The Weight of the World on Her Shoulders
Page 4
Taslin had already vanished around the corner ahead, her leg-hugging dress instantly exchanged for a looser garment that trailed in the air a good few feet behind her. Dora slowed for the corner, not wanting to have to trust her balance if she slipped.
The tunnel beyond was empty, only dim light spilling down from a forlorn torch far ahead. Taslin's footsteps rang from the rocks, but Dora couldn't tell which way the Gift-Giver had gone. Better to check on Rel and let Taslin take care of the pursuit. What if something had happened to him? She'd taken her eye off him for a whole two days, and Rel could attract a lot of trouble in that time.
Her heart was outright pounding, a high, fiery ache in the centre of her chest, by the time she spilled down the side tunnel that led to the Clearseer's cell. The change in the quality of the rock underfoot, rough to smooth, caught her out and she slipped, banging her knuckles on the wall as she reached out to steady herself.
"And here was I thinking you'd given up on me." The sneer in Rel's voice was new, even given how unmanageable he'd been for the last fortnight. Just hearing him speak was enough to set a leaden lump in Dora's gut.
She straightened and turned to face him. Rise above it, she told herself. "Are you alright?" For once, she didn't mind feeling breathless. A hair straggled into her face, tickling her nose, but she brushed it aside.
Rel stood at the wall of bars that restrained him, arms folded, legs spread just a little wide of his shoulders. His face showed none of the childishness that there had been in his voice. He glared down his nose at her, lips pressed flat. Dora drew herself up to match, though Rel looked like he was readying for a physical fight, not a verbal one.
He said, "I haven't been better since you let them lock me up in here."
"What do you mean?"
"Chag Van Raighan was just here." Rel smiled at Dora's gasp. "He said he could get me out of here, legitimately. All charges dropped, reinstated to full service immediately."
"What?" Dora's belly wriggled. Van Raighan was supposed to be under lock and key in Federas. What was he doing here? And how had he talked Rel into listening to him? Dora took a deep breath, summoning up all the rage she could even if it dizzied her for a second. "What does he want from you in return?"
"Who said he wants anything?" The twist to Rel's mouth might have looked like a wry smile, if his eyes hadn't flashed in the dim candlelight, proud and vicious. In her anger, Dora could see the haze of Rel's contempt for her boiling around his head. Even with everything that had happened since their arrival in Vessit, she hadn't seen him this arrogant since he'd fled his incomplete training rather than bow to Ciarive's discipline. Head held high, he finished, "Chag remembers which side he's on, which is more than can be said for you anymore."
"Which side?!" Anger blasted through her, stripping away the clouds of conflicting logics. She felt the shape of her Sherim rise from the depths of consciousness, waiting in case she needed it. Not now. Not yet. "I just held the entire Realm together on my own wick for four hours! If that's not your side, which side are you on?"
The Sherim's logic made reading Rel's face hard, but she could see the surprise racing through him like ice. All too quickly - when had he learnt such conviction? - the tide turned, bursting out of the Clearseer's face in a torrent of violet emotions. Anger, frustration and bitterness washed across Dora, but she held her ground. Voice pinched high, eyes narrowed to glimmering slits, Rel said, "And why was the Realm falling apart in the first place? Did you even stop to think about that?"
"The Realm is falling apart because you messed with things you didn't understand." Dora spat the words at him. In the air between them, her mind splashed into his, the recoil making them both flinch. It was like slamming her brain straight into a monument to ego and pride. There wasn't even the faintest hint of blurring together. No room for compromise.
"Oh, come on, Dora. You know that makes no sense." Rel came back swinging, fists wrapped around the bars of his prison. "You really think a big door could make a blind bit of difference between that Sherim and the Abyss? If the Sherim were to blame, the Realm would have cracked long ago. This is Keshnu's doing."
Dora squeezed every muscle in her body, trying to ground the tension. From somewhere, she found enough calm to get her voice down and level. "I watched him fix it, Rel. He pushed himself even harder than I did, knitting the fault back together. He's down there even now, working at it."
"How would you know?" Rel folded his arms again, and this time he really did sneer. "You barely understand your own logic anymore, never mind Second Realm logic." He faltered over the last couple of words, the phrase breaking the rhythm of his dismissal.
