by Lexy Wolfe
Chapter 44
Marcus and Zoe were sitting in the dining room together, laughing over something as they ate when the girl suddenly froze, eyes going wide in shock. Alarmed, Marcus went over to her, shaking her shoulder. "Zoe? Zoe, what's wrong?"
"The great mother," she whispered, turning her head to stare at him. "She is... afraid. For Master Nolyn!" She stumbled as she tried to get up and run at the same time. The apprentice caught her arm, keeping her on her feet.
The pair ran down the master's hall, skidding to a stop when Seeker strode out of the study, Kiya's limp body in his arms. Marcus grabbed Zoe, holding her back. "No! Don’t go!" she called desperately. "If you go, you will lose her! And we will lose Nolyn!"
Seeker stopped in his tracks, turning angry, grieving eyes on the girl. "Why?" he demanded in sharp tones.
Zoe shook her head. "I-I do not understand. The great mother says they... she is too tired and he is holding her hand and he is tired too and-and." Pulling away from Marcus, she ran to Seeker, looking up at him with wide eyes. "Please, oh, please, don't take her away. Neither will wake up and then Mother will be upset and so will Her brother and it would be so very bad if they didn't wake up."
Seeker's visage was terrible, the dark-skinned man baring his teeth with a feral growl for the pale girl. Valerian came up behind Zoe and stated, "It would be easier to watch over them both if they were together."
"Me watch over a defiler?" Seeker snorted, turning away. "Why would I do that?"
"Because that is what she was doing before," Valerian stated. "It is what she wants. He is the star-warrior she sought."
Seeker stopped short, turning to glare at Valerian, Marcus, and Zoe before he finally turned back. Kelafy stopped short when she nearly ran into him and blinked in surprise. The tall man growled, "Your goddess says they should remain together." He looked in Kiya's impassive face. "I do not know if... how long it will be until she awakens."
Kelafy looked over her shoulder and said, "Unsvet Valerian, would you help move Master Nolyn? His quarters are just down the hall."
"Of course," the Unsvet replied, quickly going into the study. Seeker grimly remained where he stood, unmoving, gaze fixed on the two young people. He looked when Valerian emerged with the unconscious Nolyn, moving to follow as Kelafy beckoned them down the hall and to Nolyn's private room.
Zoe jumped when Ellis put a hand on her hair then wrapped her arms around the Se'edai Magus. "I am afraid, Ellis," she whispered. "I have never felt Mother feel afraid. Not like this. I tried to help but Her worry is making me confused and I know I am babbling but I always babble when I am nervous and afraid."
Ellis hugged the girl. "You did well, Zoe." He looked down to study her face in worry. "Is being this far from the stone for this long causing you distress? Do you want to go home to the academy?"
"I want to be here when Nolyn wakes up! I know he will wake up because Master Ash won't let him go even if he is worrying, too, but he cannot come home yet. There is too much Ash needs to do before he can leave Fortress. There are too many broken things that need to be fixed. Too many!" Zoe shook as she started pacing small circles, hands waving wildly. "I do not understand why Mother won't do something to help them! She could. I know She could. And I know She cares, even if I still wonder even being Her Voice."
"Maybe She has rules that She has to follow, just like we do," Marcus said in a quiet voice. He looked down the hall where the others had gone, worry in his eyes. "I feel badly for Her. I think it would be very hard to want to help someone you love and not being allowed to at all." He looked down, ashamed. "I know I couldn't. I didn't. I know Master Nolyn wanted me to run away, but I did not want to leave him." He closed his eyes. "If I had run, maybe I would be able to remember more of what happened and what we saw and be... useful."
Zoe flashed an angry look at Marcus, going over to stamp on his toes. "Ow! Hey! Why did you— Oof!" She wrapped her arms around him, crushing him in a fierce, desperate embrace. The boy looked up at Ellis in bewilderment before he put his arms around her awkwardly, uncomfortable with the closeness.
"Marcus, while you were technically wrong to disobey your master's orders, you did the right thing morally in not abandoning him," Ellis reassured. "Though, because you are apprentice of one of the Edai, you must make a greater effort to consider the greater good."
Marcus looked up, his confusion apparent. "Greater good, Master Ellis? Master Nolyn is your second. He is too important to lose! What could be more important than him?"
