Vengeance

by Gail Z. Martin

  “Well, we’re here. Let’s hope Rigan and the others got the message,” Aiden said as they readied themselves for the working.

  The empty clearing where the Rift had opened looked as it had the night their friends had been pulled through, with the exception of the circle of dead grass that marked the spread of the taint. Wordlessly, they all kept back from the poisoned area, wary of how it might affect both health and magic.

  Corran had anticipated the challenges of attempting grave magic in a field of tall grass. He stomped down a circle and flattened the weeds inside. Then he took out four wooden stakes, each one marked with one of the sigils Mina had sketched for them for his working and hammered them into the ground at the quarters. Finally, he took a rope that had been soaked in the salt/aconite mixture and strung it between the posts to make his warding circle.

  “Ready,” Corran said, trying to tamp down his nervousness. He stared at the spot the Rift had appeared, hoping in vain it would happen once more on its own. Corran had barely slept, too nervous to relax, fearful of what might happen—or worse, what might not.

  Calfon, Ross, and Polly had insisted on coming to stand guard. Now that they were here, Corran felt safer knowing someone was watching out for them. They still had guards and bounty hunters on their trail, and while the clearing was fairly remote, he did not want to bring Rigan and the others home only to land them in the middle of a battle.

  Aiden set a larger warded circle, still remaining clear of the tainted ground. Elinor followed, sowing a mixture made from plants that enhanced perception and aided with Sight. They both had pledged their help with boosting Corran’s magic, helping him sustain his working for as long as possible.

  From what Aiden could find in the old texts, the realm beyond the Rift would be closest—and the barrier between realms the thinnest—at noon or midnight. Since they had lost their companions just after noon, they all agreed that was the best time to attempt the working.

  “Let’s do it,” Aiden said, giving a nod to Corran. Aiden and Elinor came to stand with Corran inside his salt rope circle.

  Corran felt his heart thud and wiped his clammy palms on his pants. He was more afraid than before any fight with monsters. Even though he had seen Rigan, Mir, and Trent through Aiden’s eyes in the dream walk, he could not silence the voice in his mind that whispered tragic possibilities. What if something attacked them in the night? What if this doesn’t work? What if we can’t get them back?

  Corran pushed the fears aside and took a deep breath, then closed his eyes. For a few seconds, he could have almost been back in their workshop in Ravenwood, with bodies to prepare and Kell upstairs making supper, in the home where he and Rigan had grown up. He let the familiarity of that image ground him as he found his center and then he began to chant.

  The words were almost the same as the traditional ritual to guide a spirit into the After. Almost, but not quite. With Aiden’s help, Corran had made adjustments, and he hoped with all his being that the changes were sufficient and that the magic would follow his intent.

  Corran felt the thrum of power rise with his chant, tingling over his skin and through his veins. He had not thought of their undertaking rituals as true magic until Rigan had pointed it out to him; now, he wondered how it ever escaped his notice. He might not be able to cast fire or move objects with his mind like his brother could, but the energies that rose to his summons were unmistakable a force of their own.

  Aiden and Elinor murmured chants to mesh their magic with his and amplify his effort. Corran felt the power built around them, crackling in the air like sparks from a fire. The air felt heavy like a storm was brewing, and he tried to repress a shiver and hold his focus on the intention of opening a tear in the sky and bringing his brother home.

  Corran opened his eyes, staring at the place where Rigan had vanished. The air shimmered, and he heard Elinor gasp.

  “It’s working,” she breathed.

  Corran’s chant built to a crescendo, and he pulled all the magic he knew how to command into his invocation. For an instant, he saw a vertical line in the midst of the shimmering air, a cut in the fabric of their world.

  And in the next heartbeat, the tear vanished.

  Corran’s eyes widened, and his heart hammered. He kept on chanting, finishing the ritual, hoping that the glimmer would return.

  “It’s gone,” he moaned when he completed the invocation, and no sign of a Rift appeared. “Did you see? It started and then—”

  Tears ran down Elinor’s face, and she nodded silently. Aiden looked dumbstruck. Corran’s disappointment shifted into anger, and he pulled the knife from his sheath.

