The Severed Realm

by Michael G. Manning

  I couldn’t say anything. That just wasn’t possible, not yet, maybe not ever. But I could do something, even if it made me feel bad later. A kiss, maybe. That would reassure her.

  Something told me it was a bad idea, but I’ve never had any luck second-guessing myself, so I rolled over to face her. The dim light was enough for me to see her eyes were open, even without my magesight, and for a brief second, we were almost nose to nose, gazing at one another. Then I shifted, to bring my lips in line with hers.

  “Mort, no!” she cried, pushing me away. Then her eyes watered up again.

  My heart was doubly skewered, first by her teary gaze and rejection, and then again by thoughts of Penny. “Sorry,” I mumbled, feeling awkward. “I don’t know what’s wrong or what I’m supposed to do.”

  Rose dried her face with her sleeve, then replied softly, “That makes two of us.”

  “It would help if I knew what was wrong,” I told her.

  She chewed her lip for a moment, then answered, “Survivor’s guilt.”

  I already knew I was suffering from that, not that giving it a special name helped much. “I meant you. What’s wrong?”

  “Survivor’s guilt,” she repeated.

  I squinted at her in the dark. “Penny was my wife, not yours. You shouldn’t feel bad about it.”

  “She was my best friend,” countered Rose.

  “You haven’t done anything wrong,” I said dismissively.

  “Haven’t I?” said Rose darkly. “I’ve been thinking over my actions during the past weeks. Would I have done all those things if I wasn’t selfishly trying to make something for myself out of her loss?”

  That made no sense to me. “So, trying to keep me from getting my neck stretched is a bad thing?”

  “That’s not what I mean,” she responded. “I’ve lost perspective. I’ve only been thinking about myself, when I should be thinking about others.”

  “Well, from my perspective, you’ve only done what you have always done, the right thing. Even if you didn’t give two figs for my twig and berries, you would have done the same thing. If you had an extra motive, well, who doesn’t? We’re human. People want things. That’s how we are,” I said somewhat eloquently, at least in my own opinion.

  “Did you just say, ‘twig and berries’?” asked Rose, incredulous.

  I grinned. “It’s a euphemism.”

  She laughed. “I know what it means. I’m just surprised you would call it that. And for your information, I am not at all interested in your ‘twig and berries.’ I was just saying that I was thinking of myself. Saving you was a selfish effort to cure my own loneliness.”

  I was relieved to see her mood had lightened and also offended on behalf of little Mordecai. “First,” I said, beginning my rebuttal, “being lonely is no sin. You deserve happiness as much as anyone else. Second, I am shattered to learn you find me unattractive. I thought you liked me because of my irresistible physical appeal. Now I have to rethink everything I ever believed about myself.”

  She smirked. “I didn’t say you were unattractive, merely that I’m not interested in you because of your meaty bits. Contrary to popular male belief, most women don’t generally sit around thinking about men’s winkles.”

  “Winkles?” I exclaimed, shocked. “Did you just say, ‘winkles’? Lady Rose, I am scandalized by your language. I can’t wait to inform the court of your wanton words.”

  She winked at me. “You’ll never prove it, and if you try, they won’t believe you.” Then she rolled over and put her back to me. “I’m going to sleep.”

  That effectively ended the conversation, so I lay down as well, making sure to keep a small space between us. Rose was obviously feeling better now, but I didn’t want to press my luck.

  “I’m cold,” announced Rose.

  For a second, I considered repeating my warming spell, but then discarded the notion. I knew what she meant, and I wasn’t feeling particularly noble at the moment anyway. Scooting closer, I draped one arm over her and conformed my shape to hers.

  “Just be careful,” said Rose. “I don’t want that twig poking me, or you’ll be over there with no blanket.”

  ***

  If the early part of my sleep had been rough, the second part was deep. I slept like a rock, probably the first good rest I’d had since escaping from a death sentence. Rose must have been tired as well, because when we woke, it was already morning.

  My arm was dead again, but that wasn’t what bothered me the most. As my sleep-addled brain slowly began to work, I realized that the snuffling sound in my ears was the product of something large sniffing at my leg.

  Adrenaline is a wonderful thing at moments like that. My awareness exploded, and in an instant of severe clarity I realized several things. First, we had overslept, and my alarm spell had worn off, or perhaps the rain had washed away the circle, ending it sooner. Second, our remaining fish, which I had hoped to have for breakfast, was gone. Last, we were surrounded by a pack of very large wolves, and apparently one fish wasn’t enough to satisfy them.

  The one sniffing my leg had probably been trying to determine if I was dead, and if so, whether I was I still safe to eat. As my heart jumped and my blood began to race, its keen nose registered the difference and it decided to take the initiative. The wolf’s mouth snapped open and it lunged for my obviously tasty calf.

  A shield probably wouldn’t work. I knew that from my experience with the bears that had ruined Penny’s arm. Instead, I put as much force as I could into a battering ram to thrust the predator away from me. Much of the energy was wasted, sliding off the wolf’s back like water from a duck, but enough made contact to push it back several feet.

