Fold Thunder

by Gregory Ashe

  Chapter Forty-seven

  Erlandr jerked upright. Pain burst along his side and back, and he let out a howl. Sweat covered his face, and he could not move his limbs, and fire seemed to creep along his body. Everything spun in shadows around him as he thrashed and tried to free himself.

  “Calm down.” Adence’s voice. “Or I’ll put you back to sleep for a few more days.”

  The voice, as hard and even as ever, pulled him back to himself. The pain still burned, all through his body, but Erlandr lay back. He was in a bed, he realized, in a bedroom. Adence sat next to him. The old man’s stringy hair did little to conceal the bruises and burns that marked his face.

  The room had seen better days. Long, mildewed strips of paint hung from the walls, and mouse droppings covered the floor and sill. The air was fresh, though, from the propped open window, and the linens were not half as rat-chewed as the stained carpet. Erlandr struggled to breathe slowly and focused on the feel of the cool air on his fevered face.

  “Something to drink,” he said.

  Adence stepped to a battered sideboard. The clink of glass and then the sound of something being poured reached Erlandr. Adence returned and handed him the glass.

  Erlandr brought it to his nose and sniffed it. “Water.” He held the glass out to Adence. “Wine. For the pain.”

  “It’s a miracle you’re alive,” Adence said. “Start with water.”

  Erlandr hesitated. Thirst won out. He gulped the water down, his throat cracking with pain and relief.

  “More,” he said. “Please.”

  “Not yet,” Adence said. “You might not keep it down.”

  Erlandr shivered in spite of the unseen flames that raced along his back and side. Chills racked him. “Oh Sisters,” he moaned. “What’s wrong with me?” He huddled back into the blanket, curling into a ball as he shook.

  “Whatever Fashim threw at you,” Adence said, “it was nasty. I’m having a tough time undoing it.”

  If he said more, Erlandr did not hear him. Distantly, almost lost in the pain, Erlandr felt the piece of his soul wandering, trapped in the weakening fire construct. He opened his mouth and breathed in deeply. Fire flashed along his side, but he could feel the piece respond, racing toward him. Erlandr spiraled down into darkness, a darkness broken only by dull, swirling flames that threatened to eat away at him for eternity.

  When he woke again, he was whole again. The pain was almost gone. A stiff breeze, close to chilly, flapped the bed linens against his legs. Erlandr shivered, but not with the cold of Cemilian sorcery. The strange, burning pain had faded too, although he could feel traces of it as he pushed himself upright. The room was empty, aside from the sideboard, chair, and bed. The floor was swept, the stained carpet gone. Even the sill was clean.

  For a moment Erlandr laid his head against the wall and felt the cold breeze wash over him. It was gone. The rent. The curse. Gone. That well of darkness inside him, gone as though it had never been there.

  He smiled. Tears threatened to break free, but he scrubbed his face with one hand and was surprised by thick stubble—almost a beard—that covered his face. It brought him back to reality, and his mind turned immediately to Tise. Dead and gone now, like the rent, and beyond his reach. Darkness, not the darkness of the rent, but of despair, washed over Erlandr, but it was old, and muted by time. What do I do now?

  He got to his feet slowly, the pain barely noticeable, and made his way to the sideboard. A bottle of Amala’s Blush sat there with a pair of glasses. Erlandr’s hand shook as he uncorked the wine and poured himself a glass. He took a sip, and then a gulp. The taste did not matter. Getting drunk did.

  As he poured himself a second glass, the door opened. Erlandr did not turn to look, for the same reason he did not look at the burns on his body. One did not need to see a wound to feel it.

  “I thought I heard you,” Adence said. “How do you feel?”

  Erlandr shrugged. “Alive.”

  “You seem less than happy. Things turned out better than we thought. You are free of the rent. We know the truth about that night. Is that not what you wanted?”

  “Forgive me,” Erlandr said, “for not showing more joy. Thank you.” He snapped the words.

  “Whatever feud we had is over,” Adence said, but sharply. “You did not kill Naea. I know that now.”

  “He wanted me to hold it for him,” Erlandr said. “I was just a neat little package, holding onto the rent until he could use it again. He used us both.”

  “You don’t know that,” Adence said. “He did not seem pleased at having been stuck with a piece of the rent. It drove him mad.”

  “He was mad before,” Erlandr said. “What of the rent now?”

  “Closed,” Adence said. “But there was a problem.”

  Erlandr set the wine glass down; his hands had begun to tremble so badly that he feared spilling. He turned to face the old man.

