by NS Dolkart
But as the weeks went by, it was impossible not to feel it. For all his worries, there was no denying that feeling that he could finally breathe, breathe like a man who need never fear drowning. And one day, Ptera looked at him with those off-balance eyes of hers and asked how he felt, and it finally came out, bursting from its hiding place in his mind.
He felt safe.
52
Dessa
Dessa lay in her parents’ tent, crying. She had such conflicting emotions, it was overwhelming. Anger at Father for sacrificing himself over something that everyone now agreed had been stupid. Guilt because she hadn’t believed Grandma about Criton and Bandu. Guilt because she hadn’t been able to stop their people from killing Father, and anger at Criton for being alive again when Father was dead. And above it all, sadness like she’d never known.
Bandu hadn’t even come back to visit after rescuing Criton from the underworld. Dessa felt even more alone than before – Father was gone; Vella was gone; Bandu and Goodweather were gone.
If she had been more like Bandu, she could have gone to the underworld and brought Father back, just like Bandu had retrieved Criton. Maybe if she found Bandu, she could make her tell her how she’d done it. It wasn’t fair that Criton should have a second chance just because his wife was a powerful witch and Dessa wasn’t.
Mother didn’t want Dessa to become a powerful witch. She wanted her to marry Malkon while she could, and join his family so that Father’s taint wouldn’t hang over her as it did his widow. Dessa wanted nothing to do with such plans. She didn’t think she could live untainted anyway, not around people who knew about Father. Attaching herself to the Highservants would only make things worse.
Could she strike out on her own, and go find Bandu and Vella wherever they were hiding? Mother would have said she was too young, and would have forbidden it regardless, but hadn’t Criton’s mother left home at just such an age? Dessa didn’t want to get married, and she didn’t want to stay here and be hated. She had bigger plans for herself.
So she wrote her mother a note and left it where she’d find it, and then slipped away one afternoon while Mother was busy trying to calm Grandma. She took some food and some water and just sort of wandered off, trying to look like she was running an errand of some sort. At least for now, nobody seemed to notice her leave.
She knew that Bandu and Vella had disappeared while the camp was well north of here, but her sense of direction wasn’t spectacular. All she knew was that she ought to head away from Ardis.
So she did, and spent her first night alone huddled in an empty barn, its animals already either eaten or carrying supplies for the Dragon Touched. She considered going back home that very night, but she knew that Bandu would have done no such thing. Bandu was always powerful, always confident. Dessa would be like her.
So she woke up the next morning and traveled onward, stopping whenever she needed to and foraging whenever she could. It was hard, but it was also good to be away from all the people who hated her over what her father had done.
She dreamt that Mother had found her and dragged her home to be stoned – she woke up shaking. But she got up, rubbed her eyes, and moved on. She always moved on.
Her legs got tired. Her stomach got empty. But still she traveled on and on, asking everyone she met whether they had seen two women like Bandu and Vella. Nobody had.
Even when she had been gone a week and a half and still turned up no sign of her friends, that little voice inside her would not let her give up. If she couldn’t find Bandu, she could at least be independent like her. Maybe it didn’t matter if she found her or not – so long as she made sure she was always eating enough and never falling asleep in dangerous places, she could still be like Bandu.
By God, she could be like her.
53
Phaedra
Phaedra stayed with Vella and Goodweather for over two months, waiting for Bandu to return. The wait was awful, but it could have been a good deal worse. Her relationship with Vella had grown more cordial, though Phaedra still sometimes caught her hostess looking at her with eyes that blamed her for the danger Bandu was in.
It was the words on the walls that softened their stances toward each other and turned them into tentative friends. Vella had been teaching Bandu to read, a feat that Phaedra had believed impossible until she saw the row of letters that Bandu herself had carved under Vella’s set. Phaedra hadn’t been able to hold in her respect and admiration for that – not that she would have wanted to. It was the first real smile Vella gave her, the one that lit up her face when Phaedra expressed such admiration and wonder at her work.
Phaedra couldn’t have missed the I love you, Bandu that was carved above the bed, but she pretended to anyway, though she knew it didn’t fool Vella. It was such an intimate message that she felt guilty for having read it at all, even though it was carved quite prominently on the wall. It showed the confidence with which Vella had written it – and the confidence with which she had assumed that the two of them would be entertaining no guests.
