Marion Zimmer Bradley & Holly Lisle - [Glenraven 01]

by Glenraven (v1. 5) (html)

  "Good," she said. "I would hate to punish you without knowing that you understood why you were being punished. That would be unreasonable, wouldn't it?"

  He didn't even nod. He didn't dare.

  She let her smile grow broader. "I wouldn't want to be unreasonable, Terth. No one ever says I'm unreasonable, do they?"

  He shook his head. "No…Watchmistress," he whispered.

  "Good." She rested the tip of her index finger on her lips and studied the soldier, changing her expression from smiling to thoughtful as she did so. "I think a small punishment will be sufficient." She stood, tipped her head to one side, and made her face friendly and open. "Don't you agree?"

  She saw wariness in his eyes, but also hope—hope that she would not make him suffer too much for his failure, hope that he would not have to bear the brunt of her awful rage. He nodded his head so slightly that if she hadn't been looking for the response, she would never have seen the movement.

  "You do agree. How wonderful." She stared into his eyes, this time doing more than looking. "Come here," she told him.

  He stiffened as if she had slapped him. He tried to look away from her but she didn't let him. He tried to control his own muscles, but she didn't let him do that, either. She held him firmly with her gaze, with her power; she was strong, as if she had been half a dozen of her own top soldiers. While she looked into his eyes, he did not breathe except by her wish that he continue to do so. He took a step forward. It was so funny to watch his leg lift and step toward her while the rest of his body fought it. She needed a little humor, a little comedy. She had a serious problem, a terrible problem that would tax her enormously, but Terth was not that problem. He was easy to fix.

  His other leg lifted and stepped, and he made a strangled little cry as it did. She could feel him fighting her. She laughed.

  Another step.

  Another.

  "Kneel," she told him.

  His muscles locked, his back went rigid, he shoved his fists against the fronts of his thighs to strengthen his resistance. He screamed; the sound he made was the shrill, whistling scream of a dying rabbit. Lovely. She heard the crunch of bone and the popping of cartilage as his knees gave way. He dropped in front of her. His strangled breathing gurgled and he sobbed. His gaze, though, never left hers.

  "Something small," she said in a soft, gentle voice. "Something so simple that you can do it yourself to show me how much you regret failing me. That would be best, don't you agree?"

  He didn't answer. Of course.

  "Something reasonable. Something fair. Let me see…you didn't look hard enough for Hultif. He's out there somewhere. If you had looked hard enough, you would have found him. No one can hide so completely that he can't be found…but you know that, don't you?"

  "Ple-e-e-e-ase," Terth whispered. "Oh, please…"

  "You didn't look hard enough…" She smiled down at him. "Of course. This is fair, simple and fitting."

  "No," he begged.

  "Take your eyes out for me, please."

  "No…oh, please…no!" Even as he begged mercy, his hands moved toward his eyes. "No…Watchmistress…not my eyes…"

  She smiled as his thumbs gouged into the corners of his eyes. She laughed happily as he began to scream in earnest, as his thumbs vanished up to the first joint into the sockets. Wordless bubbling pleading, shrieking despair, hopelessness…and all the while, his hands acted on her command, doing what she told them to do, and when he was finished, when his hands had done what she told them to do, those hands calmly held out the eyeballs that they had ripped from Terth's bleeding sockets; held them up to her in offering while the man himself tried to collapse and faint from pain and terror, though she would not let him.

  "Dear Terth. How thoughtful of you. You may keep your eyes, though," she told him. "I wouldn't want to be unreasonable, and I have no use for them."

  She let him go then. She broke off the link that had controlled him, and when she did, he collapsed like a marionette with cut strings. He slammed to the stone floor and lay there bleeding and screaming.

  She called in his second-in-command, who had been standing in the anteroom to her chamber, waiting while she decided Terth's fate.

  The second came in, as pale as his commander had been.

  Aidris settled back in her chair and crossed her legs, adjusting her silk skirt so that it showed off her exquisite ankles. "Your name is Dallue, isn't it?" she asked him as he walked toward her, trying hard not to stare at the lump of writhing flesh on her floor.

