Restoration

by Carol Berg

  “And I you, Lady,” I said. “I’ve come seeking sanctuary for my young friend here, and your aid in retrieving two of our brothers who still languish in the pits. Will you grant us your favor?”

  “You’ve no need to ask for whatever I have,” she said, shrugging off painful truth and shifting her attention to the dazed Drych. “Welcome, friend of my friend.” She crouched down beside the young man and extended her hand. He was staring awestruck at a rai-kirah wholly at odds with his training and experience—a being of light, color, and beauty that seared the heart, as unlike the monsters who had fashioned his torment as the soft breezes of Ezzaria were from the storm around us. Remembering my own first glimpse of Vallyne, I guessed he was no longer noticing the cold. “I’ve already summoned someone who’ll get you warmed and fed,” Vallyne went on. “I regret that our hospitality has so sadly lapsed. No dancing at all. Quite limited sustenance, and we daren’t ride out for pleasure. No charming, ever-confused guest such as this one”—she nodded her head at me and widened her eyes in teasing—“to read for us. And this—” She waved her hand at the wild darkness that spun around the castle. “Sadly, I might be feeding you in this hour, only to leave you starving and frozen again when the time vessel next empties itself.”

  “Gennod let them loose. How was he capable of it?”

  Vallyne flushed. “I’m afraid those you left here to guard were not such good jailers. We thought someone would come back for us, but no one did. And with no word of when we might expect it ... Have you so soon forgotten the craving, my love?” Her voice was scarcely audible above the storm. “We hungered so. Don’t blame us.”

  “Someone thought to let a few Gastai go hunting.” To feed on a human soul and bring back the experiences and sensations to share with those remaining in this wasteland. “And the hunters returned worse than ever.”

  “Indeed so. Though we don’t understand why.”

  “Dreams,” I said, thinking aloud, putting the evidence together at last, understanding how Nyel had been able to touch the rai-kirah all these thousand years. “Rai-kirah living in Kir‘Vagonoth cannot dream. But when the Gastai possess a human soul, they dream, and those dreams can be changed ... touched ... by the one in the tower, just as my dreams were touched. All these years we Ezzarians have believed that we made the demons worse by our combat, but it was never our doing. It was his.”

  “His? So you’ve gone there ...”

  “It’s complicated,” I said, and then took refuge in the problem of the moment. “Gennod’s wearing you down.”

  “We’ll hold. Though I would not refuse a few more warriors were they available. You look quite capable.”

  “I’ve come here by a means I don’t quite understand,” I said. “That’s why I’m not sure I can get my three young friends out of Kir‘Vagonoth as yet, and I’m not sure how long I can stay—” An earsplitting screech and a burst of flame drew us to the edge of the battlement. The graceful turret of the outermost tower splintered under the assault of a monstrous bird, sending great shards of ice whirling into the storm. The fragments glinted silver and gold and blue in the firelight, dusting towers and windows and the three of us with new frost.

  The bird’s head and long neck were that of a serpent roughly the diameter of a large tree, its body the size of a house, and its small eyes glowed red; only a demon of considerable power could shape such a monster. “Gennod,” Vallyne and I said together.

  Two slightly smaller birds with sharp talons and hooked beaks flew out of the broken tower. They were certainly more agile than the serpent bird and ferocious in their defense, but they stood no chance, as the wingspread of the giant bird was so much larger. Even as we watched, one of the smaller birds raked the monster’s back with its claws. The serpent’s tongue whipped out and caught the harrying defender, who disintegrated in a burst of purple fire. The second defender shot high into the churning sky, then plummeted toward the serpent bird, talons fully extended. The monster’s wings swept the air with such force as to flip the smaller bird upside down, the heavy wings slamming into the helpless defender and crumpling its lighter frame. Colored light oozed from the broken bird like living blood, beginning to take a humanlike form, but before it could reshape itself, the dazed rai-kirah was swept away by the dark whirlwind.

