The Sleeping Life (Eferum Book 2)

by Andrea K Höst

  "A structure ahead," he said, when they arrived. "We will scout."

  He and Darian Faille took Sukata with them, which surprised Fallon until he realised that they would be thinking of wards and magical defences: all the things they could not detect. But it was not long at all before Sukata came trotting back.

  "Old, ruined and empty," she said. "But there is water, so we will camp either here or just outside it."

  The road had been a false trail, then. Fallon tried not to sag as they continued forward and it became clear that this was no likely lair for whoever had stolen Duchess Surclere. Remnants of buildings, few with any intact walls, let alone roofs or an appearance of being habitable. They were dotted among the trees at the edge of a lake, and on a number of small, flat islands joined by bridges. A row of impressively large statues were evenly spaced along the lake's edge, all of women facing out over the lake. Twenty-one statues, several of them broken and tumbled, and the rest so worn that Fallon couldn't guess if they were meant to be the same person.

  "Deserted, perhaps, but no less confusing," Dezart Samarin murmured. "I am learning a great deal about Semarrak this week."

  "Nothing in the secret Imperial records?" Lieutenant Meniar asked lightly.

  "Not that I've encountered." The Kolan man circled the square base of the nearest statue: a massive block of stone supporting a statue nearly thirty feet in height. "No markings, or distinctive style. Palace or temple complex would be my guess. I think, in other circumstances, I would like to follow that road back, to see what it connects to."

  "Somewhere less windy, it's to be hoped," Lieutenant Meniar said, turning as the two Failles joined him. "I can't sense anything obvious, but the place feels odd. I'd like to go over the complex just briefly, before the sun sets. Do you have a preference for where we camp?"

  "Better away from the water's edge," Darian Faille said

  Lord Surclere surveyed the high banks of the western reach of the lake—back toward where their path would have taken them without Fallon's detour—then said: "In the lea of that rise."

  They started along the bank, but Fallon noticed Tesin Asaka lagging behind, peering at the leaf-littered ground. She started walking in the opposite direction, and Fallon naturally followed her, wondering what she was looking at. Then he saw it: a red-brown crescent curving across two leaves.

  "Blood," Fallon said, or tried to, but his throat made no noise and so he just hurried to catch Tesin, spotting another crescent and another as he did so.

  Fallon had no sooner guessed that they were following the outline of a heel when he saw a patchy mosaic of splotches that made a whole footprint: a string of them, left and right foot both, curving around the base of one of the less intact statues. Faintly, a trickle of power, of intent, touched his senses, and he started running as Tesin circled the rubble around the statue.

  Too slow. Fallon hurled himself frantically forward, and if she had not been a Kellian he would have knocked the slender girl into the lake. As it was, she dodged backward, and then caught his arm to arrest his headlong dive.

  "What is it?" she asked, setting him aside.

  "A ward! A ward!" Fallon tried to shout, and when her puzzlement did not keep her from taking another step, he snatched up a handful of leaves and tossed them over the ring of bloody footprints, even as he got his first good look at the neat hollow that had been scooped out of the statue's base, leaving a domelike rock sitting on the ground, partially hiding a neat little person-sized space. Occupied.

  The leaves flared to flame and ash, which promptly blew back into their faces, accompanied by the most transitory surge of power from the woman curled into a tight ball beneath the statue. Duchess Surclere. Against all odds, they had found her.

  "Ward?" Lieutenant Meniar asked, hurrying up, and then stopping and letting out all his breath, though whether in relief or dismay Fallon couldn't guess. With only the curve of her back and her draggling braid presented toward them, it was impossible to fully assess her condition, but the bloody handprint on the leg of her pants could hardly be a good sign, and the skin visible between waistband and shirt was blotched red and purple.

  "Definitely a ward, though I've never encountered its like," Lieutenant Meniar went on, voice rapid and a little high. "A Symbolic casting, perhaps designed to minimise the energy cost of its maintenance, barely drawing on her unless something crosses the circle. I can't gauge the details of the exclusion, but it would have been simplest for her to set a blanket ban."