  "Yes, Watchmistress."

  "Very good, Dallue. This is a lucky day for you. You have succeeded Terth as my chief of guards. Please remove him from my chamber, then find Hultif and bring him to me. Alive if you can, but dead if you must. Do see that you don't fail me as your predecessor did."

  "Yes, Watchmistress." Dallue's eyes kept flicking toward Terth, then back to her. She could see him trembling while he waited for her dismissal. She kept him standing there a good long time, while she stared at him and smiled and slowly licked her lips.

  Finally she sighed. "You may go, Dallue."

  Dallue picked Terth up and slung the man over his shoulder and hurried out of her chamber like a cockroach surprised by sudden light. He feared her. That was good; perhaps he feared her enough to be effective.

  Aidris Akalan settled back into her seat. So much for simple entertainment. Her hunters had not yet brought in Matthiall and the two Machnan wizards; she had to face the possibility that they would fail her as Terth had. She had to plan for that eventuality.

  Matthiall had to die, as did the wizards he had stolen from her. He was strong—a powerful Kintari—but he wasn't as strong as she was. If her hunters didn't find the fugitives, she could send the Watchers after them, though in order to do that, she had to know exactly where they were and she had to disable Matthiall. He was strong enough to fight the Watchers off. If she could create conditions exactly to her liking, she could kill them herself, from a distance. If the Machnan really were powerful wizards, it wasn't likely she could set up those perfect conditions.

  Or she could kill them up close.

  She had plenty of options. She didn't think that she had much time. She could destroy them in any number of wonderful ways, but however she did it, she had to do it quickly. She dared not disbelieve Hultif's presaging of her death.

  She intended to live forever, no matter what the omens said. The future could be changed; she would act quickly to change it.

  Forty-one

  Jayjay felt light in his arms. Her skin was hot silk against his fingertips. Matthiall tried to ignore the magnetic sensations as he carried her; he tried pointlessly. Her body fit against his as if she'd been made for him. And his heart, terribly aware, raced faster than his forced pace could explain.

  This is impossible. I'm deluding myself out of desperation, out of loneliness. There can be no one for me, ever. She isn't even Kin, and if she were Kin it wouldn't matter; Aidris Akalan killed all of my straba except for me.

  I will be alone until I die.

  But his body called his mind a liar. He touched her and his blood coursed through his veins with the warmth of sunlight—and she was sunlight that did not wound, that did not burn. When he looked into her eyes, he felt something inside of him open; he felt as if at that moment he drew the first breath of his life.

  What if she were what she seemed to be?

  Then he had more reason for bitterness against his fate, for he would have found her only to lose her. She died in his arms. She was dying slowly—much more slowly than he would have expected, yet she still died.

  He closed his eyes. If she was what she seemed, what he hoped she was, what he had waited his entire life for—impossible as he knew that hope to be—he could save her. If she was the woman born to be his eyra, his other half, he could give her part of his strength, part of his life, he could bind them together. If she died, he would die. If she lived, he would live.

  He watched Sophie set
up a tent at the edge of the clearing, away from the deep and deadly shadows of the forest.

  He let himself consider the incredible possibility that had leapt at him when his eyes first met Jays. He let himself play with the thought that she might be his one mate, his soul, his life. Machnan and Alfkindir did not mix, but she wasn't truly Machnan. She looked Machnan, but she was an outsider. Outside…the very idea of life outside of the borders of Glenraven almost stole the breath from his lungs. Outside the guarded borders of Glenraven, life would have no Aidris Akalan. No dying magic. No shattered world. Outside of Glenraven, life would be different.

  The price he would have to pay to attempt to save Jayjay's life would be extraordinarily high. If she was what he hoped, what he dreamed, what he would get in return would repay every sacrifice.

  And if she isn't what you wish, you fool—if she is not your eyra, and the song of your straba sings not in her blood but only in your imagination, you will try to save her life by binding yourself to her—and she will die, and you will spill your life into the dust, and your revolution will wither into nothingness, and Aidris Akalan will proceed with her destruction of Glenraven unchecked.