  With a scream of triumph and a flick of its ropelike tongue, the serpent bird returned to its assault on the tower, shattering first one and then another portion until all that remained of the graceful structure was a glassy mountain of blue-gray ice far below us. Then the bird rose into the air, circled lazily about the castle, and laid its red serpent’s eye on Vallyne.

  Freed from the momentary paralysis induced by the duel, I ran across the frosted battlement. “Someone will come for you, lad,” I shouted over my shoulder. “Heal well and save your brothers.” And you, glorious Vallyne, liveforever!Without breaking stride, I leaped up to the merlon and into the churning air, yanking the sword from the sheath at my side and spreading my golden wings. Drawing melydda from my blood and bone, I summoned the wind to my service and soared upward toward the monster.

  CHAPTER 31

  A sharp edge bit into my hand, threatening to slice through to bone, and I loosened my grip on the hard, angular lump. What inept sword maker would leave such a ridge on a sword grip? Even as the stench of burning feathers and seared flesh yielded to scents of roses and tea and wet grass, and the harsh screams of dying monsters gave way to the hiss of quiet rain, the laceration on my palm stung more fiercely—a tether drawing me out of battle and storm. I opened my hand and stared. The black warrior ... the obsidian game piece.

  “I had more to do,” I said. “The gateway to the pits ... the two other Wardens ...” I set the piece carefully on the game board, forcing my hand not to tremble—my quite ordinary hand with its familiar scars. My bones ached. My shoulders felt raw; the seepage from my throbbing left thigh was surely blood. My right side felt as if a spike had been driven inward and upward into my lung. At least I was clothed again; nonetheless, I felt vulnerable—flaccid, weak, as if half my blood had been drained away.

  “Your dreamer must have fallen asleep,” said Nyel from across the game board. “You cannot remain with him once he sleeps again and begins a new dream.”

  I could not take my eyes from the patterned game board, for in the trickery of light and dark, of pattern and form, I could still catch glimpses of a silver brilliance that pierced whipping clouds to give me heart, of long, difficult hours of combat in my golden form, slaying the serpent bird just when I had begun to fear that I could not. “His waking shadow,” I said. “Made flesh from his dream.”

  “The vietto is the rarest of enchantments, even among the Madonai. Passed from master to attellé if the student’s power is great enough. If the student’s heart is generous enough. If the student’s soul is rich enough to weave it with wisdom.”

  “I need to get back to my sword practice.” Kasparian shoved his chair away from the table. “You’ve no need of me anymore.” His heavy footsteps echoed through the silent house. The voiceless servants came in and stoked the fire and closed the garden doors against the splatter of rain and the rapidly cooling night. Night. I had been in Kir‘Vagonoth an entire day.

  “The vietto. This is how you traveled to the human world,” I said, looking up at my companion as the last vision faded. “You and your friend Hyrdon, who didn’t want to be a god.”

  Nyel was leaning back in his chair, sipping a glass of wine. “It took me quite a while to realize that I had taken flesh in a true world and was no longer part of a dream, that my deeds in that realm were true events, not just a passing vision. Who could imagine such a thing? I told myself it was dangerous to meddle, foolish to become involved with beings so ephemeral. But I could not stay away from the forest people. They lived in beauty, just as we did here, and I could not understand how they bore such hardships—hunger, disease, and early death—yet remained so in love with living. I tried to care for them, teach t
hem whatever I could that might ease their way. As time passed, I decided to choose only one of them at a time to be my dreamer. Things get very confusing when you touch too many different minds. And indeed you remain somewhat ... attached ... to the person who brings you through. On your recent adventure, for example, you would have found it difficult to stray too far from the young man. You felt the bond with him, well beyond your shared experience of torment.”

  True. All true. “Why did I take on this altered form ... the light ... the sword? Is that part of it? I couldn’t shape myself the way I wanted.”