  The Lieutenant was talking to Lord Surclere, who was somehow behind Fallon. Kellian speed. Fallon didn't even need to turn to see that he was there, could feel the tangible thunderstorm presence. How would Lord Surclere feel, to have come so far, to have the Duchess right before them, so plainly injured and exhausted—and locked behind a barrier whose energy cost might even kill her if they tried to cross it.

  Lord Surclere walked into the circle. He didn't even test the ward with a hand first, just stepped forward, leaned down, and picked up the Duchess. No doubt, no hesitation. Or perhaps he would rather burn than—but, no, Fallon thought it was simply utter certainty that the Duchess would not make a barrier that would keep him out.

  The ward dissipated when Lord Surclere stepped back out of the ring of footprints, so they at least would not have to worry about the impact of its maintenance. He stopped as soon as he was outside, and just stood there, looking down at Duchess Surclere as if he could not believe that they had really found her. And everyone else stood in a circle before him, staring just as fixedly at the woman whose health had been the central concern of their journey. A single day alone.

  "Throat," Kendall said, in a strangled whisper. She tugged at the blood-stained collar of the Duchess' shirt, then let out her breath on discovering not a fresh bite, but a sharp slash, dried to tacky stickiness.

  This in turn broke Lieutenant Meniar out of his frozen dismay and he became all business, moving Kendall aside so he could check the Duchess over.

  "Only the feet are bad," he murmured. "And I don't like this rash. But her heartbeat's strong." He picked what might be some rope fibres out of the red blotches that spread up her ankles, puzzled.

  "Should have known she'd rescue herself." Kendall was frowning blackly. "She got out, escaped. But where from? There's nothing here."

  "Obviously more than we can see," Lieutenant Meniar said, crisply. "For now, we need to get her out of this wind, and work on cleaning up these cuts."

  After which, Fallon privately hoped, they would return to Aurai's Rest. But somehow he doubted it would be that simple.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Rennyn woke to a new experience. Her husband, asleep, with his arms around her. Lying in a nest of leaves beneath a fragile pre-dawn sky, Rennyn set aside the mystery of how he came to be there at all, and allowed herself to enjoy this gift. Illidian's heartbeat. Illidian's steady breathing. Illidian's warmth.

  He was having a nightmare. Muscles shifted, and fingers twitched against her back. His face was barely visible in this light, but she thought that in sleep it was more expressive than his waking mask, revealing hints of anger and pain and fear.

  Moving with infinite care, Rennyn lifted her hand and touched his cheek, tracing one of the grim lines that bracketed his mouth. It woke him, as she had expected, and she knew he would remember the first time she had touched him so, and the night that had followed.

  His arms tightened, and for the longest time there was nothing but an embrace without need for more. Then a low grumbling interrupted, and Rennyn stifled a laugh.

  "My stomach is not romantic."

  "But it is here."

  With him. The most important consideration, and one she had almost overlooked when she had been castigating herself for accidental commands.

  Sitting up, she discovered a collection of sleepers, and blinked at Fallon, curled between two divinations and with...was that a spell to keep him silent? Sukata, sleeping propped upright, was maintaining the wards aroun
d their little camp: low-level things that would keep out life-stealers but not do more than delay stronger predators. Lieutenant Meniar, Kendall, the girl Tesin Asaka, Dezart Samarin...and there, keeping watch, Illidian's mother, who met her gaze and nodded.

  Illidian handed her what looked like a small pumpkin, which proved to be a makeshift cup. Taking it, she found that her hand had been neatly bandaged, along with her feet, with a visible buttonhole to reveal the bandages had been someone's shirt. She was also wearing Illidian's coat, though still with her sadly stained lounging suit beneath it.

  "I see there is an exceptionally interesting story behind how you managed to find me."

