“My dreams often start pleasant to lull me into complacency,” he said. “Two of you together make this the most devious lure ever.”
“A single one of you makes this our favorite dream ever.” Mistress Intuition grinned at him then peered into the gloom behind her. “Or maybe our least favorite.”
“Quiet.” Hiresha’s brows bent in concentration as she repaired Tethiel’s lung. It was a maze of veins and air caverns that she had to fit back together. “Remember, Tethiel, this is my dream, not yours.”
“Dreams can merge,” he said. “And collapse.”
Hiresha bowed over, and it felt as if someone had placed a lead weight between her shoulders. Cracks spread through the walls of her laboratory, hard to see in the black rock, but she felt the flaws burrowing through her consciousness. She fought against it, imagining the laboratory as the perfection it should be. Her efforts only caused her favorite dream jewels to splinter into brown dust.
From the darkness she heard a scratching, a “Skritch! Skritch!” It came from the direction of the wall where she had trapped the lady Feaster.
“Tethiel, what are you doing?” Hiresha took a step away from the operations table. “You must stop this.”
“They’re your fears, and it’d be wrong of me to deprive you of them.”
“Please, impoverish me of fears. I must work.”
“‘He who is without fear has no hope,’” Tethiel said. “Embrace your fears. Glory in them. Ride them like a dragon.”
With a sound of ripping stone, the dome of the laboratory fractured off. Red stars glared in from a night sky that warped and skewed. Everything was falling. Hiresha grabbed the operations table, and Mistress Intuition shrieked as she lifted into the air. Mirrors and dead jewels were flung out of the spinning laboratory.
Hiresha caught Intuition’s arm. With a wracking terror, Hiresha watched her spell baubles thrown out into the night. Between herself and Mistress Intuition, someone was screaming Tethiel’s name.
“Fight fear and be drowned. Instead skim its surface,” he said as the table split under him, racking his arms and legs in different directions.
Hiresha tried to slow her racing heart, tried to recapture focus. The laboratory broke in half. Black boulders tumbled past.
The lady Feaster swooped free of the broken wall. The night sky folded around her as a vast robe jeweled with stars. The Feaster’s laugh tinkled like wind chimes made of children’s bones.
Hiresha’s own howling matched the keening of the wind as the remains of the laboratory rolled over. The structure had been floating in the dream’s sky. She now had a clear view downward to the onrushing swath of darkness of the savannah below. A score of seconds remained before impact.
Tethiel shout over the din. “No, my heart, you’re concentrating on the fear. It’s paralyzing you. Let the sting of it invigorate you, and remember what you set out to do.”
“Heal him!” The hair of Mistress Intuition whipped about. “Heal him so we can wake!”
Veins alive with what felt like venom, Hiresha clawed her way back over Tethiel. She was not sure she could, but she slammed the two halves of the table back together with her mind. She clung to a golden shackle, and lashed the ruby back from the distance so she could resume enchanting.
His muscles wove back together. His sinew resealed. Hiresha enchanted faster than ever before with a precision born of desperation. Part of her was aware of the slab table spinning end over end. Of the tearing wind. Of the night sky whirling around them.
In seconds I’ll die. Hiresha had never felt more alive.
She guided the last of his blood into his veins. Her magic stitched the skin closed on his chest, his arm. But his wounds will open when he wakes, unless he holds the ruby.
Hiresha’s head jerked as the table turned. Amid the pandemonium of skirts and flailing black hair, the onyx choker fell off Tethiel. The ruby’s shine matched the glow of her red diamond that bloomed with light through her dress.
The grasses of the savannah were like spines, near enough now to see. Far too near.
With both hands clinging to the table, she had no choice but to Attract the ruby into her mouth to hold it. Hiresha did not have time to think, only to know what must be done. She bent over Tethiel and pressed her lips against his.
Ecstasy tormented her. Wildfire feelings of triumph and terror raced through her. I’ve done it, she thought, healed him even in a storm of nightmare.
Her tongue pushed the ruby into his mouth. She tasted the intoxicating bitterness of coffee beans and the velvety richness of twilight.
