by Lisa Lowell
As he came back into awareness of his abused body, Vamilion heard his breathing had grown shallow. He doubted he would retain consciousness. The agony of the Land from such wrenching had traveled down his back and he felt for a bit as if he had come unhinged. The buzzing in his ears sounded like hissing steam escaping a long forgotten vent and the clouds closed in from the sides, growing dim. But he had one more act of magic left before he gave into the cairn again.
“Gailin, come to me.” Had he said that aloud? Could he say it in magic? He didn't know, nor would he be alive enough to know if he had succeeded. He just knew he tried.
* * *
At dawn Gailin stood on the stoop as she had in her dream, curious to see if it had been real. The snow had begun to melt and the mountains, heavy with it seemed to sigh, but nothing changed to tell her that this dream bore remembering. Experimentally she reached behind herself to bring forth the candle and reenact the events of the dream. She looked at the hunk of wax, wondering why she still even carried the thing. She had never used it, lit it or shown it to Drake. Had she even written about it in the book so Vamilion knew she had found one of her Talismans? She could not remember. Surely he would have said something if she had.
Before she could light the taper, however, the rumbling started. A sudden, unexpected jolt threw Gailin against the doorway and she looked up at the snow hanging from the slopes surrounding their valley. With an earthquake an avalanche would come down and completely swallow their poor little cabin. Frantically, she rushed in and reached for Drake to rouse him from bed, but the floor lurched beneath her and coals from the fire fell off the hearth and skittered past her, lighting the linens on the bed. Drake sat up in alarm and made his own judgment of the rumbling he heard. He reached out toward her, mouth open, about to say something deadly when she saw his eyes roll back in his head and he fell back against the pillows. Gailin crawled to the bed rather than be knocked back down as she heard the crashing of trees above the cabin and felt a sudden rush as air was displaced. Some alarming instinct made her grasp Drake's hand and with the other she held the candle high. She knew to her core where she wanted to go as the avalanche hit the cabin wall and a wave of white met her vision.
She closed her eyes and wished.
Peace didn't come with her wish. She felt the ground still pitching beneath her, but the cabin and the white had disappeared. Instead she held Drake's hand, kneeling in the new spring grasses just outside her old home by the village where she had been born. She knelt in her nightgown, beside Drake's unconscious body that apparently she had taken with her, moving from one earthquake storm to another. The trees in the forest danced like reeds in a pond during a wind storm. She dare not stand up so she dropped the candle and crawled a few feet closer to her husband. Unaccountably the candle disappeared but she wasn't concerned about that.
Instead Gailin lifted Drake's lids and saw he was unconscious. His breathing grew so shallow she could not count how many he took with the jouncing of the earth knocking it out of him. She felt for his heartbeat at his neck and felt a fluttering, like it tripped fifty times in an effort to bring about one single decent beat. Again on instinct she placed her hand on his heart and then with a magical pulse, jarred his heart. This seemed to help, for she felt it take on a much more normal beat; painfully slow, but regular. What had happened to him?
What was happening to Drake and the whole world? The earthquakes continued to rock and while she felt safe enough out of doors and away from the trees, these tremblers continued for ages. The ocean-like waves passed through the plains right in front of her terrifyingly close. Until it settled, she would not bring Drake into the house, even if that meant treating him right there on the grasses in front of the cabin. At least this far south it was warmer and spring had come.
This led her to think about how she had arrived a thousand miles away instantly. She looked for the candle and found it again in the invisible pack she carried at her back and she was grateful that it was always with her. The most precious possessions she owned, all invisibly hidden had come with her in their hurried, magical escape. And the candle had been the key. Magical travel must be the gift of the Talisman. She again held the candle out in front of her and thought of where else she could go with it and nothing came to mind. She wouldn't return to the palace in the mountains until the trembling ended and the only other place she had been that she wanted to remember was here.
