“I hate it when you smoke that stuff,” Etienne spat. He was quivering with emotion. “You’re only feeding them. Only making it worse until one day you’ll be as possessed as she is.”
Etienne turned and prodded Liandari’s body with the toe of his boot.
“She isn’t dead, so maybe you could keep from kicking her, hmmm?” Tamerlan suggested, scrambling to his feet and hurrying to Liandari’s side. He checked the wound in her thigh first. It was bleeding too much and too fast. He wasn’t sure if he could bind it fast enough, wasn’t sure if that would be enough. Had Etienne nicked the femoral artery? That would mean she’d die in minutes, right? Maybe if he was fast, he could save her.
He reached into her belt pouch with trembling hands, looking for needles, a bandage, whatever he could find. There was a scarf. Belatedly, he remembered he had a needle and thread of his own in his belt pouch. He dragged out the supplies slicing the leg of her breeches to access the wound.
Not good. Not good.
Thick red blood bubbled up so fast that he couldn’t get a clear look at the torn flesh of her leg.
“What’s wrong with Marielle, Tamerlan,” Etienne said. His voice had calmed down. He was cold as the snow now.
“Her scalp was cut in the fight. It’s not a deep wound, just bloody. I think she was light-headed from blood loss. Maybe lack of sleep, too. I set her to the side and bandaged her wound.” He’d said it all while readying the needle for Liandari. He didn’t know what he was doing. It made his hands shake.
“You’re wasting your time here, Tamerlan. We want her dead anyway, or have you forgotten that a Legend lives within her?”
He looked up at Etienne – only a glance – only to judge his expression before returning to his work. He set the first stitch, feeling jittery with nerves as he pulled it tight. He didn’t think it would be enough.
“I know you hate me because I smoke.”
“You’re addicted to the one thing that can destroy the world – the Legends.” His voice twisted with bitterness. “Yes. It concerns me. It should concern you, too, or are you evil as well as a fool?”
“You know I’m not.” The second stitch ripped. He bit back a curse. The flesh here was weak and he felt like stitching wasn’t going to do enough. If a blood vessel was torn – shouldn’t he be stitching that? But he didn’t know how to. Sweat formed across his forehead. “You also hate me because Marielle doesn’t.”
“She deserves better than an insane lover. You will only ever drag her down.”
“You were going to kill her,” Tamerlan objected, trying again. This time the stitch held. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, tasting acid in his mouth. What else could he do but try? But there was too much blood soaking the snow around them and her breaths were too shallow.
“Anglarok,” she murmured, her voice weak.
“Shhh, it’s only me. Stay calm,” he said setting the third stitch.
“And if I had succeeded it still would have been a better fate than loving you. Yes, I am beginning to hate you. Because you’re a threat to me and to everyone and eventually someone will have to kill you.”
“That’s not enough reason to hate me. There must be something more.” There. That stitch was holding. Not that it was helping. His hands were coated now in blood – as if he’d washed them in it. “Hold on, Liandari.”
“Stop fighting the inevitable. It’s a waste of your time,” Etienne said as in the background Tamerlan heard Jhinn saying the same things Tamerlan was saying, only to his brother – soothing words of hope in the tight voice of someone trying to fight for a life.
“That’s the difference between me and you, Etienne,” Tamerlan said. “You see the world through calculating logic. And that’s a very useful thing. But it means you give up when you shouldn’t. And that makes you less human. Because I refuse to say that anything is inevitable. You can always fight. You can always hope.”
“You’re a fool. Just like your father. There’s no hope for you, Tamerlan. Your addiction is going to kill you or kill us all. It’s only a matter of time. What do you think will happen when we’ve chained all the dragons again – what do you think we’ll have to do to the last vessel of the Legends? One way or another, this story ends in your death.”
Tamerlan bit his lip and then glanced up at Etienne again. “You hate me because you know that’s true for you, too. The Grandfather still has a link to you. If I have to die, maybe you do, too.”
