The Sah'niir

by Kim Wedlock

  Those thoughts that flashed through his mind for an incomprehensible moment were chased away as she began her wild thrashing, and he held her even tighter, calling a warning out to the others.

  And then, just as quickly, she fell still and slumped heavily in his arms.

  Petra was suddenly standing beside her. A question burned in his eyes, but he had no time to give it voice. Rathen - breathless and teetering over Aria's support - moved forwards to meet them. The Zi'veyn was held purposefully in his hand.

  She was lowered back to the ground, her rage passing like a puff of cloud over the sun, and she returned to her trance as seamlessly as had it never ended. Anthis watched her, a dubious knot in his gut.

  "Rathen," Petra started as he straightened with slow composure, "you had an idea?"

  His heavy nod did not inspire confidence. "It's not perfect, but her condition is getting out of hand. We have to do something, and soon. I've been giving it some thought, and I've come up with something that...might work."

  "Might?" Garon had joined them.

  "Humans aren't designed for magic. Our physiology isn't suited to cope with it. We're not elves. For us, it's a matter of the degree of resilience we inherited from them along with that magic - it's all that allows us to use it. Too little means a weak constitution and eptibility, regardless of the amount of magic produced, because it can't flow properly or be trained. 'Too much' resilience means that even lower amounts of magic can be used with great skill because they have the capability to control it, and control it finely."

  "You've told us all this," Anthis reminded him impatiently, keeping one eye on the tribal girl in case she began to agitate.

  "Oh. Well, either way, mages are being affected by this magic - but not all of them. As far as I've been able to tell - at least from between Eyila and the mage in Borer's Teeth - it comes down to resilience. Blood. Both of their resilience is just high enough that they can use their magic acutely, but all this loose magic, I think, has been influencing their own. How, I don't know, but it's riling it up. I don't know if it's trying to affect their magic like it is the other elements, if it's seeping in and mingling and increasing the amount of magic, or if it's doing something else entirely, but it's only under exposure that it gets this severe. Whatever it's doing, the resilience can't keep up."

  "And what about the mages we find wandering in a daze, nowhere near any magic?"

  "We've been to Khry's Glory, yes? Remember that place?" Their expressions soured affirmatively. "Peace and beauty; a sanctuary, a place that, by design, alleviates stress and concern. But the spells were made by elves, for elves, not humans. We don't have the constitution to handle it. Even you all fell under its charm, it was so potent. And the spell chains that have gotten out - the smallest, simplest and most numerous - describe the very essence of the place, and I think for some, even one exposure is enough for it to get under their skin. It pulls them, shadows them, haunts them, and they follow it because something in their magic is telling them to. It's how Khry's Glory was designed."

  "To the point, Rathen."

  He bit back his irritation. "I've analysed Eyila's magic a few times under these conditions, and both times I've found it going crazy and her resilience flagging behind. She's being affected by the magic around us. I can break those spells and their interaction with the elements, but if it's interacting with her magic then, maybe, its structure has become just that little bit different from the rest. Or maybe it's being protected by something inside her that can't tell the difference between what belongs and what doesn't. Either way, it needs a bigger push." He cast a serious look across them all. "With the Zi'veyn."

  Everyone blanched. "The Zi'veyn?

  "So, earlier, when you said 'we have to do something', you meant 'take drastic action'?!"

  "Rathen, she doesn't have elven magic."

  "I'm well aware of that," he declared quickly over the clamour, "but perhaps whatever the elven magic is doing to her will stop and her own will calm down. This isn't something I threw together in the last five minutes, and I don't see anyone else offering suggestions."

  Indeed, as doubtful looks passed among them, they were sorely aware that no one else was qualified to offer a second opinion.

