Winter was trying to follow Renni’s instruction, and Renni was doing all she could to keep Lore from stopping him. Marta understood the reason Lore had to be stopped. But as she launched herself at Lore she was jerked back by her hair with such force that she screamed in pain.
“You deserve the same treatment as your dear husband,” Jerome said, releasing his grasp of her hair only to grab her arms and pick her up. But before he could twirl her around as he had Ed, his arms stiffened. She glanced at Winter, saw him sketching furiously with his fingers in the damp sand.
Jerome let out a roar of fury when his hands opened and Marta dropped free. She scrambled to her feet and went back to help Renni with Lore.
Veronica sat up with the help of Kyla, who then bent and kissed her on the forehead. “Always remember that I love you,” Kyla said and turned away.
Veronica watched her surrogate mother move toward someone lying near her. As Kyla bent down over that person, Veronica saw that it was Winnie.
“Take life from me as I take death from you.” As Aunt Kyla spoke those words, a shiver ran through Veronica. She hadn’t realized that Winnie was dead, but she saw now that the older woman lay stiff, motionless, no sign of breath, no reaction to the falling rain, no flicker of life.
But as Kyla touched her, Winnie’s body relaxed. Her chest heaved. She drew in an audible breath. Another. And another. In moments Kyla was helping her sit up as she had helped Veronica.
“Take care of each other,” Kyla said, addressing both Veronica and Winnie.
She circled around them and Veronica saw, lying on her other side, Gorvy Mack and just past him Professor Morence. Dead, both of them.
Kyla went to Gorvy and bent over him as she had Winnie. Veronica noted that as she reached out to touch him her hand trembled. “Take life from me as I take death from you,” she said, repeating the words she’d uttered before restoring Winnie.
Like Winnie, Gorvy Mack’s body relaxed and in a moment he took one shuddering breath and then another and another. This time Aunt Kyla did not help him to sit but moved on past him to Professor Morence, where she repeated the process. As life returned to the professor, Veronica was alarmed to see Aunt Kyla stagger and almost fall. Her face paled, losing almost all color. She seemed to remain on her feet only by great effort of will.
Veronica struggled to stand and, although still a bit shaky, went to Kyla, who stumbled through the wet sand toward still another corpse: that of Marchion Blandry.
“Aunt Kyla, how can you bring back life to the dead?” she asked.
Aunt Kyla shook her head. “No time to explain,” she said, her voice weak, barely more than a whisper.
She bent over Marchion and repeated the mantra that had restored life to the others. “Take life from me as I take death from you.”
Cold chills ran up Veronica’s spine as she guessed what that meant. “No, Aunt Kyla. You can’t.”
But already Marchion was returning to life, and this time Kyla would have fallen had not Veronica caught and supported her.
The Honorable Wellner hurried to help Veronica support Kyla. As he reached them, Abigail’s voice rang out. “Over here,” she called. “Help Leah. Hurry!”
Kyla turned toward Abigail, and Veronica turned with her, Camsen Wellner assisting. Although Abigail sat some distance from them, holding Leah in her arms, Veronica could see that Leah was dead. Blood, already dried, stained her blouse and the hole where a bullet had entered was visible as a darker splotch within the dark red stain. Seeing that, Veronica guessed that Isham or one of his men had shot Leah. She hadn’t died in the same way as the others, suffocated under the sand. And she’d been dead longer than any of the others.
“Aunt Kyla, don’t,” Veronica begged. “I know how Aunt Abigail loves her, but Aunt Leah’s been shot, through the heart it looks like, and bringing her back can kill you.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Kyla’s voice was so faint that Veronica had to place her ear by Kyla’s mouth to understand the words. “I have to do this.”
“I won’t let you” Veronica declared. “Honorable Wellner, don’t let her go there.”
Camsen Wellner stopped, still supporting Kyla but not letting her move forward.
“Ondin would want this.” Kyla gasped out the words. “Your duty … as a priest … you must … in his name.”
