Ciarrah's Light

by Lou Hoffmann

Han sat down, and he did look a little green about the mouth and eyes.

  Lucky completely understood. He was fighting to hold on to his chocolate cake, sure that it wouldn’t be nearly as pleasant coming up. He took a small sip of his barely warm tea, just to put some moisture in his mouth.

  Thurlock began speaking again. “One thing I haven’t mentioned. Those people were not Ethrans or Earthborns, but the children were. Some may have been Droghona. I think it is all connected. For now, I’ll leave that lie. I want to touch very quickly on the rest of my agenda and then adjourn. First, Han, I’ve already told you the plan to have our people pay a visit to that child prison under the mountain is a good one. I also think you’ve got a good beginning on trying to curb the local unrest—address people’s concerns—here at the Sisterhold. I do appreciate you donning your Drakhonic finery to greet the Droghona—you’ve apparently been taking a correspondence course in politics and international diplomacy?”

  The look on Han’s face was comical, and the room briefly erupted into laughter, which was like releasing a pressure valve,

  “Last on my list,” Thurlock said, “I’ll again be going to Nedhra City to see if I can learn something and possibly find some talented magical help. I may also travel to see old Bayahr, as he would certainly be one person I could count on, if only he’d come up above ground. Han, you might try sending out some mental signals. Although, I do think his skull might be every bit as difficult to drill through as the rock he draws his magic from.”

  “Won’t hurt to try, sir. I’ll do that.”

  “Good. Thank you. Now, this meeting is done unless there’s something I’ve missed that can’t wait until tomorrow. Han, you stay a moment, please.”

  Head shaking and mumbles of “nothing here” were quickly followed by the pushing back of chairs, and then a round of good-nights. Henry waited by his chair until the others had gone then addressed Thurlock.

  “I do want to say something, sir. I think I should go with the people going to this place—the Fallows. In the report it talked about black mists. I think it might be like what we ran into in that Portal entrance. I might be able to see what’s behind them, if they are. And, well, I can fly. I’m the perfect person to do reconnaissance, right?”

  “No,” Han said, and Lucky could read worry on his face. “You just got here. It could be—”

  “Han,” Thurlock interrupted. “I think I’m going to have to pull rank, here. I’m sorry to have to step on your military toes, but Henry has a very good idea, and we will accept his offer.”

  Han’s face went as expressionless as stone. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “Henry, thank you,” Thurlock said. “Han’s the boss, of course in terms of organizing support and the timing of your departure, and so forth, so I recommend reporting to him early tomorrow morning. For tonight why don’t you stay here—take the room across from Luccan’s. Han and I have business that may take hours yet, and you’re in need of sleep.”

  Chapter Eighteen: The Shape of the Soul

  LUCKY WAS standing by his bedroom door trying to decide whether to leave his room and find Thurlock—he had questions—when he heard Thurlock and Henry coming down the stairs. When he listened very carefully, he heard Han too. They all stopped on the landing, and he expected a knock—wondered if he’d somehow gotten in trouble again. But instead, he heard Thurlock say good night to Henry and then go on down the stairs.

  Then a door on squeaky hinges opened across the hall, which was something he’d never expected at all because the last he looked, there was no door over there and no room behind it. Perplexing, but he’d experienced the sudden appearance of rooms in Thurlock’s house before. He continued listening to the low voices rumbling on the landing—Han’s and Henry’s.

  Lucky always wanted to know what was going on, as he’d explained to Han earlier. He knew the quest to find things out shouldn’t include eavesdropping, but his conscience lost that particular battle—not for the first time—and he put his ear to the door.

  “…hoped we’d have a chance to talk tonight,” Han was saying. “But Thurlock’s got his wizard on and he’s giving the orders. I’m obliged to follow them. There are some things I want to say to you, though, Henry. Tonight’s not the time for it, but I do hope it will be soon.”

  “I hope so too,” Henry said. “And Han, I hope you won’t take this wrong, but I might…. If you’re having trouble with the dragon thing—”

  “You saw?”

  “Yes, in a way, I did. What I want to say is, sometime we should talk. I might be able to help with… making that more comfortable for you.”