Ellis smiled sadly. "The knowledge that you had about what is within Andar." He held up a hand to forestall the argument he saw in both young people's eyes. "Of course, if you had run, there is no telling whatever is in Andar might not have gone after you once it finished with Nolyn." Grimly, Ellis said in a low voice, "In fact, it is quite probable we would have lost you both. In this moment, disobedience was wiser."
"I think..." Marcus frowned, gaze focused inward. "I remember... something dark. Angry. And..." He shuddered, drawing Zoe's gaze up to watch him. "And despair like nothing I have ever experienced or even imagined. I think it-it moved us. Master Nolyn's brother found us just outside the barrier and I know for certain we were much, much farther inside."
"That's weird." Zoe crossed her arms, frowning. "That the thing that attacked you and has probably been attacking the others around Quoesia would have helped you." She squinted up at Marcus. "Are you sure?"
Marcus looked annoyed. "Yes, I am sure! Master Emma said it is normal for people who have head trauma to forget things. Or any other type of trauma, for that matter." He pushed Zoe away and walked a few steps down the hall. "You are the one who can talk to the Great Mother. Why doesn't She know what is in Andar?"
Zoe looked down, troubled by the question. "She says there are things that the gods are blind to for various reasons. Some are because they are paradoxes. To see those, the gods see through the eyes of their divine servants and She only has Her dryad attending Her. And forest sprites. They have to tell Her what they see and learn, She cannot see through them like she can with me sometimes. She can hear, but She cannot see without the Trisari." Looking up towards the ceiling, Zoe asked innocently, "What happened to the Trisari?"
The moment after she asked the question, Zoe cried out in pain, the metallic curls that marked her skin glowing throbbingly bright as she fell to her knees. Her cries drew Kelafy, Valerian and Seeker out of Nolyn's room. The Swordanzen scowled, his sword drawn. Seeing the glow, his scowl vanished and he approached, his frown uncertain. "Your goddess harms your Oracle?"
Ellis scooped Zoe up. "Kelafy, please go bring some calming tea to Zoe's room." As the woman hurried off, Ellis sighed. "Zoe is young. She forgets there are things the Knowing One does not like being asked about."
Seeker sheathed his sword, frowning. "So she is punished for asking your goddess a question? Is she not called the Knowing One? Is that not what you are supposed to do? Ask Her questions?"
"It is complicated," Ellis replied tersely. He carried Zoe back to the guest room, disappearing around the bend. Valerian hesitated, then returned to watch over Nolyn and Kiya. Left alone in the hall with Seeker, Marcus fidgeted then pulled the study door shut for something to do under the Desanti's penetrating gaze.
"These Trisari," Seeker said in his desert roughened voice. "They are servants to the Knowing One, as the Totani are servants to the Raging One?"
Surprised the man addressed him, Marcus looked up with a half panicked expression, like a deer trapped by a pack of lupine. Swallowing several times, he nodded. "Y-yes. I think so. I mean, they always said they were, but... they have been gone for so long, some people say they are just children's bedtime stories or wishful thinking."
Seeker looked back down the hall for a long moment, running his fingers along the hilt of his knife as he thought. "The Totani might know what happened to your Trisari."
"The Totani are not here to ask, though," Marcus said, hesitant that he might be insulting the lea
nly muscular man.
Turning his brown eyes on Marcus, Seeker stated in the same gruff tones, no change in inflection, "Totani must be called, especially outside of Desantiva. Only when there is grave imbalance or during adulthood trials can they appear of their own will." Studying Marcus a moment more, he stated, "You have many questions there are no answers for here."
Marcus shrugged, not quite able to meet Seeker's gaze. "Sometimes knowledge is lost or hidden too well for someone like me to find."
The Desanti man tilted his head with a deeper frown. "Like you?"
Turning a brilliant red, the boy replied, "A lowborn apprentice."
"Bah." Seeker waved a hand. The three other Swordanzen jogged in from the common room when Seeker whistled sharply. Exchanging terse words, the two women and man conceded to his demands with reluctance, going down to watch over Kiya, two standing guard outside, the other disappearing into Nolyn's room. To Marcus, Seeker ordered, "You. With me." Hesitating a heartbeat, Marcus decided it wiser not to argue with the warrior and followed him outside, the pair disappearing into the darkness.
