Could he?
An elbow dug painfully into his side. Jarred back to awareness, Garin glared at Wren, but she only nodded toward the waiting village.
"So where is he?" she whispered. "In the village, I mean."
"The center. That's all Ilvuan said." Garin thought for a moment. "I'm guessing it's the domed building we glimpsed, the squat one straight down the road. It seems central from what I can tell."
Pursing her lips, Wren poked her head around the trunk. From their angle, they could look straight into the town, though at risk of being seen by the guards. Garin's gut tightened until she withdrew back out of sight and looked at him with wide eyes. At last, the gravity of the situation seemed to have dawned on her.
"Right," she muttered. "No point in waiting."
He sucked in a shaky breath, then nodded. They might both be mad and stand little chance of success in their plan. But at least they were doing the right thing.
Tal would do the same for us.
At the thought, Garin looked down at Velori, grasped in his hand. That fact kept him going where softer sentiments would have broken. A smile twisted his lips.
Two fools going after another fool. What a company we make.
"Garin," Wren hissed. "If we're doing this…"
"We are." He spoke with far more certainty than he felt. She needed to know now, more than ever, that he wasn't having second thoughts. "Ready your spell."
She stared at him a moment longer before giving a short nod, then seemed to withdraw in herself. Garin tried settling his thoughts as well and evoked the needed words to mind.
But no sooner had he done so than Ilvuan burst back into his mind.
He fades. You must find him, Jenduit, and soon.
Garin placed a warning hand on Wren's arm as he thought back his reply. Tal's dying?
His words burned with uncharacteristic anxiety. He is returning to the Doash, but not as he should. He will be consumed. You must bring him back, or all is lost.
He had a feeling that "all being lost" had little to do with a sudden concern for Tal's safety. But Ilvuan's motivations were irrelevant. Tal's life was on the line.
"Garin, what's happening?" Wren hissed. She seized his hand and squeezed it hard. "Is it Ilvuan?"
He ignored her but for a brief nod. How do I bring him back?
Find his body. Make contact with his flesh. You will be the conduit; I will handle the rest.
Fine. But we may be killed on the way. There's a village of the Nightelves.
I will protect you. This came at a rumble. Uninvited, the image of a mountain erupting into fire came to Garin's mind. He wondered if the thought was his own or Ilvuan's.
"Tal is hurt or dying," Garin hurriedly explained to Wren. "But Ilvuan says he'll protect us."
"He'd better." Despite the fierceness of her tone, Garin heard the panic behind it.
He squeezed her hand one last time, then released it. "Mist shadow, now. I'll cast mine first, then you do yours as we near the guards. Ready?"
Even as she nodded, Garin called the words to mind, then murmured them.
"Vorl weal."
At once, he felt the sorcery knot and twist within him, drawing on the power needed for its effects. As mist streamed from his hands and filled the air around them, the Song burst into his mind, the sounds fragmented and discordant for a moment, then resolving into the lilting melody he'd grown accustomed to. Each sound — a hoe pounding into dirt, a chicken squawking in surprise, a child's delighted giggle — strung into place, and though it seemed a cacophony when Garin examined each part individually, it became beautiful as a whole.
The World's Song. The Song of the World. With each fresh experience of it, he understood what that meant more and more.
Wren's shake brought him back to the moment. "Let's go!" she hissed. "Silence, but I can't tell which way it is now!"
As if in response to her query, Ilvuan tugged in Garin's mind.
"This way."
He pulled Wren with him as they moved from behind the tree. He felt as if he had stepped into a dream, the Song uplifting him with every footfall. He no longer carried the pains of their travel, nor the hunger and thirst that had assaulted him. He flew above it all, soaring like a dragon on a breeze…
Ilvuan clawed into his mind, and he crashed back to the ground.
Restrain your mind, the Singer commanded. You flail like a hatchling!