  "A complete absence of organisation," Illidian said, offering her a large leaf curled around several slices of cold cooked meat. "We forgot even the honey cakes."

  His voice did not quite shake. A day not knowing what was happening to her had taken its toll. She leaned against his side as she ate, and they watched the sky grow lighter. Then he picked her up and took her off to a neatly dug latrine with two stripped branches suspended over it as a rough seat.

  "And here I thought we'd moved past the need for you to carry me to privies," she said, after she had finished and he was taking her down to the lake to wash her hands.

  "You are light-hearted today," he said, sounding pleased.

  Rennyn blinked. "I suppose I am. Glad to be alive, of course, but I think it's that…I have been trying so hard not to hate being consistently tired, and yet all the time convinced it was keeping me from solving all these other problems. But this place—I have no idea what this place is, but being tired only meant I needed to rest before starting work on rescuing the other mages." She smiled. "Though I am exceedingly glad to no longer need to tackle it alone."

  He bent his head and pressed his lips to her temple and then, after she had washed in the chilly water, found a convenient tumbled wall to sit on with her snug in his lap. They had an excellent view over the lake—ethereal and still in the early morning—and were far enough from camp to not worry too much about sleepers.

  "Other problems such as Earl Harkness, and preventing accidental commands?"

  "Accidental commands, and removing the inherited controls. Things I theoretically could fix, if only I could devise a way to it. Earl Harkness is a different sort of matter: he's not something for which I can produce a magical solution—not without being rather immoral." She sighed. "My supposedly carefree post-Solace life is a little full of complications like Harkness. While I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of home we can make in Surclere, I've never cultivated the sort of skills I'll need to be its Duchess. I am not a negotiator or even passably diplomatic. I am not good with compromises or weighing fine moral points. So I've been pushing those type of problems away and trying not to think about them."

  "The Ten," he said, fully aware of her reluctance in relation to their trip to Aurai's Rest, for all she hadn't discussed it with him.

  "Yes," Rennyn admitted. "I don't want to command the Ten to die. And yet how can I just ignore them in their half-life? And I do want—eventually—to have children with you, but that is absolutely a choice that will impact dozens of other people, and should I not take their views into account? And, oh, it's not like I needed that blasted play to point out that perhaps it was unconscionable of me to marry you. How can I continue to put you at risk of careless commands?"

  "That is a choice between the possibility and the certainty of pain. And does not take into account what I gain from you."

  He said this so warmly, curling a strand of her hair around his fingers, that she was lost to words for a moment, and then recovered herself with a few long kisses. None of which would make the problem of accidental commands go away, but certainly reminded her that he had reasons for facing that risk.

  "I was very glad to wake with you this morning."

  Illidian knew, of course, what she meant. "And perhaps it is time for me to stop running from the merest possibility of hurting you?"

  "I think it's useful to remember that you have never hurt me." She curled her fingers through his, and kissed one blunted fingertip. "You know your own limits better than I. I was just glad to wake with you." She glanced up at him, smiled a little grimly, and added: "Yesterday I had a very different waking. It perhaps should have occurred to me that if someone or something was kidnapping powerful mages, my Wicked Uncle was very much a likely target. He'd been trapped here for at least a month."

  The husband holding her so carefully became a man of steel and wire, then took a steadying breath and listened without comment as she told him of the decisions she had made. Choices that complicated the Kellian's future, especially if Rennyn and Sebastian died without children.

  But, typically of Illidian, his response was only: "Do you feel that you have put him behind you now?"

  "I...don't know. But I think I've changed the shape of how I feel into something more manageable. Do you—what choice would you have made?"

  "I would prefer him dead. But I, too, would not have killed a man bound and helpless. Much as I would like to pretend he is not a man. I most certainly prefer you free."

  "How did you manage to find me?"

  He told her, at least up to the point where he said: "We would not have reached it in time if Kendall had not held it open—"

  "What?"