Chapter 45
Marcus struggled to keep up with Seeker as the man strode into the night as if it were daylight. The boy muttered gratitude to his goddess it was a clear night with two nearly full moons, else he was certain he would have been utterly lost. He ran into Seeker when the Desanti man stopped without warning. "This place will do," Seeker stated. He pointed down. "Kneel."
Biting his tongue to keep from asking why, and trying to keep from imagining all sorts of terrible things Desanti were rumored to do to hapless Forenten, Marcus obeyed. He blinked in surprise when Seeker mirrored his posture across from him. "Calling Totani is difficult within our lands. I do not know how long how I can do this in the outlands. Your first question may be your only one. Make sure it counts."
"What... are you going to do?" Marcus asked, flinching when Seeker drew his Swordanzen blade, the two-edged sword glittering in the leaf-filtered moonlight.
"Calling the Totani who Named me." Seeker almost smiled at the boy's surprise. "Anibu is not as coy as many other Totani. He will speak plainly." As the man switched from trade common to Swordanzen, Marcus watched with fascination as the man cut his palm deeply, then turned the blood-stained blade downward and drove it into the ground all the way to the hilt as easily as if the ground were freshly tilled.
Several moments passed in silence. "I don't see anything... oh, goddess!" Marcus finished in a whisper. He stared at a small, wiry canine-like creature with pitch black fur and pale blue eyes emerging from the shadows behind Seeker. "You-you are a Totani?!" The boy gaped as the jackal's form melted to that of a slender human man with ink black skin, pale blue eyes, and sharp white teeth that gleamed when he smiled congenially at the boy.
"I am Anibu, the Shadow Jackal. You seek knowledge, and Seeker has sought my assistance to help you. Ask your questions." He glanced at the Swordanzen man. "He cannot maintain the blood magic that holds me here for long."
"What is blood magic...? Wait! No! That isn't my question!" Marcus stammered. Amusement sparkled in the Totani's eyes. "What happened to the Knowing One's divine servants, the Trisari?"
Anibu tilted his head, studying Marcus. "Strange Her children do not remember. Or perhaps they do not remember the ancient shame we all shared." Anibu blinked slowly. "Heed my words, I will tell you this only once, Northborn." Anibu paused a moment then stated in a low voice, "Seven walk the land of men, the rest imprisoned in shifting sands. Between the time of divide and sunder, they betrayed their trusted Mother. In shamed retreat, they hide their feet, and vanished in the timely land."
"They are not dead?" Marcus asked hopefully. "Many think they are and—"
"No more dead than I am," Anibu replied. "Lost souls, grieving, mourning. We can hear their tears, but where they are?" He shook his head. "Totani do not leave the Heart unbidden into the mangled mists where our kin are hidden."
"Wouldn’t the Knowing One know where they are?"
Anibu looked at Seeker who clenched his bleeding fist, his struggle to hold the Totani there becoming apparent. "Would She have been the one to punish them, yes. A greater force than She struck the sentence. The one most wronged must first forgive then make their plea. But even then, they must stop fleeing their shame before they can forgive themselves." Taking the jackal form again, Anibu touched his nose to Seeker's before bounding away. He vanished with the rumble of distant thunder the same moment the man jerked the sword from the ground with a gasp.
Seeker leaned on his uncut hand, breathing heavily. He turned his left hand over, opening his fist to reveal undamaged, blood-stained flesh. Without a word, he took out a rag to clean the blood off.
After several moments of digesting the encounter, the apprentice crossed his arms. "If that was speaking plainly, I think I am afraid to know what coy is," Marcus observed dryly.
Looking up at Marcus, Seeker chuckled and explained, "The Totani may not aid directly. It is annoying, but there is not much to be done. It is divine law."
"The great mother is like that, too. She won't intervene when we can discover the knowledge for ourselves. Annoying, but it is what it is." As the two stood, Seeker stumbled, weakened from blood loss. Marcus moved to let him catch his balance on his shoulder. The two looked at each other for a long moment, then the Desanti man smiled and they headed back to the estate.
