Furies of Calderon ca-1

by Jim Butcher

  And landed on hard, smooth stone, within a sudden and shocking silence.

  Tavi jerked his eyes up and looked around, limbs quivering and shaking, his body frantically signaling his mind that he should get up, should keep

  running. Instead, he sat up, a twinge passing through his chilled muscles, and stared around him, panting and mute.

  The beauty of the Princeps' Memorium would have taken his breath away, if all the running and screaming hadn't done it already.

  Though outside the storm still raged, the lightning still flashed, the sleet and the thunder still hammered the earth, within the Memorium, those sounds came only as something very distant and wholly irrelevant. The earth might shake and the air fairly ignite with fury, but within the Memorium, there was only the slight ripple of water, the crackle of flame, and an almost meditative stillness broken by the sleepy chirp of a bird.

  The interior of the dome was made not of marble, but of crystal, the walls of it rising high and smooth to the ceiling twenty feet above. Light, from seven fires that burned without apparent fuel around the outside of the room, rose up through the crystal, bending, refracting, splitting into rainbows that swirled and danced with a slow grace and beauty within the crystal walls. The floor in the center of the dome was covered by a pool of water, perfectly still and as smooth as Amaranth glass. All around the pool grew rich foliage: bushes, grass, flowers, even small trees, arranged as neatly as though kept by a gardener.

  Between each of the fires around the walls stood seven silent suits of armor, complete with scarlet capes, the bronze shields and the ivory-handled swords of the Royal Guard. The armor stood mute and empty upon nearly formless figures of dark stone, eternally vigilant, the slits in their helmets focused on their charge.

  At the center of the pool rose a block of black basalt. Upon the block lay a pale shape, a statue of the purest white marble in the form of a young man. His eyes were closed, as though sleeping, and he lay with his hands folded upon his breast, the hilt of his sword beneath them. He wore a rich cloak that draped down over one shoulder, and beneath that, the breastplate of a soldier. At his feet lay a pale marble helm, complete with the high crest of the House of Gaius. His hair lay close-cropped to his head. His face was thin-featured, stark, handsome, and his expression peaceful, sleeping. Had the statue been a man of flesh, Tavi would have expected him to rise, don his helmet, and set about his business, but the Princeps Gaius had died long ago, before Tavi was born.

  There was a motion at the edge of his vision, but he felt too tired to turn his head. The slave knelt down beside him, dripping and shivering. She touched his shoulder and drew her hand back to consider the soupy mud

  clinging to it. "Crows and furies. For a moment, I thought that a gargoyle had gotten in here."

  He looked up at her suspiciously, but her eyes were dancing with weary mirth. "I didn't have time to wash up."

  "I turned back to find you, but I couldn't see anything-and the wind-manes closed on me. I had to run here."

  "That was the idea," Tavi said, his tone apologetic. "I'm sorry, but it looked like you were about to collapse."

  The slave's mouth quirked to one side. "Perhaps," she acknowledged. She scooped more of the mud off of him. "Very clever-and very brave. Are you hurt?"

  Tavi shook his head, shivering uncontrollably. "Sore. Tired. And cold."

  She nodded, her expression worried, and smoothed more muck from his forehead. "All the same, thank you."

  He struggled to give her a small smile. "There's no reason to thank me. I'm Tavi of Bernardholt."

  The girl's fingers went to the collar at her throat, and she frowned, lowering her eyes. "Amara."

  "Where are you from, Amara?"

  "Nowhere," the girl said. She looked up, sweeping her eyes around the inside of the magnificent chamber. "What is this place?"

  "P-princeps' Memorium," Tavi stuttered, shivering. "This is the mound on the Field of Tears. The Princeps died here, fighting the Marat, before I was born."

  Amara nodded, still frowning. She rubbed her hands together roughly and then laid her wrist over Tavi's forehead. "You're burning up."

  Tavi closed his eyes and found them too heavy to open again. An odd prickling ran over his skin, slowly replacing the bitter, aching chill of the mud. "The First Lord himself made this place, they say. Made it in one day. When they buried everyone. The Crown Legion. The Marat didn't leave enough of the Princeps' body for a state funeral. They did it here, instead of taking him back to the capital."

