The Tattered Lands

by Barbara Ann Wright

But the elders were used to working with the magic of the land. They’d know what to do. She felt the congregation of their attention and tried to convey her wishes, but they didn’t seem to understand, simply gathering around her as if she was a fascinating anomaly. She shrieked at them, tried to infuse them with her panic, wondering if her body was shouting as it lay on the ground. They drifted around her like a ponderous swarm, and despair nearly overwhelmed her as her magic continued to flow away, taking the magic of the pylons with it.

  No, she couldn’t give up. She struggled, reaching for the elders again, wishing she could shake them. One light drifted closer as if watching. Was this one of the elders Lilani had seen on the Highpeak? Or was it a seelie shrouded in a distant cave, collecting cobwebs while hidden from the tattered lands?

  “Please, help me. I…” She needed to do something, but she’d nearly forgotten what. If she could let go, perhaps she’d exist as one of these streams of light, following the syndrium forever after her body died. Maybe after a hundred years as such, she would cease to care about anything at all.

  Even Vandra? Lilani struggled to bring her thoughts back to order. “Please. I want to see her again.”

  The little light flared, and she felt a sense of kinship, someone who understood, who hadn’t retreated like the elders but had chosen this existence for a greater purpose.

  “Awith?” Lilani asked. “Is that you?”

  The one light guided the others, forming them into a single entity rather than a swarm. This stronger light pulsed, and the magic slowed. Lilani wanted to cry out with joy, but she felt stretched and tired. No, she had to struggle back to somewhere, someone. The light was slowing the magic, and that was good, but she had to open her eyes again. She had to see…who?

  * * *

  Vandra didn’t know how many seelie Lilani’s mother had brought, but it didn’t sound like hordes. She knew many of them had stayed behind to help Lucian, Faelyn, Fieta, and Pietyr out of the tattered lands, and she was glad of that, really, but she wanted legions instead of what sounded like twelve running feet.

  Maybe the seelie considered one of their soldiers worth ten human soldiers or something, and so they counted things differently, but they weren’t fighting humans; they were fighting other seelie. They should have brought everyone they had.

  Unless this was all they had. Maybe even the non-soldiers had volunteered to come, and the empress said no. Vandra pictured a score of Faelyns running around, trying to be helpful. They’d probably be as useless as a horde of Vandras.

  A nagging pain grew in Vandra’s side, and running along the spongy ground caused an ache in her calves. She couldn’t see the seelie, but her stones caused the same little bubble in the tattered lands as before. She tried not to think of all the creatures she might be whizzing by, who might be drawn to the noise: a concern quickly outpaced by the pain in her side, which now throbbed with every step and felt as if it might grow large enough to squeeze her lungs shut.

  The light around them was failing. They couldn’t have come far into the tattered lands before. They should have emerged already. They should have…

  The hands on her shoulders pulled back, slowing her. As their run became a walk, Vandra put her arms on top of her head and tried to breathe deep, tried to quiet her pounding heart. The humidity of the tattered lands pulled the sweat from her body as if she were a cloth it could wring out.

  Lilani’s mother appeared in a blink. “The edge of the mist is ahead.” She spoke slowly. It had probably been a long time since she’d uttered the human tongue. She grimaced, seemed pained by the tattered lands now that she wasn’t shrouded. “We are far from the forest that holds the Court, near one of the pylons.”

  Vandra nodded. “Let’s go get Lilani.”

  “There are more enemy seelie there. More than we fought before.”

  “Reinforcements? Great. Just what we need.” Vandra stalked ahead, ignoring the empress’s protest. If she was going to help, she needed to examine the situation. She couldn’t attack with a weapon, so she’d have to find another way to help, and for that, she needed all the data she could gather.

  The mist didn’t thin near the border so much as stop. Vandra remembered little curls of it coming from the border before, but it halted like a wall instead of a natural phenomenon. Still, she could see the fading sunlight coming through.

  She stopped just inside the mist, catching glimpses as the air from outside the border pushed the tendrils away. The pylon stood ahead and to the right, several seelie arranged around the bottom, ten maybe, but there might be more she couldn’t see. Several dead bodies lay among them. She spotted Camilla and a human man.