“What about the Power-Giver, Aunt Kyla?” Veronica implored, shocked that Kyla would invoke Ondin. “He wouldn’t want this.”
“Not his choice.”
This was all wrong. But Wellner was moving forward again, helping Kyla toward Abigail and Leah. Veronica dropped Kyla’s arm and moved to stand in front of her. “I won’t let you do this,” she said.
Kyla didn’t answer, just gave Camsen Wellner a pleading look.
“I think you’d better let her do it,” he said. “If it’s the will of the gods—”
“It’s not the will of the gods,” Veronica burst out. “She doesn’t even believe in your gods. You can’t let her do it. It will kill her.” Tears fell though she tried to hold them back.
Kyla shook her head weakly. “Claid,” she said. “I promised.”
“You promised Claid? The Dire Lord Claid?” Veronica could not accept what Kyla said. “He wouldn’t want you to die, I know.”
“You don’t know anything,” Kyla said more forcefully, gathering strength with obvious effort. “You don’t know Claid. I do, and I trust him.” To Camsen Wellner, priest of Ondin, she said, “Help me.”
“In Ondin’s name, I will,” he said, and, ignoring Veronica, he lifted Kyla into his arms and carried her to Abigail and Leah.
Veronica ran after him, tugging at him, trying to hold him back. Still weak, not fully recovered from her own resurrection, unable to use her power, she could not stop him. When they halted before Abigail, Veronica burst into tears. “Aunt Abigail, you can’t let her do this,” she said. “She’ll die.”
But Abigail said, “I can’t live without Leah.”
Kyla reached out and rested her hand on Leah’s head. Her lips moved, and though no sound came out, Veronica knew the words she repeated. “Take life from me as I take death from you.”
Moments—or an eternity—passed.
Leah took a breath. A bullet erupted from her chest and the wound closed behind it.. Abigail let out a cry of joy. Kyla crumpled to the ground.
Veronica fell beside her, weeping. Camsen Wellner placed a hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Veronica,” he said. “I think I was spared from being buried with the others to help Lady Kyla complete this work.”
Shrugging off his hand, placing her hands on Kyla, Veronica tried desperately to summon her power to heal. It failed her.
“Aunt Abigail, heal Aunt Kyla now,” She begged.
Perhaps Abigail tried. Veronica didn’t know. She only knew that Kyla gasped, coughed, and then lay still, no longer breathing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
HOPE
Ed sat up as soon as his head stopped spinning enough to permit the required movement. He couldn’t yet stand, and the arm and wrist he’d landed on hurt terribly. One or both were broken, he was certain. His immediate reaction was rage mixed with humiliation. It had been a long time since he’d been called “Simple Eddy,” a longer time since he’d thought of himself that way. Jerome thought him a fool, and being thought a fool made him act like a fool. He’d wanted to help Marta, but he’d only made matters worse.
He finally dared raise his head and turn to see what was happening to Marta. He saw Jerome grab Marta by her hair, then grasp her arms and lift her. Understanding that Jerome’s intention was to swing her around as he had been swung and possibly toss her either toward him or in the opposite direction, he lowered his head again, unable to watch. Instead he stared at the damp ground around him. The young woman, Trille, had sung and the rain had come. She’d now stopped singing and the thirsty ground was soaking up the water. Soon, Ed guessed, it would be as dry as before, no longer his land but Jerome�
�s.
To calm himself he closed his eyes and pictured this world as it had been when it was his “special place.” He pictured the grassy meadow with its riot of wild flowers, the brook with fish filling its sparkling waters, the apple tree in bloom beside it. It had been so lovely, and—
And it can be again, said a voice in his head. Not the Power-Giver, but the other voice, the one he recognized as Claid’s. Claid, the Dire Lord, whom Marta had declared the real Power-Giver, the source of the power that flowed through the Power-Giver, he who had been the Mage Alair, to Kyla and Marta and all those who received his gifts. Whom Claid chose to receive his gifts.
He’d chosen Ed, had spoken to Ed, as he never had to Marta. That counted for a lot. It had convinced Ed that he wasn’t Simple Eddy. Not simple at all. Highly gifted, Marta had declared.