  Rathen nodded decisively and knelt down in front of Eyila. "Petra, be ready. Just in case." With a careful breath, he lifted the Zi'veyn between them and closed his eyes. A small voice rose quietly beside him, small, but sober. He opened one eye with a gentle smile. "I wouldn't risk it if I didn't have the strength, little one." Then focus stole over his face once again, rendering his expression hard and deeply lined, and everyone watched in nervous silence as the relic began to float. Garon instinctively drew his sword, but at Anthis's look of shocked disapproval, promptly returned it to its scabbard. Two thirds of the way.

  The Zi'veyn seemed to hover forever - far longer, it felt, than when he turned it upon their surroundings - and his expression, too, contorted into new shapes of struggle. But Eyila remained a picture of wistful calm, so far removed from her own awareness, and her young, bronze face grew only softer. Until, finally, she blinked.

  Relief eased a collective breath as her ice-blue eyes focused onto the Zi'veyn floating close before her - and was erased just as quickly when she lunged rapidly out towards him. Petra and Anthis reached after her in a heartbeat as the relic tumbled lightly from the air, but Rathen was in no state to retreat. He teetered helplessly on the spot until he collapsed forwards in exhaustion, and into her outstretched arms.

  She held him tightly.

  Only he heard the words of gratitude delivered barely above a whispered sob. He smiled meekly and managed to return the embrace with a shaking hand.

  The rescue faltered. Petra sighed and shook her head witheringly. "Well done, Rathen," she smiled, while Garon tucked away his sword and Anthis stifled a jealous sneer beside her.

  Gently, Eyila released him and transferred his weight to Aria, who was waiting beside them and hopping in her desperation to help, and instructed her to sit him against the tree. Ardent concentration had suddenly fallen over her face. One bronze hand came to rest softly against his chest, the other over his forehead, and after an evaluating moment, she withdrew, twisted her fingers into magical gestures and returned her hand to drift over his heart.

  His breathing soothed almost immediately, the deep rise and fall of his shoulders relaxed, and his body straightened from its slump. When he finally raised his head, his eyes renewed and invigorated, he found Eyila looking back at him with a soft, confident smile. His own slowly curved and his brow knotted suspiciously, but he said nothing beyond nodding his thanks.

  "What does this mean?" Garon asked more than a touch sceptically when the two mages rose. Rathen had expected the question, and he hesitated as he finished putting together the answer. Especially when he caught the doubtful look in Eyila's eye. She knew what he was going to say, and his hesitance, he realised, had confirmed it. She turned away with a tremor in her jaw.

  "It's no permanent solution," he replied ruefully, avoiding a glimpse at her disappointment. "I treated the symptoms, not the cause. She'll be at risk with every re-exposure. And...she can't be left anywhere alone. Even if she were to want to leave, or we wanted to get rid of her," his eyes flashed towards Garon, but the inquisitor's face was expressionless, "she couldn't. Not unless..."

  "Unless I'm prepared to lose my mind like the others." She stood tall and lifted her chin defiantly. "It's just as well I'm not going anywhere, then. If nothing else, you need a healer. What you seek to do - against the magic, against Salus - you are likely to get hurt."

  "You don't need to defend yourself," Anthis assured her, "none of us want you to leave."

  She smiled gratefully, then turned a little too sharply back to Rathen. "How did you do it?"

  "It's your resilience, as I thought. It's not strong enough to keep your magic in check and the invasive magic out. But I was able to use the Zi'veyn to break the bonds between your own and t
he rest. It was...trying to merge with yours. To empower itself."

  Eyes widened, but a terrible comprehension screamed in her own - a sentiment only he could appreciate. "It wouldn't have managed - human magic is too different. But it will keep trying, and without the Zi'veyn to break it all up...it'll continue to work in the background. And every exposure will hasten it." His heart softened as her face began to twist and unstoppable thoughts tumbled through her eyes. The rest looked on in silence as they considered the implications of his words.

  Her arms folded tightly across her chest, all trace of her previous resolution dissolved, and her fingers pressed white marks into her skin. "So," that fearful understanding invaded her voice, "with every exposure...I'll get closer to...and there's no way to stop it?"

  "Not yet - but now we have a clue, something to work with, and the Zi'veyn can stop each bout much sooner which will slow it down a great deal."

