Choice
Page 25
“OK, what happens?” Phaer wondered.
“You just relax and leave everything to me.”
“Lay back and think of Mythallen?” he quipped.
“If you like,” she grinned back.
Eilidh was ready to begin, but hesitated a moment. “Phaer,” she said. “I should warn you, this process isn't a casual thing that any Catalyst can do. Not when your symptoms have progressed so far.” “What, you need special training or something?” “No…well, yes, but that’s not the point. It's just that I will need to touch and stroke your face to create a physical bond between us while I manipulate the Life Flow around you, within you and through you. It's...well, it can be quite intimate, so it's usually done by a close friend or perhaps a romantic partner. Someone the individual trusts implicitly. Otherwise it might not work.”
“I trust you,” Phaer insisted.
Eilidh flushed. He was flirting with her and she really wasn't sure how to react. So she stuck to what she did well, and just did her job.
“I'm afraid this is going to hurt. Ready?” she prompted.
Phaer nodded, and braced himself as the pain rushed back into his head. Eilidh reached out and gently placed her fingers on either side of his face, remaining stationary only a moment before tracing small, complex patterns. At the same time, Phaer saw the flow of Life change dramatically, apparently mirroring those patterns. Around, within and through, Eilidh had said, and he could feel it. It felt incredible, especially combined with Eilidh's breath on his face as she leaned close. Intimate indeed! The half-elf would certainly not be comfortable sharing this experience with just any Catalyst. He would do it to save his life, but he wouldn't like it.
They continued like this for close to half an hour and Phaer was tempted to return the favour by reaching out to touch and caress Eilidh's face, but he was concerned that this might disturb her concentration. He didn't know what that might do to him or her, so he resisted. He couldn't follow the patterns, but it looked a lot like some form of writing. A language, perhaps. It was fascinating.
By the time she finished, Phaer was in rapture. Both were quite breathless.
“How do you feel?” Eilidh asked.
“Amazing,” Phaer replied. “Truly amazing.”
“The headaches?” The Catalyst prompted.
“Gone. Completely. Thank you.”
“Skin irritation?”
Phaerremoved his jacket and looked down at his bare arms. “It feels fine, it just looks bad,” he answered.
“A healer will soon sort that for you,” Eilidh assured him.
“The voices are gone, too,” he told her, “which is a good sign. They were usually stronger when the pain lessened.”
“That's good to hear. I'll keep an eye on you for the next couple of days, though, if you don't mind.” “Don't worry,” the ranger assured her. “I don't plan on leaving you again until our quest is over. Maybe not even then. It's no use running or hiding, so my best chance is to fight. And quite honestly, I'd like to spend some more time with you.”
“That would be nice. I'm really glad you're back. I've missed you,” Eilidh admitted, biting her lower lip in an utterly feminine gesture.
“I’ve missed you, too. I thought we had a good thing going a while back, before I went off in a huff. That was a mistake; I shouldn't have left.”
“Done is done,” Eilidh said, dismissively. “You're here now, and everything seems to have worked out for the best. Let’s just focus on that.”
“So,” Phaer said after a pause, “I'm a mage now.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Which of the Nine Secrets do I belong to?” Eilidh smiled. “Let's find out.” She reached out to tou ch him again - it wasn't actually necessary for a simple reading, but she wanted to anyway, and he seemed to appreciate it. But the reading she got came as a shock, causing her to snatch her hands away, involuntarily. “Silver?” She said to herself, incredulously.
“What do you mean, silver? What is it? What's wrong?” “Nothing wrong, just...unexpected. The dominant colour of a person’s magical aura reveals the type of mage they are. An Enforcer’s is black, a Catalyst’s is white, Bunny’s a sorceress, so hers is orange…Phaer, yours is silver.”
“Is that bad?”
“No, I’ve just never seen it before. No-one has. Not for two hundred years, at least.”
“What are you saying?”
Eilidh shook her head to clear her thoughts, once again sending sparkles flying from her hair. “Sorry, Phaer,” she apologised. “I didn’t mean to be cryptic. You have the Life Gift in the Secret of Spirit.”
“Hang on, I see what you mean, I've heard about this...Spirit…isn’t that extinct?”
“Apparently not anymore,” Eilidh observed with a meaningful look.