And despite herself, she had to stay with Drake. Curiosity drew her back and she put away the candle to look into what she could do to free herself while given this time of peace in the middle of this geologic chaos. What had done this to Drake? Since his unconsciousness happened almost simultaneously, she assumed it was related to the tremendous geological changes the Land endured right now. Experimentally Gailin delved into Drake's mind to see how that fared and was staggered, first that she could enter it once again, for he had blocked her actively except at night when he held her by the throat, feeding on her. Now the crumbling walls of his mind were gone and instead a vast open plain of ash spread out before her mind's eye. No walls or even stones to trip upon marred the dusty terrain. The only thing to interrupt the metaphorical plains of Drake's mind was the arch of souls, now not lined with stone, but with a blue light that seemed to stretch the membrane across the void that she had not been able to touch since Drake had made his mandate that she not be able to do magic against him.
But things had changed. He was unconscious and the earth was splitting in two. Could she cut free the trapped souls now? Experimentally Gailin conjured a knife again and approached the blue lit space. Now, without the crumbling walls and creeping moss, the profound eeriness sent a chill down her spine. She could hear the wailing souls, clamoring to escape or be released. Gailin lifted her arm and for once was able to act. She sliced through the membrane and watched with fascination as a soul escaped into the gray world. Nothing blocked her. Drake did not wake her with a strangling grip.
So she sliced again, releasing another and another. The membrane continued to reseal, but she persisted cutting and slashing for what seemed like hours. She could still feel her body jouncing around on the tortured land, but concentrated instead on finishing the job she always intended and if that killed Drake, so be it. He wasn't awake enough to protest and she was sworn to try. Finally, when her knife moved through the thickness and nothing emerged, she stepped back in wonder. Had she finished the job?
With no souls left to release, Gailin removed herself from the gray wasteland of his mind and returned to the real world of rumbling earthquakes to look at the alarming tremblers and saw a huge gash in the earth had widened near them. Hurriedly she took Drake by the arm and dragged him closer to the forest and out of immediate danger of falling into a chasm.
Why save him, she asked herself as she sat back down beside Drake to wait out the geological storm. He had tortured her, manipulated her and used her as a slave, holding her name captive. She could go in now and with a twist of thought remove his brain stem from his skull and be done with him, but something stopped her. The Heart Stone? What had Vamilion said about it being a judge to block you, if you used magic in the wrong way? She really could not justify killing Drake, at least now, as vulnerable as he was, but that didn't mean she couldn't act. Her exploration of the mind made her intimately aware of his hidden secrets.
Reluctantly, she dived back into Drake's mind again and sought out a sealed chamber that held her name. She imagined he had locks and traps on this treasure. Also he would not keep it in a visible place, even if the whole landscape had changed. The gray wasted plain that was his metaphorical mind spread like the sea before her. With a magical sweep of her hand, she brushed the ash away and exposed the cracked and cratered bedrock. Without the foot deep ash to hide under, the scarring of his past showed up as crumbled and tortured slate. And on the slabs of stone she saw a lidded box made of the same cold and brittle rock. She walked to it and then knelt to lift the lid. Inside she found a book e
xactly like the real one Vamilion had given her.
Without hesitation Gailin lifted the book and inside found all Drake's secrets written inside. His map of the ley lines with the markings visible for her to see, filled one page. On another she found a list of all the things he had learned about the Wise One's magic and even a few things about Vamilion himself that Gailin had not known. On the various pages, like a daily journal, Drake had written the names and sensations he had felt at the death of every soul he had swallowed. Thousands of lives he had taken. It nauseated her as she read his fascination with the ecstasy of a soul leaving a body. It held nothing but pleasure for him, more than he ever felt with Gailin. In that list she found Jonis' name and she mourned for her friend a bit. At least she had been able to free her old beau. Then she returned to the book and saw, on every page written since he had met her, Drake had inscribed her name and beside that word was another name. His.