  "But how can you be sure?" She was hugging herself now, and her white eyebrows almost met in her distress. But Rathen was suddenly standing right in front of her, closing the distance she'd put between them and herself with one quick and exact movement, and grasped her firmly by the shoulders. She stared up at him with a doubt that lingered despite her surprise, but the fearsome determination with which he locked her gaze stalled her rampant thoughts.

  "Because you have shown me how to see the magic in my own veins as clearly as you do. It's not hard to see it in yours, and I can see exactly what it's doing. That's how I can be sure - and why you also know that I'm right."

  She continued to regard him sceptically from beneath a furrowed brow, and it was a long while before that doubt began to buckle. Finally, her expression softened, and she sighed a breath of defeat. But she continued to hug herself. "All right..."

  "Good." He squeezed her shoulders, then looked critically back out into the forest. "Now, if we're all fit, we really should move..."

  "You might be on to something big, here," Petra told him quietly as they shouldered the bags and set off at a hurried pace. "For everyone."

  "That doesn't seem to be very different from the norm," he replied drily. "But, perhaps I am. I hope so."

  "So do I..."

  He flashed her a consoling smile. "Your sister probably isn't even affected.”

  "Well," she sighed without the dare to hope, "we can't know for sure." She looked on ahead and scanned the surroundings with the usual degree of misgiving, and dropped her voice even lower. "Doesn't it trouble you that we've not see a single creature since we left two days ago?"

  "'Troubling' doesn't begin to cut it."

  "Do you think it's Hlífrún's doing?"

  "That's why 'troubling' doesn't cut it." He shook his head as his lips formed a hard line, and caught Aria's hand as she tried to slip past him and rush off ahead. "I feel like I've accepted a deposit on a service I never agreed to do..."

  Both sentiment and circumstance persisted well into the night; the camp patrol began a perverse shift from the hope of finding nothing to finally locating something malicious lurking in the darkness, if just to justify their paranoia, while the others dove into their own business to escape it altogether.

  Rathen stared hopelessly into his notes while Aria set upon a piece of wood with her frighteningly dexterous knife skills, and Anthis read through the papers he'd retrieved from the ancient chamber a few days ago. Or so he tried. His eyes drifted unceasingly towards the spot where Eyila had slipped away as silently as she did every night.

  She hadn't said very much since the magic had been lifted, but it was no great leap to guess what was consuming her thoughts. Anthis couldn't imagine what she must have been feeling, knowing that to stay with them meant that she would fall into the line of fire time and time again, her magic attacked within her own veins until she slowly lost her mind, and yet to leave and escape it would ultimately be nothing short of a death sentence while it took its toll quietly in the background. The knowledge that they had been responsible for her initial exposure in the first place - a fact she was no doubt equally aware of - set a shame in his gut so rending that he wondered if his knife wound hadn't opened back up.

  He wanted to go after her, to speak to her, to comfort her. To apologise. Rathen had been much too firm, too direct. Eyila was too young for that kind of handling. She was strong, it was true, wonderfully so, but there was a great delicacy hidden beneath it, and one that harboured a broken heart.

  Someone had to go after her...but...what could he say? No doubt something stupid that would make her feel worse. Or she wouldn't want to talk to him at all. Rathen would be accepted, he was sure. Because they had that crucial detail in common. But he...he had nothing.

  He cleared his throat against his monstrous disappointment and shuffled his back towards her exit. He didn't notice himself return not two minutes later, and when a flush of wind picked up, he steeled himself, dropped his papers and slipped away before he could change his mind again.

  Anthis trekked quietly through the woods, mindful of every step over fallen leaf and broken twig, moving like a shadow with his eyes glued to the treetops. It didn't take long to locate her unmistakable form and the colour of bare skin in a thin shaft of starlight. But the sight stalled him, and again rattled the doubt of what he could possibly say, and again echoed the certainty that it was another's company she sought. One who could understand well enough to be able to set her at ease.

