by Hal Emerson
He could bring them back. She could make them something more.
“Do not die,” she whispered into Oliand’s ear.
She heard her own heart thumping in her chest like a caged bird as she waited. Seconds passed, and, when nothing happened, she feared suddenly that she had been too late. She’d only ever done it once before – how much did timing matter? Panic took her – she needed them all alive, at least nominally so.
And then the burned body moved, and the chest pulled air into lungs that no longer needed it.
A reflex only – whatever is last of him trying to cling to the life he had.
She bent down low over him again and whispered in his ear.
“From now on, you are my Watchman,” she Commanded. “You will show your wounds to no one. You will stuff those entrails back inside you and clean this blood. No one is to know what has happened here. Once you have finished, you will stand here and wait for my return. Do not leave this tent, do not contact any of the others.”
She pulled back and watched him. The empty brown eyes slowly focused on her, and as she watched they began to burn a sickly green, just as they had the last time she had Commanded someone to remain alive. He bent over and began scooping up his innards in silent obedience.
She moved for the tent’s entrance, slipping the Luck Aspect over her head. The added power was like a shot of spirits, sending warmth to all her extremities, before coming back to her neck. The heat began to gather on her left side, like she was being held too close to a fire, and she looked down to see one whole side of the Aspect had been burned. She muttered a Command, and the heat, while intense, did not become painful. It would burn whoever wore it next, but not her. She turned to go.
Praxas was next. He was easier.
When she approached his tent, now wearing both Aspects, she saw a pair of guards stationed outside. Golden lines moved in front of her vision, likely from Oliand’s Aspect, and she suddenly knew how to pass the guards without attracting attention. She kicked a pebble as she walked, and it flew off at a peculiar angle where it dropped from sight, eliciting a solid ding! sound as it hit some discarded piece of armor.
Both guards’ heads snapped around on their meaty necks to look toward the sound, only a few yards to their right. They went to investigate, and as they turned she walked into the tent without even slowing.
She heard Praxas before she saw him; his snoring filled the tent like a swarm of bees. The huge bear of a man had never desired her – something she couldn’t fathom, and neither could most of the other men in the camp. She was the embodiment of physical perfection, as were all the Heirs. Praxas was supposed to be the most perfect, bearing the Aspect of Strength, and while he was indeed fawned over by the camp women for his enormous strength, Alana had never understood it. She hated the way he looked – the heavily muscled brute.
When she approached him in his bed, the snoring increased, and she felt disgust well up inside her once more. The man had fallen asleep in bed while drinking a pot of ale – and when he’d fallen into unconsciousness, the container had slipped from his hands and spilled across the floor; with each step, she felt her boots sticking to the ground, and the smell of spirits assailed her nostrils.
She examined the man and saw the Aspect dangled by a leather thong around his neck on his bare, hairy chest. She strode forward, drew her knife again, and cut the ties that held the Aspect.
Praxas spasmed uncontrollably, reaching out with his meaty arms for her, but she now held the Aspect of Strength, and when he grabbed her, she struck his wrist, and broke it as she Commanded him to silence.
The big man bellowed soundlessly, grabbing his wrist and trying to rise until she pressed a pillow to his face and held him down. He struggled mightily against her, but it was no use. She had all the strength stored in his own Aspect – he’d saved hundreds of lives in his time here, and all of that energy now flowed through her. Soon, he stopped struggling, and she left him, Commanding the two guardsmen to clap him in chains for treason before he regained consciousness.
She went through the soldiers’ tents then, a white shadow among the black ones, to the men she’d spoken to that wanted what she did. They spread the word, and went with her as she followed the path through camp to each of her other siblings.
One by one she collected them all. Lilia she took even as she walked the path to her sleeping quarters; Timon she struck from afar, hurling her dagger through the canvas wall of his tent to take him in the leg as he paced; Silva she took sleeping, forcing a gag between her teeth and a sack over her head. Each she brought with her to the edge of the camp, to the space she had been out preparing that night, away form prying eyes. She sent men back for Oliand and Praxas as well, and told them to silence any who might see them.
She had them all now, all except the last, the only one she feared:
Aemon.
She sought him out where he slept, one of the newer wooden cabins he’d built himself, but he wasn’t there. She looked elsewhere around the camp in the areas he frequented: the sparring ring, the library tent, the armory. He was at none of them. Her stomach began to writhe and clench within her. He knew. Somehow, he always did. She circled back through the tents of the other sleeping members of her expedition, all oblivious to what was happening, as she headed toward where her men waited on the edge of camp with torches, ready to depart with the captured Heirs.
And when she arrived, it was he who found her.
“I was sleeping soundly, not half an hour ago,” said a low, soft voice.
She tensed and spun as the guardsmen drew their weapons, but there was nothing to be seen. The voice itself was vague and directionless, like an echo in a cave, and on the edge of the camp as they were, between the first row of trees and the last row of lean-tos, there was barely enough light to see their own hands, much less a concealed man. She reached through her Aspects, drawing on them altogether, but one by one they shook and failed, then connected with her again, then shifted, then failed, then caught, then failed. The effect occurred between all Aspects, but it was worst with his, always worst with his, because his was the Seventh, the one that capped them all and held sway over life and death. Compared to that, the others were mere trifles.