  "I wondered if that was an issue. Meniar is certain that Kendall extended the duration of this Walk. Having read your guide on learning to cast Thought Magic, it seemed to me this was a step beyond the exercises you had permitted."

  "Abstract casting, yes. A travel casting like that isn't something you just...hold, although it may have felt like that to her."

  "And so Kendall has now entered the stage of becoming a Thought Mage where you recommend days of quiet meditation and rigorously controlled exercises?"

  "That's certainly the ideal. I presume Fallon has had a crisis of his own?"

  Illidian explained reason for the muting spell. "When Meniar set divinations to monitor his sleep, the boy did not hide his relief."

  "An enchantment only active while he's sleeping might explain it isn't obvious to me. I'll have to sit by him without the noise of the wards and divinations and so forth, to see what I can sense. But since he appears to be stable, I think this morning had better be devoted to rescuing mages. Or at least stopping further abductions."

  He nodded, finished relating the details of their rediscovery of her, and then took her back to the small camp. Nothing had changed whatsoever about the fact that she had accidentally commanded him, and was all too likely to do so again during their life together. She would continue to hate the thought, to try to find a way of preventing her control…and yet, perhaps no longer blame herself quite so much.

  Only Lieutenant Meniar and Dezart Samarin had joined the waking world, and she smiled a greeting, then noticed the bare skin visible above the top button of the Kolan's coat.

  "Do I owe you a shirt, Dezart Samarin?"

  "A small exchange, if you happen to be able to point me to my missing mages."

  "Point, yes. Extricating them is going to be a formidable challenge, however, though the ones I saw were at least still alive."

  Whatever this place was, it was time to start dealing with it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Kendall, tramping through endless dream forests, heard a familiar voice and woke with a start, then bit her lip on the little noise that burst out of her at the sight of Rennyn, awake and wearing a long-suffering expression as she was poked and prodded by Lieutenant Meniar. She looked as calmly herself as if it was any other morning, and just smiled at Kendall, and then at Sukata and the Pest. It was still early, barely past dawn, and cold enough to be glad someone had built up the fire.

  "The immediate concern is infection in the feet," Lieutenant Meniar was saying. "I used the strongest scours and cleanses I know on them, and I think I've arrested what was present—along with giving them the tiniest hurry-along in the heal
ing process. Since we've limited supplies, and I'm not seeing discharge, for now I just want you to stay off them."

  "I think I've done enough walking for a while," Rennyn said. "You're not generous with your pain suppression, Lieutenant."

  "Full relief just encourages people to damage themselves more," he said. "I remember when Keste broke an arm…" He trailed off, glancing south unhappily.

  "I expect Lieutenant Faral will be at the forefront of any search party," Rennyn said, which was an easy bet. None of the Kellian liked when they didn't know where their mages were, even if they didn't have a high opinion of them generally. And Kendall was fairly sure Lieutenant Faral liked her partner a bit more than that.

  "I've tried communicating, of course," Lieutenant Meniar went on. "But I'm guessing we're four to eight days' travel from the Rest, so chances are high that my message-waft won't reach them—not to mention I had to write it on a dried leaf. I didn't want to try one of the more power-hungry workings until I knew what I'd need here." He shrugged, then prodded at one of the purplish patches on Rennyn's wrists. "Do these hurt? The only thing I've seen like them are spider bites, but I couldn't divine a poison and…well, I certainly hope you weren't bitten as often as this suggests."

  "Not bites," Rennyn said. "It does hurt, but only a little, and it's part of the larger problem we have to overcome."

  "So stop just sitting there and get on with explanations," Kendall put in irritably.

  Rennyn only laughed at the interruption, but then she did explain, and Kendall could only listen in complete disbelief to a story that started with waking imprisoned in the same room as the demon prince. And instead of sensibly killing him, exactly as they'd all set out to do, Rennyn had wasted her energy putting a spell on him. And then just let him walk off.