by Lou Hoffmann
“Hm,” Thurlock said. “Perhaps things with her are worse than we imagined. We’ll explore that more, but tell me. Did Luccan say what he planned to do after he left you?”
“Rose and Lem and their various advisors had decided an appearance by the Suth Chiell and a feast to celebrate his homecoming would do the Sisterhold some good. It was supposed to happen at noon yesterday.” Han stopped to think. “I… I’m not sure, but I think he planned to visit K’ormahk and also to try to complete the bonding with Cia… uh, with the Black Blade before that. At any rate, that noontime engagement on the green is when things went seriously wrong. He was—” Han had to stop and swallow back the sudden burn of threatening tears. “He was attacked, Thurlock. On the green, by our own people! Beat up and knocked unconscious.”
“Behl’s teeth!”
Thurlock’s surge of anger comforted Han a bit, because he truly believed the old man was the one person in the world who could set things right. Thurlock patted Han’s shoulder, and Henry stepped closer to Han’s chair, and those things were comforts too.
“He’s been like this ever since,” he said. “And whatever it is that’s got hold of him, it made both L’Aria and her father quite sick. Tiro said he had to go back to the wilds to try to get over it. Then there was this other business with Droghona visitors I had to take care of—”
“Droghona?”
“Yes, they came back with some soldiers from the Fallows, along with two bodies that may or may not be human…. Can I tell you later?”
“You’ll have to—we need to focus on Luccan right now. What else?”
“I… I went into his mind. I know I shouldn’t, generally, but—”
“It’s fine. I understand. What happened—go ahead and ignore the dragon part for now.”
“I tried to pull him out, and at first it seemed to be working but… things happened, and in the end, he saved me. He’s trapped, Thurlock, and it’s a horrible, terrifying world he’s stuck in. I have to go back in! With you here, maybe I can get him out this time.”
He got up and started to limp over to the bed, but the wizard said, “No,” and whisked the chair closer to the bed with a word.
“Sit down, Han. It’s very likely you’ll have to do your thing and fetch him out from wherever he is, but not yet. Let me think.”
He moved the only other chair in the room up behind him and sat absently thumbing the globe on the top of his staff, which caused it to spark and flicker, though Han wasn’t at all sure it did anything to help otherwise. He was completely surprised when he felt a blanket drop over his shoulders and realized he’d been getting cold. Henry had known that and brought the blanket. Han looked at him and mouthed a “thank you.” Henry smiled and nodded again, and then crossed the room, took another blanket off the stack on top of the wardrobe, wrapped it around himself and posted himself at the window. Maizie sighed deeply. Against his will, Han yawned a couple of times, and then he nodded off to sleep.
It was pain in his leg that woke him up, but he also got a sense of Thurlock having arrived at either answers or questions. It turned out to be the latter, first.
“Luccan is cutting his hand to shreds on the Key of Behliseth. But where is the Black Blade? Did he have it with him when he was attacked?”
“I don’t… I don’t know, sir.”
“Who might know, Han? Who was with him, closest to him?”
Han gave him the obvious answer. “Tennehk. I’d asked him to be there to protect Luccan. He rescued him, though not quite in time.”
Thurlock went to the door to the hallway and opened it. To Han’s surprise, before Thurlock could say anything to the guard, he heard a string of meows like a stream of syllables. He hadn’t lost his ability to communicate with animals at all, so he interpreted for Thurlock.
“Lemon said he’s ‘standing guard at this door, so if these big oafs have anything else to do, they can go do it.’”
In a perfectly serious tone, Thurlock said, “Well, Lemon. I’m glad to see you’re feeling helpful. Actually, these men, who are not oafs at all, are doing a good job, but I do need to send them on a couple of errands, so your help is appreciated.”
Han made sure Lemon understood, and Lemon meowed once in surly agreement.
Thurlock then said to the guards, who were looking from Thurlock to the diminutive gray cat with confused expressions, “One of you find Tennehk and ask him to come here, please. The other, find Tahlina or the healer in charge at this hour, and have them send something for Han’s pain—something that will not make him sleepy or confused, mind you. Go on now, as quick as you can. Thank you.”
