Ciarrah's Light

by Lou Hoffmann

  Where in all the gods’ shittiest hells did they all come from?

  But he knew the answer, of course. They had to come from Earth, because a horde of shifters didn’t exist in Ethra. No shifters existed in Ethra except Tiro and now Henry—although who knew if he was still in Ethra or not. Where they came from wasn’t the important thing. How to defeat them was. And before he could do that, he needed to get Luccan away from them and safe. He rode down the hill, Chiell Shan drawn, but had to stop to fend off a bearish man who might have been a bear-man, who grabbed Chiell Shan and nearly succeeded in ripping it from Han’s grasp. When he got free of his attacker, he started to make his way again through the throng on the basin floor toward Luccan.

  Then he saw the fallen condor.

  LUCKY KNEW he couldn’t catch Liliana on foot, and if he went back to the place behind the hill where Zefrehl was picketed with the other horses, someone would stop him. He wouldn’t have minded help, but even if he could convince someone to go with him, by the time they were ready, she would be gone.

  He needed K’ormahk.

  Without forethought, he sent a call out into the universe, powered by a Wish of his heart, a Wish made up of worries and hopes and love, small bits of care and large concerns for his friends and family and the whole amorphous congregation of all the people his life would ever touch. To help them, to save them, to take care of them, he needed to stop the monster his mother had become.

  On the tail of the Wish, K’ormahk came flying in, arriving even more swiftly than when Lucky had called him to the ridge on Gahabriohl. And this time, wondrous sight, Rio was there.

  Tears streamed from Rio’s eyes as their gazes met, but he wiped them away and smiled. Lucky didn’t have time to find out if his boyfriend had been crying, or if his eyes had suffered from the force of the wind during flight. K’ormahk knelt, and Lucky climbed up behind Rio, and just in case the tears had been for sadness or worry or for him, he hugged Rio tight. Mentally, he instructed K’ormahk, but it seemed the horse already knew what was wanted.

  Their flight path took him over the battlefield in the round valley, and it gave Lucky pause to see that the fighting continued just as confused as it had been when he’d left. But then, though it felt like he’d left that melee hours ago, he knew it hadn’t been more than minutes. He recalled what he’d been thinking just before his mother appeared. “Han,” he thought, sending the thought out with some force. “The shifters… I don’t think they’re—”

  “I know—”

  Han’s thought had interrupted Lucky’s, but the rest of it was lost to the rush of wind. Worried, Lucky considered turning back, but as soon as the idea came to mind, he dismissed it. Whatever was happening back there on the bloody field, his fight lay ahead. His opponent, was his mother’s undead apparition.

  They flew past the last row of hills that encircled the Behlvale, and Lucky caught sight of Liliana, all the false light gone from her form, riding across the open fields toward the Oakridge—and the Sisterhold not far beyond it. K’ormahk, swifter even than the fierce, undead horse upon which Liliana rode, soon overtook her.

  The sky above had grown dark. Sheet lightning snapped thunder from heavy clouds, but no rain yet fell. To Lucky’s astonishment, as K’ormahk flew directly over Liliana, he cast a dark shadow, and she pulled up short, raising a hand to shield her eyes as if momentarily blinded.

  Lucky directed K’ormahk down to the ground. He planned to confront her, to fight her if necessary.

  “Lucky,” Rio said, the first word he’d spoken since his arrival. “Luccan, what are you going to do?”

  He answered honestly, speaking the words softly into Rio’s ear because in truth he was so frightened of the prospect before him he could scarcely muster his voice. “I don’t know, Rio. I mean, I have to stop her, but I don’t know how.”

  As K’ormahk circled to land, Liliana was freed from his shadow, but now, instead of riding toward the Hold, she headed back toward the hills.

  “She’s going for the place Mahros was working earlier,” Lucky said.

  “What?”

  Lucky hadn’t been talking to Rio. In fact he’d almost forgotten that the wonderful comfort of warmth in front of him on K’ormahk was actually his living, breathing boyfriend. He explained, “Earlier today a wizard was out here doing some foul stuff. There’s this shadow stuff, I call it mist-shadow, and he installed some pieces of it in those rocks over there—you can see it now, I think. The places where it’s really black?”