Marta was right, the voice spoke again. You were and still are.
Ed opened his eyes. Had he dreamed the voice? Nothing had changed. He still sat on wet sand. The streambed nearby was still empty and dry.
No! It wasn’t filled with sparkling water as he remembered it, but a trickle of muddy water flowed over the pebbles that filled its center. A trickle that widened as he stared at it. It brought him hope, enough to let him turn and look at Jerome and Marta.
Marta was no longer in Jerome’s clutches. She was free! Jerome stood still, glaring at her and at Renni. They had subdued Lore and were sitting on him so he could not rise. Winter was sketching madly in the sand.
Marta looked toward Ed and grinned. He smiled back at her and with his good hand waved toward the brook, though from where she was sitting she wouldn’t see the water running through it.
He looked down at the ground around him and saw green sprouts poking up from the wet sand. Yes! The land was not as dead as he—as they all had thought. He could bring it back.
Marta enjoyed the moment of calm, a moment for taking stock of where they were and what they needed to do. As soon as Jerome was immobilized, all the fight had gone out of Lore. Renni could handle him by herself. She rose and went to Ed. He must be hurt, or by now he would have come to her.
As she stood, Winter said, “Miss Marta, I can’t hold him much longer. The sand is drying, and I can’t keep the drawing intact.”
She sighed. The moment of calm was already past.
A voice spoke in her mind. Hoping it was Claid, she was disappointed when she recognized the sender as Professor Morence.
My power has come back, and I rather suspect that all who had been felled by the evil one have also regained at least some of their power. It might be good to alert everyone to be ready to act in concert, each according to his or her abilities. If you agree, I can send a message to them to that effect. Please nod if you agree or shake your head if you don’t. I can see that from where I’m standing.
She nodded without turning around. His suggestion couldn’t have come at a better time.
In seconds came his next sending: I’ve delivered the message. They await your signal. Nod again when you are ready.
Professor Morence’s message only added to Veronica’s despair. Act? In concert? Even if they could act all together, they weren’t ready to do so. Her power hadn’t returned, and in her present frame of mind she couldn’t imagine that it ever would.
Aunt Kyla was dead. Nothing else mattered. Jerome would destroy them all, and Veronica didn’t care. If Aunt Abigail hadn’t insisted on her bringing Leah back to life, Aunt Kyla could have been saved. Veronica loved Aunt Leah, but Aunt Kyla was her rock, her anchor.
Oh, sure, she’d rebelled sometimes when she thought Aunt Kyla was being too strict, and occasionally she’d even complained to Aunt Leah about it, but down deep she knew, even before Aunt Leah defended Aunt Kyla, that Aunt Kyla was right. Even when she’d been angry about something Aunt Kyla had said or done, she’d never questioned adoptive aunt’s love for her, and she’d always known that Aunt Kyla wanted what was best for her.
She rose from beside Kyla’s still form and looked for Marta and Ed. She spotted Ed sitting off by himself some distance from where Marta and Renni were struggling with Lore. He cradled one arm in a way that suggested he’d hurt it. But the thing that amazed her was that around him the sand was tinged with green. Even as she stared, the green spread out further. He must be healing his land!
Ed was bringing life back to a dead land. Maybe Aunt Kyla could be brought back. Surely she could! It was up to her to find the way.
She headed toward Ed, her confidence resurging and with it, her power. She’d heal his arm. She could do that now.
Jerome was facing Marta, Renni, Lore, and Winter, his arms stretched toward them. He was standing absolutely still. Something or someone had again immobilized him. Unless he was pretending to be held fast as a joke and would spring free and wreak havoc when least expected.
She ran to Ed, not wanting to waste any time. He’d be needed when Jerome acted against them, and she had a strong feeling that the time for that was near. “Your arm,” she said, “what’s wrong with it?”
“Broken. Possibly in two places.”
She knelt beside him and ran both her hands on his arm, feeling for a break in the bone. She nodded. “Upper arm and wrist. Hold real still.”