Neeorm, she read and realized she now had the ability to do to him what he had done to her. Did she have the right? Whatever she did, she decided she would not do it here in the wasteland of his mind. Instead she held the book in her hands and with a wave made the pages blank, like they had never been written. She then put the book back in the box and sealed it beyond ever opening, with wax from her Talisman candle. If Drake even remembered he had a name, he would have to break past her to get to it and then find nothing. And he was far safer without it.
She left Drake's mind and watched from a distance as even the wasteland faded and his mind became a blank slate, empty of every thought he ever held. Even a baby had memories and experiences; cold, warm, sound, sight and pressure from when they were newborn. Gailin had taken him beyond that. Drake might not even have instincts left, and that was fitting in her mind. And the Heart Stone did not block her or give her hesitation for her actions. She had exacted her justice without harming him or others.
Outside the magic realm of Drake's mind, the earth had not settled yet, but the great gashes of tearing and lifting were returning to their former places. Fallen trees did not right themselves but the chasms moved back together and formed a slight scar where the soil had been disturbed. The trees around her stopped dancing and she felt safe enough to stand. From her feet she looked out over the plains and saw a storm in the northwest, but little other activity. She wondered how the village had fared in this epic earthquake. If this destruction had reached from the valley where her palace rose, all the way across the continent to the Don River, the earth must have shifted on its axis and she could well imagine weather would change, seasons perhaps, and people would be frightened. How far reaching was this earthquake?
Vamilion? Was this his work? Suddenly she remembered that she could she reach him now. She had broken Drake's mandate to not perform magic to contact the others, so it stood to reason that she now could do any magic she wished. Gailin immediately sat down beside Drake and pulled out the book Vamilion had given her, intending to write something to see if he would respond. Maybe he was still working his magic and wouldn't reply instantly, but she wanted to write something directly to him, tell him that she was free of Drake's influence and that she had taken the sorcerer as near to death as magic allowed.
She began with Vamilion's name, deliberately addressing her letter to him and smiled as the stylus did not stop or hesitate, but as she went on to continue her thought, something else struck. She stopped and knew she was being called to come to someone's rescue. She didn't hear any words, but the compulsion felt deep and strong. She reached for her candle to travel and hesitated briefly. She couldn't go and leave Drake in a coma on the open plain. She put away the book, reached for Drake's flaccid hand and then used the candle to move inexorably toward where the compulsion guided her.
She arrived, blinded by a lavender light, but it normalized quickly to let her see that she had come somewhere still on the open plains. The stormy weather overhead loomed but as she looked around, Gailin literally saw nothing to use as a landmark except for a trampled and singed ring of grass. And in the middle of the flattened grass lay a man, unconscious and almost crushed as much as the grass. She left Drake where he had arrived beside her and went to this patient, reaching for his mind first to read where his most dangerous injuries might be.
And she met a wall more powerful than any Drake had built. Rather than fight – and fail – to climb over this wall, Gailin did not use magic but instead let his body do the speaking. She could observe the damage with just her hands and eyes. Instinctively she drew her hands down over his long, muscular frame, hovering over tremendous bruises and could feel the profound exhaustion there. Then, when she reached the eighth vertebrae she gasped. About where his ribs stopped, this man's back was shattered. Internal organs were scrambled, but he wouldn't feel the bleeding pressure because there was no way he could feel from the middle of his back on down. Resolutely Gailin continued down the man's body, noting his pelvis and both thigh bones were broken as well. The crushed back probably was a blessing, or the pain would be killing him.
Gailin followed her instincts and imagined there was some way she could knit the nerves and bones together. Unfortunately, this man's personal shields blocked her and she would have to overcome that first if she were to attempt to heal him. She had never dealt with so much internal damage. A burn or a fever, those were things she could see or treat with a medicinal tea. This, pure crushing, would take magic and that meant getting beyond his shield over both mind and body. Gailin tried speaking to him, begging to be invited in. The wounded man retained just enough consciousness to resist, but not enough to accept her help.