Garin could not summon a reply. With his return to awareness came all the feelings that had before hounded him — the thrill, the fear, the anxiety. As shadows loomed out of the mist around them and shouts in Darktongue called before them, fear grew into terror.
"Reld waul!" Wren gasped next to him. With her hand still on his arm, he felt the cool mist flow from her to thicken the air around them. They could barely see anything even directly in front of them, yet they stumbled forward blindly.
As they pressed on, the shouting surrounded them — then one of the shadows lunged forward, something dully reflective in his hand.
"Jolsh heks!" He spoke the words without thinking, Kaleras' drills proving their worth. As the spell whipped forward and buffeted back the Nightelf, the air was stolen from Garin's lungs. He struggled to draw in a full breath, but his chest felt as if a gargantuan hand squeezed it tightly from the spell's aftereffect. Wren did not let him slow, tugging him forward even as he suffocated. Only when they were a dozen feet further did he release the spell and suck in a shuddering breath. The mist, briefly dispersed by his incantation, quickly resolved around them.
"Keep — going — straight," Garin wheezed, each word an effort as he failed again and again to catch his breath.
"Cast mist shadow again!" Wren shot back. "The fog is thinning!"
He needed no further encouragement. Nightelves shouted all around them, some sounding alarmed by Wren and Garin's intrusion, others angered and vengeful. Bows and spears were being readied, if they weren't charging already.
"Vorl weal!" he managed to gasp.
Fresh fog erupted from him, billowing out in great waves to cover the streets. Shadows danced around them, most false, but the occasional one real. Wren snarled as a Nightelf ran into her and shoved them back hard, bringing her rapier up to spar. But their inadvertent assailant apparently had no will to fight, for he or she let out a shrill cry and stumbled swiftly on their way.
"Yuldor's prick," Wren growled, lowering her weapon and seizing hold of Garin again. "Come on — can't be much further."
Garin nodded and lurched along behind her. His toes seemed to catch every root in the road. He felt light-headed from the lack of air, having never been able to catch his breath. The Song sounded like a syren's call, trying to lure him into its comforting depths. Only Wren's grip kept him tethered to the World.
Haste. Ilvuan reemerged in his mind, claws holding to Garin and providing another anchor to reality. Time is short.
"Not much farther," Wren repeated, the words sounding like a prayer.
They had reached the edge of Garin's latest cloud of mist. He raised his head and found she was right. The building in the village's center, which they had suspected of housing Tal, rose before them. It looked to be the stump remaining behind after one of the giants was felled, but morphed to have an otherworldly appearance. For a moment, the bulbous roof, which looked like a mountainous boil on the verge of bursting, captivated his wandering attention.
Wren's merciless tug jerked him back down once more as she headed for the door. "Focus," she hissed, releasing him to grip the iron ring set in the door.
"I'm here," Garin said, realizing belatedly how strange the reply must sound. Some awareness returning to him, he scanned the mist-shrouded town behind them. The Nightelves still appeared to be lost in the fog. He thought he detected the distant strains of a battle, but it made no sense to him. Could the Easterners be fighting among themselves, believing their neighbors to be enemies in the fog? It seemed too much to dare hope for.
Wren slipped inside t
he door, and he followed.
He made it no farther than the threshold. It was the stench of smoke that struck him first, an aroma that was becoming altogether too familiar. His eyes were drawn to the flames in the center of the room. Yet even as he squinted into the fire, he could not make sense of what he saw.
It was Wren's strangled cry that finally settled the pieces into place.
"Step away from him!"
Wren charged toward the conflagration. For a moment, he couldn't see to whom she spoke — then his eyes picked out the figure by the fire. She appeared strange even for a Nightelf, and her eyes flashed even brighter than the flames.
"Do not approach!" the woman shouted back, her words in the Reachtongue, but thick with an Eastern accent. "You will come to harm, and perhaps him as well!"
Wren raised her steel, passing a message clear in any tongue. "Not one step closer," she hissed at her.