After a couple of sputtered yessirs, the guardsmen were off, and Thurlock came back to sit by the bed. He sighed deeply and said, “While we’re waiting, Han, I’ll tell you my plan.”
He explained that Han would indeed have to “go in, as you put it,” and try to pull Luccan back to consciousness. He wanted to wait for the Black Blade, because this was the sort of thing the talisman might help with, particularly because of its affinity for darkness, “which isn’t, of course, to be equated with evil.” While Han did his part, Thurlock would do his best to infuse him and Luccan both with Behl’s light. “I hope that will keep you both safe until you get back to this side of consciousness, but truthfully, Han, I must say I don’t know if it will be enough.”
Han didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing. After a few minutes he commented, “With Maizie there, he seems less… cold. Don’t you think, sir?”
“Yes. Yes, he does. It’s likely her presence will help. I wish I felt stronger. Truth is I’m exhausted. That won’t help matters, but Behl will help. I could get another wizard to shore up my strength, possibly—if someone strong enough is around. Mahros perhaps.”
Han said, “Not Mahros, sir. Trust me on that now and I’ll explain later—I should know more soon.” But that phrase, “shore up my strength,” had triggered Han’s memory. “But I think I know someone who might serve. Her name is Olana, and she’s a Droghona light-worker.”
A QUARTER hour later—while Thurlock and Olana discussed how she might help—Han, Lemon, and Maizie went out to the kitchen garden to beat the bushes for the Black Blade. Henry, as the Condor, was already circling overhead looking for a telltale gleam. Tennehk had reported that he’d seen the Black Blade fly in that direction when it had been torn from Luccan’s boot, and he’d sent some of the house staff out to look for it earlier, but no one had discovered its hiding place. Thurlock believed the Blade might reveal itself to Han.
“It’s tied to your Drakhonic line, after all, Han. And if Luccan completed his bond with it—”
“Her.”
“Pardon?”
“She’s a her, sir. According to Luccan.”
“Well, fine. As I was saying, if the bond is complete it… er, she will be trying to reunite with him. Maybe. But even if that’s not the case, you just might be more sensitive to her presence.”
“If you say so.”
“I do. Go look.”
As was very often the case, Thurlock was right. Han walked out the kitchen door, stepped down into the garden, and made a beeline for the pea patch. There he found the Blade plunged almost completely into the ground, only a half inch of her hilt protruding next to a post supporting the pea-vine trellis. “I’ve found her,” he said without any hint of fanfare, then asked Lemon and Maizie if they had anything they needed to do outside while he dug the Blade out of the ground. “Don’t do it in the garden, though, please.”
They ran off, Maizie gratefully and Lemon grumpily, to take care of their business, and returned just as he was opening the door to go back in. He washed the soil off his hands and the Blade at one of the huge kitchen sinks, then held the door open for Henry—who remained in condor form—and headed back to Luccan’s room.
He held out the Blade to Thurlock as he walked in, but Thurlock shook his head.
“Don’t give it to me,” Thurlock answered, brows arched and
sounding testy. “Give it to Luccan.”
“Uh, sir. I’m a little concerned. He’s cut his hands badly just on the Key. He could do a lot worse harm with an obsidian knife.”
“Just put the hilt in his hand, Han. We’ll watch him. See what happens.”
Han dutifully stepped over to Luccan, sat on the edge of his bed, took the hand that wasn’t holding the Key, and gently placed the knife’s hilt into it. Instantly, the knife began to glow with a low violet light and give off faint warmth. Lucky’s palm remained relaxed, the fingers naturally curved around the knife, but not truly gripping it. Han looked at Thurlock.
“Hm. Promising,” Thurlock said. Then, “So here is what we’re going to do….”
Han shifted to a more comfortable position, injured leg outstretched, as soon as he realized Thurlock was going to drone on with wizardly explanations as well as instructions. Could take a while. He wished Thurlock would hurry, as his concern for Luccan hadn’t quieted much, even though he noticed that with Ciarrah in hand, people who loved him in the room, and Maizie by his side, he seemed to look less haunted—and the room grew warmer too.
