And he is dying, she thought again, a wasted sacrifice, a wasted life.
“Ellonlef?” a voice rasped.
Ellonlef’s dark eyes flew open to gaze into his blue. Despite the unbearable pain he must be suffering, he offered her a half-smile. “Are you real?”
“Yes,” she said, vigorously rubbing his hand. He winced, so she stopped.
“Good. I thought … I thought you a dream … something sweet to ease the nightmare of Varis.”
“He is no nightmare,” Azuri hissed, as he and the others closed in tight, as if forming a protective wall.
“A shame,” Kian breathed, closing his eyes against a wave of misery that left his tattered flesh trembling. After a moment, he added weakly, “A shame I did not kill that wretched bastard at the palace. The chance was there, but mercy clouded my judgment.”
Ellonlef’s wan grin froze on her face. Suddenly she was not there anymore, not in Hya’s shop, not in Ammathor, but many leagues distant, back at the cleft under the rocks as the Tears of Pa’amadin were raining down. The recollection spun and twisted, becoming a memory of flashing lightning made brighter by the absolute darkness under a hill of weathered stone. Her flesh was afire like it had been then, as if touched by that lightning, tingling and alive!
At Kian’s touch, images and memories clashed inside her skull, things she should have taken note of at the time, but had not. Or had she pushed them away, fearful of what they might reveal? She had taken injuries during the Bashye attack, many bruises and scrapes, her ribs had been scored by an arrow, her knee had been the size of a melon. Yet after Kian had taken her from the cleft, those pains had troubled her no longer.
How often have I wondered at the tiny, pale scar on my side, she thought, alwayswithout considering the how of it? It was as if some part of her had refused to see or regard what had been right before her eyes. As well, there had been the blood coating her after Hazad had taken her from the cleft. She thought it had been Kian’s, from the abrasion on his brow….
More memories filtered through the murk of her mind, clarifying, solidifying….
There had been an explosion of light, the sound of the very earth rupturing-and pain, sharp and bright as a sword slamming into her head … and then, for a time, nothing. The images began to fade from her mind, replaced by dreadful understanding. I died.Something smashed into me, a stone, and I died … and Kian brought me back. Somehow, using the powers of creation, he made me whole.
The queer tingling she had felt when she lay down with Kian in the wagonbed surged over her skin once more, strong enough to steal her breath. She had the urge to clutch Kian to her breast, to hold him tight, to give back what he had given to her. Ellonlef had no idea if what she was feeling and thinking was an illusion of hope, or was truth. Nor did she understand how to do what her very soul seemed to be telling her to do.
Kian had fallen back into unconsciousness, and she knew she did not have time to reason or plan. She let instinct, insubstantial as a morning mist, guide her hands to his chest, just over his heart. All thought faded, leaving behind a serene emptiness-
The jolt of energy that coursed through her fingers and sank into her bones at the sensation of his cold, bloody skin was like a hammer crashing through her spirit. She managed to bite back a startled gasp, but only because awed wonder closed her throat. In that moment, she and Kian were one flesh, and she felt that whatever happened to Kian at the temple in the swamp, it had made him more than merely a man, more than flesh, blood, and bone.
Some unknown part of herself opened, releasing a power or force that she had not known was inside her. Through eyes slitted in rapturous ecstasy, she looked on the savaged man before, a man she knew she could not live without, who she loved with all her heart.
At that thought, her eyes flew wide, and then wider still as a faint, blue shimmer spread from her hands over Kian’s chest. Startled gasps erupted from herself and those hovering over her shoulder. She paid them no heed. The gleaming luminescence spread until it covered the whole of Kian’s body like a translucent, azure cocoon. By heartbeats, that soothing glow grew brighter and brighter, forcing her to squint.
Her breath failed her when Kian’s torn skin began closing … healing. Kian’s back arched violently, and his coverings were thrown aside, fully exposing the extent of his injuries. The raw, weeping wounds in his arms swiftly mended from the inside out, becoming whole in the span of two deep breaths. Where ribs had shown through deep slashes, the muscles knitted together, followed by whole skin.
