by Erin Hoffman
Abruptly all was silent in the clearing, save for their labored breath. The fallen verali was now quite thoroughly dead and still.
Thalnarra lowered her great head to scrape blood from her beak on a patch of snow. She left a vivid red smear across the slush, and when she lifted her head again to look at Vidarian her beak glittered wet-black. // I don't like to kill them. // In the hearth-warmth of her voice was a thread of guilt and unhappiness like fouled meat. // They're thinking creatures, intelligent, // she said, giving an agitated shake of her neck-feathers.
// But they wouldn't listen, // Altair said, a deep sadness in his voice that cut like ice. // Our languages have drifted. //
“You know what these are?” Vidarian said, moving to one of the wolves to clean his blade on its pelt, then thinking better of it and using snow instead.
// Sightwolves, // Thalnarra said, lifting her head to look back at the cliff that loomed behind them, and the Windsmouth beyond it. // We're on the other side now. //
Though exhausted to the bone from the trek through the mountains followed by the sightwolf onslaught, they couldn't bear to sleep in the clearing, littered as it was with blood. Aided by the gryphons’ massive claws, they were able to dig a trench for the dead wolves and lone verali, then trek into the forest. According to Ilisia's maps, these woods formed an arc around the edge of the mountains, and at their far side was a stone outpost, centuries old, but it should be strong enough to house the horses and verali for a few days.
The horses, smelling wolf, first refused to enter the forest, and had to be persuaded by growls from the impatient gryphons. There had been little meat through the snowy mountains, and Vidarian knew that Thalnarra would have far preferred to eat the beasts than herd them, but he'd convinced her that they were needed for the return journey. He found his eyes lingering on the gryphons’ beaks and claws with renewed respect; it was one thing to realize in the abstract what they were capable of, and another entirely to have its evidence now burned into his memory.
Their shadowed trek beneath the trees-ancient, brooding conifers of a type he'd never seen before-was an insensate exhaustion blur punctuated by flashes of eyes in the dark. Some of these, he was sure, were figments of the imagination, anxiety-constructs-but some, he was equally sure, were not.
The forest's shadows had deepened toward true night when they finally emerged from the other side. A cool wind brought the scent of fresh water to their noses, and the blue twilight spilling across verdant hills rolling before them had a strange, tranquil loveliness. The hills flattened in the southern distance into a great plain, while the mountains curved to the west, ending distantly in what appeared to be coastal cliffs. And here at the edge of the forest, to their great relief, was the promised outpost: a small house of stacked stone, much neglected, and a sounder stone barn. With so many trees nearby it was odd that the barn wasn't made of wood, but they didn't question the small blessing: if it had been, it would certainly have deteriorated beyond use long before their arrival.
Even the gryphons’ steps were faltering by the time they unloaded the verali. They arranged themselves in front of the stone barn to sleep while Vidarian, Ariadel, and Ruby unrolled their bedding in the space between. The night forest behind them was alive with the howls and yelps of a wild place's survival dance, and as sleep took them, Vidarian tried to remind himself that nothing here could be foolish enough to attack a sleeping gryphon.
In the morning, Ariadel didn't rise with the sun as she had every day that Vidarian had known her-brief though that time might be. Vidarian rose quietly, trying not to wake her, and found his way to the nearby river for the first morning wash he'd had in some time that hadn't involved snow. The water was cold, but restored him to full wakefulness, along with awareness of a number of stretched and sore muscles.
Ruby had risen before him, and crouched beside a fire she'd made by the river, tending a kettle. She was scrutinizing the metal pot so intently that she jumped when Vidarian laid a hand on her shoulder.
A flash of irritation followed her embarrassment at having been surprised, and she answered the question in his eyes hotly. “The temperature has to be precise,” she said.
“Your exclusive kava?” he said. “Better not let any tyros such as myself near it.”
“It's really no fault of mine that you have a peasant's palate,” she huffed.
“I'm just glad to see you're feeling better,” he replied. Sincerity was one of the few ways to defuse her ire.