He was in the middle of noticing how Thurlock never seemed to have trouble with rising blood pressure if he was holding forth in a more-or-less academic manner, when Tahlina herself arrived with the same willow-bark powder she’d given him earlier. The interruption did redden Thurlock’s face with irritation, but Han refrained, this time, from telling him to breathe. For one thing, Thurlock would only argue, “My blood pressure is fine, Han.” For another, it would be one more delay in rescuing Luccan, something he badly wanted to get on with.
After Han swallowed the painkiller, Tahlina gazed for a moment at Luccan’s prone form. She turned to Thurlock and asked in a sickroom whisper, “Would you like me to stay? I confess, though, I have no idea how to help Luccan, save perhaps to try to keep him warm.”
“Thank you, Tahlina, but no, you need not stay,” said Thurlock. “I, or perhaps I should say we, do have an idea of how to help him, and it isn’t a matter of medicine. But I would consider it a favor if you were to keep your staff on alert. I don’t know what anybody’s condition will be when we’ve finished here.”
Tahlina didn’t loiter once she’d agreed, and it turned out Thurlock had finished with his lecture on rescuing Luccan, and—finally—they got set up and Han prepared his mind to enter Luccan’s mental landscape and do battle once more.
Or he tried to prepare. I’m scared, he acknowledged, and he knew that could prevent him from doing what he needed to do.
“Han,” Thurlock said as if he could read his mind, which he couldn’t, “I’m quite sure this is a frightening proposition. But remember, if you will, you are quite an able warrior. Most probably you are the most well suited of anyone for this particular battle. We’ll be standing with you, equipped with Behl’s light. I have every faith you’ll succeed.”
Han was only somewhat comforted by that. When he asked himself why, he realized failure wasn’t what he was afraid of. He glanced at the mirror, remembering and unable to deny what he’d seen there. Dragon.
Completely unable to read thoughts, Thurlock again proved himself to be good at figuring things out. Probably the glance at the mirror clued him in. “Don’t be afraid of that, either. It will be fine. It will be more than fine. Now get ready, please.”
The last was delivered in Thurlock’s “this is an order” voice, and for Han, it was like he’d been shaken awake. “Yes, sir,” he said.
Within seconds, everyone was in place. With the bed moved away from the wall, Thurlock and Olana stood at the head, each with a hand on Thurlock’s staff, placed between them. Henry—in bird form—perched on a bedpost at the foot of the bed. Lemon—who loathed magic—remained posted at the door, having apparently made peace with the guards who’d returned to their stations. Maizie lay on Luccan’s left, her attention riveted on the boy she loved. Han sat on his right.
He emptied his mind of other things, keyed into the ebb and flow of Luccan’s mental energy, and waited. Thurlock had said he would know when it was time to enter Luccan’s mind by the change in the light, and it was true. A moment came when the room seemed flooded with daylight, faintly golden and warm, both comforting and refreshing. As he had earlier, he pressed his hand to the mark on Luccan’s chest.
Just before he left this kinder world for the hideous one where Luccan was captive, he became aware of a different light joining the yellow-gold day of Behlishan. He glanced back over his left shoulder and saw Henry, wings spread, red light bathing him almost like flame. He was quite beautiful, and Han felt his strength, felt fortified as if he’d strapped on Chiell Shan and his dragon-hide buckler.
Still, the thought of the dragon disturbed him as he let his mind flow into the hollows and folds of Luccan’s thoughts. He belatedly thought if he wasn’t wearing the garb of the Drakhonic leader, perhaps the shift wouldn’t happen. But it was too late to do anything about it, so Han put the worry as far out of his conscious considerations as he could, and went in ready to do battle.
Chapter Twelve: Seasick on the Back of a Dragon
LUCKY WOKE up. Or so he thought, until he became aware of his surroundings.
No, he thought. It’s just that I’m not truly sleeping anymore. Or at least I hope that’s it, because if this is the world I woke up to, that means they’ve won.