Kian seemed to be struggling for breath. He looked this way and that, panicked, almost as much as Ellonlef was herself. Without warning, the blue shimmer dimmed, then winked out, the last of it soaking into Kian. Ellonlef reeled backward and would have toppled, save for Hazad’s strong hand on her shoulder.
Kian still had not drawn a breath, and Azuri slid in front of Ellonlef, stunned, but showing not a little hint of mirth. His gray eyes searched Kian’s face a moment, then he laughed. “As I told you once before, you great oaf, you must breathe if you do not wish to suffocate.”
Kian’s struggles ceased at once and he sucked in a great, gasping breath, followed by an explosive coughing fit. All stared as his breathing rapidly took on a regular rhythm. His hand floundered about until finding Ellonlef’s. His pulse thudded in his now warm grip, but that was a distant thing. As her gaze locked with his, it was as if the world had been swept away, leaving only the two of them looking into each other’s eyes. In that moment, it dawned on her that she knew him as she never had before. In truth, she had never known anyone, save herself, with such intimacy. It was both wonderful and frightening.
Pain and loss were at the center of him, something from his youth-no doubt from the loss of his homelands and his family during the war between Falseth and Izutar. As well, she felt a sense of nobility and dedication so vast in him that it startled her. The carefully guarded kindness in his heart, something she had once believed to be all but nonexistent, was rivaled by an iron core that demanded fairness and justice. Over all of this, she also sensed a secret, something she felt sure even he was unaware of, something of light and life, a living, indefinable thing … a presence.
The powers of creation, she understood with profound astonishment.
He released her hand and relaxed his head against a pile of dusty sacks serving as a pillow. “I must sleep … just a moment,” he whispered, the last word trailing off to a peaceful sigh.
Ellonlef glanced at Hazad and Azuri, and they shared a moment of warmth and joy, savoring that Kian was alive.
Hya cleared her throat, questions in her milky eyes. Whatever she was thinking, she kept to herself in the face of burning urgency. “He cannot sleep long,” she advised. “Hya, Sister of Najihar, is not unknown to the Ivory Throne, nor to any who sit upon it. No doubt word will reach Varis of Kian’s escape, and more importantly,” she added with a pointed look at Ellonlef, “word of those who aided him.”
Ellonlef nodded slowly, the full truth of what had just happened beginning to settle over her. That she had held within her the powers of creation, without ever knowing, was astounding to be sure, but more so was that Kian lay whole before her, and that he would live … but only so long as they escaped Ammathor and, more importantly, Varis.
“What do you suggest?” Ellonlef asked.
“There is one man I trust who will give aid, if the price is right. Come, we must prepare while Kian gets what rest he can.”
“Hazad and I will stand watch outside,” Azuri advised. “If we return with haste, then we must leave with haste.”
After the two men left, Ellonlef busied herself with getting together supplies for a journey, which was little enough, given that they would soon be running for their very lives.
Chapter 44
Ruin him, a disembodied voice rasped. Bulging white eyes that should have been blind, yet were not, observed and approved of his pain.
Kian’s eyes flew open, the memory of his riven
flesh a searing brand in his consciousness. He remained perfectly still, the dream-pain fading. Those dead white eyes, though, the hatred they expressed, remained etched in his mind. No matter that Varis had changed, to Kian he was still and would always be the skeletal abomination that had come forth from the temple in the Qaharadin. And Varis, he had no doubt, would be coming for him.
Kian frowned, some part of himself urgently revisiting memories better left forgotten. In a sudden rush everything came spilling forth, a black tide of pain and suffering. And yet through that abysmal flood, there shone a spark of light, pure and warm. Ellonlef. She and his friends had come for him, taken him from the darkness, somehow returned him to safety.