  With seven more wolves almost as close, a dead arm, and no weapons, I didn’t have many options. With a thought, I created a small shield around Rose and myself, in the shape of a bubble, then I reached out with my power and collapsed the sandcastle house on top of us.

  That was the part that woke Rose, and she was not very happy about it. She sat up suddenly, and when she saw the sand and roof coming down, she grabbed my dead arm with such strength that I almost felt it. Sometimes numbness is a blessing.

  “What?” she shouted in my ear.

  I replied with equal loquacity, “Wolves.” I was too busy digging through my magical pouches to give a better explanation. Having only one useable arm made it much harder, but eventually I got hold of what I wanted, my staff.

  Pulling a six-foot length of wood from a belt pouch with only one arm, while trapped in a bubble under a lot of sand, isn’t an easy task. That’s when you really want something smaller, like a wand. The upside is that once you finally have it out and in hand, it’s a damn sight better. The difference is rather like comparing a dagger and a sword. Both will cut, but a sword will take off an arm or a leg if you use it with enough enthusiasm. And I was certainly feeling enthusiastic.

  Shifting and flopping about, I had the staff halfway out before I realized our bubble wasn’t big enough, so I took a moment to enlarge it, pushing the sand farther away. Meanwhile, Rose figured out what I was doing and used her two good hands to get the staff the rest of the way out for me.

  The wolves were all around the perimeter of our collapsed sand pile, digging underneath the edges of the glass roof to get at us. Changing my shield into a half-dome, I used it to keep what was above us above, while leaving the area around us free for me to attack.

  Then I turned my fear and annoyance at the rude awakening into a burning line of intense, red fire, using my staff to channel it. Turning in a circle, it burned through the sand and did much more interesting things to the wolves, cutting them into a varied mix of scorched wolf pieces.

  Once I was sure the wolves were dead, I stopped. Rose and I stood in our sand-enclosed bubble for a moment, catching our breath. Then I used my power again, lifting the glassine roof fro
m over us and displacing enough sand so we could walk out.

  “I have some bad news,” I told Rose.

  Worried, she asked, “What is it?”

  “The fish is no more,” I answered. “Would you care for some wolf instead? I have several options available and all the choicest cuts.”

  She blanched. “I’ll pass, thank you for the offer.”

  With all the dead animals, our once-idyllic camp seemed more like a slaughterhouse now. “I seem to have lost my appetite as well,” I agreed. “We should probably start moving.”

  “The question,” said Rose, “is where do we go?”

  “Well, it’s a pretty good assumption that we’re in the same half of the world that Lancaster is located in, but we have no idea which direction it’s in,” I said, laying out what we knew.

  Rose nodded.

  “We could also go back through the boundary, which would put us back in Albamarl. I’m in better shape and the pursuit probably isn’t expecting us to reappear there. We could try for the house again,” I offered.

  “Except that it’s probably guarded by now,” pointed out Rose. “And if Tyrion somehow survived, he will very likely have reset the enchantment to keep you out of the house.”

  I pursed my lips. “It would have been difficult to survive that explosion. I barely did, and I wasn’t as close. If he lost consciousness for even a few seconds afterward, he would be dead for sure.”

  “Exactly how much can you survive?” asked Rose, suddenly curious. “You came back from death itself, didn’t you?”

  “That was different,” I explained. “My body was dead, but my soul was chained to it. Gareth made me a new one while Walter kept me from drifting into the afterlife. Aside from that, I can heal almost any wound, so long as I’m conscious and able to use my power. After that fight with Tyrion, I had a really severe case of feedback sickness, which kept me from doing anything. Otherwise I’d have been fine.”

  “What about during the Ungol attack?” Rose inquired. “You took an arrow through the heart. Something different happened there, didn’t it?”

  Damn, she’s perceptive. Then again, Rose hadn’t been present during that attack, or even seen me until later. How could she know about my transformation? “How do you know about that?” I asked sharply.

  “Penny,” Rose said simply, but she didn’t offer any mention of when they had talked.

  “She probably exaggerated how bad it was,” I replied, wanting to drop the subject.

  But Rose had the scent, and she wasn’t ready to surrender the chase. “I don’t think so, Mordecai. She said you changed. That you still held something from your time as a shiggreth within you.”

  I winced, but there was no sense denying it now. I nodded, then said, “She always talked too much.”

  “So back to the original question,” said Rose, forging on. “Is what you did unique to you, or could any archmage do it?”

  “I think they could if they knew how to hear the void,” I admitted. “But as far as I know, I’m the only one who’s ever been through the experience, so it’s probably just me.”

  “If someone stabbed Tyrion through the heart, would it kill him?” she asked.

  “I think so. He would lose consciousness too quickly. I imagine that or cutting off his head would do the trick. If he was already unconscious, or if he had feedback sickness, it would be a lot easier.”

  “And what about you?” said Rose pointedly.

  I shrugged. “It’s tricky. If I had feedback sickness, I think almost anything could kill me. Otherwise, it would be safest to burn my entire body to ash—quickly. It’s sort of a choice, though. If I refused to change, I would probably die. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Then let me be clear,” said Rose emphatically. “Unless you’re about to die, I don’t want you to use that other power, under any circumstance.”