She wrapped one hand around his wrist. He winced but made no sound. The other hand she placed over the break she’d detected in his upper arm.
“Should you be using your power this way?” he asked even as he felt the bones begin to knit together.
She ignored his question, gritted her teeth against the pain flowing through her hands up into her arms, and nodded at the circle of green sprouts spreading out from around him. “You’ve been busy,” she said.
“Took my mind off the pain,” he said with a grin.
She had to take her mind off the pain she was drawing from him. “Do you know who or what is binding Jerome?”
“No idea. He may be faking. He loves to torment us, get our hopes up and then let them down in a big way.”
“I know, but I don’t think he would have let Aunt Kyla raise everybody from the dead if he’d been able to stop her.” Her voice caught in her throat as she added, “I’m glad she did it, but why’d it have to kill her?”
“She’s dead?” Ed asked, shocked. “I didn’t know.”
“I think she is, but maybe not. I mean, I don’t think she’s breathing but I keep hoping she’s just in a deep, deep trance or something.”
“Or something,” Ed echoed. “Let’s hope.”
“You saw something in your crystal before. Why can’t you now?” Petros demanded, holding Dreama in his arms and rocking her gently even while he glared at Zauna.
“Because it’s cracked. Why can’t you understand that?”
It was the same complaint he’d heard too many times, and although he was a patient man, his patience with her was exhausted. “It was cracked when it showed you something earlier. ‘They’re all dead,’ you said, and you still haven’t told me exactly what it was you saw.”
“I’m not sure any more. It couldn’t have been a true picture, it had to be from the crystal being cracked.”
“Zauna, we have to face whatever it was you saw. And you need to stop believing that what you saw wasn’t real because the crystal ball is cracked. Look into it, please. Try.”
“I can’t,” she insisted. “I can’t bear to. What it showed was too horrible. I have to cling to the hope that it wasn’t a true vision.”
He sighed. He couldn’t win. She would neither describe what she’d seen, which must have been horrific, nor dare to look again. He hadn’t pegged her as a coward, but she simply could not and would not summon the courage to gaze into the crystal again. She preferred to clutch the bit of hope that remained—the hope that the vision had been false.
As for him, he could do nothing but hope that what she had seen was incomplete and not as dire as it had seemed to her. And hope that an answer would come soon from some other source than the cracked crystal globe.
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Lore no longer struggled. Whether that was a good thing or a bad, Renni didn’t know. It did give her hope that he might have come to his senses. Or that Jerome might have released his hold on him.
Winter’s alarming declaration chilled her, but then she had a thought. The rain had stopped. His sketchpad might have dried out a bit. She thought it had fallen onto the ground in front of Winter, and it must be under Lore. If they were lucky, Lore’s body heat might have dried it.
Winter was trying his best to shield his sand drawing now that he knew its power. His power, newly discovered and surely a comfort to him for the modicum of control it gave him.
“Marta, help me get Lore up.” Renni hoped she wouldn’t have to explain the reason for that request.
Marta understood. She grabbed his arm, Renni grabbed the other, and they raised him to a sitting position.
The sketchpad was beneath him, still wet, covered with sand, its pages wrinkled and torn from Lore’s struggles. Winter retrieved it and said in a sad voice, “It’s not much use. And my charcoal’s wet. But I’ll see if there’s any page that I can use at least a part of.”
He didn’t sound hopeful, but he was willing to try. And really, Marta thought, what more could any of them do? What hope did any of them have?
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
FINAL BATTLE
Professor Morence strolled toward Veronica and Ed as though he were taking a walk in a park. When he reached them, he stared for a moment at the green shoots still sprouting around Ed. “Amazing!” he commented. Then to Veronica he said, “I’m trying not to call Jerome’s attention to me. I noticed he moved his hand as I was walking here, and I fear he’ll break free at any moment. We must all be ready. I would definitely draw his attention if I walked to Marta, but I hoped it would be safe to come here to you.”
A Mix of Magics (Arucadi: The Beginning Book 3) Page 21