  And Lilani on the ground, unmoving.

  Pain spiked in Vandra’s uninjured hand. She’d made a fist so tight, her fingernails were digging in. She relaxed, forced herself to think past her fear and sadness, past her indignation that the one person she’d ever fallen in love with was going to be taken from her by a madwoman and a cadre of loons who wanted to destroy the world.

  Vandra tried to study the mechanism beside the pylon, but she was too far away. She could feel a hum and an echoing feeling from her stones; the bubble around her appeared to be shrinking bit by bit as if the stones were being drained. A jot of professional curiosity shamed her.

  Was this her formula in reverse, as she’d once thought? No, not exactly. Her formula couldn’t create syndrium from a distance, yet the enemy seelie had figured out a way to drain the pylon and her stones, even though she wasn’t right beside them. By the gods, she needed to be closer to figure this out.

  “What are you doing?” Lilani’s mother’s voice asked in her ear.

  Vandra couldn’t avoid a jump. She’d never get used to invisible people. “I’m going to get closer and check on Lilani.”

  The empress breathed in sharply. Maybe she’d just realized her daughter was on the ground. She spoke a few words in seelie then said, “We will distract them. Work quickly. They are stealing the magic.”

  Vandra turned to ask what that meant, but the air rushed around her as the seelie dispersed. At the pylon, one of the enemy seelie fell. The rest vanished, all but Camilla and the man beside her. The sounds of combat filled the field, and the occasional seelie form blinked into view before disappearing again.

  “Come on, come on,” Vandra said, nearly dancing in place, ready to run, but she was no match for Camilla.

  As if answering her prayers, Camilla leaned far to the side as if avoiding a strike, then she vanished, too.

  Vandra ran, not knowing how long the empress could keep the enemy seelie occupied. The man still stood where he’d been, checking the alchemical equipment and ignoring Lilani’s limp body. Vandra’s lips pulled back as she snarled. She didn’t remember anything Fieta or Pietyr had tried to teach her about self-defense. She just kept running, teeth gritted, and anger making her vision flash red. When the man finally looked up, it was too late to scramble out of the way, and his mouth opened as wide as his eyes.

  Vandra ran into him at full speed, one arm out. He flew back, and she fell after him, tripping. He knocked against the pylon, and she didn’t hesitate to smash one of her stones atop his head with all her strength.

  He sagged, not moving, and she turned away, dropping the stone. She reached for Lilani, intending to pull her off the metal sheet but paused, her rational brain crying out for her to think. Lilani’s hair didn’t flutter. Even unconscious, her magical field should have been flowing. If it was this alchemical contraption that had taken her field away, it could be the only thing that could bring it back.

  Vandra’s fingers moved to Lilani’s neck, and after she found a pulse, she headed for the wires that led from the pylon to the metal and also to some sort of portable lab with a large crucible. She threw her pack on the ground and tossed its contents out until she found her syndrium detector, but it spun around the field, detecting the pylon and all the seelie. No help there.

  She gathered the ingredients she’
d need to create syndrium, but there were so few left, and she didn’t know if her formula would help at all. With a metal scoop, she took some of the mixture cooking in the enemy’s crucible and smelled it. Definitely sulfur. She smeared the mixture inside her ceramic mixing tray. Those dull flecks were probably lead. But the other metallic flecks…

  “Silver?” It hadn’t quite melted, and when she dug out her most powerful, rare-earth magnet, the silver tumbled toward it. “Why would you need a conductor like silver?” she asked the enemy alchemist’s slumped body. “To draw Lilani’s magic? The pylon’s magic?” She frowned. “If you could draw the magic out of the pylon, why would you need…” She looked to Lilani. Maybe the silver wasn’t the only conductor here.

  She turned to her pack again, digging until she found a pouch of glass rods. “First, stop the connection from the pylon to the apparatus.” She found the coil connecting the two and slipped a rod inside. The glow from the pylon ceased fading almost immediately. “Then the apparatus to Lilani.” She found the coil at the metal plate and slipped in the other rod.