  “Why?” I asked, suddenly suspicious. I already knew it was risky, that it might be doing something terrible to me, but Rose didn’t. Or at least, she shouldn’t know. Even Penny hadn’t known that, although she might have learned it at the very end.

  “Call it a hunch,” said Rose. “Besides, I’m in charge of you now, so you have to listen.”

  I gaped. “In charge of me? What does that mean?” I stopped myself just short of saying she wasn’t Penny.

  Rose nodded. “Penny left me instructions long ago telling me that if anything happened to her, I would be in charge of managing your stupidity,” she added, telling a half-truth.

  “Stupidity?”

  She smiled innocently, batting her lashes at me. “Oh, forgive me, I meant to say, ‘reckless behavior,’ but it amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?”

  I huffed. “I’ll manage myself, thank you very much.”

  “Tell yourself whatever you like if it makes you feel better,” stated Rose. “But first promise me you won’t use that dark power you mentioned unless you’re about to die.”

  “Fine,” I growled. “But I had already decided that on my own.”

  She smirked, but I knew I would have the last laugh. No one had yet managed to bridle my stupidity when I put my head to it. She might fool herself thinking she could predict the stupid, but it was a force of nature in its own right. In fact, I wasn’t sure I could predict it either. Stupid never dies.

  “Back to where we started,” I said, changing the subject. “I think we should try flying. Lancaster might be closer than we think, and if not, we’ll learn something about this other half of our world. In the worst case, I’ll find another boundary and take us back.”

  Rose looked nervous. “I’m not sure about flying…”

  “Just turn around,” I told her. “I’ll explain how it works.” When she didn’t move, I walked around and stood behind her. “The important thing to remember,” I began, wrapping my arms around her waist, “is that you don’t have to do anything.” Then I launched us skyward.

  She screamed as though someone was sticking a knife in her, twisting in my arms so she could latch onto me with her own hands, while I laughed. It had been a little cruel of me, perhaps, but sometimes my capricious moods get the better of me.

  I figured she would forgive me later.

  Chapter 44

  Matthew had just stepped through the boundary to begin another day’s waiting when Karen appeared just a few feet away. She appeared glad to see him. “There you are,” he said calmly. “Where are the others?”

  Her expression of relief faded quickly. “I don’t know.”

  “What happened?”

  She gave him a brief description of the failed rescue attempt of his father, and for once Matthew’s normally impassive features darkened with worry. It wasn’t something a stranger would have noticed, but she knew him well enough to see the signs. From what she had just told him, it was highly probable that his father was now dead.

  “What about the others?” asked Matthew, remaining practical despite his inner turmoil.

  Karen didn’t have any good news to relay. “I don’t know. After Tyrion knocked me unconscious, I didn’t see what happened. “I came to almost an hour later. They had me locked in a room with two krytek and several human guards. They must have known I was a wizard, but neither Tyrion nor Gareth was around, so they must not have realized what I could do. I teleported out a few seconds after I woke.

  “I was supposed to try and meet Elaine and the others in the forest if everything went well, but by the time I got there, I found no sign of them. I waited a while and even went back to Albamarl a few times, thinking I might find some sign of them, but no luck. Every time I went to the capital, the krytek started making a beeline for me. After a couple of days, I gave up and came here,” she finished. “I considered going to your home, to check on Moira, but…”

  “You did the right thing,” said Matthew quickly, shaking his
head. “That’s the first place they would go. Moira’s probably under watch right now, if not an outright hostage.”

  “We have to get her out then,” said Karen anxiously.

  Matthew smiled mysteriously. “I don’t think so. She’ll be fine.”

  Karen was shocked. “She’s your sister!”

  Matt sat down, picking at the grass nearby. “She’s also the one person best suited for being a hostage. In fact, I would almost say Rose arranged things so that she was the only one there when they came looking. There’s only two reasons for it, to be honest.”

  “What’s the second reason?”

  He shrugged. “Someone has to feed Humphrey.”

  “She could have brought the dog with her,” argued Karen.

  “Someone also needed to be there to lock things up,” added Matthew. “But I still think she makes an ideal hostage.” When Karen started glaring at him, he explained, “Aside from me, she’s probably the most dangerous wizard alive. Maybe more so than even our father. Unless they use extraordinary measures to lock her up, she’ll be able to subvert any guards they use. If she gets loose in the capital, who knows what she could do? She might take over the whole kingdom. In the worst case, we might even have to try and kill her ourselves if she gets too far out of control.”

  “Moira?” said Karen, outraged. “She’s one of the nicest people in your family! I’m probably even closer to her than I am Irene. I can’t see her doing any of that.”

  “A year ago, I would have agreed with you, except for the nice part,” said Matthew snidely. “But after Dunbar, she changed.”

  “But she’s all alone.”

  He shook his head. “No. She’s never alone. She’s an army all by herself. Let’s just hope she doesn’t get out of hand.”

  Karen wasn’t sure what to say to that, so she switched topics. “What about Gary?”

  “What about him?”

  “Isn’t he at your house as well?” said Karen.

  “No,” answered Matthew. “He’s in my new shop, inside the yard of Castle Cameron.”