"Swordanzen Seeker?" Marcus said as the lights of the house started becoming visible. Feeling the Desanti man's eyes on him, he said, "Thank you."
"You are welcome," Seeker replied gruffly after a few moments of silence.
Chapter 46
Cold... So cold.
The soft voice, familiar to Nolyn, made him ache in sympathy, drawing him back to consciousness. He squinted, disoriented and confused. Groaning, he put his hand to his aching head. "What the hell happened?" he muttered aloud.
So cold.
He sat up, heart in his throat. "Kiya!" He looked beside him to see the unconscious Desanti woman. He touched her throat to find her pulse, then cupped her cheek briefly before he took the covers that had been on him and wrapped them around her even more fragile seeming body. The urgency he felt abated a little, though he still shuddered as if chilled, his entire body aching. "Kiya?"
"I do not remember her ever so close to being unable to return from a spiritwalk," Seeker stated in a low voice. He stood against the wall by the door. "For her sake, I am glad she succeeded in freeing you from the su'dinnais." The man met Nolyn's bewildered gaze. "I think she would rather never return than fail again."
"Again?" He reached for a folded blanket on the chair next to the bed, tugging it around himself. "How many times has she... done this?"
"Spiritwalked? I do not know, but most Su'alin begin training when they are five summers. For them, crossing the blade and coming back is as natural as breathing is to the rest of us. She started long before then." Seeker looked back on Kiya's face. "Been close to never returning? Three times before. But it was the first time that drives her."
Shifting to lean against the headboard, blanket tugged around his shoulders, Nolyn closed his eyes, exhaustion tugging at him again. "May I ask...?"
Seeker sighed. "Our brother had gone on a spiritwalk when he encountered a su'dinnais. He was not ready to face it alone, and their mother went after him to help. Kiya followed. She got our brother out... but their mother..." He shook his head, unable to say a word.
Nolyn opened his eyes, looking down at Kiya as he touched her cheek. "Your people suffer so much loss, yet see such hope in life. Desanti are an amazing people." He sighed as he turned to get up from the bed. Two steps away, however, he staggered, catching himself on Seeker when the Desanti jumped forward to catch him.
Seeker narrowed his gaze on Nolyn. "So, that is it. You are the reason Kiya lives. That is why she is so weak. She didn't return with her own strength, you pulled her back with you." He exhaled loudly. "That is why your child oracle was so distressed whe
n we started to separate you."
"What are you talking about?" Nolyn asked, letting Seeker get him sitting on the bed.
"You are not Su'alin, so your memories are likely dimmed of what happened in the dreamscape." Finding Kiya's hand, Seeker wrapped Nolyn's around it. Nolyn felt a surge of energy and coherence banishing the chaos in his mind the moment their hands touched. Kiya twitched, whimpering as she roused. "Hold onto my sister, Edai Magus. Do not let her go."
"Of course." Nolyn looked at their clasped hands, then covered them with his other hand, kissing her knuckles softly. "I could do no less for her." Nolyn tightened his hand around Kiya's when the young woman cried out in pain, her breaths short and shallow as she flailed. He gathered her into his arms and pulled the heavy quilt up around her before hushing her, stroking her hair. "It is okay, Kiya," he murmured. "Everything is fine."
Clinging to him, the Desanti woman shook violently, her eyes shut tight. After some time, the tremors eased to trembling and she opened her eyes. Instead of brown or gold, however, they were silver, staring sightlessly. "Nolyn?" she whispered. "You are here? I failed?"
"No!" Alarmed, he tucked her head beneath his chin and kissed the top of her head. "You did not fail, Kiya. I live. We both do." His voice quieted, letting his worry bubble up. "We very nearly didn't."
Kiya was silent for several minutes. "I am... alive? How? I last remember freeing you... but I was too hurt... too tired. The sword edge was..." She closed her eyes, resting her head on his chest again. "...too far. So tired." Raising her head, she stared at him blindly. "How... did you reach me? You are alive so you did not cross the blade, but..."
He smiled, caressing her cold cheek. "I am a mage, Su'alin. We are not without the ability to manipulate the fabric of the world."
"The living world," she pointed out, still bewildered. "The dreamscape is of the mind. Beyond the edge... it is and is not of the mind."