But there at the far end of the vast chamber, where the darkness should be at its deepest, torches flickered where none should be. Hauberin was down there. And Serein. And, with Serein, who knew what torment?
Ah, winds, winds!
Teeth and fists clenched, the being forced a trembling body step by step down the stairway to the bottom. Alliar took a deep, steadying breath, then hurried forward, keeping to shadow, refusing to think of the cold stone weight pressing in on all sides, refusing to think of—the being stopped dead, barely holding back a gasp. There, slumped against a wall, wrists bound to an iron ring (by rope, winds be praised, only by rope), lay Hauberin, limp as a child’s broken doll, tangled hair fallen forward over his face. Over him crouched a form . . .
Serein. Serein in his stolen human body, shouting at the prince, shaking him without effect. With a soft, frantic oath, the man snatched something from his belt and slapped at Hauberin’s arm with it. The prince jerked upright at the brief contact, crying out in hoarse anguish, struggling for an instant against his bonds, then going limp once more. Alliar smelled the faintest stench of burning—Iron! Serein had struck Hauberin with an iron knife!
The being lunged. The startled Serein had no time to do more than yell in pain as a golden hand closed so savagely about his wrist that bones cracked. The knife fell from lifeless fingers, and Alliar hurled it aside with all the fury of the wind, then backhanded Serein with such force the man crumpled.
Glancing about, Alliar grinned sharply at the sight of iron manacles hanging from a second ring. Iron wouldn’t burn the man’s human shell, but it would certainly hold him. Quickly the being fastened the chains about Serein’s wrists, then turned to the prince.
“Hauberin . . . ? Can you hear me?”
The knife blade had blistered a small patch on the prince’s forearm, Alliar could see that clearly. But if that was the worst of it, well, Hauberin had survived an iron burn before this, and this one wasn’t so terrible a wound . . .
But there was worse. The prince’s sleeve was torn above the elbow, and the stains darkening it were surely blood. Hauberin’s face, as he looked weakly up at the being, was flushed, his eyes glazed with pain and fever. “Li . . . ?”
“Yes, I—I’m here.”
“The fire . . . Li, we must put out the fire . . . castle will burn . . .”
“Oh, my friend, no.” Alliar knelt by Hauberin’s side, tearing at the ropes holding him. “There’s no fire here.”
“Yes . . . feel it . . . fire . . .”
As the last strands parted, the prince slumped helplessly forward into the being’s arms, and Alliar winced. Flesh-and-blood folk were always amazingly warm to the touch, but this terrible fever-heat was so much greater than normal warmth—“Hauberin! What did he do to you?”
At first Alliar thought the prince too far gone into fever to answer. But then Hauberin murmured in the weariest of whispers, “Not he. Arrow.” And then, though the being prayed to all the Powers not to hear the word, “Iron.”
“No. Ah, no, no, no.”
For what felt an eternity, Alliar could find no way to move, to do anything but hold the prince with arms that seemed to have lost all their strength and sit staring into space, heart and mind empty, save for the one bitter thought that kept repeating itself: Iron-poisoning, iron-death . . .
“No, ah, no . . .”
But Hauberin still breathed. And damned if he was going to die in this dark prison! Despairing, Alliar stood, gathering Hauberin up, trying not to jar the prince’s wounds, and began climbing the stairway. Something clinked underfoot—the knife, Serein’s iron knife. Alliar hissed, about to kick the cursed thing away, when a frantic voice called out: “Wait!” It was Serein, wild-eyed, struggling against his chains. “You—Alliar! You c-can’t leave me here!”
“Can’t I?”
“Damn you—”
“No, traitor. Damn you.”
Alliar turned away, but Serein screamed, “No, please! You don’t understand, the Wards are still set, and I can’t lower them, not while I’m chained. No one will come down here, no one can come down here, n-not while I live. This body is strong, it might last for days before—Alliar, no, please, you can’t just leave me like this! Hauberin would never do it, Hauberin would never be so cruel!”
Alliar glanced down at the feverish, dying prince. “I’m not Hauberin.”