It was hard to escape the feeling that Phaedra was intruding on someone else’s life. Particularly with Goodweather, who knew Vella but had no memory of Phaedra, it was clear that Phaedra didn’t belong here – that her presence only made Bandu’s absence worse.
Except, of course, on a practical level. Vella needed all her support just to keep Goodweather alive and healthy. The forced weaning that had taken place at Bandu’s departure was a terrible transition, but they got through it together, taking turns consoling an inconsolable baby and trying to sneak another mouthful past her trembling lips. Phaedra had never realized an infant could give a person such a murderous look.
But she took to it in the end, and by the third week she was chomping happily on mashed chickpeas. All was apparently forgiven after that, and Phaedra even came to enjoy feeding her. The memory of an infant was short.
Phaedra’s memory wasn’t, though. Even in the midst of caring for Goodweather, she could not help but remember the mission Psander had sent her on, and worry about the length of this diversion. It was practically springtime already – just this week, Vella had planted the seeds for her garden! Could the world afford for Phaedra to spend another month waiting for Bandu, when she might have been sealing fairy gateways already?
And what if Bandu never came back? What if Phaedra had sent her to her death? Judging from the looks Vella gave her now and again, Phaedra wasn’t the only one thinking about such questions. As much as Phaedra might blame herself if Bandu did not return, Vella would blame her more.
But Bandu did return in the end, looking so grim that Phaedra was afraid she might have failed after all. But no, she had succeeded. Criton was alive, and the region would know peace once more. It was the price of his return that had her looking that way, and when she explained it in her halting manner, Phaedra couldn’t help but feel that Bandu blamed her for not having known. Phaedra had to beg her for details about her journey, which Bandu gave, incompletely. There were details that she claimed not to remember, and others that she gave only begrudgingly.
Phaedra recorded all she could, wary of forgetting anything that Bandu would supply. She was also wary of losing her work as she had lost her father’s scrolls in Hession’s cavern, so she found a sturdy branch in the woods to use for a walking stick and scratched Bandu’s narrative in a spiral on its surface. Her story of the underworld and its sea of sleeping dead might well be the greatest revelation of the century, and Phaedra meant to carry it everywhere.
As soon as the staff was complete, she left Bandu and Vella to their life together. Bandu didn’t want her to go at first. She had missed Phaedra as much as Phaedra missed her – couldn’t she stay awhile longer?
But Phaedra could not. “I’ll come back,” she promised. “There are things I have to do first, but I promise I’ll come back. All right?”
Bandu was reluctant to accept that. But Vella was not, and whatever Bandu’s thoughts on privacy, Phaedra pre
ferred to let them have their moments alone. So she gave Goodweather a final kiss goodbye and left them all to their reunion.
She walked first southward, the way that Bandu had come. There was a passage to the elves’ world at the Dragon Knight’s Tomb, which she ought to try and close, but that one might be best kept open until she had found a way to clear Mura and his pirates off Tarphae. Until then, the Dragon Knight’s Tomb was her best and safest connection back to Psander.
So she made Gateway her destination instead. Her first exposure to the fairies had come by wandering through that passage, and it had been a terrible awakening to the dangers that lay beyond the mesh. It was fitting that she should try to close that gate first.
Phaedra had always been a social person. She made friends easily, had loved the dances and parties of pre-curse Tarphae, and would never embrace solitude as Psander had. But to her surprise, she found that she liked traveling alone. It was good to walk at her own pace, with no need to be self-conscious about her limp or her need to stop now and then to rest her legs, hips, and back. Perhaps she would learn one day how to fix that ankle of hers properly, and then she would walk and run and dance however she pleased. But until then, she still had magic. She still had learning. She still had power.
So she walked southward at her own pace, and when night came, she set a ward to protect herself from the rain and lay down on the ground to sleep. It was not such a bad life for her, the life of a wandering academic wizard.
It wasn’t the life her parents had meant for her, of course. How they would have thrilled to hear that Hunter wanted to marry her! What would they have said, had they learned that she had turned him down? What would her friends on Tarphae have said? They would have thought her insane.