  “Yes…?”

  “Whatever they are, they’re evil, Rio, trust me.”

  “I do, Lucky. I truly do.”

  That made Lucky smile, which in turn made him feel a tiny bit stronger, a smidgen less afraid. He said, “The magic he was doing involved killing people. Hang on, Rio, I’m going to have K’ormahk put me down right in front of her. I don’t want her to get to the mist-shadows. I think they’re like Portals, or hiding places, or something, but today in the battle—”

  “Battle? You mean back there in the valley?”

  “Yeah—hey, I’ll tell you about it later. But today I saw bad stuff come out of those mist-shadows. I can’t guess if she can pull monsters out of them, or just escape. But I don’t want her to be able to do either one.”

  “Gods, Lucky! She’s truly evil? Who is she?”

  Lucky almost fell off K’ormahk’s back. Of course Rio wouldn’t have known. How could he? But although Lucky had accepted that the woman he’d expected his mother to be either never existed or was long gone, it felt like saying it out loud was going to kill him. If he couldn’t even say these words, though, how would he ever do what he knew he had to do? He steeled himself, and then he sent out a mental call for help.

  The Key responded with a warm pulse against his heart.

  Ciarrah said, “Strength, Blade-keeper.”

  “She’s my mother, Rio. Or what’s left of her. She’s like a wraith, sort of. An apparition.”

  Rio’s response was a hiss of breath, but no words. He laid his hand over the one Lucky was holding on to him with and gave it a squeeze. Lucky read the meaning of that clearly. Rio was with him one hundred percent, no matter what, and it meant everything to him.

  But Han had heard Lucky’s mental distress call too, and his thought came winging in from over the hills. “Luccan? Where are you?”

  Lucky wasn’t sure how someone could sound breathless in a thought, but Han did. “You’re still fighting, Uncle?”

  “Yes, but it’s going to be okay, and back to the question at hand. Where. Are. You?”

  “The Behlvale. My mother’s heading for Mahros’s mist-shadows. I don’t know what she’s trying to do, but I’m going to stop her.”

  “I’m coming, and I’ll get Thurlock. Wait for us!”

  “If I can. But….”

  He let the thought drift away and put up a mental wall. If Han and Thurlock got there in time to help, awesome. But right now, his monstrous mother had reached the stones where the mist-shadows hung like curtains of black mystery. The sky above had grown darker—so dark Lucky wondered if night had come early, and in this light, all Lucky could see of Liliana’s ghostly form were the strange blue lights that arced from it now and then and the purple haze that seemed to trail behind her as, with her horse following, she ran on foot toward the black mists.

  “I have an idea, Lucky,” Rio said, the words coming out in a rush. “Let me fly over with K’ormahk. His shadow seems to cause her trouble.”

  “Yes.” Lucky liked the idea. First it would help, and second, just as important to him, it would keep Rio out of Liliana’s way. There was no time for more talk, though.

  K’ormahk’s front hooves hit the ground hard as he landed rough, blocking Liliana’s progress.

  She turned and hissed. “Stupid boy!” She raised her wand to the sky and lightning flashed through it, not harming her, but touching the ground and raising flames where it hit. “Out of my way!”

  She screeched o
ut the words, desperate sounding. She dodged toward Lucky’s left, toward the largest of Mahros’s mist-shadow leavings, but Lucky moved that way to intercept her. K’ormahk’s shadow fell over them, and it didn’t darken Lucky’s vision at all, but his mother let out a short cry of alarm and cringed, covering her eyes. K’ormahk couldn’t hover in place for long, though—he simply wasn’t built for it—so he flew in a slow circle, releasing her from the shadow again.

  Liliana’s voice was less shrill, less maniacal when she spoke again. “Let me go, son! If you don’t let me go, I’ll have to kill you!”

  “You won’t. You can’t. I….”

  He’d started to say, “I’ll kill you first,” but the words died on his tongue.

  Would I? I could, couldn’t I?

  “Ciarrah, will your light kill my mother?”

  “If that being we face is your mother, my best guess is affirmative, though I cannot be certain.”