  Nyel rose and walked to the table in the middle of the room where carafes of wine and ale stood ready for his choosing. He refilled his glass, filled a second one, and brought it to me. A few stray red droplets fell toward the game board, vanishing the moment they touched it. “This enchantment is of the Madonai, not the rekkonarre. With the vietto, the enchanter becomes the physical expression of his power. His every other form is but a shadow of this one. And so this was your true Madonai form—a warrior’s form, it seems—that tried to show itself. It would always be the shape of your greatest strength, though you surely could have changed to whatever you wished had you understood how to do so. But you are bound to human flesh, and so your transformation was flawed, incomplete.” He settled in his chair again and ran a finger along the smooth edge of the game board. “The pain and weariness you feel now are the cost of your human birth, as is the truth that you cannot do this thing of yourself. You needed me to guide the enchantment for you ... and you needed Kasparian, of course, because the one who stole my name also stole my ability to initiate such workings or, indeed, to accomplish any save this one.”

  Another piece slid into place. “You can speak in dreams and shape them to your design,” I said, “but you can’t travel through them anymore.”

  “Correct. I was able to follow and observe you in your glory this day. But I could not have come to your aid had you needed me. My jailer intended for me only to observe.” Amusement glanced across his face along with the echo of his grieving. “He would not be pleased to know I had learned to shape or speak in dreams.”

  So that was why Kasparian had let himself be imprisoned with Nyel. Without his attellé to initiate the enchantment, Nyel would have been without even the small amusement his jailer had left him. His jailer ... his son, if the god story was true. A fitting explanation for his edge of bitterness.

  “What of Kasparian?” I said. “He was allowed to keep his name.” I needed to understand about names.

  “Kasparian was ... and is ... limited enough that it was not necessary to cripple him. He has no power over dreams. Forgive him his faults. He is a good man. Truth is often the cruelest torment.”

  I stood and walked away from the game table, sensing I was at the verge of some discovery, yet so tired that it might pass without my notice. “I thank you for your gift, Nyel. The young man I rescued was my own attellé. At least he is free of torment now. He has hope of getting home and some measure of safety, as do the others left there—both human and rai-kirah.” Gennod was dead; I could not argue with the satisfactory outcome, though I believed Nyel the entire cause of the problem. “You’re quite confusing me.”

  Was all of this designed to demonstrate the power of the Madonai? If so, the designer had accomplished his goal. Beneath the mantle of weariness and the remnants of my intoxication, I could feel both the pulsing enormity of my own melydda and the clear and poignant understanding of my lack. I possessed such power as I had yearned for throughout my life, but my human hand could wield only a portion of it. Was that his objective? Was this growing hunger I felt gnawing at my soul a punishment for my ancestors’ fault? Truth is often the cruelesttorment.

  I pushed open the garden door that the servants had closed, allowing a wind-borne spray of rain to bathe my face, hoping it might prick my mind awake. Nyel came to stand at my shoulder. We were exactly the same height.

  “Did you think this small grace was what I planned to offer?” he said. “Did you not hear what I told you? I’ve not brought you here to tantalize you with things you cannot have.”

  What had he said as I fell into his eyes? This is but the beginning, lad... “You said I was bound by earth and flesh, but that you could set me free.” The old man’s gaze compelled my attention. “What did you mean?” My stomach felt hollow, anticipation bordering on terror.

  “Of all the rekkonarre you have the heart and the wisdom to use the vietto. You think me mad, and indeed I confess it. I have lived too long. My griefs have festered into bitterness and misjudgment. I, too, have done things that I would have considered reprehensible in my youth. You’ve seen them. But you can make matters right again ... Is that not everything you have ever wished to do?” He grasped my shoulders and forced me to look into his eyes, and with a love I could not fathom, they begged me to believe him. “I wish to free you from the cost of your compassion. I can change you, unbind you from all that holds you back, allow you to repair these horrors I have done. You will be as you are meant to be, and I will die unburdened of my sins. Can you comprehend what I offer? I will make you Madonai.”