Except for mine. I can Command him, I can bind him, as long as I can get the Aspect away. The others will be useless. No, no, they are enough to trap him. They are enough to overcome him, and once I have the final piece, I can do what is needed.
“Take them to the place in the mountains I showed you,” she said to the captain of her guard, his armor bordered in white to signify his place as her bondsman. “Go now – do not look back, do not stop. Cut down any in your way. I will be there shortly.”
They left, fading into the night with their baggage.
That’s all they are now. That’s all the good they are to anyone.
“Where are you taking them?” asked the soft voice.
She cringed, her back teeth grinding. She hated that voice. She did – she hated it. Always so calm, so reasonable; always in control of itself, never raised in anger. Always questioning, probing. It spoke too much in too few words, echoing its owner, who saw too much in everyone he met.
“You will soon find out,” she replied. The words crackled like fire or lightning as they rolled out of her mouth, invested as they were with the weight of Command. She wouldn’t let go of her Aspect now; it was the only one that she was skilled enough to hold in the disrupting presence of the Seventh. She could feel it, warm against the skin of her chest. She had to keep control of it – had to make sure that when he slipped – he had to slip – she had the chance to pull him to her.
“No,” he said, “I will not.”
She found him, finally, in the light of her own torch. He was standing in a patch of shadows that cloaked him perfectly, his black cloak wrapped around him so that only his face was truly visible. She circled away, keeping distance between them, and forced her hands to stop shaking.
“
I told you not to go down this path,” he said to her, still unmoving, still buried in the shadows, but now silhouetted by the guard bivouac behind him at the center of the encampment.
“You should never have abandoned Mother,” she said, thinking furiously. How was she going to do this? She knew she needed a plan, but she didn’t have one. She didn’t do plans – she acted on instinct, always. And now, her instinct was telling her to run.
That’s the one thing I cannot do. I need all seven Aspects; without them, I’ll never be able to go back. I need them all – that’s the answer – it must be!
“Why do you think I abandoned anyone?” he whispered back.
“SPEAK UP!”
The outburst surprised her more than him. In fact, it surprised only her. He barely even blinked, and didn’t deign to repeat himself. He knew she’d heard him.
“Give it to me,” she said, holding out her hand, her voice shaking with both anxiety and power. Neither affected the man across from her, though – he remained where he was, arms folded across his chest, unmoving.
“Give what to you, sister? Be specific.”
“YOU’RE NOT MY BROTHER!”
Again, the outburst startled her. Of all the things they had learned about themselves from the recovered manifests, that had been the most startling.
“You’re very agitated right now,” he said, perfectly calm, “and I understand why. If I’d attacked and kidnapped five of my own brothers and sisters I’d feel the same way.”
“Soon it will be six.”
“I thought you said I wasn’t your brother?”
“You’re not!”
“Our blood may be different, but our Mother is the same.”
“She picked you up off the street! You’re nothing – you should be a bondsman, working in some field under the lash!”
“None of that is known,” he said simply, not showing the least bit of pain from her words, “none of it was in what we recovered. I could very well be highborn as well, but the son of dead parents.”
“No,” she hissed, throwing her rage at him, rage that had been born of love. “Someone highborn would be different. Someone highborn would be like me, like the rest of us – not like you!”
“I am sorry that you feel that way.”
She spat on the ground.
“That’s what I think about your sorry. You’re always sorry – you always have your own opinion and you can never give into anyone, you can never even try to see something from another’s perspective –”
“I love you as a sister,” he said, cutting through her flow of words like a perfectly honed knife in the hands of a skilled surgeon, cutting them off at the source. “And I am sorry I could never give you more.”
“You fool,” she cried, “I never actually wanted more! I’ve only been playing you. I’ve always played you, and I’m playing you now!”
She was laughing hysterically, and she knew that she had crossed some kind of line in her own mind. Maybe she had crossed it long ago, when she had decided to move forward with her plan. Maybe she had only just crossed it now when he had spoken aloud the words she’d never wanted to hear, the thing she hadn’t wanted confirmed. In those words lay the ruins of all the dreams she’d had.
“We could have ruled this land together,” she said, her voice croaking out through a throat constricted by emotion. “I may have wanted you by my side in the beginning, but now – no. I gave up on you long before you gave up on me.”
And finally, he moved. She fell back into a fighting stance, raising her dagger and pulling strength from the Aspects, trying to see the future around him, trying to gather luck around her, but knowing both were unlikely to help her now. If he came close enough, his Aspect would cancel hers, and that was all that mattered.
When he came forward into the light, moving with the fluid grace of water or wind, memories of their time together came back to her. It was not a parade of images, nor a series of events, but a patchwork quilt of feelings, sights, and smells. And touches … the first time his hand had touched hers when they’d landed here and the quickening that had started in her heart.