  If all Liliana wanted to do now was leave, should he let her go? He had only two choices: get out of her way, or kill her. But, would it be killing, truly? She wasn’t a wraith. She might be undead on the one hand, but she had a kind of life nonetheless. He had the problem between his teeth and he chewed it doggedly, knowing he had little time—make that no time.

  She raised her wand again and shouted furiously at the storming skies, mad syllables that made no sense to Lucky but crashed against one another like the sound of mass destruction given voice. The clouds hammered each other and this time a sheet of lightning sliced down between them. The force of it sent Lucky slamming to the ground. Dazed, he watched from there, struggling to draw breath in the charged air, as K’ormahk fought to stay aloft and upright, with Rio holding on for life. K’ormahk pulled it together and Rio righted himself on the mighty horse’s back, but K’ormahk landed after that, and even from ten yards away, Lucky smelled burnt hair.

  Lucky suddenly remembered Liliana. Where was she now? He sat up and struggled to his feet, Ciarrah’s light flashing into a brilliant, wide beam, which he directed all around, looking for her. She was nearly to the mist-shadow curtain. Without ever having decided he couldn’t let her go, Lucky moved to stop her.

  The lightning had ignited the grasses in a long line like a firefighter’s backfire, and as Lucky tried for an end run around it, it kept pace.

  “Ciarrah,” he said out loud. “Can you do something?”

  He swung the beam of her light toward the fire and the energies met with a sharp explosion that left cinders and bare, churned soil to block the progress of the flames. Lucky ran for his mother.

  She was about twenty feet from him, ten from the mist-shadow. He aimed Ciarrah toward her and triggered her cutting light with thought. But even as he did so he was aware of his own heart second-guessing. He did not want to kill his mother. Instead of cutting her down, Ciarrah’s light lit upon the mist-shadow itself.

  A howling, screeching sound as if from a living thing filled the Behlvale as the darkness burned. Lucky’s eyes closed against the brilliant blue and purple flashes, his ears shut themselves against the sound, and by the time he recovered enough to look again for Liliana, she was already coming for him. She ran, sword raised, and let out a sharp cry.

  She will kill me, Lucky thought. Sluggishly, his conscience still fighting his muscles he raised Ciarrah. Kill, he told himself, or be killed.

  Rio’s shout came to him, “Lucky! It’s Thurlock.”

  The distraction of it might have gotten him killed, for of course he looked up.

  Thurlock thundered down the hill behind the stones, Sherah’s mighty hooves kicking up dirt and sparking off buried rocks. His staff aloft toward the heavy clouds, he roared words that sounded like the rush of wind, and again—but this time silent and golden—lightning flashed. It streaked through the sky and found Liliana, freezing her in its bright power.

  When the energy released her, she fell to the ground, but not as the dread apparition she had become. The body that fell to the ground was flesh and blood and beautiful, the woman Liliana had once been. Lucky ran to her, and it was crystal clear to him that what he saw wasn’t illusion. The fact was, the apparition had usurped the woman, but Lucky’s mother had still lived trapped within.

  “Mom,” he said.

  Lili’s eyes—green eyes that were so much like his own coppery-brown ones—looked back at him, blinking in what looked like surprise or disbelief.

  “Son,” she said, her voice a bare scratch. And then fear sharpened her features. “Don’t be fooled, child. I… I can’t live. I was dead already when I came here. If I continue, I’ll return to what I’ve become. I can already feel it happening.”

  Lucky could see it too. Her skin began to look mottled, the purple and blue lights sparking here and there, weak, but present. The smell of decay returned to his nostrils, and already she looked somehow less solid. But Lucky didn’t want to believe it.

  “No,” he said. Tears blurred his vision.

  “Son. I’m asking you while I can. Please finish this. Right now, while I have my own mind, while I am a woman with love in her heart, while I’m capable of being sorry for what I’ve done, let me go. Do it now, Luccan. Your Blade can do the job. If you ever loved me, or even thought you might, let me go.”

  Lucky nodded, but still he couldn’t act. Not really wishing, he asked the Key for help—begged for it. The Key responded, enveloped him in stillness and white light. The light reached out to Liliana and covered her, and the two of them seemed suddenly removed from the valley, from anyone who might be near, from the mist-shadows and the clouds above. His mother spoke to him, inside that light, though Lucky didn’t know if words were passed between them or only images that he later put words to. Her message was a warning—for the Suth Chiell, for the Sunlands, for Ethra.