He tried to think who they were, but he couldn’t. The things that had happened to him in his previous dreams—or the places and times he called dreams for lack of a better description—were still there in his memory, somewhere. He knew that. He could feel them trying to come forth when he wanted them, but they’d been blocked like water behind a dam. Still, this putrid darkness and cold blue light was all too familiar, and he was pretty sure that whatever had happened in those earlier times, this was where they had taken place.
He wondered if he could wake up, and when he focused his mind on the idea, he thought he felt some kind of activity near his normal-world body. Normal! Hah! That’s a joke. But as true as it was that his world had never seemed normal, at least he’d felt more like a living, breathing human than he did in this dark limbo he’d been stuck in for the last… well, he had no idea how long. Felt like forever.
The slimy feel of the black mists tightening their hold on Lucky interrupted his thoughts. He felt a slight downward tug and started to slowly descend. Things got colder as he went, and he felt nauseous. He smelled something awful, but he couldn’t hear or see anything beyond the tinge of blue light lining the ropes, pillars, and pools of black. He splashed down in one of those pools and thought certainly he would choke to death on the fumes.
He almost welcomed the idea.
He heard a familiar and unwelcome voice. After a moment, he remembered. Oh yeah. My mother. Why me? A million teenage boys have half-assed decent moms, but mine? An undead monster. Perfect. He got mad, but instead of lashing out he asked, “Why, Mom? Why are you doing this to me?”
“Oh, son,” she said, and for a moment it almost sounded as though her words held compassion. “I’ve been trying to show you what awaits my enemies. But perhaps I’ve failed to show you what can await my friends, and especially you, my dear son, if you join me. I know that when you look at me, and when you look at my world, you see something ugly, but I’ll show you a different side—what it can be like when we are together after the fighting is done.”
The mist surrounding him pulled away like a curtain, and he found himself in a huge chamber. The walls were made of darkly beautiful stone mortared with perfect everlasting ice. The floor was as smooth as a flawless mirror, the ceiling lost in the heights. White flames hissed in glass fixtures with no candle or wick to support them. He felt neither warm nor cold. Silken fabric slid over his skin softly. A long mahogany table was laden with what appeared to be his favorite foods—even Top Ramen. But he didn’t trust his senses. Didn’t trust any of this.
He saw then that two chairs had been set across the table fr
om one another, and in one of them sat his mother, smiling. She looked blonde and beautiful and strong, like the memory of her he’d always dreamed about during his banishment to Earth. But if he squinted his mental vision, he could see the overlay of her more recent undead self.
“Why are you doing this?” he demanded. “What do you want from me?”
“I’m doing this because you have power that should not be wasted. Because you deserve to abide forever in riches. Because you, in company with the fools of Sunlands, have been misled by the meddling wizard, have been polluted by the tools that misdirect the power of Ethra. What I want is for you to take my hand. Together we can destroy the illusion that is today’s Ethra. Once the false image our people see is shattered, paths always intended—paths of true power—can be trod by those who are meant to be powerful. Those like us. We can become what we were meant to be, you and I. We can remake the world without any of the foolishness of wizards and magic, prophecies and fates. We will rule an honest world!”
“You’re dead, Mother.”
“I’m dead to Ethra, for now. But my life is not extinguished. By uniting the worlds within me, I’ve found the way to live on, free of the chokehold of Ethra’s blind magic. I will help you to do this too, son, and you will see how different things look from this side.”
She reached out a hand then, and though Lucky knew she thought she maintained the illusion of her beauty, the hand he saw was emaciated, no more than a rotting, evaporating claw. He recoiled, and the movement took him far away from her. The vision of the rich, lonely room she’d built up for him vanished to smoke, and he saw her there, an unholy, undead apparition made up of equal parts bitterness and greed.
“I am Luccan Elieth Perdhro, Mannatha, Suth Chiell, and you may not touch me.”
In a flash of horrific blue lightning, the scene changed. Cries and sobs of terror and pain surrounded him, and he dimly recalled standing witness to a battle. This time, he looked where he expected to see fighting, and gasped in surprise. On the one hand, an army of grim soldiers advanced—some as spirits, others like zombies. But on the other hand, innocent spirits futilely raised their arms to ward against the blows of swords while the dark army mowed through them, subduing them and then dragging them along behind, bound in the abominable mists.