  The slave took his hand and urged him to his feet, though she, too, shook with cold. He let her, struggling to stand through the heavy, sweet lethargy in his limbs. He latched onto the words he was speaking, using them to hold on to consciousness. "Strong furies here. The Crown's furies. It was said they would have to be strong to keep the shades of all the soldiers

  at ease. Couldn't take them home. Too many dead bodies. Strong furies would protect us. Stone mound. Earth against air. Shelter."

  "You were right," Amara said. She eased him back to the floor again, and he sank gratefully back against a wall. He could feel a distant heat, through the tingling in his body, something wonderful and soothing. She must have taken him over to one of the fires.

  "All my fault," Tavi mumbled. "I didn't bring Dodger in. My uncle. The Marat are here."

  There was a startled silence. Then she said, "What'? Tavi, what are you talking about? What about the Marat?"

  He struggled to say more, to answer the slave's question, to warn her. But the words became a jumble on his tongue and within his mind. He tried to force them out and found himself shaking too hard to get them out clearly. Amara said something to him, but it didn't make any sense, random sounds jumbled together. He felt her hands on him, then, scooping the half-frozen muck off of him and rubbing roughly at his limbs, but it felt very distant, somehow, very unimportant.

  His head fell forward. It became a labor even to draw breath.

  Blackness fell over him, dark and silent and complete.

  Chapter 11

  Isana's heart twisted in her chest, and her throat tightened. "No," she whispered. "No. My brother isn't-he's not gone. He can't be."

  Old Bitte looked down. "His heart. His breathing. They've both stopped. He just lost too much blood, child. He's gone."

  Stunned silence fell on the hall.

  "No," Isana said. She felt dizzy, stunned, and she had to close her eyes. "No. Bernard." The enormity of that simple finality, of death, fell on her like a mile of chains. Bernard was her only living family, and she had been close to him since before she could clearly remember. She could not picture a world without her brother in it. There had to be something she could do.

  Surely, something. She had been so close to securing the help she needed. If Kord and his sons hadn't been interfering, if they had only kept to themselves, there would have been two skilled watercrafters attending to Bernard before she was even awakened.

  Let the crows take Kord and his murderous little family, Isana thought viciously. What right did he have to jeopardize the lives of others in order to protect his own position? Bernard could have been cared for. He could have lived.

  She needed Bernard. The steadholt needed him. Tavi needed him.

  Tavi. If anyone could find Tavi now, if anyone could help him, it was her brother. She had to have his help. She had to have him beside her. Without him, Tavi could be gone forever. He, too, could-

  "No," Isana said aloud. She took a breath, steeling herself. She could not let Kord's viciousness kill her brother and Tavi all in one moment. She lifted her head and focused on Old Bitte. "No, this isn't over. Get him into the tub."

  Bitte looked up at Isana, her expression startled. "What?"

  "Get him into the tub," Isana said. She started rolling up her sleeves in brisk, short motions. "Otto, Roth, get over here and prepare your furies."

  "Isana," Bitte hissed. "Child, you cannot do this."

  "She can," said Otto, his vo
ice quiet, his pate gleaming in the light of the fire. "It's been done before. When I was young, just taking my own chain, Harald the Younger's boy fell through the ice and into the mill pond. He was under for nearly thirty minutes before we could get him back up through it, and he lived."

  "Lived," spat Bitte. "He sat in a chair drooling and never speaking again until fevers took him. Would you do that to Bernard as well?"

  Roth grimaced and put a frail hand on Otto's shoulder. "She's right. Even if we bring his body back, his mind might not come along with it."

  Isana stood and faced the two men. "I need him," she said. "Tavi is out in the storm. I have no time to discuss the matter. You were willing to help me a moment ago. Now do it or get out of my way."

  "We'll help," Otto offered at once.

  Roth let out a slow breath, his expression reluctant. "Aye," he agreed. "Furies willing, the attempt won't kill you."