  “This will not end it, son. You must prepare the people for war, because it will be visited upon this world in a way never before seen. Horrors you cannot imagine despite what you’ve seen in my darkness, what you’ve fought in today’s battle. This is but a taste. Gather every ally to you, for you’ll need them all before it’s over.”

  Lucky took it in and let it pass without reply or question.

  In the stillness and utter silence that followed that fleet moment, Lucky blinked, raised his free hand to wipe his eyes, and said, “Take my hand, Mom.”

  Wordlessly, she wrapped her cold, cold hand around his. With the warmth of the Ciarrah’s Light in his palm and the cold bite of his mother’s dead flesh outside, the confused nerves of his hand tried to tell his brain to let go, that his flesh was burning. He held fast.

  Ciarrah’s light was faint, her hum low, and it seemed an appropriately mournful sound. Rio stepped up behind Lucky and knelt near him on the burnt ground, close enough for their shoulders to touch. Han—who had apparently arrived while Lucky’s attention was on his mother—stepped up on the other side and put a hand on his shoulder. The pure white light from the Key of Behliseth expanded to include them, and Lucky was glad he was not alone. He glanced up and saw Thurlock a short distance away, still mounted on Sherah, leaning forward in his saddle, looking spent. But his staff was still aglow, and it seemed his mind remained alert. With misty, care-worn eyes, he locked gazes with Lucky and nodded ever so slightly.

  Liliana struggled to lift her hand, with Lucky’s hand and Ciarrah’s light locked inside. Slowly, deliberately, mercilessly, she brought it up until the blade’s point hovered over the center of her forehead. Ciarrah’s low light lit her face and the white light of the Key of Behliseth limned their joined hands. Liliana paused and a look of relieved joy came over her face. Every trace of the apparition faded from her beautiful green eyes.

  She whispered, “Thank you,” so low Lucky only heard it in his heart.

  The blade touched down on her flesh, and she was gone. Lucky’s hand held the Blade and a few bits of ash, so ephemeral he didn’t even see them lift away on the wind that came to tear the clouds open and let down the rain.

  P
ART FIVE: Cup of Gold

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Killed His Own Mother, Did He?

  LUCKY HAD fainted dead away right there on the spot where he’d obliterated his mother. He knew nothing more until he woke to the touch of a gentle breeze, the sounds of a summer shower sifting through the maple outside his open window, and Lemon Martinez crowding him into a tiny corner of his mattress. Han sat in the corner, in the only chair in Lucky’s room and woke up from a light doze the minute Lucky shifted to sit up.

  “Nephew! I’m so glad to see your eyes open.” Han came over to the bed and leaned over for a hug.

  Lucky liked getting a hug from Han first thing, but his bladder was about to burst. Maybe Han got the idea, because he let go, headed for the door, and turned around with a smile.

  “I’m going to bring you some food. Back in a few.”

  By the time Lucky took care of ablutions, including brushing a truly awful taste off his teeth, Lemon had kindly relocated to the windowsill, and the vacated bed looked inviting even though Lucky had just gotten up. So he climbed in, sat up with pillows behind his back, and pulled the quilt up to cover his legs, which were clad only in Thurlock’s pajamas.

  “Tea, toast, and eggs,” Han said. “Think you can eat?”

  “Yeah, I do. I feel a little… queasy, maybe, but I’m hungry too.”

  “Take your time. Want me to catch you up on things while you work on it?”

  Lucky did want that, especially after he found out how much time had passed. He’d slept more than twenty-four hours, so there was a lot he didn’t know.

  Lucky didn’t know about the conclusion of the Battle at the Ruins of Hoenholm, as it was being called, where Han had taken drastic steps to stop the Guard from fighting the horde of shifters after finally recognizing the Condor Henry—who had taken an arrow to the wing and fallen like a lump of black feathers under the feet of Sunlands soldiers.

  Until Lucky asked how he’d gotten back to the Sisterhold after he fainted, he hadn’t known that Han had carried him on Simarrohn’s back, holding him like a babe in arms.