Tethiel lifted a shackled arm from the crumbling table and embraced her.
They slammed through the fabric of the dream.
35
Rector’s Armory
Hiresha awoke shivering in Tethiel’s arms. She held the broken arrows she had pulled from him in the dream, the stone head scraping against her skin. Like a girl caught in fever, she trembled despite the heat. And in her daze of trying to free herself from the chains of sleep, she did not know if the arms of a living man enclosed her, or if she felt only the temperature of a corpse’s spilled blood.
“Your first night is over,” Tethiel said. He glanced at the sun halfway down the afternoon sky. “Even if it was day. That may have spared us another level of nightmare.”
Breathing in short gasps, she ran a hand over the roughness of his chest. She felt the puckered contour of the wound she had closed. It was healed. Her heart a racing patter, she squinted and blinked between the rows of the pedestals to see Fos slumped against the wall.
Sleeping or dead? Hiresha had closed her eyes before seeing Fos behead the Bright Palm. In her current frame of mind, she could all-too-easily imagine that the blind archer had somehow escaped and killed Fos. Or the infection in Fos’s eye might’ve bested him.
Swaying to her feet, she stumbled across the armory to him. A cold inrush of air played against her chest before she closed her bear-skin coat. A far more refreshing blast of relief rolled through her when she found Fos only sleeping. His chest swelled and fell in time with his breaths.
She searched for the Bright Palm he had captured and found a man-sized shape covered by a torn drape. Fingering a corner of the shroud, she decided she did not need to look. The Bright Palm’s light is extinguished.
She paced to the crystal wall, wanting to walk off the lingering sense of nightmare. She pressed a brow against the glassy surface, looked down. Little of the plateau was visible from her height, only a sliver of snow around the base of the Somnarium.
Fos is well, she told herself, and Tethiel is cured. As for herself and her dream world, she believed she could restore it to perfection eventually. Now in the safety of the armory, she had all the time she needed to rest, to heal Fos, and to plan her next move.
Hiresha still had a chance to free the Academy from Sheamab’s grasp, and knowing that made the enchantress feel gowned with joy. She bounded to Tethiel, happy to see him stand under his own power, angry with him causing such havoc in her dream.
The center of his tattooed brow crept upward in an expression of contained anguish. He picked through the tatters of his satin vest. “My heart, what have you done?”
Surprised he could think of clothing at a time like this, she said, “I had to remove it. My magic—”
“I’m sure it was necessary, but what is a man without his clothes? Garments are our second skin, and the truer of the two for being the one we choose. Only fools judge a man by his face, or the shade of his skin. Clothes are the flags displaying the standards of a man’s soul.”
Hiresha embraced him. “Your superficiality is most reassuring.”
“The superficial is the last refuge of the thinking man.”
“The ordeal hasn’t fazed you in the least.”
“My trial was less than yours, for having withstood it many times before.” He fished something out from his cheek, and a ruby glittered between his lips.
“Swallow that.”
He did so then buttoned up the front of the coat, pulling his lapels forward to hide more of his scars. “The worst part of the dream was having every facet of you seeing me half bare.”
“Now I am certain you’re lying to me.” She smiled up at him.
“I never feel more disingenuous than when naked.” He frowned down at his torn sleeve.
She touched the closed wound there, to make sure it was not hot from infection. “You feel whole?”
“I feel great. As if I were only shot once.” He glanced at the afternoon sun then slid his eyes to the sleeping spellsword. “Now enough about me—”
“Mind what you say. I’ll not hear one word against Fos.” Hiresha was grateful the spellsword had listened to her and executed the Bright Palm. Another minute of arguing might have killed Tethiel.
“Why would I say anything against him?” Tethiel asked. “Who else is going to smash Bright Palms in two with an obelisk of a sword? You must tend to his eye at once.”
Hiresha nodded, stepping back from Tethiel and buttoning up her own coat. “You should take the time to arm yourself.”
She waved a hand at the rows of pedestals. The swords and spears were held on inlaid wooden stands with the sanctity of relics. Coats of armor hung from the ceiling with the pomp of tapestries.