“Not if I destroy him in his clock. Not if I replace him with something else. But there’s no fixing this for you, Tamerlan. You’re infected by too many Legends. You will have to die. And if I have to be the one to kill you, I will. So, stop making Marielle fall in love with you. It’s only going to hurt her more when we have to put you down like the rabid dog that you are.”
He said it so coolly – like he was remarking on the weather.
“And until then?” Tamerlan asked, trying to keep his voice light.
“Until then, I will use you to do what must be done to save our people.”
“That works for me,” Tamerlan bit off the end of his words but Etienne was already striding away.
“Will your brother live, Waverunner?” he called to Jhinn.
Tamerlan’s hands shook as he tied the last knot. The bleeding had slowed almost to a stop. He felt a slight flutter of a smile around his lips. Yes. Good. He’d made the bleeding stop. See? Nothing was inevitable.
His gaze drifted up to Liandari’s face and he froze.
Son of a Legend! Her eyes were glazed over. The steam coming from his mouth and nose with every breath was missing. He reached up and put his hand just above her nose and mouth.
No breath.
The bleeding had slowed because her heart wasn’t pumping blood anymore.
He sat back, letting his hands fall to his sides. He didn’t care that he sat in snow redder than summer roses. Didn’t care that her heat was steaming up in the pool of blood around her and fading into the air. Etienne had been right.
Despair and bitterness shot through his heart as his gaze drifted across the sleeping dragon mountains and the cold lake. Was Etienne right about everything else, too?
His gaze drifted to Marielle.
No. Nothing was inevitable. There was always hope. He stood up, rinsing his hands in the freezing cold of the lake until it felt like pins were being shoved under his skin as the cold of the lake sapped the life out of them.
With a sigh, he looked to the gondola where Etienne and Jhinn were arguing over what to do with Rajit.
“If you don’t get him warm, he won’t survive that. He should be on the land,” Etienne was saying.
“There’s something that way in a cave,” Tamerlan said, interrupting them. “Given the warnings posted, it’s likely what we came for.”
Etienne grunted.
“And I think the lake extends under the rock into the cave.”
Jhinn smiled at him, understanding what he meant.
“I think,” Tamerlan said, giving Etienne a pointed look. “That we should put Marielle in the gondola, too, and then go into the cave and Jhinn can join us by way of water once we’ve scouted the path. It will be easier to transport the wounded on a boat.”
Etienne gave him a cold look, but after a moment he shrugged. Tamerlan lifted Marielle as gently as he could, wading into the lake to bring her into the boat. He fussed with her cloak for a moment, pillowing her head and arranging the cloak warmly around her. Jhinn was loading the brazier with wood as Etienne brought it to him. They placed the brazier close to Marielle and Rajit.
“How bad is his chest wound?” Tamerlan asked.
Rajit merely groaned.
“It’s not deep, though I think she hit bone. It was a slash, though, not a stab and I stitched it. He’s uncomfortable, but he should survive as long as there is no infection.”
Tamerlan nodded. “Can you watch them both and go under the lip of the rock over there while we go on foot into the ca
ve?”
Jhinn looked nervous. “I don’t like it. The ceiling of rock will be very low – I’ll barely be able to see over the gunwales. Why don’t you check the cave first and then come back and tell me it’s safe enough to bring the injured through.”
“That makes sense,” Tamerlan agreed. “Do you have a lantern you can spare?”
Jhinn grabbed one of his gondola lanterns and handed it to Tamerlan. “Here. I only have one other left, so don’t break it.”
They shared a commiserating look and then Tamerlan stroked Marielle’s hair gently. She looked younger when she slept. So innocent. He didn’t like the idea of leaving her – even for a short time. He kissed her hair gently.
“I’m leaving now,” Etienne called. “if you expect to come, too, you’d better move it.”