He came forward just enough that the high planes of his cheekbones and the strong curve of his jaw caught the light. His skin was alabaster pale, his lips full and red, his nose a thin, sharp line that seemed to cut the air. He was beautiful, and the sight of him hurt her.
“Send your men away,” he said. It was a command, not a request, but delivered in his soft voice, it sounded like a promise.
Close your heart. Do not let him back in.
“You can still make this right,” he said, coming another step closer, head tilted slightly and shoulders hunched, hands upright and warding, as if he were approaching an animal that would easily startle. His eyes were a deep violet color, like nothing she had ever seen. They were captivating – they always had been. They changed and shifted in the flickering of the torchlight, going from a scarlet tinged with blue, to a deep purple so dark they were almost black.
“Don’t come another step,” she Commanded. The power of the Aspect couldn’t touch him, but he stopped anyway, sensing her deadly intent. His eyes took in all of her, encompassing her and knowing her in the space of a second. She realized her hands were shaking, even though one was clenched into a fist and the other clutched the wire hilt of the dagger.
“Alana,” he whispered softly, “we can still make this right.”
“Don’t tell me about right – right is going back home. Right is returning, like we were meant to.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do! I do know that! It’s the only answer!”
“Very well,” he whispered, his voice quiet as falling snow, more of an impression and a feeling than anything else. “And do you think that when you return, with the blood of your kindred on your hands, you will be welcomed back?”
She gripped the dagger tighter, but found herself unable to answer.
“Do you think that when you return, having done nothing but land on these shores and kill the ones sent with you, you will be accepted? And more importantly … do you think such a thing will ever give you peace?”
He took another careful step forward; his hands remained up, empty and warding, and she knew that her knife, while powerful, would only do so much against him. He rarely, if ever, fought with weapons. She’d seen him disarm Praxas himself in the sparring ring, and use the man’s own weight to throw him down.
“I know you; you are not this monster that you think you can become. You are not a cold-blooded killer. You have goodness in you, I have felt it. You have a chance at redemption, the same chance we all have –”
“Be silent!” she Commanded. The crack of thunder silenced everything in the nearby vicinity, all wildlife and even the distant fire ceased to make sound, as if an explosion had gone off that deafened them all. She was drawing on as much of the Aspect as she could now, almost as deeply as she ever had. The stone with the diamond gem inside was burning her chest, trapped as it was against her skin.
“You cannot command me,” he said, and just that easily the Command was broken and the noise resumed, and indeed redoubled to make up for the time that had been spent silent. “You cannot win this way. Stop this madness.”
“I will never stop,” she promised with fervent zeal. “I will never stop hunting you. The Aspects will be mine, and I will make them better than they have ever been. They will give me the power I need, they will help me take what is needed from this land, and I will use it to go home.”
She slashed at his knee, and succeeded in scoring a hit. Aemon cried out in surprise and pain, and she pushed her advantage, continuing to speak, endowing her words with power from the Aspect, making them Commands, forcing the world to bend to her will.
“I will return, and I will be welcomed! And they will see that I am a true child, I am the true Heir; they will see that you all, you failed the test of faith. You did not know how to look into the abyss and come back sane
– but me, I did!”
The air around them had begun to feel tight, and she felt a strange swelling inside her. She had never been able to give this much strength to her Aspect before – combined as it was with the Aspect of Strength and the Aspect of Will, she could endow Commands with more power then she had ever thought possible. She felt as though she could command the very air around her. Words came to her lips unbidden, and she spoke in a rolling tone that shook with might.
“Thou shalt BURN!”
Fire appeared from nowhere in a flash of light, engulfing him in a huge gout of flame. It burned with the brilliance of the sun, and as it did she laughed, a baying cry that shattered the last bit of sanity left to her. She grinned, panting like a beast, and spat at her immolated brother.
“I have power such as you could never imagine! When I return home, they will not be welcoming a long lost daughter, nor a wayward child. I will be the greatest leader, man or woman, this world has ever seen! They will bow to me, and even Mother will –!”
Aemon stepped out of the flame, grabbed her knife, and sunk it into her side.
Shock was all she felt as she fell. There was no way for this to be true – he had been burning. He was dying, she knew he was; she commanded the air itself, commanded all things –
“Your Aspect cannot touch me,” he whispered in her ear, “no matter how powerful you become. No matter what you do, no matter what lengths you travel, you will never have my allegiance, nor the allegiance of my soul, which is bound to this stone. I am the Seventh Heir, and if all else fails, it is my duty to stand between you and the innocents that you will try to conquer.”
As he spoke, the Aspect of Sight activated itself without her bidding, and images began to play through her mind. She saw herself living for years on years – though she never aged. She searched for him, but all she found was an empty space. His Aspect protected him, at least in part – she could not find him. And as time went on, she saw that what he said was true. He would never bow to her, he would never kneel. Only blood and fire would bind him to her, only war.