“Oh, Powers, wait . . .”
Serein, traitor, murderer, could not be allowed to live. But such anguish quivered in that moan that the being turned back involuntarily. Serein, all defiance gone, huddled in piteous terror in the flickering light of torches that would soon burn out. And memory stabbed at Alliar’s mind: Ysilar’s prison, and the slow, slow torment of merciless stone all around, lifeless stone and lifeless darkness forever . . .
“Winds.”
Carefully the being put Hauberin’s limp body down and picked up the knife. And, in one quick, accurate, deadly movement, hurled it.
###
“Alliar!”
Nearly at the top of the stair, the being froze, astonished. A slim white ghost-form stood outlined against the darkness: Matilde in her simple chemise. “Matilde! How did you—”
“The—the Wards, are gone, I . . . uh . . . I felt them fall, and—Oh . . .” Her bare feet made no sound as she hurried down to Alliar’s side. The woman touched a gentle hand to Hauberin’s cheek. “So hot! What—”
“He was wounded.” Alliar forced out the words painfully. “With iron.”
Horror flashed in Matilde’s eyes. “But—but he’s alive, surely there’s hope that—we have to get him out of here!”
A sudden surge of noise from above told Alliar that not only the Wards had fallen with Serein’s death; the sleep-spell had shattered, too. And Thibault and his men were going to come rushing down in the next moment, trapping them.
“No, I can’t!” the being cried out in pain. “I won’t let him die here!” Arms tightly about Hauberin, Alliar told Matilde shortly, “Hold my arm. Hold fast! Don’t let go no matter what you see or hear!” She wasn’t one to waste time with questions; she gripped with almost inhuman force. Eyes shut, concentrating fiercely, the being hunted for the Spell of Return Hauberin had taught when they were first setting out on this misguided journey (ae, how long ago that seemed!), then called out the Words. For one endless, terrifying moment, nothing seemed to happen. Quivering with panic, the being knew it wasn’t going to work, the proper Power was never going to build, they were going to be trapped here in darkness forever . . .
But a Gate was shimmering into being, and Alliar laughed in relief. No time to be sure it was exactly the right time and place:
As the first men-at-arms came hurrying down the stairway, Alliar and Matilde, the prince held securely between them, stepped through and left the human Realm behind.
XXI
DEATH WATCH
Helping Alliar cradle the unconscious Hauberin, Matilde at first was too absorbed to notice her surroundings, save to note absently that the light in this spacious new room into which they’d arrived was bright, on most wondrously bright and luminous, daylight when it had been full night an instant before. But . . . luminous light, a part of her mind wondered uneasily, not sunlight at all. Faerie light?
But before she could ask aloud, even before the floor was steady under her shaky feet, Alliar was shouting out what could only be a cry for help—in what she’d come to recognize as the Faerie tongue.
And in the next moment the room was full of people who were never human: tall, elegant, fierce-eyed men and women in exquisite, rainbow-bright robes, their hair like finest gold or spun silver, their faces—ah, she’d never seen anything quite so proud or wild-thing beautiful as those sharp-planed faces, more alien than that of Hauberin, with his tempering of human blood.
But for all their splendor, these wondrous creatures were crowding in just like any other panic-stricken courtiers, crying out their alarm, patently ignoring her (the dirty little human
in her ragged chemise, with her bare feet and wild hair) as they pressed in around their prince, and Matilde stiffened indignantly. Oh, she didn’t doubt she looked like a beggar woman. But damned if she’d let them cow her, not after all she had gone through so far for their prince’s sake! All this panicky crowding wasn’t helping Hauberin any, either, so she pushed her way rudely forward to where the prince lay in the cornered, crouching Alliar’s arms and snouted out with true baronial ferocity: “That’s enough!”
Glittering eyes, green or blue or silver like so many uncanny gems, focused on her for the first time, radiating such Power, such hostility, that she had to lick suddenly dry lips before she could ask, “D-do any of you speak the human tongue?”
“No,” murmured Alliar, shooting her a grateful glance for keeping the horde at bay, “but I’ll translate for you.”