Ruby eyed him, but stretched the arm closest to her injury, showing a greater range of movement than she'd had a few days ago. His comment had the desired effect: it mollified her enough to share the kava. He coaxed a few fat fish out of the river with water magic and cooked them with fire while she brewed the bark-be damned if this whole Tesseract business wasn't going to have some silver lining-and they made a very decent camp breakfast of it.
When Ariadel didn't rise by the time the gryphons returned from their morning hunt-nearly too fat to fly, Altair accused the other two; they'd taken two medium-sized deer-Vidarian started to worry, and went to rouse her.
The kitten, which had ridden for most of the journey in its more portable spider form, slept curled across her neck, as if huddled there for warmth. But when Vidarian moved to touch Ariadel's shoulder, he was taken aback by the worried intelligence in the creature's very awake and alert eyes. It knows, the Starhunter said softly. She'd been silent since the wolf attack, and seemed strangely thoughtful now. My creatures know things.
Ariadel's face and hands were both pale, and Vidarian rejected his immediate fear, but it refused to subside entirely. He'd seen this kind of pallor before, in his childhood….
It's what's inside her, the Starhunter whispered, warring against itself. Wind meets hammer!
Vidarian's stomach dropped. “No…” he whispered. But his new senses showed her accusation to be true. If he closed his eyes, her dominant fire nature rose up before him-but beneath it, in her blood, twined the energies of her parents: implacable earth and volatile wind, now turned against each other. He realized, with an echo of the terrible fear that had haunted his childhood, how the visiting priestess had known with a single look the nature of the disease that took his brothers.
Ask her, the Starhunter insisted, with a callous titter, if she has any brothers or sisters.
But he knew the answer.
Ask!
He took her hands and massaged them in his own, willing warmth back into her frighteningly cold fingers. “Ariadel,” he said, and she made a soft noise, her face contorting. Her pallor and reflexive grimace threw him back twenty years-his mother, a dried husk from grief, standing at the bedside of Relarion, his oldest brother. He was ten years old…. “Ariadel,” he forced himself to urge again, hoarse. “Do you have…” his voice rasped and he swallowed. “…brothers or sisters?”
“No,” she said, confusion wrinkling her brow. She cleared her throat, but it was a weak sound. “I-my parents had two children, before I was born. They-didn't survive.”
“They got sick,” he said quietly.
Her chin tipped down once in the shadow of a nod. “Blood plague,” she whispered.
Ruby's indrawn breath behind them lifted his head. She stood, her arms wrapped around herself, a handful of emotions warring on her face. He knew that expression well; the Rulorats had parted from their Sea Kingdom brethren to support the Alorean Emperor seven generations ago, but seventy years ago Vidarian's great-grandfather had further parted from sea custom by marrying a fire woman. The rigid Sea Kingdom rites weren't always so practical, but the stricture against interelemental marriage centered around a single purpose: avoiding the specter of blood plague.
The disease came on suddenly and usually took children, but cases had been documented in adults as old as thirty years of age. When Vidarian had turned thirty, three years ago, and survived, a peace had come over his mother. On her deathbed two years ago she said that she could die happy, knowing she woul
dn't lose him as she had his brothers.
Ariadel was twenty-eight.
Jealous, jealous elements, the Starhunter whispered. How they fight when I'm not around… .
A cold chill penetrated the heat of Vidarian's grief. “What are you saying?” he said softly, ignoring the confused looks that Ariadel and Ruby turned on him.
You know what I'm saying, she laughed coldly. Set me free, and she lives.
Vidarian lifted his voice. “When was the first case of blood plague recorded?”
“It's ancient,” Ruby said, her tone dismissing the question. “Two thousand years.”
Has it been that long? the voice mused. Man, time flies.
“Two thousand years ago,” Vidarian said, willing strength from his hands into Ariadel's as he tightened his grasp, “they shut the Starhunter behind the gate.”
