time to explain, here was an instance where seconds were crucial. She laid her hands around the wound, enclosing it in a rude circle formed by the crook between thumb and forefinger. She began to croon a song of Making, casting her InSight down through the layers of reality, first separating his clothes into their component threads to allow her passage, then beyond to the outer layers of his skin. It seemed so solid from one level of perception, yet another placed her beside pores that seemed as large as Lake Morar, where the hairs stood higher than the sentry spires of rock that heralded the presence of the Wall itself.
Smaller still, she slipped her awareness through these flakes of flesh into a veritable soup of interwoven tissues that was the body beneath. There wasn’t even a pretense of health here. Blood moved sluggishly, if at all, and she sensed a chalky quality to the cells that made her think Tam was being transformed to dust from within. There was worse than an air of death about his body, there was despair, as though even the tiniest components of his being had given up the fight, believing there was no hope.
No problem, Tam, she thought with wild defiance, I’ll hope for us both till you can manage once more on your own.
There were five edges to the crossbow bolt, all nicked and scored in such a way as to do far more damage going out than on the way in. The arrowhead was forged steel, capable of punching through plate armor, too dense and formidable a material for her to manipulate in the time allowed. She turned instead to Tam’s flesh, teasing apart the bonds that anchored cell to cell and gave him cohesive form, to the point where what was solid became a kind of viscous fluid most akin to soft putty. At the same time she reached up a physical hand to grasp the bolt’s shaft. She didn’t realize she was sweating, she didn’t realize she was glowing, as the fire she sent surging through her own blood cast its glow outward through her argent skin.
This was a tricky procedure. She had to draw the head free and reverse the effects of her own chant in virtually the same movement, or she’d end up doing the arrow’s work for it.
She let out her breath in a long, slow slide and in the moment where body and spirit grew absolutely still, as smoothly as drawing sword from scabbard, she pulled the arrow free.
Someone plucked the deadly shaft from her fingers. She didn’t look to see who, didn’t really care. This had been the easy part. Now there was the poison to deal with.
Once more, she used InSight to cast herself altogether from her own bodily casement into Tam’s. No fun right from the start, like immersing herself in a lake of noisome sludge, waste pond for the filth of a world, but she pressed on regardless. When “riding” the eagles, she was essentially a passenger and therefore ever-mindful of her responsibilities as a good and hopefully welcome guest. Yet InSight was more than a passive tool of observation, because through access came the opportunity for control. If her will was stronger, she could take control of the host’s physical being. The drawback was that this linkage represented a two-way street. As she could apply human direction to the actions of a lesser being, so, too, could that creature’s more elemental and passionate nature have an equally powerful effect on her. Duguay had a song about such an experience, of a sorcerer who’d merged his soul with a kindred beast and found the experience so much to his liking that he never went “home” again. The sorcerer gained a lasting and ultimate contentment, but at the cost of everything that made him human. By the same token, there were tales of those who’d attempted such possessions, only to become possessed in turn. Supposedly, that was how the race of Shapeshifters came to be.
Elora had little fear of either happening to her in this instance. Tam had so little life in him to begin with, the remaining force of his own will was sadly negligible. She didn’t expect to find any resistance to her assumption of primacy. The danger was his dying. By so merging with him, binding themselves tighter than identical twins, almost to the point where they became a single entity, Elora made herself vulnerable to whatever ailed him. She’d already tasted the poison, she had no doubts about her ability to counter its deadly effects. But if the damage done to Tam was too great, if he was already too far gone, she might well find herself unable to pull free when he died.
She knew enough to be afraid. She refused to let it deter her as she pulled a rill of fire from the torrent coursing through her own arteries and veins and set it loose in his, to consume the poison that was killing him.
She started from the wound, because that was the source of the infection, and let the natural current of his body sweep her from the lesser tributaries into the femoral vein and from there to the great central vessel that led up the trunk of the torso straight to the heart.
She’d seen her share of bodies, and helped Thorn with wounded over the years. She knew what the heart looked like, inside and out.
So it came as no little surprise when she burst from the darkness of the inferior vena cava onto the starlit expanse of the fairies’ tor.
Shock froze her where she stood. She refused to believe her eyes and feared in those initial moments that she had gone mad, or simply died herself. This had never happened to her, she’d never imagined it was even possible, to be seized in the middle of a trance and transported somewhere else.
“No,” she said to herself in reflexive denial, repeating it over and over again as though the words alone would craft the spell that would return her to where she rightly belonged, “no no no no no no no!”
It didn’t work.
All was as it had been before, with one exception. The last time she’d come to the tor as a dragon; now she stood amidst the stones in human form, with a dragon waiting for her, perched delicately atop the principal stones of the Third Circle. Elora herself was across the altar from him, flanked by the equivalent stones of the Circles of the World and the Flesh.
The dragon was the personification of every noble word she knew. He was power and grace and a beauty that made her eyes burn and teeth ache, because he represented an order of being so far removed from her humanity that not even imagination could bridge that gulf.