“Armor is a layer of overconfidence,” Tethiel said. “And a man is never less safe than when he carries a weapon.”
“Nonetheless, if you insist on jumping in front of arrows, you must wear thicker stuff than velvet. And I am certain you’ll find something more efficacious as a weapon than a skating shoe.”
Tethiel made some noises of doubt in the back of his throat. He still walked between the pedestals, reading the plaques.
Hiresha cut a new bandage from the drapes using the rector’s dagger. Fos awoke at her touch. As she unwound the discolored cloth from his head, he asked, “Can you save it? I’d rather keep my own eye. He’s told me true for years.”
His eye was a ruin, but Hiresha made sure to smile at Fos. “You’ll be better off with a new one. And, goodness! Is that your stomach growling?”
“Unless your fur coat is coming back to life.” He crossed his arms over the metal-scaled shirt he wore under his coat. “I’ll need to fight the Bright Palms before I die of starvation.”
“We’ll leave as soon as we can.” Hiresha tied the new bandage behind his head.
“Hey, what’s he doing to the Bright Palm?” Fos stood and advanced on Tethiel. “I won’t have anyone disrespecting the dead.”
The Lord of the Feast was crouching over the curtained corpse, resting a paintbrush on top of the body. Hiresha wondered where he had found the brush. Decorating one of the weapon displays, I would guess. She had less of an idea why Tethiel was bothering with the gesture.
“For the man you once were,” Tethiel said to the lump of curtains, “a master painter, before you took up the hobby of forcing arrows where they’re not wanted.”
Half of Fos’s brow furrowed. “A blind painter?”
“Went blind, joined the Order of the Insufferable for a cure, but by then it was too late for their magic. Not everyone is so lucky as to have Enchantress Hiresha for a friend. It was merciful of you to end Mavin’s unlife.”
“A painter going blind? And I thought fate had woven me a real knot.” Fos jerked the bandage tighter around his head. His dark hair stuck out at an angle. “Half blinded and now quartered with a Feaster.”
Hiresha tensed, glancing between the two men.
“And the only Feaster alive to be shot twice by Mavin, Feast’s Ending.” Tethiel bowed his head. “What are a few arrows in the vitals next to renown?”
Hiresha spoke to Fos. “You don’t need to heed everything he says.”
The skewed grin that crossed Fos’s face reassured Hiresha to some degree. She still pulled him aside and asked him to see to it that Tethiel came to no harm while she slept.
“So I’m to make sure no armor falls on him? No sword slips from its spot and pricks his foot?”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“Then what am I to guard him against in this locked room? Except myself.”
Hiresha swallowed and faced Fos. “Yes, that.”
“Once you trusted me,” he said. “And I thought it worked well for us.”
“You have every right to be surprised. That the Lord of the Feast and I have an understanding.”
“I think,” Fos said, “you’ll have to decide who you trust more. Me or a Feaster.”
Hiresha decided she trusted every part of Fos, except his judgment. She trusted all of Tethiel, save his magic. And I suspect I’ll need to trust Fos and Tethiel both. I haven’t the luxury for misgivings. By the time she drew that conclusion out of her fatigue, Fos had stomped away. She was too late.
Fading from the armory into her dream world, Hiresha busied herself repairing her laboratory. Fitting the debris back into a floating building was not so difficult compared to healing the labyrinth of a human body. She had full command of her powers, this time, and no one to distract her.
Hiresha had gone to sleep holding the shreds of Fos’s old bandage. From the pus she isolated the breed of infection, and she crafted a curative enchantment for him in a lapis lazuli. She wished she could so easily create him a new eye, or cure the strain Tethiel’s presence was causing Fos.
The silence in her dream laboratory only increased her worry, with the mirrors that once held Mistress Intuition and the Feaster both empty. Something had changed, and Hiresha was not certain it was for the good.
One mirror showed the six-foot jasper sword, and she poured dream jewels into it to power the weapon’s enchantment. She also refurbished the protective jewels on herself and Fos. Then she turned her mind to the problem of Sheamab.