  Adence’s face shocked him. Long, deep lines creased his face, and the skin hung loosely from his bones. Most of the straggly hair was gone. What was left was nothing more than errant wisps, as though placed by a willful child. “What happened to you?”

  “Nothing,” Adence said. “The man, the one who followed Fashim into the garden. He . . . touched the rift, somehow.”

  “You look so much older,” Erlandr said. “And I haven’t been asleep that long; the winter storms are not here yet.”

  Adence ignored him. “I do not believe he contains a piece of the rent; I did everything I could to make sure that he did not. He lives, though, and he is changed in a way I cannot explain. I do not like this.”

  “You’re letting yourself grow old,” Erlandr said. “Why?”

  Adence smiled sadly and did not answer.

  Erlandr grabbed the glass of wine and hurled it against the wall. “Why?” he screamed.

  Adence sat down on the bed. “This was my oldest son’s house,” he said, running one hand along the bedpost. “I was still here when he built it. Good craftsmanship, to have lasted this long. I knew it then, but it is a different thing to see how it has endured, against the sea in the air, the wear of the years.”

  The pain in the old—no, ancient—man’s voice caught Erlandr. “Where are they?”

  “My son is dead,” Adence said. “And his son is an old man—as old as I look, I dare say. And his son is a man, with a son of his own. And there are others—my other sons had children, sons and daughters, with children and grandchildren.”

  “Go to them, then,” Erlandr said, his bitterness and despair reawakened by Adence’s words. “Live out your life happily, the way you always promised me. I will not be foolish enough to open the rent again. I . . . I am sorry, though, for what I have done.”

  “You saw what you once were, then?” Adence said. “I saw it in your face, when you thought you had to fight me. And yet you are changed now. Do you not fear death any more?”

  “Why don’t you go to them?” Erlandr said. “Why are you still here? I am well, or well enough. Leave me; enjoy the life that remains to you.”

  “Are you not afraid anymore?”

  To his surprise, Erlandr did not feel angry. “I am not afraid,” he said. “Not anymore. I am alone. I will die alone. What is there to fear?”

  “And you say you do not understand why I do not go to them,” Adence said in a broken voice.

  For the first time, Erlandr saw the pain, the wound that ran deep in the old man’s heart, and he forgot his own despair. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I did not realize—all those years, I could only think about my own pain; I had no idea . . .”

  “I didn’t know either,” Adence said, his voice even again, although a trace of pain remained. “All those years lost. How could I know how much time had passed? Who am I to these people? Who are they to me? Strangers. What do they know of some distant ancestor, a man dead to them for generations? What would they want with me?”

  “And you so you will grow old and die alone.”

 
“We all die alone,” Adence said. “You know that better than anyone.”

  “When I faced Fashim at the end,” Erlandr said, “I thought you were dead, or that you had abandoned me. And then, when I had nothing left, when I looked that madman in the eye and saw death—you saved me.”

  “The Day Sister smiles,” Adence said.

  “We might all die alone,” Erlandr said, forcing a lighter tone. “But for now, I think we have other things to attend to.”

  Adence looked up in surprise.

  “Such as finding that whore-son of a practitioner who was hunting us,” Erlandr said. “The Sisters know it wasn’t Fashim; the mad bastard doesn’t work that way. He wouldn’t have tried to kill us until we had reopened the rent.”

  Adence nodded. “Whoever it is, he’ll be tricky to catch. Probably Khaman, the way he cuts through our wards.”

  “It’ll take a long time,” Erlandr said. “You’d better start those Bel-taken Cemilian rituals of yours again.”

  Adence grinned—a hard grin, but a grin nonetheless. “I’ve got a few years left in me,” he said. “Now that I don’t have to keep both of us alive, that is.”

  Erlandr grinned back. He could feel the despair inside him, but calmer now—a well of darkness to match the rent. He knew, though, that this was one wound that time would heal. “Don’t suppose your grandchildren want to be benefactors to a couple of ancient sorcerers?” At Adence’s half-pained, half-amused look, Erlandr added, “Didn’t think so. Well, we’ll make do, right?”

  “That sounds about right,” Adence said. “Should I get horses?”

  “No,” Erlandr said. “We’ll go by sea to Mutba. Khaman means Jaegal.” For a moment he felt the decades fall away. He tasted salt on the air, as he had when he came to Apsia alone, all those years ago. “Besides,” he added, “I want to hear the waves again.”