She had seen him killed.
As though that thought was a cue, Kieron Dineer’s great, wedge-shaped head snapped forward, baring teeth that were longer than Elora stood tall. They came together with the crash of the greatest steel trap ever conceived, but they closed on empty air.
She rolled to the base of one of the primary stones, not even considering a break from the circle she’d found herself in. Size, in this instance, was Kieron’s liability and her only advantage. The stones were on a scale to match him and set too close together for him to fit his body between them. The only way he could reach her here was by stretching his neck or a hand to full extension.
Like the man who held me during the attack, she thought wildly, ducking a wayward grab of the dragon’s forehand with a crab scuttle that skibbled her sideways past the altar to the stone directly beneath him. Kieron looked almost comical as his head curved upside down to follow, but to reach her properly he had to take flight and try to catch her from the air. As he moved, so did she, denying every possibility to catch her. He couldn’t let me go for fear of what the brownies or the eagles would do. I can’t leave these stones for the same reason. But I don’t even know what I’m doing here, I’m trying to save Tam’s life!
She told Kieron so, he wasn’t interested. She was the prey and he the predator. His only goal was winning.
Unless she killed him first.
“I saw you slain once, dragon,” she cried aloud, denying the thought that followed, even though it wasn’t my fault, because she still believed she should have found a way to defend him and all the others against the Deceiver’s power. “Never again!”
“Consider the alternative,” Kieron said for the
first time, in a voice that was all the more heartbreakingly magnificent (as all dragons’ voices are magnificent) for its youth, and a promise unseasonably cut short. It made Elora weep. “Consider the consequences.”
“Why are you doing this? Do you want to die again?” She screamed the last, leaping from her latest hidey-hole to the altar, to take her stand full in the dragon’s face.
“Is that what you want?”
He looked pleased.
But the voice that answered was Duguay Faralorn’s.
“No!”
With the utterance of that single word, Kieron’s mouth opened like the maw of a blast furnace that enclosed the heart of the world, and Elora’s defiance turned to terror and pain for the flashfire instant left her before oblivion as she found herself engulfed in raw flame.
There was a roof gleaming overhead when she found courage enough to open her eyes. Next came an absurd tidal wash of relief that her experience on the tor—whether dream or something else—had had no lasting physical effect, and with that, her body was shaken by a series of profound sobs that racked her as hard as any beating.
Somehow, during the healing trance she and Tam had turned themselves around. The last she recalled was crouching over his thigh while he lay mostly on his belly. Now he was on his back, with his head cradled in her lap. There was color to his features and he breathed with the ease of sleep. The touch of fingertips to flesh told her that all taint of infection had been removed, the young man as well as he’d ever been.
More than could be said for her, she decided, conscious of a bitter chill that centered so deeply in her bones she had to fight to keep from shivering, though she found no way to check the trembling in her hands.
“It’s cold,” she announced, and was rewarded by her cloak being draped across her shoulders, gathered snug about her and Tam both.
“Brought some soup,” Renny said, crouching before her with a steaming bowl. More like stew than soup from the smell and look of it, and utterly enticing. Too bad she didn’t have strength enough to even lift her arms.
Apparently Renny recognized the lack and proceeded to feed her, not so easy a task considering that the moment she opened her mouth her teeth began to chatter.
The brownies were happily at work, stripping the slain of anything that might prove of value, while Khory remained close by Elora’s side, unsheathed blade resting in the crook of an elbow, another couple laid out close at hand in case they were needed.
Spices in the stew made Elora’s eyes tear, and a great sniffle made her realize her nose was badly running. So with what she labeled a “supreme” effort, Elora drew a handkerchief from her pocket and indulged in a spectacular sneeze.
“Bless you,” said the constable.
“How long?” she asked.
“An hour,” Khory replied, “if that.”
“Since I started working on Tam?”
“Since the attack.”
“Well,” said Rool, “you were the one who wanted to see the world.”
“Still do.”
“Milk teeth won’t save you, Elora.” The brownie’s tone was light, his meaning deadly serious. “And we may not always be at hand.”
“I’ll manage, Rool.”
She touched Tam’s cheek in a gesture as affectionate as it was tender. “Ah, Tam, you sure know how to show a girl a good old time.”
“You’re lucky you can laugh.”
“Hardly luck, Constable, considering the army I had at my back.” Elora fixed a gimlet eye on Khory, who didn’t seem to mind in the least. “How did you know?”
“You’ve me to thank for that,” said a voice she knew better than her own. “I like to think there’s little that occurs in Sandeni I don’t know about. That holds even more so for the catacombs beneath my tower.” He looked about the carnage and sighed. “This should not have happened.
“It’s not the way I wanted to welcome you, Elora Danan,” Thorn Drumheller told her as he opened his arms and gathered her into a hug so strong she was sure she heard her bones creak. There were tears on his cheeks, too long held back, but she didn’t mind, since they were a match for her own. “But I’m glad you’re here.”
