She nodded once. She did a small binding spell over his ribs. The pain changed as she did so, from a sharp tug to a dull ache. Then she wrapped a cloth around his torso.
"I overheard some gossip among the guards," she said. "I stopped to listen."
He didn't move as she brushed his bruises, sending more pain through him. He needed to hear what she had to say, but he didn't want to show too much interest.
"They were talking about your run-in with the golem."
She had bowed her head. Her cheeks were flushed a dusty rose color. He had never seen her blush before. So the news disturbed her. Or imparting it to him did.
He sensed no fear in her though, only caution.
"They believe the magick on this Isle is as strong as Fey magick. They believe that we'll all die here."
That did startle him. His heart rate increased and so did his breathing. A light sweat coated his body. He couldn't pretend it was from the injuries.
She brought up her head. Her eyes had shadows beneath them that he hadn't noticed a few moments before.
"They were saying that if the great Black King of the Fey could twice be injured by Islanders, then all Fey were in danger."
And they were. They didn't know it yet. They were in danger because, for the first time since he had become Black King, for the first time in his lifetime perhaps, even for the first time in several lifetimes, the Fey did not believe they were invincible. Soldiers who thought they were invincible tried all sorts of things frightened soldiers did not.
He opened his mouth to ask who the guards were, but she put her cool fingers across his lips.
"No need to ask about the guards," she said. "Save your injured voice this once. I was preparing to let you know their names. I recited them as I returned here, so that I would remember them. But then I passed the kitchen, and heard the same story repeated. The rumor is already out, Rugad. There is little you can do to stop it."
He swallowed, and felt, suddenly, the pain in his throat. He had been ignoring it, but he could ignore it no longer. His raspy voice, the cuts on his forehead, the bruises on his body, were all signs to his people that he could be hurt.
And if he could be hurt, so could they.
He mentally cursed his great-grandchildren.
He mentally cursed that golem, and then he threw in the Islander King for good measure.
Seger took her fingers from his lips. "I'm sorry to be the one to tell you," she said.
"Few others would have bothered," he said, "And I needed to know."
She put balm on his cuts. "Your bruises will heal in a few days," she said. "I'd tell you to be cautious of the ribs, but I know you will not. Just send for me if you suddenly discover you have difficulty breathing."
He remembered the instruction from the six times previous that he had broken ribs. But they all predated her. He did not need to tell her he had been through this before.
"My concern," she said, "is the stone shards in your cuts. They belong to another's magick, and may infect you. The infection would not be physical. It would harm your own magick."
"How will I recognize the signs?"
"You will not," she said, "until there is damage. Let me tend to you daily. I will check your aura for signs of change, and I have a friend, another healer, who will be able to see your magick. If you trust her."
"If she does not speak to my people of this."
Seger's smile was small, as if she had found no amusement in his words. "Healers keep confidences, sir," she said, a bit too formally.
He knew that. He also knew that with a famous and important patient, such as himself, healers could sometimes not resist the temptation to talk. He was merely letting her know that such conversation would be punished.
She would never do it. But her friend might. And with morale at the level it was at now, he could not afford that.
She gathered the shards in her right hand.
"I want those disposed of," he said. "I am making certain that the golem does not return."
She glanced at them. The pile was so large she could barely close her fist over it. "I would like to keep these," she said, "At least until we know if you are infected."
"What good will that serve?" he asked.
"I can analyze the magick. Do we know whose golem this is?"
"Rugar's people created it."
Her smile faded. "I know that sir. But who sustains it?"
"My great-grandchildren," he said.
"Odd," she said. "I would have thought the magick came from elsewhere."
"You believe this golem is part of the Mysteries?""
"It has survived one shattering, sir," she said. "And from descriptions I have heard of its earlier appearance, it might have survived one more. There are few golems with such longevity, and rarely are they supported by a living creature."
"I want it destroyed," Rugad said.
She closed her fists over the shards. "It might be a tool of the Powers, Rugad," she said.
"I do not care," he said. "It tried to kill me."
"Perhaps," she said slowly, "it thought you were violating a magick law."
She was breathing hard, as if speaking that last sentence terrified her. He raised his eyes to her face, put all the sternness he had into his gaze, and watched her breathing increase even more.
"Do you believe the Fey will die here?"
"I am a Healer, sir," she said. "I would do everything I can to prevent it."
"You haven't answered my question."
She swallowed so hard he could hear it. She cradled her cupped hand with the other. He wondered if she meant the tenderness that he saw in the gesture. He wondered if he needed to take the shards from her.
"I believe there is a magick here like we have never encountered before. It is stronger than any other."
"Stronger than ours?" he asked.
"The same, I think," she said. "But that renders us vulnerable." She smiled, a small almost frightened look. "I do not like being vulnerable, sir."
He didn't either. So that was what he had been feeling. Not older, so much, as vulnerable. He had been hurt twice by these people. By the very people he had come to recover for his Empire.