He flexed his hands, expecting weakness and pain, but finding strength. His fingers slowly, almost fearfully, investigated his torso, knowing they should encounter absolute physical destruction. Instead, they found taut skin and warm flesh. How…?
The question evaporated and he blinked several times. Aside from the image of Ellonlef gazing down on him with a strange mingling of joy and fear and something else, the last thing he recalled was darkness and rough-hewn stone, and the babble of hungry voices. The longer he considered, the more he remembered.
Hazad, Azuri, and Ellonlef had brought him to this somehow familiar place. It took some moments before he realized he was staring at a ceiling of once white plaster gone to brown with smoke and ages. Kian rolled his head to one side, waiting for the red pain he recalled to fall on him again. Nothing met his movement, save a little stiffness. A glowing brazier stood beside an old table below a shuttered window. On the table sat a low-burning oil lamp and a green vase filled with a long-dead cutting of flowers.
He turned his head in the opposite direction and found an old woman clad in a dense swaddling of gray robes sitting on a stool just beyond the doorway. I know her … Hya, a Sister of Najihar. She did not notice his movements.
He glanced back to the ceiling and saw a lizard, sluggish with cold, peering down at him. A fly lumbered near, then the fly was in the lizard’s mouth. Kian would have sworn the creature smiled in triumph, and he smiled in return. He had never felt so alive.
Stop this! a warning voice raved. Danger is drawing near!
His happiness, doubtless a distraction concocted by his weary mind, began to crack and fall away. How he had come to be healed, he had no answer, but of scourges savaging his flesh, of iron spikes ripping through his arms, the memory of those things was alive in him. He surveyed a faint, puckered scar on his forearm where a wrought iron spike had been driven through by a robed priest, his cowled eyes burning with anger and disgust-not for Kian, but for Varis. He turned his wrist and saw the same scar on the other side. Such a wound should have left him crippled, yet had not. There were other scars, faded and pale, crisscrossing over his skin, as if long healed.
How long would that have taken? He had heard more than one tale of men grievously wounded in battle who had remained senseless and abed for years before coming awake. Years … could it have been so long?
“You are awake then,” Hya said with a dry cackle. “Good. It saves me the effort of rousing your lazy bones.”
“How long have I been here?” Kian asked?
Hya stood with much effort, curiosity lighting her wizened features. “Less than an hour.”
Kian gasped. If he had been given the choice, he would have suggested weeks, if not months, had passed since he was thrown into the Pit, yet less than a full day had passed since Varis had done all he could to destroy him.
“How …” the unasked questioned disintegrated. He had been about to ask how he could have possibly been healed from what should have killed him, but like knowing where he was, he suddenly knew how it had happened. The powers of creation had been used to knit his flesh whole … and those powers had been wielded by Ellonlef.
Hazad burst into the shop with the slam of a door and a soft but urgent cry of warning. A moment later he pushed into the room, looking frantic. Melting snow wetted his wild hair. When his eyes fell on Kian, his features split in a wide grin. Tears shone in the big man’s eyes, and he rushed to Kian’s side. Then, without warning, overcome with joy, he leaned over and kissed his captain on the brow. Smothering under the man’s drenched beard braids, Kian jabbed him in the ribs with a half-hearted curse. Despite the threat of danger, Kian could not shake the sensation of exultation he felt at being alive.
Azuri came next. He drew back the hood of his cloak, careful not to let the wet touch his skin. He surveyed the scene in an instant, stepped forward with a wry smirk, clasped hands with Kian, then stood back, composed.
“While I’m sure this bumbling lout would slobber on you the rest of the night,” he said, “we have no time. The House Guard, twenty or more mounted, is fast approaching. There is no doubt they know the general area they are looking for, but thank the gods, it seems they are not sure exactly where they are going. Despite that small mercy, we have but moments before they find us. We must depart.” This last he spoke to Hya.