Tamerlan rolled his eyes, sharing another weary look with Jhinn and then he lit the lantern and followed Etienne toward the caves, nervously touching his pocket where he still had three and a half rolls of spice left.
Save them, Tamerlan, he told himself. Save them for when you really need them.
20: What the Lady Sacrifice Died to Hold
Tamerlan
You must stop this foolishness, pretty boy! Lila’s voice had been getting louder. And she wasn’t the only one. Deathless Pirate broke in.
So far, we have kept you intact, helped you in your aims, worked for you when called. But that will end if you enter these caves. Do you know what it will be like to have an enemy inside your own mind?
Ram was resigned. Perhaps it is not the worst thing to show you – to let you see what you must do. And why you must do it. You will see, as I did, that this is the only way.
Etienne was reading the runes on the walls, taking his time as he examined each one.
“Do you want me to interpret these for you, Alchemist?” he asked coldly as he read.
“I can read them just fine on my own,” Tamerlan said. Etienne’s surprised expression was enough to give him a small, cynical smile. “You didn’t think I could read?”
“Not the runes of the Dragonblooded.”
“You know I am the son of a Landhold. I had his libraries at my disposal.”
The former Lord Mythos sounded bored. “I know all the Landholds surrounding Jingen and have met the sons of most of their families. I can name only two others who can read the runes of the Dragonblooded. If you truly can read them, then you must realize that these runes were not made for the people of the river plains. They were laid out for the dragonblooded.”
Because only the dragonblooded would open up the mountain with their blood, so they’re the only ones who would need to read the warnings, Ram suggested. He would know. He was the one who had been there before.
You should prepare yourself.
For what? He put his hand on the hilt of his sword. They were at the place where he had heard the scream last time and turned around. The bend in the path was just ahead. Strange bumps covered it and steam rose up, sulfur perhaps, steaming up from holes in the earth as he’d read in his alchemist books. The path sloped down from the bumps in a strange shape that wasn’t exactly flat. A ridge ran down the middle of it. The ridge was too bumpy to walk on, so they each took a side of the path. It was steamy here, warmer than in the outside air.
You have never been happy to see the Legends’ avatars in the past. You may not like this one, either.
Avatar?
What did you think Anamay was? Just an innocent victim?
They turned the bend and Tamerlan gasped. This was more than a cave. The ceiling here opened up and he realized it was a place between dragons. A narrow pass for lack of a better word. There was no sign of water. This wasn’t where the passage from Jhinn’s lake went. The path led between the matched haunches of two dragons up ahead. But here, in this small gap carved out between the mountains, bright light shone above them and snow coated the ground of the sheltered mountain pass. Tall, smooth scaled walls – or rather dragon haunches, lined the pass. The only ways in or out were the two entrances – one from this cave – or whatever it really was – and one leading out the other side. The mouth of their cave sloped downward, still ridged but dropping off suddenly. The only problem was that the way between the two sides fell away into emptiness.
Well, not the only problem. He’d been trying not to look at the other problem.
Hanging from the ceiling at the end of the cave, the cold white light streaming around it – was a chained figure hanging upside down so that ghostly hair streamed in the winter wind.
Tamerlan shivered in horror. Loose chains jingled musically as they banged against each other and the smell of death was heavy in the cave.
Etienne shook his head, confused, he covered his face with the collar of his coat. “This body smells fresh.”
There was a tinkling sound of something hitting the ground and Tamerlan swallowed down bile. Bright green emeralds leaked from the throat of the dead woman, forming a pile under her stinking corpse. Why did it stink when her blood was emeralds?
Avatars are part human, part magic, and part fantasy. What did you think would fall from her ravaged neck? Blood?
“She really wore the dress,” he said, feeling stupid as he said it. But she was dressed in a silky white sheath as if she’d come here for a dinner party rather than a hunting party. Her eyes were empty holes filled with green stones and her open mouth was packed just as tightly with emeralds. He shuddered. “I thought it was just a picture – like the ones of her draped over a dragon snout.”