The Bright Palm appeared in a mirror, standing in that superior manner of hers, with sandals in the snow. The image in the glass focused on her face, past her strong nose and onto a single eye, the pupil dark around the edges and grey at the center. Each minute, light crisscrossed the pupil’s veins.
“You’re quick,” Hiresha said to the mirror, “but perhaps a sufficient volley of jewels would catch you.”
Hiresha pursed her lips, waiting for another voice to sound in the laboratory, another opinion. When none came, she made a survey of the jewels in her sash. She lifted a vial of yellow diamond dust from her pocket. She peered back at Sheamab’s calm eye.
“Would you be able to dodge a cloud of enchantment? Perhaps so.”
Possibilities colored her mirrors in flashes too fast for her to have followed while awake. Then she came across a promising memory, and all the images in the mirrors froze, except for one of Tethiel.
In the Grindstone, he had said, “Bright Palms have no such human instincts. That is their weakness. Good reflexes, but no fears, no intuitions.”
“If I can surprise her,” Hiresha said, “if I can hide the attack for what it is, I’ll have a probable route to victory.”
The vial of diamond dust floated above her palm. Its grains glittered like pale sand. Hiresha squinted at it while her mirrors once again spun with storms of possibilities.
“What harmless thing might you be mistaken for?”
One mirror showed a white board surrounded by vials of sand. Enchantresses knelt on either side of it, taking turns tossing colored dust.
“That’s it! Sheamab made that pretentious claim that she could declare victory after the first throw. I’ll challenge her to a game, and she’ll accept with sufficient stakes. Say, my surrender. Then the game will be over in the first throw, but not the way Sheamab expects.”
Hiresha gripped the vial and flicked her wrist, making as if to spray the diamond dust. Armed with a plan, she tingled with giddiness. Now I have a path to victory. She glanced around the emptiness of the laboratory, wishing someone could have witnessed her brainstorming.
Plans sometimes needed changing. She had learned that all too well. “Any criticis
m? Any insight?”
“Nope.” The woman in yellow, who until recently had been Hiresha’s reflection, stepped out from behind the enchantress. Intuition held her own shoulders and balanced her chin on her arms in a playful manner. “If we think of anything, we’ll know.”
“Your uselessness hardly could be counted as a surprise. Nonetheless, I am relieved to see you.”
“I was hiding.” Mistress Intuition nodded to the empty mirror belonging to the Feaster.
“And where is she?”
“Hiding from you,” Intuition said. “Or maybe she’s scared of all the Bright Palms.”
“I find both possibilities pleasing.” Hiresha noticed the wrinkles on Mistress Intuition’s dress and stains on her skirt. With a thought, the enchantress removed the blemishes. “Stay close, I may have need of you.”
Hiresha blinked and woke.
In the armory, Hiresha gave Fos his curative lapis lazuli. He tested the enchantment in his jasper sword by Lightening it and balancing its hilt on his brow and leaning back with the blade pointed high above him. That was, until it tipped to the side and would have crashed to the ground had the spellsword not caught it.
“Ouch,” he said. “That trick is easier with two eyes. Can’t believe that Bright Palm got on with none.”
Hiresha glanced toward the deceased Bright Palm. Next she spotted Tethiel sauntering from behind and a suit of armor designed to look like vines. “The blind develop strange skills and perceptions none of the rest of us have the patience to learn. I understand the discipline is called ‘listening.’”
“On that topic,” Hiresha said, “why haven’t you followed my advice and dressed yourself in metal? If you wish to stay superficial, you must wear armor.”
“Ha! But I have.” With a crooked finger he pointed to a gilt circlet. Miniature designs of helmet, gauntlets, and breastplate were linked across his forehead. “‘Crown of Plate.’ The plaque claimed it would protect me as much as a metal suit.”
“The rector is a master of defensive enchantments,” Hiresha said with only a pinch of jealousy, “and that circlet will Lighten the first three attacks against you from incoming metal or wood. But Fos has a similar ward, and Sheamab’s staff still struck him. The weapon appears to be some relative of bamboo.”
Gravity's Revenge Page 24