Kian did not waste time wondering if he would be able to stand on his own. Taking a deep breath, he sat up. He felt a little weak, but there was a sense of strength deep in his bones that wanted to be unleashed. Unassisted, he got to his feet just as Ellonlef came into the room, confused by all the commotion. For the barest moment Kian’s eyes found hers. In that instant, a silent promise was made to speak later. For his part, Kian was not sure how he felt about what needed to be spoken between them, but he was exhilarated by the prospect. But he sensed that there were many dangers to face before that conversation took place-dangers that might not allow them to ever speak of those matters.
He pushed that aside. “I need clothes,” he said, “unless you expect me to run about naked, fighting like a Whitehold savage.”
Ellonlef blinked, then turned and rushed to another part of the shop, but not before Kian had seen the blush coloring her cheeks.
“There will be no fighting, Izutarian,” Hya said grimly. “You must flee Aradan.”
Kian’s face grew stern, and he shook his head. “What was begun, must be finished. Varis cannot be allowed to rule either as a man … or a god.”
“He nearly killed you the first time,” Hya admonished.
“I will not stop fighting him until either he is dead, or I am. He may have been born human, but he is no longer. He has become a demon. I would rather perish than accept his rule.”
Ellonlef returned with a armful of Kian’s clothes and a pair of spare boots. The clothing still bore the dust and sweat from the journey across the Kaliayth. Kian took the garb from her and began to dress, his movements further renewing his strength. He spoke without looking at Hya.
“Will you-can you-help us find a way into the palace, a secret way?”
Hya ground her few teeth together in frustration, but Kian sensed that she would help as she could, that she understood all too well the cost of failure.
“As I said before, I know a man who can get you free of Ammathor. That same man, I am sure, can get you into the palace. Whether he will help or not, only time will tell. The man of whom I speak is inclined to enjoy the advantages of troubles in distressed lands. Should you destroy Varis … well, that may prove a devastating blow to the commerce of all smugglers and lawbreakers.”
“Take us to him,” Kian said. “One way or another, he will aid us.” He was not keen on torturing, especially given his recent ordeal, but neither was he willing to risk Varis rising to the levels of power he sought.
Kian sat upon the edge of the bed to drag on his boots. As he pulled on the second, a flurry of shouts went up outdoors, sounding near. Hazad and Azuri spun as one, going out to see what was amiss.
“Are we in readiness?” Hya asked, urgently drawing on another robe, giving her the look of a gray tick fat on its latest feed.
Ellonlef nodded. “There was not much to pack, as we are wearing most of our clothing. As for provisions … I suppose there is no need of them now, not if we are
to make for the palace.”
Kian shot her a fleeting glance. She did not speak as if afraid, or even resigned, and neither did she sound put off that he wished to confront Varis again. She might not be excited about the prospect, but she appeared fully aware of what was at stake, and resolved that there really was no choice.
Hazad and Azuri’s return focused Kian’s thoughts. Both men wore expressions of confused shock. Only then did the sounds outside penetrate Kian’s awareness. The clangor of steel crashing against steel rang in counterpoint to the screams of the dying and the enraged cries of the killers.
“Madness!” Hazad blurted, before Kian could utter a questioning word. “The House Guard is under attack from what looks to be soldiers of the Crimson Scorpion Legion-brothers of the sword fighting each other!”
Kian digested the news and guessed the implications. “Prince Sharaal’s men, come to reclaim his rightful seat on the Ivory Throne.”
“What’s more,” Azuri added dispassionately, “the denizens of the Chalice seem to have been swept up by the same bloody tide. They are attacking soldiers from the shadows-but only when they are not at each others’ throats, or burning and looting at will.” Only the animated light in Azuri’s eyes suggested he was moved by what he had seen.
It had been many years since Kian had seen that burning glow in his friend’s usually placid gaze. Marso it had been, when they were but children. They had inadvertently ventured into an area of the city controlled by a particularly ruthless band of cutthroats and thieves. The three of them had survived the encounter by using their wits and, for the first time in their lives, by using edged steel. If Azuri wore the same expression now, it gave proof to Hazad’s appraisal of what was going on.
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