  But, though he felt compelled to turn and leave, he didn't. Because someone needed to watch over her in her distraction, whether she knew he was there or not.

  Anthis turned to the side and settled down against a tree, tuning his mind to the wafts of rustling breeze, the movement of small, nocturnal creatures, and the occasional shudder or gasp of the young woman's sorrow. And he felt, in her heart-rending presence, some sense of comfort in knowing that she wasn't truly alone.

  Watching Anthis sit down and fold his arms lazily across his chest, making himself comfortable for what was sure to be a long wait, Petra turned with satisfaction and stalked back into the trees. "Find anything?" She whispered when her path crossed Garon's, but he shook his head with the same foreboding. She sighed dubiously, her fingers turning white around her sword hilt. "I don't like this..."

  "Neither do I. I understand what Rathen meant. I feel...indebted." He glanced towards her hesitant hum. "What is it?"

  "...I have to wonder if we shouldn't be taking advantage of it." She met his disbelief directly. "Indebted or not, it's been done. We should rest and recover - because Eyila's right: Salus is dangerous, and when we get out of here, we're going to be right back in his sights. It won't do us any favours if we're in bad form."

  "Any form is fine as long as we're alive." He rolled his eyes at her persistent look. "What did you have in mind?"

  "Well, for starters..."

  He frowned and followed her gaze to his shoulder. His expression withered. "No."

  "I'm not talking about healers. I mean exercise. Move it more - besides rolling it."

  "Such as...?"

  "Sparring."

  "Sparring..."

  She ignored his flat tone. "Why not? We've been cramped in here for over a week, we're all getting frustrated. A bit of back and forth would help both of us loosen up. And I could really do with it."

  "No," he stepped past her and resumed his patrol, "thank you."

  "It would also sharpen our focus..."

  "By exhausting ourselves?"

  "By unwinding." She hurried forwards and blocked his path. Her eyes were hard, and this time she ignored his groan of frustration. "We're jumping at shadows."

  "By what proof? Don't drop your guard, Petra."

  "For goodness sake, Garon, would you please drop yours?!" The flicker of insult in his eyes did little to impede her exasperation, stifled to a harsh whisper though the outburst was. She took a half step towards him to draw it even lower. "You can't be so tightly wound all of the time. When we do come by a threat, you're going to be too exhaus
ted to see it! You're always too pre-occupied with being official, being in charge, keeping everyone moving - have you considered that we would all keep moving anyway? That the rest of us have eyes and ears, too? Even Aria stands guard, and do you know why? Have you given it any thought at all? It's because she fears for the rest of us, not just herself. And her eyes and ears are no less keen."

  "This speech," he growled, "again. Stop concerning yourself with my well-being."

  "Why? You're certainly not going to do it."

  "It has nothing at all to do with you."

  "That's a lie, and you know it."

  He stalled in his attempt to find a way around her. "...What do you mean?"

  "You won't let anyone heal you, and for the stupidest reason I've ever heard."

  "Which is?"

  She stared at him, studying his carefully tempered look, but his level gaze gave nothing away. There was nothing at the surface, and nothing beneath it. It was as though he felt...nothing. At all.

  Her jaw tightened as her certainty began to waver, but she hid that much from her eyes.

  "Whatever reason you've concocted," he said in a low, dangerous voice, "abandon it. I won't be healed because it is needless. I've been trained for worse, and I've been trained to adapt. If I turn to a healer for a little thing like this," he continued over her protest, "then how will I be able to adapt when the damage is...more permanent?"

  "And you know that this isn't?"

  "It's getting better."

  "I'm not seeing it."

  "You don't need to."

  "I'm looking close enough." She followed him as he finally managed to slip by. "It's not getting better. At all. It was for a while, I watched you exercise it with swordplay. But you gave that up the minute you saw progress."

  "There is no opportunity for it in here."

  "A month ago." Again she hurried around and in front of him, earning herself a very sharp snarl. "You can lie to yourself, if you want. But you won't fool me."