“Fine. Tell them—tell them their prince is wounded. Don’t tell them it was iron, or we’ll have true panic. Have them get the royal physicians or surgeons or whatever the term is here—and tell them to hurry!”
###
Matilde hovered nervously in the doorway of the royal bedchamber, which was far larger than any bedchamber she’d ever seen, spacious even with the reserved crowd of Faerie nobles standing to one side; much more elegant, too, with its ivory-and-silver bed and graceful tables and chairs.
The nobles hadn’t wanted her here, shooting her glances of genuine distaste even though someone (more out of aesthetic reasons than sympathy, she guessed) had thrown her a glamorous blue silk cloak to cover her disreputable chemise. Even now silvery-eyed dark-clad servants were still trying to convince her to leave, murmuring their disapproval, but she angrily shook them off, watching Hauberin. He had been lying still as death in that princely bed, but now, without warning, he began thrashing wildly in his fever, seeing who knew what foes, calling out words that made no sense to her, his eyes fierce and blank. The nobles stirred nervously, but none of them made a move. Alliar, at the prince’s side, murmured soothingly to him but, lost in the terror of his delirium, Hauberin fought all Alliar’s attempts to hold him still.
Matilde couldn’t stand it. Ignoring the nobles’ gasps, she ran to the bedside, just as Hauberin tore free of his friend’s arms. For a moment the savage, fever-hot eyes blazed into her own, the prince’s hand raised to gesture, insane Power swirling about him. Since she could hardly outrun a spell, Matilde said, as sensibly as she could: “You don’t want to do that. It’s only me, Matilde. You know I’m not going to hurt you. Now, why don’t you just lie down and rest?”
And to her unutterable relief, she saw sanity flicker behind the fever. “Matilde,” Hauberin said, quite reasonably. “I trust you are being treated well?”
With that, his eyelids slid down, and he sank limply back against the pillows. Alliar and Matilde sighed simultaneously in relief and exchanged quick, thankful glances. But before the woman could say anything, three others were suddenly at the bedside, wise-eyed folk who bore an air of quiet competency about them. These could only be the royal physicians, two slender, golden-haired men and an ageless woman whose hair was a soft, definite blue, and Matilde hastily moved out of their way.
As they leaned over him, Hauberin’s eyelids fluttered open again. He moaned, stirring in restless pain, and the blue-haired woman put a gentle, professional hand on his forehead, murmuring what Matilde guessed must be a calming spell in his ear. Yet Hauberin remained awake, uncomfortable. The physician tensed, her face too well-schooled to show alarm, then snapped out a few commanding words.
Matilde gulped. The woman couldn’t have conjured that goblet out of the air; she must have simply transported it. (Oh, is that all? her mind gibbered.) Hauberin drank the contents without quarrel, and after a moment sank back into drugged sleep. The physician straightened again, face still impassive, but Matilde, shaken, slowly realized she was feeling the woman’s worry as clearly as her own.
How can I . . . ?
One of the men asked Alliar brisk questions, which the being answered with increasing reluctance, and Matilde, frustrated by her lack of the Faerie language, could only guess from the shock and terror on the physicians’ faces that the being was mentioning that iron arrowhead. The three drew back from the bedside, glancing over their shoulders at the uneasy nobles, then set to work, but even as they efficiently cleaned and dressed the prince’s wounds, Matilde, with her bewildering new sensitivity, felt a frightening air of hopelessness already about them. They joined hands and began to murmur over him, and she just barely choked back a startled cry, seeing magic shimmer from each to each, feeling it echoing through every nerve. Power surged up in a glowing blue wave till Matilde could have screamed from the tension, thinking wildly that it would heal him, iron-wound or no, so much magic must heal him, praying for tension’s release.
But there was no release. The Power, maddeningly, simply . . . faded. Matilde knew, even before the physicians staggered back, faces drawn and eyes despairing, that their spell had failed. One of the men murmured to Alliar, who gave a fierce cry of denial, echoed involuntarily by Matilde. Startled, they turned to look at her, and she, just as startled, said defiantly: “W-well, you can’t just give up on him!”