  He held the unconscious Jayjay in his arms, and closed his eyes, and felt her heart beating in his own veins.

  What price my soul? he wondered. What price my world?

  Forty-two

  Sophie looked up from hammering in a tent stake when Matthiall lay Jayjay on the grass beside her.

  "What's going on?" she asked, and then she looked at Jay and she didn't need his answer. "Oh, Jesus, Jayjay," she whispered, reaching out to touch her friends forehead with the inside of her wrist. "Jay…you have to live. You can't die now."

  Jay panted in shallow little gasps; Sophie counted almost fifty in a minute. Her skin was transparent and beaded with a fine sheen of perspiration, her dry lips had cracked, her tongue looked swollen, and her partly open eyes didn't blink—didn't follow anything. Nothing was left of Jayjay but a feverish, dying body, and in a few minutes the spark of life she still held on to would be gone as well.

  Sophie couldn't stop the tears; she didn't try. She gripped her friend's hand and whispered, "You can't die here, Jay. I could, maybe, but not you. You can't let the bastards win, Jay. If you die, they'll have beaten you. You can't give up. You can't quit fighting. You have to keep on, keep moving forward." She choked on her tears, and scrubbed at her face with the back of one sleeve. She took a deep breath and said, "Remember what you keep telling me. Life is forward motion, Jay. No matter how bad things get, life never backs up…and you can't either."

  She realized Matthiall was saying something—was repeating her name, over and over, his tone urgent.

  "Sophie."

  She looked up at him. "What?"

  "I think I may be able to save her. But if I am to have any chance at all, there are things you will have to do. I've set a spell with the Blindstone so that Aidris Akalan should not be able to track us here, and placed wards around this campsite to keep us hidden from the eyes and spells of my people. We are far enough off the road and close enough to twilight that the Machnan should be hurrying toward the safety of their cities; none of them should venture this far from the road. Still, you are going to have to stand watch."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I cannot explain it. We don't have time. You will have to trust me, Sophie. You will have to trust me to take her into your tent, to stay there with her all night. You will not be able to speak to either of us, to look in on us, to permit anything to interfere with us. This is vital. Vital. We will either both live or both die." He shivered as he said that, and stared into her eyes as intently as if he were trying to read her mind. She stared back at him, wishing she could read his. "You will have to trust me, Sophie. If you cannot promise me that you will trust me and do as I say, then I will not try to save her, because if you do not do exactly as I ask, I will die."

  "Why?"

  "That is the way the magic works. I can save her life only if I offer my own, and if other special conditions are met."

  Sophie shook her head. "That's not what I meant. Why would you risk your life for her? Because we're these 'heroes' you and the book and everyone have been waiting for?"

  "No."

  "No." Sophie clenched her fists. Everything was out of control, and this inhuman creature was asking her to trust him with her best friend…her helpless, unconscious, dying best friend. "Why, dammit?"

  "Ask me tomorrow, if I'm alive when the sun rises. It is a long story."

  Jay wasn't going to last much longer. Sophie was going to have to make this decision for her friend, because Jay wouldn't survive to make it herself. And really, Sophie had no options. She could trust Matthiall, or she could let Jay die. "Go," she said. "Anything that gets to you will have to come through me to get there." She drew her sword; its blade gleamed golden in the light of the setting sun.

  He nodded. "Trace out the edges of the wards. You'll find them easily enough. Do nothing unless something passes into the circle you mark. If that happens, fight for your life. And I pray we both see you tomorrow morning." He scooped Jayjay up in his arms and hurried toward the tent. Sophie watched him go.

  Just before he ducked under the flap, he stopped. "If we both die, the road is that way." He pointed toward the west with his head. "Stay out of the forests at all costs; find a city as soon as you can."

  Before she could answer, before she could even think about what he'd said, he and Jay vanished into the tent. She heard him fumbling with the zipper to the bug screen. Resolutely, she turned her back—turned to face the setting sun.