  Silence followed, and Lucky got an inkling of Han’s mind. Not thought—that was thoroughly guarded, but an emotion. Or perhaps several of them jumbled up.

  “I’m sorry,” Henry said. “I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  Lucky expected Han to answer, but he heard only breathing, a sigh, and a gasp and then something Lucky did not expect—the sound of smacking lips, like the end of a lip-locking kiss.

  He suddenly realized how very much too far he’d gone into privacy-breach territory and stepped back from his door, ashamed. He heard the door close across the landing and Han start to leave. But Han hesitated on the stairs, and suddenly his thought stabbed into Luccan’s brain.

  “Mind your own business, Luccan. And go to sleep.”

  Ashamed of himself or not, Lucky discovered he did not want to go to sleep, not now and maybe not ever, wards and wizard’s pajamas or no.

  “Han, wait!” he thought, but he wasn’t surprised when Han didn’t stop. Just as Han reached the front door, Lucky half stumbled off the bottom step and said, too loudly in the quiet house, “Wait, I’m sorry.”

  Han pulled open the front door, stepped outside and very deliberately closed it.

  “I’m scared,” Luccan said, very quietly, his voice breaking as it hadn’t in months. He stood where he was, hugging himself.

  After a moment, the door opened again, and Han stepped inside. The room was lit only by moonlight, and Lucky couldn’t see his face, but the long, aggrieved sigh he heard told him clearly just how badly he’d annoyed his uncle.

  “You’re scared,” Han stated flatly. After a couple seconds he asked, “Of what? Sleeping?”

  “Yes,” Lucky said, and managed to sound resentful, as if his fear, which he was currently thinking of as childish, was somebody else’s fault.

  “Why are you taking so long?” Thurlock said, stepping in the door. He waved a hand for light and saw Han and Lucky standing in the middle of the room, ten feet apart as if ready to duel. Looking at Lucky, he asked, “What is it now?”

  “Can I just go with you?”

  Han said, “You’re afraid to sleep because of the things that happened last time you did?”

  “No! I…. Thurlock, was it you? Did you make me forget?”

  Thurlock’s eyes narrowed in concentration, and he stepped closer until he stood directly in front of Luccan. “What are you talking about?”

  “I can’t remember,” Lucky said, relieved somewhat just to be saying it. “The… dreams or whatever they were. I know it was horrible—gross, dark, cold, scary as hell. I can feel it! But I can’t remember it. I can’t remember anything that happened in that place except the dragon.”

  “That place?”

  “Well, yes. Sort of. I think. That’s how it felt.”

  “Hm.” Thurlock began chin scratching and beard twisting, looking off into the distance. Some moments of silence later he turned to Han. “Do you remember?”

  “Yes,” Han said.

  “Place?”

  “It did feel like that, sir,” Han said.

  “Interesting,” Thurlock said and, clasping his hands behind his back, began to pace a few steps to-and-fro.

  Lucky sat down tiredly on the second-to-the-bottom step to wait, certain Thurlock would eventually answer his question. After a few minutes, Han sat in one of the armchairs.

  “It will be al
l right, lad,” Han thought to Lucky.

  “You’re mad at me.”

  “Yes, I am, but not for being scared. And that will be all right too.”

  “I’m sorry, Han.”

  “I know.” Han smiled gently. “And I’ll forgive you sooner or later.”

  “Sooner or later?”

  Han chuckled. “Don’t worry, Lucky. People don’t stop loving people because they get upset with them. It’s not the end of the world. But you do seriously need to stop eavesdropping.”

  “I don’t know what you two are thinking to each other about, but I know you’re doing it, and it’s distracting, so stop, please,” Thurlock said. “To answer your question, Luccan, no. It wasn’t me. I didn’t erase or block your memories—honestly, all those books and movies in Earth where wizards do that, I’m not sure it’s even truly possible.” He paused, combing fingers through his beard in thought. After a moment, with a look of mild disgust on his face, he continued. “There is one way I can think of that might allow someone to do that—someone who was responsible for creating the experience in the first place. Tell me, do you remember anything specific? Perhaps who was there—besides Han, that is.”