“No less than I, old duffer.”
She’d grown since last they met, that was instantly obvious to her, standing more than five feet tall to his barely four. Like many of his kind Thorn’s limbs were proportioned to a different aesthetic than Daikini, long arms and stunted legs on a barrel torso. Hard for getting around yet powerful nonetheless, and his long fingers were capable of far more delicate work than many twice his size. His was a good face, though stricken with more lines than Elora recalled, and what shone most clearly still from his features was his innate generosity of spirit. He loved to laugh, so infectiously that for all the grumbling and grousing forced on him by circumstance, those around him couldn’t help but take on a portion of that good cheer as well. There was intelligence in his wide-set hazel eyes, but more, there was empathy. He was a wonder at seeing the essential passion of things, which in large measure formed the core of his ability to work magic.
Clean-shaven as he was, he looked surprisingly young. Elora knew better. In years and experience there were few among the Daikini who could match him. If he lived a normal Nelwyn span, none of his companions save perhaps the brownies would see him die. His hair was neatly combed, the color of pale oak, swept straight back from his brow and held at the nape of the neck by a silver clasp. As for the rest, Elora was suitably impressed.
She was used to him in homespun, wools and cotton and shearling, depending on season and terrain. This incarnation of Thorn Drumheller wore a velvet robe that probably weighed a goodly portion of what he did. It buttoned up the front to a high collar, fitting snug at the torso, flaring below the waist into a wider skirt to allow for a long and easy stride. Over that went a brocade surcoat, sleeveless and floor-length. This hung open, as did the overcloak that covered it. She suspected trousers rather than tights because Thorn preferred them, and she knew he would only yield so far to the dictates of fashion. His own shoes as well, because Nelwyn feet weren’t constructed for anything approaching Daikini footwear, even at their most practical. Around his neck and hanging off his shoulders was a chain of office, its links composed of representations of the crossed spears and bound sheaves of wheat which symbolized the Sandeni Republic.
Renny took charge of the scene, seeing to the disposition of the bodies. The fight had been brief, but also brutal. The only two survivors had fled without raising a weapon to anyone and they were quickly taken into custody. Elora’s presence was duly noted in the crime report, but only as a potential victim who’d actively defended herself against this heinous and unforgivable attack. Renny’s friendship with Tam and the fact that they’d all been seen together earlier explained his appearance. As for Khory, although the funicular station was a public thoroughfare, it was located beneath the Citadel. She was in Thorn Drumheller’s service and known to be a warrior of some considerable renown, who was said to have an “instinct” for such things. No one reading the report would think twice about her intervention. The brownies simply were not present, nor were the eagles.
Tam’s survival, concluded the report, was Thorn’s doing.
“You want to see how the world works, Princess,” Franjean noted from where he lay sprawled on his belly across her right shoulder, watching what transpired with his chin resting on crossed arms. She had never seen bureaucracy in action before, though she’d been enmeshed in one all her childhood.
“It all makes such sense.” She marveled. “The elements are mostly true. They’re all plausible. Yet the end result is a total fabrication.”
“You’d prefer to reveal the truth?” Rool asked her.
“That’ll be the day, her and Drumheller both.” Franjean cackled.
“You two are in rare form,” she said.
&
nbsp; “It’s been a rare night,” Rool commented.
“A rare day preceding it,” agreed Franjean.
“As I recall, Rool,” Elora told them, slipping the smallest width of steel into her voice, “I gave you a task not so long ago. I’ve heard nothing since.”
“There is a domain among the lords of Greater Faery called the Tadjeek.” The savage twist of emphasis he gave the name of that Realm wasn’t very nice, and Rool spat the words like darts. “Alone among the Veil Folk, they hold to life as a flat state of being, with but two aspects: you are, you are not. To them, life is nothing but a test, each of its moments presenting a choice of how you interact with the world and with others. There is no going back, there are no second chances, what’s done cannot be undone save perhaps by some action yet to be. The only forgiveness, the only atonement, is what we find or make for ourselves while we yet live. Once dead, while the book may continue, our chapter is closed.”
“Being of the Veil, aren’t they immortal?”
“That’s a cheap word, Highness.”
“Immortal?”
“Compare a mayfly to a Daikini, does the one consider the other immortal because his life spans numberless generations? To some among the Veil Folk, Daikini are mayflies. To others, so are those Veil Folk. Legend says only the Malevoiy can speak firsthand of the dawning of the world, but no one’s knocked on their door to ask in living memory. By the same token, the same is said about dragons at the dawning of Creation.”
“Has anyone asked them?”
“And gone mad trying to decipher the reply.”
“What do you believe, Franjean?”
She felt the ghosting echo of his grin. “If I can move it, I can steal it.”
She felt Thorn’s spirit brush past hers as he made his physical way to her.
“I think they’ve been testing me,” she said, in what was meant to be a joke but came out as something harsher.
“They test everyone,” he replied lightly.
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