  A simple matter, he told me. Because I was newly joined. Because of the power I could bring to the working. My mind and soul, the joining of Seyonne and the demon, would remain as they were now. Only the nature of my body would change ... still flesh and blood and bone, but purged of those elements that hindered my easy movement through the portals of dreams, free of the scars that interfered with my transformation to a being that would feel neither pain nor weariness, cleansed of the frail heritage that prevented full use of my melydda. I would be able to touch dreams at my own will and become flesh through them, to fight unhindered for those things I believed were good and right, or to teach, as had ever been my truest pleasure.

  “You were not born to watch events from the side, to let others take the lead, to lose your strength and die when you have scarcely begun.”

  Oh yes, and I would live for uncounted ages of the world. An aging warrior in my own world, I was but an infant in the span of a Madonai lifetime.

  “You see the burdens of such a choice. To remain apart—for you could not allow such power to be skewed by trivial concerns or personal feelings. To live so long and to be the only one—indeed these are difficult, as I can attest. But as you grow in your own power, you can do this same for others you find worthy of our name. The Madonai race will be reborn in you. The balance of the worlds will be restored.”

  But I would not be human. Nor could I live in the human world again. That had been one of the Madonai’s problems. Humans could not live in Kir‘Navarrin; as Fiona had seen, they sickened quickly. Nor could Madonai exist for more than a short time in the human realm. They had built the first portal between the worlds, but could not use it. Only the rekkonarre—my people fully joined—could live in both worlds. Only those Madonai who possessed the secret of the vietto, who could take on flesh through enchantment and dream, could exist in the human world as often as they wished, for as long as their dreamer could stay awake.

  “You could care for humans, if you judged it wise. Better than you have done thus far. Though I cannot mentor you in wisdom or in judgment, I can teach you much of power.” Think about it, he said. No need to rush. At every step I could choose until the last when it was done.

  “Come, come,” said Nyel, shutting the garden door, reining in his eagerness so tightly that only the slight flush of his cheeks yet spoke of it. “You don’t have to decide tonight. You’re tired and wounded—bleeding on my carpet. Go up to your bed and I’ll send Kasparian to tend your injuries. Tomorrow, we’ll talk again.”

  I walked slowly through the quiet house. Always so quiet. I did not go straight to my bedchamber, but walked up and down the corridors and stairs, past paintings and statuary, workrooms and kitchens, courtyards and sitting rooms and sleeping chambers. I stood on a high balcony and stared at the stars, then wandered inside again, in and out of more ro
oms. I saw none of them. All I could see was Drych—sick, broken, wretched Drych—alive. All I heard was the infusion of blessed hope in his voice when I had proved myself real.

  Who could imagine such a gift? Melydda unbounded. And freedom—from pain and filth, from petty, senseless rules, from endless bloodshed and sorrows I could not heal. Exactly what I had always wanted—to make things right. When I wandered into my room at last, I did not light the lamps that stood ready, nor did I snuff the single candle and fall onto the soft bed. Rather I sat on the bare floor in the corner, knees drawn up, my arms wrapped around my legs, and my forehead resting on my knees. Only in the hour of my demon-joining had I felt so frightened. The prisoner of Tyrrad Nor had offered to make me a god, and I could think of no reason to refuse him.

  Kasparian found me there. He brought a bundle of linen strips and a basin of water with steam curling out of it. “The master says you are injured. Let me see.” Without touching the candle to the lamp wicks, he set the corner ablaze with light.

  “I’ve no need for your help.” I wanted no company, no intrusion on the chaos of my thoughts.

  “Do you think I’ll poison you? Cripple you? Take petty vengeance in the guise of healing?”

  “No.” I was certain of that, just as I was certain he would like to do so.

  “Where is your wound?” Whatever his reasons for doing Nyel’s bidding, they had nothing to do with wishing me well.

  “Tell me,” I said, “did I offend you at some time, or is my only crime that your master is offering me what you hunger for and believe you deserve? You know I can’t remember.” As he seemed determined to hover over me whether or not I wished it, I stretched out my bleeding leg.