“Where did you think the steam was coming from?” Etienne asked dryly.
He was right. They had walked down the snout of a dragon and they were standing on his head. The Lady Sacrifice had literally been slaughtered over his snout like in the picture he’d seen all that time ago in the Queen Mer library.
But why the dress? That still seemed strange. Why the emeralds?
What do you care? Ram the Hunter asked.
“Why so fresh?” Etienne asked, curiously. “Centuries later and we still smell the putrefaction?”
“I think that when she took Anglarok as her avatar she left this avatar,” Tamerlan said. “When he died, she died. But this avatar was abandoned days ago. It’s been actually dead for that long, not for the centuries it remained here.”
Etienne cursed softly. “Was that in the book?”
“Sort of.”
He cleared his throat as if trying to clear away the grisly scene. He pointed toward the open entrance over the cavern beyond.
“How did Ram get over that gap?”
“He killed a girl named Anamay and hung her up where you see her rotting corpse right now.”
“Son of a Legend. That’s grim.”
“And you think I’m insane,” Tamerlan commented quietly.
“We’re not doing that,” Etienne said quietly.
“Of course not,” Tamerlan agreed. “But we also can’t leap that gap.”
“How did killing her bridge the gap?” Etienne asked, confused. “That part doesn’t make sense to me.”
It didn’t make sense to Tamerlan either.
Magic is fueled by blood. Give it blood and it responds. But only the blood of the Dragonblooded. The people of the plains never had any magic in them. And I didn’t kill her to get over the gap. I told you the book was wrong.
Well, he wasn’t going to kill Marielle. Or himself. And no one else here was dragonblooded.
She was killed to hold the guardian of this place captive. Just as all the Legends do. We only used a drop of her blood to cross the bridge – that’s where the book got it wrong. We killed her on the way back. To bind the dragon.
The ground rumbled beneath them.
I guess her replacement avatar – Anglarok – was still holding him in place. I didn’t know for sure that could happen. But you killed him hours ago now.
Tamerlan shivered.
And that means the dragon is preparing to rise again. Unless you plan to kill someone
to bind it?
Tamerlan felt like he was going to be sick. Every single action. Every act of mercy. Every act of hope. They all had a price.
You should cross the bridge while you can – if you dare.
“Are the voices in your head telling you differently?” Etienne asked. His voice was taut. And no wonder. He must hate having to ask when he hated what Tamerlan was doing with the Legends so much.
“Her death didn’t open the Bridge,” Tamerlan said. “It held down a dragon. It stirs now that Anglarok has been killed.”
“By you.”
“Yes.”
Etienne’s look was dark.
Tamerlan sighed. “Let’s just cross the bridge, shall we?”
The book said that Ram had gone into the shadows and come out with an answer. Tamerlan scanned the opening of the cave and the walls. Was there –?
There. A shadowed alcove mostly hidden by rock. He raised the lantern and entered it cautiously. There was a metal plate set into the rock and nothing else.
Shaking his head, he slit his finger with his knife and let the blood drip onto the plate.
“You can come out now,” Etienne said from outside the alcove. He was trying hard to disguise the awe in his voice. “Your blood has done its job.”
Tamerlan stepped out of the alcove and his own jaw dropped.
A Bridge of air spanned the gap. You could only tell it was there by the subtle way it bent the light so that the landscape seen through it didn’t quite look right. Along the edges, a faint light glowed, as if to warn those crossing not to step right off of it.
Etienne leaned down, gathered a handful of blowing snow and threw it at the bridge. The light dusting of ice particles coated its ephemeral form wherever the snow landed. Taking a deep breath, he planted a single foot on the bridge, testing his weight.
Tamerlan pushed past him, stepping onto the bridge without testing it.
“If you don’t believe in magic by now,” he said as he passed the other man, “then you haven’t been paying attention.”
21: Journey of Faith
Bridge of Legends- The Complete Series Page 74