  “If grave magic won’t work, then let’s see what blood magic can do,” he snarled.

  Aiden grabbed his arm. “Corran, wait!”

  He shook his head. “I’ve waited long enough—Rigan, Mir, and Trent can’t wait any longer.” Corran swallowed hard. “If there’s way to do it, bring me back. I don’t want to die. I want to bring them home. And if we can’t then it doesn’t matter anyway…”

  Corran brought the knife down on his left forearm, cutting a bloody slit from wrist to elbow, and as the warm blood spilled over his outstretched palm, he chanted the forbidden words he had spent the night committing to memory.

  I just want to bring my brother home.

  Chapter Twenty

  Rigan tossed in his sleep, at the edge of wakefulness. His cloak offered scant comfort against either the chill night air or the hard rock of the cave floor. The fire that protected them from things that hunted in the dark also filled the cave with smoke, making him cough. His arm cramped, protesting at being used as a pillow.

  He shifted, getting as comfortable as he could, and fell back asleep. Once more, Rigan’s dreams were dark, filled with memories of Kell’s death, the night their home went up in flames, and of battles with monsters and the final fight with Blackholt. The scenes shifted, and he saw the attack at the clearing, the higani pouring through the Rift seconds before he and the others were pulled in. But in his dream, one of the higani skittered straight for Corran, and before his brother could react to Rigan’s warning shout, it sank the sharp tip of a jointed leg through Corran’s chest.

  “Corran,” Rigan yelled in his dream as the Rift pulled at him.

  Corran sank to his knees in the clearing, grasping at his chest, tearing away the higani too late. The last thing Rigan saw before the Rift closed behind him was Corran, ashen-faced and dying, as he fell forward into the poisoned grass.

  Rigan moaned and thrashed, but did not wake. Once more, he felt the attention of the presence focused on him. Each time, he sensed it more clearly, though whether that meant it was closer, he could not tell. It fixed him with the glare of its many eyes, and he felt its appraisal. The presence regarded him curiously as if deciding whether he might be friend or foe, food or ally. Its utter alienness made Rigan’s flesh crawl. Instinct overrode conscious thought, and he ran.

  The hideous images faded, and Rigan found himself walking in darkness. “Hello? Is anyone here?” he called into the shadows. A vestir emerged from the thick brush, charging with its fangs bared. Rigan tried to outrun the creature, then finally turned to fight when he realized he could not escape. The vestir attacked with tireless energy, and Rigan knew he would lose the fight.

  A new figure appeared from nowhere and stepped between Rigan and the vestir. Rigan stared, fearing a greater threat than the monster until Aiden moved into the light, and the vestir vanished. Rigan breathed a sigh of relief. “You’re here? How? Can you take us home with you?”

  He listened as Aiden spoke to him of a desperate plan, and warned that their time together was short. Rigan committed the details of the plan to memory and swore to do everything in his power to help from his side of the Rift. Far too soon, Aiden’s image flickered and faded.

  Rigan woke, unsurprised to find tears on his face.

  “Rigan? Are you all right?” Trent stayed at his post at the front of the cave b
ut turned enough to give him an appraising look.

  “I had bad dreams,” Rigan said and frowned. “At least, some of them were nightmares.” He licked his dry lips and decided once again to say nothing about the presence. “But at the end… I swore that Aiden came to me with a message about a rescue plan.” He looked up at Trent, feeling the first flicker of hope in days. “I’m certain that really was Aiden using his magic, somehow, to tell us what to do.”

  Trent’s pained expression mingled doubt and despair. “I want to believe you, Rigan. Gods, do I want to believe you. But… it’s so easy to see what we want to see. How could Aiden send you a message, across the Rift?”

  Rigan drew his legs up and wrapped his arms around them, pulling himself into a tight ball. “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that I saw him when I was dreaming,” he said slowly, working out his thoughts as he spoke. “We talked about dream magic once. There are stories about witches being able to dream walk—either out of their bodies or into someone else’s dreams. It wasn’t something I had time to look into, but the idea sounded interesting, and when I asked Aiden, he believed that at least some of the stories were true.”