The Nightelf raised her hands and took a step backward. Garin saw now she was elderly, her posture bent with age. Her eyes writhed with an unsettling darkness.
"Touch him, and you will burn," she said, her voice calmer. "If you wish to remain alive, and for him to survive, you will leave him be."
Lies. Garin tried to ignore the old Nightelf's words as he neared the fire. Through the flames he could just make out the shadow of a figure. His gut wrenched as what he had suspected proved to be true.
"Tal?" he whispered.
Do not fear. Ilvuan's voice was soft, almost gentle. I have said I will protect you, Listener. And I will.
"Tal! Night's blood, Tal!" Wren was nearly frenzied, tears bright in her eyes, though if they were from fear or rage, he could not tell.
Do not fear, Ilvuan murmured again.
"You have been warned!" the Nightelf spoke once more, then settled back into silence as Wren's rapier pressed close to her neck.
Garin remembered the flames of Vathda, and Elendol before. He remembered Heyl's hand closing over them, an inferno's blistering heat pouring over them.
But I stayed, he reminded himself as he stepped forward, heat blistering his skin. I braved the devil.
Seizing hold of his courage, he thrust his hands into the flames.
Call of the Womb
Tal swam through sorcerous streams.
The World had become nothing but heat and force and light. The only sound he heard was a deep, sonorous throb, like the slow pounding of a gargantuan heart, pulsing all around and inside him. The sorcery through which he slid felt like molten lava, searing and devouring, promising an impending oblivion. The thin, gossamer attachments to his body frayed the further he strayed from where he had abandoned it far above.
There had always been a part of Tal that yearned for this. Part of him had long ago wearied of the role he had been forced to adopt. This was the release he craved — a deliverance, a finality of purpose. He saw now there had been something greater waiting for him, waiting for all of them, just beyond their sight and reach.
Soon, he would become one with it.
He was not alone. Through the rivers of fire, other beings moved. As they passed each other, most ignored Tal, for they contained such power and serenity that he was but a pale ghost next to them. Occasionally, though, one would take an interest. Some were merely curious, floating about him like kelp on a ship's prow. Others pursued Tal, forcing him to flee.
Oblivion he might seek, but he would not find peace in the belly of such strange beasts.
Deeper and deeper he traveled — and then he came to it. Stopping where his stream emptied into what seemed a great chamber, he gazed upon the bright orb that dominated it.
The World's core.
This was not the Worldheart he sought, but something deeper and purer. It was the source of all sorcery, of all life. It was the truest existence, and he alone beheld it.
He looked upon the Womb of the World.
The odyssey does not end here.
He didn't know if the voice was his own or another's. He scarcely cared. Tal reached forward, fragmenting. He reached into eternity.
Something snagged him painfully from behind.
Thalkunaras, do not! You cannot go there and survive! The puissant voice seemed familiar, yet too little of him remained to recognize it.
Let me go. His thought was weak and pale. All his will strained to reach that pulsating, welcoming light. It called to him. All will be well, it promised. Soon, all will be well.
You must return, his attacker continued, its grip only strengthening — painfully, as if it held on with sharp claws. You are our tool, the stone by which we will break the cycle. You cannot leave now.
I want to see. I want… All he wanted was this, that which he almost had. He surged his will and made another attempt for it, but the intruder was too strong.
What of your nest? What of Jenduit, of the boy Garin? And of Kenduala, Ashelia? What of your other brood?
The names awoke things that had lain dormant within him. Garin. Ashelia. Memories roused, their significance almost knowable.
Then they flitted away, leaving him emptier than before.
Let me rest. He stopped struggling against the intruder, too weak to resist. Let me rest, damn you. Let me...
I cannot. The Doash calls to us all, Thalkunaras — all those who can hear its Song. But it is not for us. Not until our time has come to an end.
Tal thought he detected a hint of regret, perhaps even sympathy, in this otherwise merciless assailant. It was enough that he tried once more to beg free.