After wrapping Ariadel in every blanket they could find, and convincing Thalnarra to use a small amount of fire magic in a persistent spell to keep her warm, Ruby and Vidarian loaded the flying craft in silence. On the far side of the river was the start of a grassy plain, and Ruby, no longer hiding her facility with water magic, walked across the surface of the river to collect fodder for the horses from the other side. Arikaree complimented her on her technique, but her only reply was a flush that could have been pleasure or anger, and seemed probably both.
Vidarian wasn't convinced that the sightwolves wouldn't find some way to break into the old barn, but they could only fortify it minimally with the available materials and hope for the best. The horses and verali, for their part, seemed content and relieved to be housed and not traveling. By early afternoon all was prepared, and they were taking to the air.
The gryphons lifted with a will after their respite through the mountains, and Ariadel occupied Ruby's previous place at the bow. It seemed odd that they had never flown the craft without one of them being incapacitated, and an ill omen for a ship named Destiny. Vidarian's mother had been a superstitious keeper of sea adages, and in spite of his rational inclinations otherwise, at such times it was as if a small voice inside him whispered fear, caution, just-you-wait.
Ruby came to stand next to him at the stern, taking an interest in the ingenious galley hardware as he had on their first journey. Now that she had let go of her stubbornness regarding the gryphons (she even seemed to be developing a hesitant kinship with Arikaree), she was discovering the wonder of the altitudes.
“It's a bit like being at sea,” she observed, looking down over the clouds. “You can almost imagine it's fog over the water.”
Vidarian blinked, shaking off the malaise of superstition-a construct, he knew, to distract him from the fast-approaching choice he would make, and how Ariadel's fate tied into it. “I suppose it is,” he said, following her gaze. The clouds were thin here and whipped by beneath them, catching on the craft and splitting around it. A moment later, the sky opened up beneath them, clear, and their breath caught simultaneously. At the involuntary leap in his heart, the storm sapphires rumbled from the pouch at his side, answered immediately by a growl from the sun rubies. He closed his eyes, stretching control around them-an act that was becoming increasingly difficult the longer they stayed in his possession. Exhaustion, mental and emotional, tugged at him, and the stones seemed to realize his weakness and surge up in response.
“They're exhausting you,” Ruby said, pointing at the pouch.
Vidarian looked at her closely, wondering if he'd been unwittingly projecting his thoughts, but then realized they must have been written across his face. He nodded, moving forward and sitting down on one of the leather benches.
Ruby took a seat beside him, a thoughtful expression on her face. “If you gave the rubies to me, would they harass you so much?”
He blinked again, surprised. And again he searched her eyes for motivation, even as he felt a pang of regret for doing so. There was only a friend's concern in her eyes. “I'm not sure,” he said, opening the pouch. He reached inside slowly, touching the stones one at a time, and withdrew one of those that pulsed warm to his fingers. “Keeping them in separate packs doesn't seem to help.” Carefully, he extended his hand, holding it out to her.
Ruby accepted the stone with equal care, cradling it between her two cupped palms. She looked back at him and raised an eyebrow. “Any better?” When he shook his head ruefully, she grimaced and turned her attention back to the stone. As she pressed it between her palms, her eyes lit with surprise at its warmth, and she lifted it to the light, staring into it. “What are these things?”
“I've wondered that,” he said, drawing one of the storm sapphires from the pouch and resting it on his palm. By far the sapphires were the most volatile of the three types of elemental stone he'd seen firsthand. Physically they were identical in size to the rubies, but to his mind they felt “bigger,” as if they had more space inside them, however that was possible. “If they opened the mountain, and can open or close the gate, they must be keys of some sort, but it's related to their energy patterns, not anything physical.”
She snorted. “You sound like a priestess.”
“Or a gryphon,” he agreed, and she gave him a sharp look.
“Your sun emerald,” she said, before he could pursue the look, “the one you left with An'du.” Ruby's eyes had looked fit to pop out of her head when they'd told her, in the hospital, about their trip to the An'durin. “You said that it was bound to you, somehow.” He nodded cautiously, and she continued, “Could you bind this one to me?”