  Lilani sighed, though her hair remained as lifeless as a human’s.

  Vandra spotted another wire leading from Lilani to a metal bar stuck in the ground. This wasn’t the same kind of connection. She touched the metal bar gingerly, following it with her fingers. If Lilani had been their conductor, using her to drain the pylon of power, then that power had to be going somewhere. If she pulled this from the ground, would that help?

  Vandra moved to Lilani and shook her gently, wondering if she could even live without her magical field. She didn’t stir. Vandra looked to her pack again. If they’d drawn Lilani’s magic out, maybe Vandra could put it back as if Lilani were a pylon. She started assembling her ingredients, hoping the proximity of all these seelie would be enough to complete her formula.

  She poured her ingredients into her own crucible and set it down beside Lilani, ready to add the heat she’d need. “I love you,” she whispered.

  As she struck a match, she flew sideways, grunting, her ribs aching again as pain bounced through her like a ball on a string. She struggled to her knees and opened her eyes to see Camilla kick her crucible over, spilling the last of her ingredients over the ground.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Crying out in despair, Vandra dove for the crucible, but nothing remained inside. She’d need tweezers to gather everything from the ground while keeping it pure. Camilla smiled. Maybe she understood what she’d done, maybe not, but Vandra surrendered to a fury she’d never felt before.

  Her vision darkened, not simply exploding with pops of color as it had with the enemy alchemist. She knew she was moving, but she couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, could barely feel. Her rational mind blinked from existence like a hidden seelie. She knew she ran toward her death, but nothing in the world could have stopped her.

  The ground smacking into her face woke her. Her anger blew away in a gust of confusion; free, her rational mind reasserted itself. She looked up to see the empress standing over her. Whether Vandra had fallen or the empress had tripped her, Vandra didn’t know. The empress faced down Camilla, blade to blade. Besides the wound in her side, Camilla had a long tear in her armor. Blood marred the pale flesh of her shoulder as well as her face where Vandra had hit her earlier.

  The empress breathed hard through her open mouth. Her left hand hung limply, and her shoulder jutted forward at an unnatural angle. A trickle of red ran out of her armor and down her leg, but Vandra couldn’t spot the source. Still, her sword didn’t waver.

  And she’d bought Vandra more time.

  Vandra turned for her pack. There wasn’t time to tweeze her ingredients out of the grass and dirt and blood. The ring of weapons sounded all around her, but the empress’s seelie were outnumbered. It was only a matter of time before someone else interrupted Vandra. She searched hurriedly, throwing things around the field, searching for a mythical trove of ingredients hidden at the bottom of her pack.

  Her rational mind knew the sad truth. She didn’t have enough for her formula.

  But did she need them? She wasn’t trying to create syndrium; she was trying to restore Lilani’s magical field. Maybe that wasn’t as complicated. But where to start? She gripped the case containing her scraps of lead and fought the urge to scream. This couldn’t end here, not so close, not like this! The gods wouldn’t be so cruel.

  Vandra groaned as she got to her feet, her ribs aching. With nothing else to try, she grasped Lilani’s wrist and heaved her one-handed from the sheet of metal.

  Now what?

  Nothing. Even her rational mind despaired.

  Vandra sank down at Lilani’s side. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, not bothering to wipe away her tears. “I thought I saved you, but I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

  Lilani’s eyelids fluttered. Hopes soaring, Vandra stroked her face. “Lilani?”

  Her mouth worked, but Vandra heard nothing, and her pulse was still weak. Had she only awakened enough for good-bye? Was that mercy or cruelty from the gods?

  Off to the side, the empress cried out. Vandra looked in time to see her fall, one hand pressed to a streaming wound in her stomach. Vandra gritted her teeth. First Lilani, then her mother? She couldn’t just let that happen.

  Camilla said something to the empress, but the empress looked at Vandra as if seeking a way out.

  There was none. Unless… Vandra glanced at the apparatus and metal sheet. She smiled. Maybe she could beat Camilla if she used what she was best at: alchemy and getting in the way. Keeping the empress’s eye, Vandra looked pointedly at the metal plate, then at Camilla’s back before she made a shoving motion. As Camilla turned away, the empress nodded.