Please…
It was for naught.
We rise now, the assailant spoke. Hold to yourself — you must be whole when we return.
The intruder rose, moving away from the enchanting light and rising through the rivers swiftly, like a bird flying through the sky. Tal, limp and defeated, curled in on himself as he ascended. It felt pitiful, the little sliver that he was. It felt insufficient.
Abruptly, midway through the thought, he was released.
The intruder roared, but the reverberation of it faded quickly, as if he was moving far away. In moments, Tal could no longer feel his presence. He uncurled himself, hope blossoming in his chest.
Free. Free to return.
At last, he could join the light. He could merge with the Womb.
But just as he was about to descend once more, something stopped him. An inkling of memory returned as the bonds of his body reasserted themselves with the nearing distance. Names needled at him.
Garin. Ashelia. He remembered them now. He remembered their significance. Falcon. Aelyn. Wren. With each recalled person, the links grew stronger, drawing him up. Helnor. Rolan. Kaleras.
The calls, from above and from below, were matched in strength. He felt himself tearing between them. The Womb below, pulsing, inviting, destroying. The World above — what waited there? Hopelessness. Pain. Despair.
Yet so did everyone and everything he cared for.
Even as the scales shifted, it took all his force of will to rise, and then he moved only slowly. But, measure by measure, he did rise. And with each length he ascended, his pace increased, until he began to fly through the streams nearly as quickly as he had with the intruder.
He felt he was nearing the end.
His body called to him.
He reached for it and awoke to flames.
Garin burned.
He tried to hold the scream back at first. But as the agony traveled up his arms, his resolve failed. He stared at his hands, both firmly pressed to Tal's arm, and knew they must be charred to the bone.
But though fire cavorted over him and ate through his clothes, it no more touched him than it did the man lying in its midst.
Yet the pain of it — that remained.
He felt his grip on consciousness slipping away and fought against the rising tide of darkness. A trace of Ilvuan remained behind, tethered to him like a climber's rope at the top of a cliff. The rest of the Singer dove into Tal. Garin did not understand why or what was ha
ppening. All he knew was that for Ilvuan to succeed, he needed Garin to maintain contact.
And so he listened to the Song.
It surged around him, inundating his mind, like an overeager hound seeking to give some small measure of comfort. And though it did not deaden the torture of burning alive, Garin still sought what solace he could in it. He listened harder to it than he ever had before, to both the parts and the whole, to the melody and harmony and rhythm — and just as he had learned to distinguish the patterns of music while among the Dancing Feathers, now he began to see the architecture behind the Worldsong. It seemed like a castle tower leaning so far over that it must collapse at any moment — yet, impossibly, it remained intact. Each fragmentary sound, each haphazard cadence, contributed to a relentless march full of terrible beauty and haunting deformity.
Life, he thought. It sings of life itself.
But though he clung to the revelation, its poignancy was dulled by the flames. They had crawled up his arms and ate at his shoulders, then leaped to his hair. He was afraid to the very core of his being. Yet somehow, he held on, even as it seemed the Night itself closed around him.
I will die here listening to life. The thought tasted of bitter irony.
Fire burned heartily across his skull now and traveled to his face. Garin closed his eyes, and as if sight had been his last fetter to consciousness, he felt himself swiftly fading.
His knees buckled.
His grip slipped.
I'm sorry, Tal.
It was his last thought as he fell bonelessly to the floor, the flames chasing him into the murk.
The sensation of burning flooded over his skin.
My skin. Tal's eyes flew open, but he could see nothing but flickering orange and red. His eyes immediately shut again, rebelling against the agony crawling over them. The heat was as intense as if he were surrounded by flames…
Flames.
He felt the fire now through every sense. It danced over his skin, seeking to devour and consume. Yet somehow, it was repulsed at every attempt.
An Emperor's Gamble (Legend of Tal: Book 3) Page 28