  "I'm touched by your enthusiasm." Isana stalked to the copper tub. Several of the holders, under Bitte's direction, lowered Bernard's limp form into the tub. The water stained pink, blood swirling languidly out from the

  wound in his thigh. "Get the bandage off," she instructed. "It won't matter now, one way or the other."

  She knelt down by the head of the tub, reaching out to rest her fingers against Bernard's temples. "Rill," she whispered, reaching a hand down to touch the water, briefly. "Rill, I need you." She felt the water swirl, slowly, as Rill entered the tub. She could feel the fury's reluctance, its motions vague and unsure-no, not Rill's reluctance, but her own weariness. As tired as Isana was, doubtless Rill could not hear her clearly, could not respond to her as well as the fury usually might. In a moment more, that would not be an issue.

  "Immi," Otto whispered. Isana felt the portly Steadholder rest his hand on her shoulder, warm fingers tightening slightly in support. The waters stirred beneath her fingers anew, as the second fury entered the tub, a much smaller, more active presence than Rill's.

  Roth put his hand on her opposite shoulder. "Almia." Once again, the water stirred with a stronger, more confident presence, the older Stead-holder's fury carrying with it a sense of fluid strength.

  Isana took a deep breath, focusing through her weariness and her fear and her anger. She pushed her wild concern for Tavi from her thoughts, her uncertainty that she could help her brother. She cleared everything away but her sense, through Rill, of the water in the tub and of the body it surrounded.

  There was a certain feel to a body submerged in water, a kind of delicate vibration spreading out from the skin. Isana willed Rill to surround Bernard, so that she could feel for that fragile energy around him, the tremors of life. For a terrible moment, the waters were still and she could sense nothing.

  Then Rill quivered in response to the barest traces of life in the wounded man. Isana felt her heart lurch in relief, and she murmured, "He's still here. But we have to hurry."

  "Don't risk it Isana," Roth said, his voice quiet. "He's too far gone."

  "He's my brother," Isana said. She flattened her hands against either side of Bernard's thick neck. "You and Otto seal up the wound. I'll do the rest."

  She felt Otto's hand tighten on her shoulder. Roth let out a quiet, resigned sigh.

  "If you go in, you might not be able to get back out again. Even if you are successful in reviving him."

  "I know." Isana closed her eyes, and leaned forward enough to plant a gentle kiss on her brother's head. "All right then," she said. "Here we go."

  Isana let out her breath in a long, slow exhalation and poured her attention, her focus, her will forward into the water. The dull ache in her limbs faded away. The clenching tension in her back vanished. All the sensations of her body, from the too-cool skin beneath her fingers to the smooth stone beneath her knees and toes faded away to nothing. She felt only the water, the fading energy around Bernard, and the nebulous presence of the furies in the water with her.

  Rill's presence pressed close to her, something like concern pressing against Isana's awareness. She touched Rill with her thoughts, giving the fury an image, a task. In response, Rill glided closer, into the same space Isana's awareness occupied. The sensation of the fury's presence overlapped with her own until she could no longer readily distinguish the two. Isana felt a brief surge of disorientation as she and the fury joined one another. Then, as always, Rill's perceptions began to flow into her in a slow rush of sounds, murky vision, and in surges of tangible, tactile emotion.

  She looked up at the vague, pale shape of Bernard's body, at the even more blurred shape of her own, standing over him. Roth and Otto's furies hovered anxiously before her in the water, each visible to her, now, faint colors in a pair of cloudy forms.

  She did not speak, but from here, it was a simple matter to send the words to Roth and Otto, through their furies. "Gather him up and seal closed the wound. I'll handle the rest."

  The other two furies swirled off at once, gathering together the scarlet droplets of blood that had begun spreading into the bathwater, and shepherding them back to the gaping rent in Bernard's thigh.

  Isana didn't wait for the furies to complete their task. She instead slipped closer to the fading aura around her brother, focusing upon it, and upon the much stronger thrum of life in the body touching Bernard-her own.