  My watch again, she thought. My watch. Last time I had the watch, I did a job of it, didn't I? I don't know if I could have done any worse than I did. Delivered us into the hands of our enemies by falling asleep; and now I get another chance. Great.

  She began to pace. Matthiall said he'd set wards. She assumed that she wouldn't be able to see what he'd done. But she wondered how far out his wards extended, and how much space she had to patrol. She walked a tight circle around the tent, facing away from it. Inside, everything was silent except for the sound of Jay's raspy, rapid breathing, and Matthiall's soft murmuring.

  "Forward motion," she whispered. "Life is forward motion; life never backs up."

  She kept pacing, treaded the second circle outside of the first. She couldn't feel anything different. She extended her third circle outside the range of the second.

  No wood for a fire, she thought. Not that I'd go anywhere near those trees to get some. Not if it were a hundred degrees below zero, which the way my luck is running it might become any minute now.

  "I was right when I told her that. I was right. Good advice, and if she didn't hear me, at least I was listening to myself for once. Those are life's rules: never let the bastards win; never back up; never give in."

  Another circle, wider. She stepped over her pack and Jay's. Matthiall evidently took his bag in with him, though she hadn't actually noticed him doing so. She kept pacing out her circles, slowly, carefully, looking for anything out of the ordinary, any little clumps of voodoo feathers or amulets or whatever. She didn't know what to expect, so she expected anything.

  "I've been backing up. Haven't been taking my own advice. I've been too willing to lay down and die; I've been too willing to let silence and darkness and nothingness be an answer for a problem that demands life. Forward motion."

  The meadow grass lay flat when she stepped on it and didn't spring back up. Dry, she thought, and then looked back the way they'd come. Very, very dry. She could still see a clear path beaten into the grasses where the two of them had walked. It was a trail an idiot could follow, and she was sure when anyone came looking for her and Jay and the Kin, they wouldn't be idiots.

  And here I am, pacing out crop circles. Geez.

  Forward motion. Do something. Do anything. Don't be paralyzed by fear of mistakes.

  She kept going. She wanted to find the wards
if she could. She needed to know where they were; she wouldn't know what they were, or what they did, but if she could identify them, she would feel better.

  Another circle.

  Another. She guessed she'd moved about ten feet from the tent—about a foot each time.

  Another.

  When she hit the wards, she almost shrieked. Her skin tingled and she had a terrifying urge to flee, to run across the fields until she couldn't run anymore. Instead, she sat down and shivered. That was a ward. She saw nothing. She reached out a finger, and felt nothing until that finger crossed whatever barrier Matthiall had set. The fear screamed into her skull again and she flung herself backward.

  Damn! Those wards hurt. They would keep out small trouble, anyway. She didn't have to worry about attacks of marauding chipmunks. Or people. She didn't know whether it would be enough to keep the Alfkindir at bay.

  She studied the circles she'd marked out, and told herself, "That's life. Put up your wards, pace out your circle, fight like hell to keep your head up and your skin intact. And never lie down and give up. Never, never let the bastards win."

  She walked around the circle one last time, poking outward at random and jerking her hand back the instant she felt anything. The exercise reminded her of sticking her finger onto the hot burner of a stove; every time she did it, it got less fun. She completed her final circuit, though, and sighed, relieved. If Matthiall had left holes in his ward, she hadn't found them.

  She circled closer to the tent, her sword still drawn. She heard Jay's breathing. It didn't sound any better, but it didn't sound any worse, either. She turned her back on the tent.

  Leave it alone, Sophie. Just leave it alone. Don't be afraid to trust. Sometimes trust is the only hope you have. Guard them, pray…and wait.

  Forty-three

  "Blood," Aidris Akalan whispered to the swirling specks of light in which the Watchers manifested. "Bring me the wizards' still-beating hearts, and you can have their blood. Bring me Matthiall unharmed, though. I want to destroy him myself." She stared into the sparkling curtain of death and smiled. "When I've finished with him, I will give you his blood."