  “If he can get to you in a dream, why can’t his magic reach you when you’re awake?”

  Rigan frowned. “I don’t know, but I think it’s because dreaming is a ‘place between’ waking and sleeping, the same way ghosts exist in a place between life and death. If someone could learn to travel those between places, it might work like a hidden passageway, taking them to where they otherwise couldn’t go.”

  Mir groaned and turned over, clutching his cloak, but he did not wake. Trent looked out into the darkness, silent for a few minutes.

  “If he made the trip—assuming I believe it was real—he must have had a message. What did he say?”

  Rigan repeated the instructions he had memorized. “That’s it?” Trent asked. “Just, go back to where we came through and wait? With all the monsters out there? How long do you think we’ll last?”

  “We found the marker,” Rigan replied. “And the note on the arrow. So we know they’re trying to find us. But if they open the Rift and we aren’t near it, they won’t be able to come looking for us. We’ll miss our chance—and we may not get another.”

  “How can they open the Rift if you can’t?”

  Rigan heard the skepticism in Trent’s voice and tried not to take it personally. The other hunters had come a long way since that first night when they had fled the guards in Ravenwood and learned his secret. They had accepted and protected him—and Aiden and Elinor—even though magic was strange and frightening for them. Trent was clearly trying to understand something utterly foreign to him, and Rigan struggled to find a way to make it easier to accept Aiden’s message.

  “Aiden’s got the benefit of all those lore books back at the monastery. I’m betting he found something he thinks will work. He’s got Elinor to help him, and if it involves grave magic, Corran too.

  “But you tried grave magic, and it didn’t work.”

  Rigan shook his head. “I didn’t try to use it to open the Rift, just to see if there were spirits of humans here. I’ve been thinking about what to do next, and I’d decided to try a mixture of grave magic and blood magic.” He looked to Trent.

  “So here’s my plan,” he ventured. “Go to where the marker is, where we came through. And as close to noon as we can reckon it, I work a ritual on this side, trying to thin the curtain between realms. If Aiden and Corran and Elinor are on the other side, and we’re both tearing at the Rift, maybe we can get it open long enough to get through.”

  Trent nodded. “I won’t lie. I’m not really sure of this. But we’re running out of options, and Mir is running out of time.”

  Rigan and Trent both looked to where Mir lay, shivering and twitching beneath his cloak. Despite Rigan’s poultices and teas, Mir’s wounds from the previous battle with the monsters had gone sour. Fever came and went. His strength was waning, and his moments of wakefulness grew shorter as the candlemarks passed. Rigan suspected that Mir had given up and that the bleak moods that plagued him since their escape from Ravenwood finally wrested his surrender. Rigan had not told the others, but the sickness he felt from the tainted magic grew worse each day. They needed to make their move soon, while they still could.

  “Do you have any idea how to know when it’s noon on the other side?” Trent asked. “When it’s daylight, with all the clouds, I can’t see a bloody thing in the sky.”

  “I’ve got a candle in my pouch,” Rigan said. “If I mark off the hours, we can light it at dawn and figure it that way. Won’t be precise, but it might be close enough.”

  “You realize how many ‘maybes’ are strung together in this plan, don’t you?” Trent cautioned. He sounded tired and resigned. They had been trapped in the Rift for days, and it had gone hard on all of them. The prospect of remaining here forever seemed more likely the more time passed.

  “Yeah. It’s not the best, but it’s all we’ve got.”

  “If it doesn’t work—” Trent licked his lips and looked away. “If it doesn’t work, we might not get back to the cave. Magic like that will draw attention. The things out there that feed on it—or on us—will smell dinner. We probably won’t have another chance.”

  Rigan swallowed hard and nodded. “Then we’d better make it count.”

  Between the two of them, Rigan and Trent got Mir down the cliff side along with the gear they had remaining. Trent held a torch and Rigan had his sword. Mir stumbled between them, drifting in and out of awareness.