  Lucky started to answer. His mother, or what she had become, was the one detail he hadn’t forgotten. “M… mists, black mists,” he said, “and cold blue light.” He hadn’t changed his mind about what to say. Something—or someone—had changed the words as he spoke them. Before he could panic, Han spoke up.

  “Luccan, that isn’t what you were going to say.”

  “No,” Luccan answered, trying to convey how unsettling this whole situation was.

  “Try again.”

  “M… I can’t!”

  “Calm down,” Thurlock said, then muttered to himself, “Behl’s whiskers! I could use a little break, here!” Speaking up, he said, “We’ll figure this out, Luccan. Han, what is he trying to say?”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s trying to spit out, My mother. She was there, Liliana—though not herself, so to speak. Dead, maybe. Or undead. Definitely trying to manipulate him.”

  “She was running the show, in this other ‘place’?”

  “I’m not sure,” Han said. “Superficially, yes. But I got the feeling there was another power involved.”

  Thurlock’s brows went up. “Another power like…?”

  Han said, “Well—”

  Lucky didn’t mean to be rude, but suddenly the same feeling that had suffused the dream world he’d been stuck in came over him, sending chills down his spine, raising goose flesh on his arms, making him so sick to his stomach that he hunched over and gagged. He knew then what it reminded him of, and he also knew how it was different. Words burst out of him, “Like Isa. Like Mahl. Like the dead things in the blue tower.”

  Han said, “Yes—I wasn’t there inside the tower, but if it was like the power Isa tossed at us during that storm back in Valley City, then that was it, but—”

  “Different too,” Lucky again interrupted, driven to speak by the horror he could so clearly feel, though he couldn’t see it. “Like war, killing, and like… I don’t know, icky, like science labs where they test awful things on animals, or grow human parts on them, use them like that and throw them away. That’s… that’s….” A piece of memory broke free of whatever held it back. As soon as it was clear in his mind, he wished he’d never tried to remember. “Oh, gods! Thurlock, she showed me children! Like what we saw, Han, in the tunnels. But no… different—I don’t remember, but they were dying. Like life was leaking out of them.” He tried to swallow down his nausea, breathed deep begging any powers that be to wipe the images from his mind once more. But he still saw them, and he thought his heart would explode it pounded so hard. “I’m gonna puke.”

  “Outside,” Thurlock said.

  Han took him by the shoulders and guided him out the door where he could lean over the railing if he truly needed to empty his stomach, and Han’s caring touch calmed him a little.

  “Okay,” he whispered, “I think it’s better.” But then a moment later, “No, it’s not.”

  Han held Lucky’s head and kept his hair—which had grown to nearly shoulder length—out of the way while he puked. When he was done, he thanked his uncle, quite sincerely as nobody had ever held his head while he puked before. Thurlock wizarded him some lukewarm, minty tea to wash the taste out of his mouth, and some cool water to sip when he was finished with that.

  Lucky sat on the steps, and Maizie came up from the yard and sat next to him. Her cold nose on his cheek felt like kisses to make it better, and they tickled too. He laughed a little and hugged her tight.

  “Thurlock,” Lucky said. “I don’t want to go to sleep. And I know there are wards, and Henry and Maizie and Lemon and Mishka are all here, and I have your pajamas—”

  “You have my pajamas?”

  “—and I’m sixteen and shouldn’t be afraid of the dark, but I still feel like I’m alone, and I’m afraid if I fall asleep, I’m going back there.”

  “You have the Key and the Black Blade.”

  “I know it should be enough, but….”

  “You’re going to have to sleep sometime.”

  “I know, but not yet, not tonight. Thurlock, she wants me—my mother. I’m not sure why I know that, but I do.”

  Han spoke up then, “Sir, that is true. I don’t remember her words—which is odd….”

  “Possibly your dragon remembers, Han,” Thurlock said. “Don’t worry about it. You were saying?”

  “Right. I don’t remember her words, but that—what Luccan said—was the sense of it. She wants him to go to her, or if he doesn’t she’ll take him. What do you think that means, sir? I mean, physically he was in his bed the whole time.”