Stymied, Gailin sat back in the grass and truly looked at the stranger. He was huge, both tall and strongly built, like he carried great weights for a living. When she picked up his hand, his long roughened fingers spoke of hard work and a powerful stroke if he carried a weapon. She looked, but saw no tools or baggage to indicate his state in life. He was dressed as a worker with sturdy boots and a shirt in need of a wash, unless ash was its original color. He had been outside, even in this winter, for his wind burned face looked summer tan. Very privately she thought of how handsome her patient looked. He had dark hair with a slight wave to it and deep set eyes. On the pretext of trying to see if there was any life to him, she lifted his eyelid and found his stone gray eye staring back at her.
“Sir, you have got to let me help you,” she whispered. “You're very badly hurt, but you are shielding me out.” The patient didn't acknowledge her, not even with a groan, though his breathing picked up, painful and shallow, gasping like a drowning man. Gailin pulled back her hands and wished there was something she could do.
Then someone spoke, gruff and almost angry behind her, startling her. “Gilead let the Queen do her work. Drop your shields.”
Gailin recognized that voice and she bolted to her feet. “Owailion,” she whispered, looking down, as if afraid to make eye contact, as he might strike her down, being a full blown King and the first Wise One.
“Go on girl,” Owailion ordered impatiently, motioning her to heal the stranger. “He won't fight you anymore.”
Obediently Gailin dropped down beside the tall man, Gilead, again. She looked into his mind and found the wall had indeed come down, as if it weren't even there and the image of the man, healthy and whole stood before her. He looked amazing in her mind's eye and she had a hard time concentrating on why she had entered his mind in the first place. “Sir,” she told him frankly. “You've been sorely wounded and if I heal you directly, the pain alone may kill you. Therefore I must put you into a deeper sleep. I am only going to let you rest so that you will not be uncomfortable. Please do not fight me.”
Gilead's image nodded and Gailin reached into his mind for the one spot that would induce a deep, dreamless release from pain. He slipped away as if night had come into his mind and only the stars – breathing and heartbeat – remained to even indicate he was not as empty as Drake.
Gailin pulled back out of Gilead's now prepare
d mind and then grounded her own soul before she once again imagined in her mind's eye how that break in his spine actually had happened. It was obvious he had fallen from a great height and several of his damaged ribs had ripped into his liver and spleen. Carefully she used magic movement to nudge the bones out of the organs and sealed them back into place, like the earthquake's terrible chasms had returned to themselves. She saw the free blood pooling in his gut and wondered how to deal with it. Could she just put it back into the circulatory system, moving it from one place to another? She tried this, pouring all the free pooling blood back into the major arteries but this only proved she needed to patch them first, for the fluid all leaked out again before she could address that problem.
How had he survived without any blood remaining in his circulatory system? His heart soldiered on, beating slowly, but moved almost nothing through his system. It seemed miraculous. But rather than having answers for these questions Gailin patiently continued to look for punctures and splits in the blood flow and sealed them in her mind's eye. Then she performed her blood replacement again. She found one additional slit in a vein she had missed and sealed that up as well. She slowly continued with the easier healing: broken hips and leg bones, bruised muscles and impact lacerations before she finally admitted she needed to heal his back.
Gailin felt ready to deal with the spinal injury, having repaired all that was going to pain him once she managed to reestablish feeling in his lower body. She knew sudden shock could kill him just as quickly as a spine injury like this, so she insisted on the induced sleep as well as most of the repair performed first. Clinically Gailin examined the severed spinal column. The broken vertebra had almost been crushed into gravel and it disturbed her. Could she replace it? Should she rebuild it? The torn nerves looked like the frayed rope around her neck at the hanging, ripped and stretched, not cut cleanly. Each nerve would have to mend back to the same exact thread it had been severed from or Gilead's mind would command him to walk and instead he would find himself doing something completely different. And there were thirty-one pairs, left side and right side, of these nerve bundles.