The swirl of his thoughts echoed through the storm sapphire, which flashed with ricochets of internal lightning.
“It's going to be mine anyway,” she said lightly, mimicking avarice. Then her voice lowered with seriousness. “And if it were bound to me, I suspect I could control it. You're going to need all the mind-strength you can get for what's coming, I'll wager.”
“I've only seen it done once,” he warned, “and I hadn't any sense at all at the time.”
Ruby laughed, a sudden shock of brightness in what had been a dark journey. “As if you do now.”
Vidarian punched her knee, then regretted it, as the sapphire echoed with a new round of thunder. “You know what I mean.” He looked at the sapphire in his hand, attempting to fathom its nature anew, aware of the headache that was growing in the back of his head as he reached with his mind to control it. They were becoming more frequent. “I could try,” he said at last.
She passed the ruby back to him, and he slipped the sapphire back into its place in the pouch. He lifted the ruby, looking through it and to Ruby herself beyond it, then stretched his senses into the stone. As it was warm to the touch, so it was warm to his mind-alive with a flickering energy that perpetually sought…something. He felt a sudden urge to touch Ruby's hand, but knew that Endera had not done so when she'd bound the emerald to him, and so he worked to keep his free hand at his side. He reached through the stone with his senses until he encountered Ruby's energy-a familiar tumbling roar, an ever-moving pattern of the living sea that lived just beneath her skin.
Carefully, he curved his own sense, siphoning a piece of that roiling pattern back toward himself, and into the stone. It surged into it, and Ruby gasped, closing her eyes-feeling, he was sure, the dropping of her heart that he had felt when Endera bound him to the sun emerald. For a moment he was gripped with a terror that he wouldn't be able to stop the transfer of her essence into the stone, that it might take all of her-but the stone seemed to “know” how much it should contain, and released her of its own accord.
When Ruby opened her eyes, an echo of the ruby's energy glowed in her pupils, and he knew it was done.
The craft shuddered, and both of them reached for the support rails, riding out the sudden movement.
// VIDARIAN, // Thalnarra barked, and as he looked forward Vidarian saw that the disruption had come from her agitatedly beating wings. // Tell me you didn't just do what I think you did. //
“We were discussing it for the last sever
al minutes,” he said, stung. “I thought gryphons had superb hearing.”
// This flying business is not as easy as it must look from back there, // she snapped. // I was focusing. //
“It's fine,” Vidarian said hotly. In fact, it was better than fine. He passed the stone back to Ruby, who looked at it with renewed wonder. Now that it was bound to her, it did seem to be paying more attention to her than to the sapphires, if rocks could be said to have attention. “Isn't it?”
// By luck only, // Thalnarra growled. // Binding magics can go awry more easily than you can imagine. And you knew nothing about that stone! Some elemental stones are extremely dangerous. //
// He is being the Tesseract, // Arikaree offered, though the hesitancy in his voice said that he, too, questioned the wisdom of what Vidarian and Ruby had just done.
// You're all going to be the death of me. //
“Whether or not we're the death of you,” Vidarian said, “I want to know how we hold Ariadel's fate.”
The sudden wave of sympathy that emanated from the gryphons caught in his throat. It was a sudden sensation of soft wings enclosing him, and for a long moment he wanted to sink into their strength. That desperate yearning opened the crevasse of reality before his feet; he wanted to unmake the last several weeks, to do anything if it would mean her illness could be averted.
// Her condition is grave, // Altair said.
“I'm told,” Vidarian said, forcing air past the lump in his throat, “that she can be cured by the opening of the gate.”
If Thalnarra's irregular wingbeat had disrupted the craft, the surprised pitching of all three of them nearly threw Ruby and Vidarian out of it entirely. They grasped for handholds, and Ariadel murmured in her sleep as the craft slewed first to one side, then the other.
“I really wish you wouldn't do that,” Ruby said between clenched teeth. He wasn't sure who she meant-probably all of them.