The physicians studied her silently for a moment, so intently her heart began to pound, then the blue-haired woman moved to her side, drawing her aside with a cool hand on her arm, asking her a sharp question. Matilde, held by the sharply slanted blue-green eyes, alien and unreadable, shook her head.
“I’m sorry, I can’t understand you.”
The woman sighed impatiently, studied Matilde a moment more as though judging endurance, then moved so that her palms lay flat against the sides of Matilde’s head. The unfathomable eyes burned into hers till there was nothing to the world but those blue-green depths. Power encircled them in a swift, dazzling, dizzying wave . . . When the physician suddenly removed her hands, Matilde staggered and nearly fell, head aching fiercely.
“The effect will pass quickly.”
Matilde straightened in shock. “I . . . understood that.” And then she stopped in renewed shock at the once-alien now-familiar sounds coming from her own mouth.
“Of course. Now tell me: You are Matilde?”
“Yes, but what has that to do with—”
“Our prince has called your name, his mind to mine.”
“But—”
“An ainathanach must know something of our language.” Unspoken was: human though you are. “We had no time for standard teaching. But you, with your seeds of Power, absorbed enough.”
Seeds of . . . Power? “What is an . . . uh . . . aina . . . ainathanach?”
The woman hesitated, then said evasively, “The language spell is not all-powerful. But you’ve learned as much of our tongue as you need.”
“Uh . . . thank you, but—wait, where are you—”
The three physicians had already faded back into the shimmer of glamor from which they’d come. Matilde hurried back to the bed. “They can’t have given up!” she began.
Alliar wasn’t seeing or hearing her. Head thrown back, the being keened in anguish, the sound high and shrill as the wind, eerie enough to send the hair prickling up on Matilde’s arms, echoing on and on till she, too, could have screamed, till at last Alliar collapsed at the bedside, panting. “What more can they do,” the being murmured in a soft, broken voice, “save dull his pain? There is no cure for iron-poisoning.” Alliar reached out to smooth disheveled locks of hair back from Hauberin’s face with such a tender hand the sight nearly broke Matilde’s control.
“Alliar . . . ?” she asked uneasily, because if she didn’t say something, she’d weep. “What does . . . ainathanach mean?”
The being glanced sharply at her, eyes too bright. “You are one. I am the other.”
“Yes, but what does it mean?”
“It’s a ritual position. Though others will come and go, the two ainathanachi’al must stay till . . . till they are no longer needed. The word means death-wat
cher.”
“B-but he’s still alive!”
“Ae-yi, what more do you want of me? I’ve told you: there is no cure.” The being sank back to the bedside. “There is nothing left, nothing but . . . waiting.”
Alliar’s total surrender terrified her. “I can’t accept that! I saw the wound when they were cleaning it—oh yes, there was infection, but if he had to be hit by an arrow, he couldn’t have been more fortunate about it: no veins torn, no damage to the bone; in a human, we would call it a flesh wound, nothing that can’t heal—”
The being roused at that, glaring at her so savagely she flinched “He is not a human. And iron-wounds do not heal. You saw how the drac died from your knife’s cut. Or had you forgotten?”
“Alliar, please. I couldn’t forget. It was a terrible thing. But it took only a few moments.”
“Iron-poisoning is swift.”
“That’s exactly my point! Hauberin isn’t dead!”
The being gave a long, infinitely weary sigh. “Ah, Matilde . . . you mean well, all human-hopeful. I wish I could hope with you. I don’t know why Hauberin’s mind picked you of all people as ainathanach—Ach, no, I didn’t mean that the way it sounded; I’m just . . . fragile enough to break right now. Matilde, we can only do this one thing, serve him this one final time: as loving ainathanachi’al. Accept.”
Looking at Hauberin’s too-quiet face, Matilde was suddenly overwhelmed by such sheer weariness of body and spirit together she sank to the floor. Oh God, God, they’d undergone so much together; she could not accept his death.
But . . . what else could she do?
A Strange and Ancient Name Page 28