"Nor do I," he said. "But we are flesh and blood. Unlike that golem there, we can die, all of us. Or lose our minds and kill ourselves as the Enchanters do."
He shuddered once, grateful he had been spared that magick.
"I do not feel safe here," she said.
Her word choice amused him. "You felt safe in the Nye campaigns?"
"Of course," she said. "I knew we would win."
"Yet you treated our wounded. You know how many we lost."
"You were uninjured," she said.
"But my son wasn't," he said.
"Your son wasn't Black King. It is not the same thing."
No, he supposed, it wasn't. And therein lay his dilemma. There were some things only he could do. Only he could have traveled the Links through that golem, and he had to be alone to do so. He couldn't have let anyone know how vulnerable he was at that moment. If the guards had been in the room, they might have separated his body from the golem's too soon, and he would have died in that explosion.
Or he would have found out what else could happen.
"We are weak here," she said.
A shiver ran through him. Even those who lived here with him, in the palace, had the wrong perspective. "How strange you say that," he said, "when we own the entire country."
"But we do not have what we came for," she said.
"We came for Blue Isle," he said.
"I thought we came for your great-grandchildren."
"I came for them," he said. "And dealings with the Black Family are never easy." He smiled at her, even though he didn't feel like smiling. "You should know that."
She nodded once, then shrugged. "I have spoken out of turn."
"No," he said. "You have told me what you believe. It is not out of turn at all."
"Then
I shall tell you one more thing." She squared her shoulders as if bracing for his reaction. "Wisdom believed you were making errors here on the Isle, and he thought you were doing that because of your injury. That is why he was questioning you, why he was speaking for you."
"So you're telling me he had the best of intentions."
"Yes," she said.
"So I should evaluate intentions when I investigate treason?" Rugad asked.
She sighed. "I knew you would take this the wrong way."
"How should I take it then, Seger?" he asked.
"Wisdom is but one example of the dissent around you, Rugad. The worries about the Isle are but another. There is a problem among our people that I have never seen before. We no longer trust each other."
"We have never trusted each other," Rugad said. "Spell Warders fight with Shape Shifters; Shape Shifters dislike Red Caps; Red Caps hate those of us with magick. It is the way of our people."
"But we've managed to work around those differences before," Seger said. "I'm not sure we can now. We had a common vision of our people, of our strength. It seems to be gone."
Because he had fallen. Because he had not been there to lead them. He had started to change this with Wisdom. He would have to do more. He would have to lead his own people back into faith in themselves.
"It'll return," he said, and hoped his long pause didn't seem to her like a lack of belief on his part. Blue Isle was a complicated place, but it would not defeat the Fey.
Only the Fey would defeat the Fey.
Somehow he had to show his people that, to remind them that they had used methods similar to the ones they were suffering now to defeat other races.
A knock on the door made Seger start. She bowed slightly. "I should go," she said.
"Thank you for your honesty," Rugad said to her.
She nodded, took her bag and the bits of golem-stone she had pulled from him, and headed for the door. When she opened it, the Lamplighter stood outside, his hands clasped against his chest.
"Let him in," Rugad said.
The Lamplighter entered. His face was blotched, his eyes wild with fear. Rugad could smell him, even across the distance between them.
"You have a report," Rugad said, even though he could tell from the Lighter's demeanor what the report was.
The Lighter swallowed. "I used every skill I had," he said. "I scanned the room in darkness. I Charmed, wooed, and coaxed. Then I did a search with my own abilities, feeling the air for the golem as you requested. But he was not there."
Rugad had suspected this would happen. This golem had been too much trouble from the beginning. And it was linked to the Black Family. Golems like that were always unpredictable.
"You are certain you had the right room?" he asked.
The Lighter nodded. "To make certain, I did other rooms on the floor. I did the corridors and the balconies. I even had the guards show me what they did with the rubble." He ran a hand through his thinning hair.
"I'm sorry, sir," he said. "The golem's soul is gone."
"Gone," Rugad said.
"I could not find it," the Lighter said. "And I should have been able to. I used all my skills and I am the highest ranking Lamplighter we have. I have more abilities than my fellows. I once pulled a specific soul across a Nye battlefield for use in a Healer's tent. I cannot find this golem."
"Why do you think you can't find it?"
The Lighter took a deep breath. "Perhaps too much time has passed."
"But you don't believe that."
"No, sir."
"Well?" Rugad asked. He understood fear. He understood that the Lighter was worried he would be punished for his failure, even though Rugad had promised him he would not be. But Rugad was not going to waste his own time prying information from the man, not without specific return.
"Sir," the Lighter said, head bowed. His thin hair had formed a small wispy circle on the top of his skull. "This golem is strong enough to injure you. It has considerable power, which means that it has considerable magick."
"More than you?" Rugad asked.
"Something has given it its strength," the Lighter said, "And it's not just Fey magick. In all our history, I know not of a golem that has twice attacked the Black King."
Actually, Rugad wanted to say, it was only once. The other time it had been defending the man it considered a father.