But for the falter, Dora realised her composure might have shattered. Rel's words cut a little too close to the truth. Dammit, she was not going to let him provoke her to tears again. "I- My Sherim gives me glimpses. More than glimpses, when I'm using it fully. I watched everything he did, Rel. I've been down there since, and he's still doing everything right."
"Oh, for-!" Rel spun on the spot, putting his back to her. "You went to see him first, before coming to check on me? And I'm supposed to think you're still on my side?"
"I never claimed to be on your side," Dora hissed. "You broke the law on the word of a complete stranger and threw us all into danger. I'm on the side of all the people who might die because of what you did."
"I did nothing wrong!" Rel rounded on her, and the ferocity of it literally threw her back against the wall, smashing across her in a wave of raw force. "I've Seen the Realm splitting, Dora. If Keshnu fixed the Abyss, how is that still a possibility?"
Dora put a hand up to her mouth, found blood on her lip. This was getting out of hand. She could feel her Sherim leaking, and the Wild Power from it was reacting to Rel's overwrought state. If she got any angrier, it would do the same for her.
She closed her eyes, ignoring Rel's next salvo. The words came through still, as a sheaf of glowing red daggers, but her mind was well out of range. It took a conscious effort to focus on her Sherim, find the alignment that would allow her to get a grip on it. With her finger tightly bound, she couldn't quite match the tangle of her ashtmer with the ghiten of her Gift, but she was able to give the creaking arrangement a crude shove.
The Sherim jerked shut, the light of the power it spilled into the cell vanishing. Out beyond Dora's eyelids, the glow of Rel's aura faded from solar to almost limpid, a faint yellow sheen over grey stone. She opened her eyes, found Rel glaring at her. If he was worried by whatever he'd felt of her fiddling with her Gift, he showed no sign of it.
Dora folded her arms. "Keshnu never claimed his solution was permanent. How could it be? With the way the Realms are crumpled up together, it'd take a miracle to straighten them out."
"God, listen to yourself!" Rel grabbed the bars, wrestling with them as if he was trying to shake them loose. "'The way the Realms are crumpled up together'? That doesn't make a blind bit of sense. You have to see that, don't you?" His voice rose in desperation on the question.
"I-" Dora cut off as Realmspace twisted in the wall at her back, sending a sharp jag of nausea through her gut. She bent double, gagging, the acrid tang of vomit rising up the back of her nostrils.
"'Ware the Gate!" Taslin's voice echoed from the rocks, harsh and cold.
Dora managed to get herself upright before the Gift-Giver could step through and offer her a hand. She resisted the urge to spit despite the foul taste left in the back of her mouth. At least she'd managed not to throw up. She swallowed awkwardly and turned to Taslin.
"They got away." Taslin's sharp features were held tight in a scowl. Dora could almost hear her jaw creak as she finished, "I'm sorry."
"What happened?" Dora glanced at Rel, whose glare was fixed on Taslin.
"Two humans were here, a man and a woman." The stiffness in the Gift-Giver's voice spoke of deep frustration. "The woman was a Gatemaker, and a good one. I lost them after the second Gate."
"The man was Van Raighan." Dora folded her arms, realised s
he might appear disappointed with Taslin, and dropped them back to her sides.
"You're alright?" Taslin waited for Dora's nod, then continued. "What was he doing here?"
"Promising to free Rel, apparently." Dora tried to shrug the idea off, but it was hard, over the memory of the certainty in Rel's voice. Had he had a Clearseeing about his release, too? She glared at the Clearseer. "Rel was just reporting on a Clearseeing he's had about the Abyss."
"Forget it." Rel slouched back to sit on his untidy bed. Dora made a mental note to check someone had seen to getting his linens laundered. Again, he turned his glare on Taslin. "I'm not giving her any warning of what I know." He pushed himself back to sit against the wall and closed his eyes.
He'd pulled the act before during his incarceration, and gotten very good at ignoring anyone trying to talk to him. Dora rolled her eyes and shared a heavy glance with Taslin. The Gift-Giver pointed toward the way out of the cell annexe. Dora let her lead the way, throwing one final glance at Rel.
She turned away and joined Taslin in the main tunnel. The Wilder was staring at the stone that now hid Rel, scowling fit to shatter it. Her face softened as she looked up at Dora. "Could Rel have been conspiring with the Van Raighans all along?"
Dora pulled up short, steadied herself against a brief flash of dizziness. The idea made