But marriage carried too great a risk of children, and she did not want children. If she hadn’t been convinced of that already, Goodweather had confirmed it. The girl was delightful, but caring for her was incredibly taxing. Even without a pair of worlds to save, Phaedra doubted she would ever want such a responsibility for herself.
And she did have a pair of worlds to save. Gods help them all.
54
Vella
Bandu was back, that was all that mattered. Yes, Vella wanted to pick at these wounds – she hated the sacrifice Bandu had made for Criton to live. The sacrifice they had both made, in a way. For peace, for safety, they had traded away years that might otherwise have been spent together. But there was no sense in bringing it up over and over, much though she kept wanting to. There was certainly no sense in bringing it up now.
Anyway, what was there to complain about when Bandu was back? Bandu was back! They would live together in peace and happiness for however many years they had left, and that was more than enough. It was more than Vella had any right to hope for.
So short a time ago, Vella had thought that she would never be happy. Now her heart was filled to overflowing. She had Bandu, and surely her people wouldn’t dare to give them trouble when it was Bandu who had saved their nation. What more could Vella want?
Besides, it had been for Vella and her people that Bandu had made her sacrifice, and it would have been profoundly ungrateful to complain about it.
If only she could let these things go.
Bandu helped. Her grim mood vanished at their first kiss, and her high spirits seemed immune to thoughts of the future.
“You are so good,” she kept saying. “So good all the time. I wish I have you sooner. Criton is never so good for me.”
If Bandu could live in the present, by God, so could Vella.
Goodweather delighted at Bandu’s presence, and spent the rest of the day squealing and waving her arms in excitement whenever her mother looked at her. It was a joy to behold.
“Now that she’s weaned,” Vella said, “we can make her a straw mattress on the floor and keep the bed to ourselves. She’s sleeping better now.”
Bandu nodded happily and said, “Tomorrow. I want everyone with me now.”
So they didn’t make love that night, but Vella didn’t mind. Life was too good for her to mind much of anything. She lay in the bed, smiling to herself even as Goodweather wriggled and kicked in her sleep. What a beautiful world this was. She hoped it would never end.
Acknowledgments
This was a much more tumultuous experience than the last time around. It was my first time writing a sequel, my first time writing on a deadline, and my first time submitting a draft I wasn’t completely satisfied with. It took all manner of support to whip this novel into shape, and I’m profoundly grateful to those who gave me that support.
First and foremost, I need to thank my parents Claudette and Jonathan Beit-Aharon, and my in-laws, Vivian and Ken Dolkart, whose extensive babysitting gave me a lot more time to write without too severely increasing the burden on my wife. We both owe them a debt of gratitude, as does anyone who enjoyed this book. It might not have been written at all without their support, and certainly not on time!
I played my cards closer to the chest with this novel, but I also need to thank my family for their input into the book’s contents. So thank you again to my parents and in-laws, to my sister Miriam and my brother Nathan and sister-in-law Becca, who were always willing to read multiple drafts, brainstorm improvements, and tell me honestly when they found a development disappointing. I can’t stress enough how valuable it was to have readers like them in my corner.
I’d like to thank Paul Simpson for stepping into the role of my editor while Phil Jourdan was on sabbatical. His notes were detailed and excellent, and helped this book become what it is.
Lastly and most importantly, I want to thank my wife, Becky Jill Dolkart Beit-Aharon, whose support has been constant. She was the only person who read my first draft as I was writing it, gave me advice and encouragement every step of the way, and who would prompt me to talk my way through whatever problems I was having. When the deadlines grew short and the work stretched itself out before me, she gave me love and patience and even the occasional evening off from parenting. To say that I couldn’t have done this without her feels like a ridiculous understatement – I couldn’t have written the first book without her, let alone this one. And, true to form, she’s reading this acknowledgments page as I write it, encouraging me to finish it with a perfect flourish and send it in already. So I will.
About the Author
NS Dolkart is a graduate of Hampshire College in Amherst, MA. By day, he leads activities in a nonprofit nursing home; in the evenings he cooks with his wife and plays with their two children, and only late at night does he write his tales of magic and Godhood. He doesn’t sleep much. Among the Fallen is Noah’s second novel, the sequel to 2016’s Silent Hall.
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nsdolkart.com • twitter.com/n_s_dolkart
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Chariots of Laarna
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Copyright © NS Dolkart 2017
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