"The golem," he said carefully, "shattered. Golems do that under pressure. Could it be that the golem had not enough of a soul to capture?"
The Lighter closed his eyes tight, as if blocking the answer in his own mind. Then he sighed and opened them. Clearly he didn't want to answer Rugad's question. But he would. His fear was too powerful for him to lie.
"No, sir," the Lighter said. "There were traces of his soul all over the room. If anything, sir, his presence is stronger than any I've seen. Except yours."
Rugad had not expected that answer. It sent a shiver through him. He had seen a golem like that in the past: his grandfather's golem, which had lived for decades. Its eyes had held a power that Rugad had seen only in the Black Family, its magick fairly crackled off it, and its power was undeniable.
And dangerous.
"If there were traces, why couldn't you track it?" he asked.
"Because the traces came from the shattering, not from its flight," the Lighter said.
Stronger than any he'd ever seen. Rugad clenched his right fist, then slowly released it.
"I want you to keep searching for the golem's soul," Rugad said. "Put most of your people on it. They should be done with the results of the last battle."
The Lighter nodded.
"It has to have gone somewhere," Rugad said, "And we will find it."
The Lighter opened his mouth as if to add something, but Rugad had had enough. His guards in the listening posts were good about keeping state secrets, but they hadn't needed to hear this last. This golem would spook them all.
"I understand that your inability to capture the golem is in part my responsibility since I did not have you come immediately to my suites," Rugad said. "I will tolerate this mistake. It can be rectified by finding the golem."
"Aye, sir," the Lighter said.
"You are dismissed," Rugad said.
He did not watch the Lighter go. The man was terrified, and justifiably so. Things were not working out as Rugad wanted.
He would have to change that. He could not focus on the setbacks as his people were doing. He had to focus on the successes.
It was time to make Blue Isle completely his.
No matter what the personal cost.
SIXTY-SIX
Dawn's light was thin over the mountains. Boteen peered out of the window of his carriage. They were heading toward a village. It was still a distance off, but he had seen it from the hilltop earlier. The village was small, stone cottages nestled against the base of the mountains.
But the mountains, the mountains were spectacular. He had never seen mountains that tall, not in all of Galinas — or at least, the half of Galinas he had traveled through. They were tall and peaked, snow-covered and treeless at the top. The mountains themselves were red, giving them the name, he supposed, of the Cliffs of Blood.
He had felt uncomfortable since the sky began to lighten. His stomach hurt and there was a slight buzzing in his ears. He couldn't pinpoint the cause, but it didn't feel physical. It was growing worse the closer he came to the village.
His sense of the other Enchanter, though, had grown stronger. Much stronger. He got a sense, just before dawn, of a great magick being used, and thought he saw fire against the sky. But he checked with his traveling companions, and none of them saw anything. It meant nothing, of course. He saw a great many things others did not, but still, the fire had been so vivid, he felt as if everyone for miles around had been able to see it.
He had been wrong.
And then there was the other feeling, the one that had been growing as the Cliffs of Blood drew closer.
H
e felt a longing, a desire, to climb the mountain, to go to a place deep within it. The longing made him think of his boyhood and the family he had left decades before. A feeling that, if he climbed, he would be going home.
So many contradictory feelings, and none of them affecting his traveling companions. He knew what this was; it was a caution for him, an acknowledgment throughout his body that he was going to a place filled with magickal people. He was so used to the feeling among his own kind that he often ignored it.
But these people were not his own kind, and he could not ignore this.
Not now.
He rapped on the roof of the carriage. He had been told, before they started, that that was his signal to stop. He had also been warned to use it sparingly — which meant, in Fey terminology, not to use it at all.
Still, this trip was being taken in the most part because of him. He had the right to stop, no matter what the cause.
This uncertainty was unlike him as well. It wasn't coming from within, but from without.
The carriage rumbled to a halt. Voices, calling in Fey, warned each other of the suggested stop. No one approached him.
That was as he expected.
He got out of the carriage and didn't look at the others. They had stopped on the dirt road. It ran above a fork of the Cardidas River. The fork had carved a path through the mountains. The drop here was significant — it would kill someone who fell — but certainly not as spectacular as it was on the other side of the river.
The Wisps assured him that the fork would return to the main branch of the Cardidas. They had flown ahead, discovered that the carriages were reaching the northeastern edge of Blue Isle. The Cardidas started here, between the Cliffs of Blood and even more deadly-looking cliffs called the Slides of Death. It would take, one of the Wisps told him, a military mind more brilliant than Rugad's to enter Blue Isle from this side.
His companions got out of the second carriage. The Horse Riders were staring at him. The Bird Riders were landing all around him. The Wisps were growing to full adult size.
He spoke to none of them. Instead, he looked at the mountains. They were covered with silvery morning light, making the red stone appear shiny, as if it were made of red blood. He shivered once.
The Resistance: The Fourth Book of the Fey (Fey Series) Page 42