  Over the days they had been there, they had used most of their precious remaining salt mixture to protect a path down to the stream, so at least they knew they could make it that far without a fight. Rigan had left the marked candle back in the cave, but they had waited until two candlemarks remained before what they guessed was noon. If Rigan had reckoned time correctly, that gave them one candlemark to travel to the beacon, and another to wait for rescue and work magic of their own.

  The monsters preferred the dark. Rigan felt no less watched than usual as they made their way toward the place where they had come through the Rift, but fire and steel were warning enough to keep daylight predators at a distance, and the prey creatures that scurried to find food paid them no mind.

  “I won’t miss roasted rat-thing,” Trent mused as they walked. “I like being able to identify what I’m eating.”

  “Then I guess you never ate at The Muddy Goat back in Ravenwood,” Rigan said. “Any animals that went missing near there, people figured they went into the pot.”

  “There are things about the city I don’t miss,” Trent replied.

  It took longer than Rigan anticipated to reach the rendezvous point, but given that they arrived without being eaten or maimed, he counted it as a win. They eased Mir to the ground.

  “We’re here,” Rigan told him.

  Mir stirred, and he looked up at Rigan with lucidity. “You think they can get us home?” he asked, his voice rough.

  “Yeah. I think they can. And I’m going to do all I can to help from this side.” He clapped a hand on Mir’s shoulder. “Sit. I’ve got this.”

  Rigan marked sigils on the bare ground with the pigments he made from the plants they gathered and set out a thin line of salt with the last of the mixture he had hoarded. If this didn’t work, it wouldn’t matter if they ran out.

  “What are you planning to use for blood magic?” Trent asked. “I don’t see a sacrifice.”

  Rigan rolled up his sleeve. “I’m hoping it doesn’t require one,” he said. “I’m hoping what I can supply is enough.”

  Trent looked at him incredulously. “It’s not bad enough that we’re stuck in the open, waiting, or that we’re going to reek of magic—you’re going to add fresh blood? We won’t live long enough to get through the Rift even if they can get it to open!”

  “I won’t work the blood magic until the very end,” Rigan said. “But the more I’ve thought abou
t it, the more I’m convinced that for something this big—a hole between realms—it’s got to be human blood. I just hope it doesn’t need all of it.” But if that’s what it takes to get Mir and Trent home, then that’s the price of passage.

  “Corran will skin me if I come back without you.”

  “With luck, it won’t come to that,” Rigan said with a thin smile, which didn’t reach his eyes. “And if it does, I’ll haunt his ass if he gives you grief.”

  “Won’t do me much good if he kills me,” Trent muttered.

  Rigan watched the light, hoping that the gradual brightening was not merely a trick of the ever-present clouds. When it felt right, he exchanged a glance with Trent. “It’s close enough—I’m going to start.”

  “I hope you know what you’re doing,” Trent replied. “And if you don’t, put in a good word with Doharmu for me.”

  Trent moved to stand guard over them while Rigan worked his magic. Mir, still shaking with fever, watched with glassy eyes where he sat propped against a log a few feet away from Rigan’s circle.

  Rigan knelt in the center of the circle, closed his eyes, and drew a deep breath. He sent up a prayer to Doharmu and Eshtamon for protection and success. Please, if I’m supposed to be your champion, let me get back to my brother. We can’t serve your vengeance otherwise.

  He had spent the morning preparing, not simply for the magic, but for the very real possibility of death. It broke his heart to think that the gambit might not be successful, that he might die here in this godsforsaken realm and never see Corran or Elinor or his friends again. But grief had cooled into resignation and a cold resolve.

  They were going home today, or they were going on. But they would not be staying here.

  Rigan drew on the power that went beyond his grave magic, the legacy of his Wanderer heritage. He laid a hand on each sigil and the pigments stirred with an inner light, as did the salt circle, burning with a pure white fire. He began to chant the incantation that he and Corran and Kell—and his family before them—had used to speed the dead to their rest.