  Vandra stood and stepped in front of the metal plate, staring Camilla down. “I’ll be your next opponent.”

  Fieta would have said, “Next kill, more like.” Pietyr would have added cautions and tips. Vandra tried to summon their courage. She willed her feet not to move as Camilla stalked toward her. She would make an end of this.

  In Lilani’s name.

  The empress launched up without a sound and rushed Camilla from behind. Vandra dropped to her hands and knees, acting as a fulcrum for the empress’s shove. Camilla tripped over her and toppled onto the metal plate.

  Vandra sprang for the alchemical apparatus and pulled out one glass rod.

  Face and hands stuck against the plate, Camilla groaned. Her head lifted slightly before crashing down again. Her mouth and eyes were wide, but if she tried to scream, Vandra heard nothing. The sight managed to be satisfying and disturbing at the same time. Her eyelids fluttered once before closing, and Vandra didn’t know if the device would be an end to her, but it kept her contained.

  It didn’t help Lilani.

  The empress had stumbled to Lilani’s side and knelt. Vandra followed. They’d saved the pylons; Lilani would be happy about that. Camilla was likely dying. Lilani might have been comforted by that. But in a moment, Vandra and the empress would be killed, and the remaining enemy seelie would retreat back into the tattered lands to make a new plan.

  Vandra smoothed Lilani’s hair. The empress glanced at her before looking at Lilani, and something like frustrated resignation creased her face before it settled into grief. Vandra wanted to tell her to run, that the seelie would still need their empress, but her face had gone pale, and she sagged, too wounded to go anywhere.

  Vandra clenched her jaw. She was still alive. Lilani and her mother were still alive. While they lived, they had a chance. Her parents would be so ashamed if she just lay down and died. She stood, but what could she do? With one arm, she couldn’t drag Lilani and her mother to safety at once. As much as the thought hurt, maybe the enemy seelie would leave Lilani alone—since she was unconscious—and Vandra could help her mother to safety? She stood and pulled the empress up.

  “What are you doing?” The words came out with a groan, and the empress nearly slid off Vandra’s arm.

  “Come on. We’re no
t going to sit and…” She trailed away as she spotted a group of people rushing toward them from the south. Seelie or human? It didn’t matter. They were coming from the untattered side of the border.

  Vandra beamed. She could save Lilani and her mother. And as before, all she needed was time. “Call your people to pull back to us,” Vandra said as she let go of the empress and retrieved her last fire pouch and her bottle of oil.

  “Why?”

  “Call them! And tell them to be visible!” She emptied the oil in a long line.

  The empress took a deep breath, then shouted. Vandra lit her pouch, ignoring the burn as three seelie appeared and streaked past her. She threw the pouch into the line of oil, and it whooshed into flame. Several enemy seelie cried out as they fell back. Vandra turned for Lilani and grabbed her arm, dragging her. One of the ally seelie helped, while the two others picked up the empress and began carrying her away.

  “We will not outrun them!” the empress cried.

  Vandra grinned. “We won’t have to!”

  When the sounds of combat came from behind them, Vandra turned. Most of the enemy seelie had dropped their shroud, and now the human soldiers that had come up behind them were cutting into their ranks. Vandra had bought them some time. She sank down beside Lilani and laughed, her adrenaline leaving her, and her emotions battering her until she wept and cackled at the same time.

  The human soldiers put out the flames, and Monarch Shyn Harra Rhys hurried toward Vandra. “Professor Singh! I’m so happy you’re safe.”

  She wiped her eyes. “I should have known you’d show up here.” She looked to Lilani, and the urge to weep reared up again, but she fought it down. “I have to help her.”

  “Well, then. I’m glad I thought to bring supplies. I sent some with all the pylon teams.” Shyn Harra Rhys gestured to a woman carrying a bulging backpack. “Hopefully, we’ll now have enough soldiers at each pylon to guard them fully.”

  Vandra could have kissed everyone, should have been thanking them, but she had to save her energy. “The pylons should be all right for a little while longer, at least until after I help Lilani.”