  She knew that what she was to attempt was dangerous. The anima of life was never simple to touch or easy to manipulate. It was a force as potent and unpredictable as life itself-and as fragile. But dangerous or not, it had to be done. She had to try.

  Isana reached out and made contact with that faint, fading quiver of life around Bernard. And then, touching upon that of her own body, above him, she gathered both together and melded them, blended them, drew upon the energy of her body to surround both of them, to an immediate, violent response.

  Bernard's body convulsed in the water, a sudden thrash of motion that moved every muscle in him at once. His back contorted, and Isana felt more than saw his eyes fly wide open and unseeing. His heart contracted with a heavy, unsteady thumping sound, followed by another, and another. Isana felt a thrill of exhilaration fly through her and, with Rill, poured into Bernard through the wound in his leg, a rush of sudden confinement, a sense of herself stretching down hundreds of blood vessels, spreading through him, her awareness fracturing into a multitude of layers. She felt his weary heart, the bone-deep ache of his limbs, the terrifying cold of oncoming death. She felt his confusion, his frustration, his fear, the emotions pressing like a knife against her heart. She felt his body struggling against the injuries. Failing. Dying.

  What she did next was not a process of logical thought, of stimulus and response, of procedure and reason. Her thoughts were too far divided, too many, too much to direct so clearly. Everything relied on her instinct, on her ability to release conscious will and to reach through him, sensing every part of the whole and then acting to restore it.

  She felt it as a pressure building up against her, as steely chains of tension that closed in upon her myriad thoughts with a slow and steady inevitability, shutting them down, crushing them into stillness. She fought against that stillness, fought to keep her awareness, her life, sparkling in every part of Bernard's wounded body. She threw herself into the struggle, straining against death, while around her, through her, within her, she felt every wavering, uncertain beat of his too-labored heart.

  She held on to his life, as she felt Roth and Otto's furies send blood back into his battered body. She held on to him as the two watercrafters went to work upon the injury itself, closing the ragged wound and crafting the very fabric of his flesh together again. She held on, with all of her strength and in a horrible space between one heartbeat and the next realized that she could hold on no longer. She was losing him.

  Through Rill she felt Roth's silent urging to withdraw, to flow back out of her brother and to her own body, to save herself. She refused, drawing more heavily on the energy of her body, feeding it to Bernard, to his laboring heart. She
sent everything she could reach coursing into him and felt it flowing out of her, somewhere, felt herself growing weaker. She gave her brother all that she was: her love of him, her love for Tavi, terror at the prospect of his death, frustration, agony, fear, the joy of glowing memories, and the despair of the darkest moments of her life. She held back nothing.

  Bernard quivered again and abruptly gasped in a breath of air that filled his lungs like cold fire. He coughed, and the horrible stillness abruptly fractured and fled as his lungs labored again and again and again.

  Isana felt relief flood over her, as his body grew stronger, as the energy of him began to flow again, as the rhythm of his heart began to quicken and become regular, a hammer pulse that coursed throughout her awareness. She felt Rill dimly, as the fury moved through him, and felt her gentle confusion. Once again, Roth attempted to send something to her, through their furies, but she was too tired to understand it, too lost in relief and exhaustion to understand. She let her awareness drift, felt herself sinking down, into a darkness, into warmth that promised her rest from all of her anxiety and pain and weariness.

  And then a dull fire pulsed in her. She thought that she remembered the sensation, from some time long before. Her descent slowed for a moment.

  Again, the fire came. And again. And again.

  Pain. I am feeling fain.

  In a detached, remote, and unconcerned part of her awareness, she understood what was happening. Roth had been right. She had given too much of herself and had been unable to return to her own body. Too tired, too relaxed, too weak. She would die, back there beside the tub, her body simply slumping to the floor and empty of life.

  The fire flared again, somewhere back up and away from the darkness.

  The dead feel no fain, she thought. Pain is for the living.

  She reached out toward it, toward that fire in the night. The delicious descent halted, though part of her screamed out against it. She reached back for the pain, but did not move, did not begin to rise again.