  “Behl’s teeth, Han! How do you suppose I know what it means?”

  Han, probably wisely, said nothing, but Lucky, probably foolishly, said, “But, sir, you said that was the wizard’s question, right? If you don’t know—”

  “Enough. The hope is I’ll figure it out someday before it’s too late to do anything about it. Meanwhile, if you don’t want to sleep, fine. Han and I were on our way to see these strange bodies at the Night House—”

  “We were?”

  “Yes, Han, we were, though I haven’t told you yet because first, you stopped to sweet-talk your prospective beau, and then Lucky—” He stopped as if slamming on brakes. “Never mind. Luccan, I’d wanted to keep you away from those bodies in case this was all related, which I think it is, but for the second time tonight, I find myself talked into letting you do something I have misgivings about. I think I reached eleven hundred years, recently. Maybe that’s the age beyond which a wizard starts getting soft. So come with us. Let’s go.”

  He started walking, and Lucky trotted to keep up with Thurlock’s amazingly brisk stride. But then he stopped.

  “Wait, Thurlock!”

  The old man turned around, his eyes glittering with annoyance even in moonlight. “Will this day never end!”

  Lucky was pretty sure that wasn’t really a question, so he waited.

  “What is it now?” Thurlock asked, making an exaggerated effort to feign calm.

  “I just want to run back in—you know, for the Key and Ci—my Blade. It will only take a minute.”

  “Oh,” Thurlock said. “Yes of course, do that. And from now on, don’t take the Key off, and don’t leave the house without the Blade.”

  Lucky dashed in, remembering at the last minute to dash quietly because Henry was sleeping, but judging by the cat’s snarling dash up the stairs, he apparently pissed Lemon Martinez off anyway. When he got back outside, he had the Key on its chain around his neck, but he was carrying the Blade awkwardly, as he didn’t have a sheath.

  “Here,” Han said, removing his sun-metal dagger with its sheath from his sandal and then tightening the straps around his leg. He took the knife out and handed Lucky the sheath. “I was going to make you a sheath, but I’ll make one for my knife instead.
This one should fit the Black just fine. It’s dragon hide—better than anything I could make. Strap it into your sandal, like I had mine.”

  The sheath was gorgeous. Green-gold hide, with a glittery metallic sheen. “Whoa,” Lucky said. “Thank you, Uncle Han. This is beautiful.”

  “It is, isn’t it? It’s an heirloom. Something you would inherit someday anyway, so why not have it now? You’re welcome.”

  Han’s smile told Lucky he was forgiven for his earlier eavesdropping crime, which was sweet, but he was going to do his best to remember the lesson. He’d felt awful once he’d realized what he’d done. He didn’t want to feel that way again.

  While he installed Ciarrah in the sheath, and the sheath in his sandal straps, Han tossed his blade up and caught it.

  “Stop doing that, Han,” Thurlock growled. “You make me nervous.”

  “Somebody’s grouchy,” Han said, but he tossed his knife at a post in the porch rail, where it stuck.

  “I’m ready,” Lucky said.

  “I’d say it was about time, but you already know that,” Thurlock said as he once again strode ahead.

  Lucky refrained from pointing out he’d said it anyway, but he and Han shared a mental chuckle. Lucky felt better than he had earlier. A lot better. Being with Han—and with Thurlock even though he was grumpy—brightened the world even in the dark of night. He continued to feel better until he stepped into the cold Night House.

  Olana was there, sitting cross-legged on a bench near a stone slab where a dark blanket covered a small, lumpy form about the size of a misshapen eight- or nine-year-old child. Her eyes were closed, and small lights danced in her upturned palms.

  “Madam,” Thurlock said.

  Olana opened her eyes without haste or surprise. “Thurlock, I believe there is life in this one, though it eludes me. Perhaps you can bring it forth?”

  “In this one, but not the other?” He moved between the slab with the small form and the one next to it, which held a very long form, much thinner than any person Luccan had ever met. He put his hands over the forms as if feeling for energy. After a moment he drew his hands back and let them hang at his side. He appeared to lose himself in thought.