“But how did I end up with this Life Gift? Come to that, how did I end up with any Life Gift at all?”
Eilidh stood up and paced a few steps away, before turning and admitting, “I think I might have had something to do with it. Honestly Phaer, I'd no idea. If I'd known, maybe-” Phaer got up and crossed the short distance between them. This time, he didn't hold back from gently touching her shoulder and then cupping her face. “Hey, you're acting like you've given me some kind of disease instead of just saving my life! Magic isn't an illness.”
“No, but you never seemed too keen on it before.”
“I didn't have it before and I've lived without it just fine, but I've gained a better appreciation for it since being with you.”
Eilidh reached out and pulled him into a long embrace, only breaking it to say, “It’s really good to have to back. Did I mention that?” Phaer grinned. “I think you did, but it bears repeating.” The ranger took Eilidh’s hand. “Come on,” he said, leading her gently over to sit on the bed. “Look, never mind me. Tell me what you’ve been up to since I left you at Marina Fells. I want to know everything.”
Eilidh smiled, sat down and nodded. “You’re right. It's time I brought you up to speed.” So she explained about the Wise One and her quest to the crypt, and in return, Phaer described all that had happened to him. Eilidh was particularly interested in the timing of the start of his headaches, and as she suspected they seemed to begin only after her return from the crypt.
“That's a lot to take in,” Phaer admitted, “but I think I've got the gist.” “You think I've been through a lot, what about you?” Eilidh returned. “Dark elves, Knights of Balance, communicating with a basilisk and facing down a vicious dragon predator, all the time fighting your own Life Gift!”
“Which brings us back to the question: how did I go from being magically Dead to being a...sorry, what's the word for a Spirit mage?”
“Necromancer.”
“They were never very popular, were they?”
“Misunderstood.”
“Story of my life,” he said, ruefully.
Eilidh smiled. “I know what you mean.”
“Alright, let's think this through from the beginning,” the Catalyst suggested.
“Well, I suppose it all starts way back in Ancient times,” Phaer considered, “after the Mage Wars, when Artemis strips magic from my people.”
“Actually, I think it starts just before that,” Eilidh disagreed. “Artemis was spotted in various locations around the continent, obviously up to something. I think he was setting traps.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Well, what else would he be doing sightseeing?”
“Good point. OK, that makes sense. He sets some traps for Niltsiar, knowing she'll come back one day and one of those traps,” Phaer surmised, “was the Great Key at that crypt.” “Not just a crypt, but a college of necromancy,” Eilidh pointed out. “That explains all the gold: if they summoned the spirits of the dead and they proved difficult to control, malevolent even, they would be contained within those magically inert walls until the necromancers could sort them out.” “What about that gold-wood alloy stuff?” Phaer wondered.
“I see,” said Phaer. “And then the spell form created by the walls couldn’t function, I presume.”
“Quite right,” Eilidh concurred.
“OK, so moving on a bit, a little over two centuries ago, Niltsiar returns to Majaos--"
"--No doubt somewhat drained and weakened, at least by her standards," Eilidh put in. "--And she has no idea how far magic might have progressed in her absence, so begins to sample the current state of magic, one Life Secret at a time, under different guises so noone will suspect anything,” Phaer realised.
Eilidh took up the thread. “She started with necromancy, apparently deciding it was a threat-”
“--Which makes sense. If we could communicate with the dead who would know who she was and what she was about, that might have been dangerous to her at the beginning.”
“And so shortly thereafter, she somehow shuts down the Secret of Spirit so that it becomes extinct in the aftermath of the Tech Wars-”
“--which she engineered through Akar-Sel to decimate magic-”
“--and deal with another potential threat: Techmagic-”
“-which was barely in its infancy when she was here in Ancient times,” Phaer concluded. “More recently,” Eilidh continued, really getting into this, “the dark elves finally get so desperate to get their magic back that they resort to something so abhorrent to them that Artemis never considered they might try it.”
“Breeding with human mages in an attempt to kick-start the magic,” Phaer filled in. “But it didn't work and I’m the only half breed they kept alive.”
“It didn't quite work, no, but nearly. Your human half had a kind of latent Life Gift, but your elven side kept it suppressed.”
“Bringing things bang up to date, then,” Phaer said, “You explore the abandoned college of necromancy.”
“And while I’m there, I Grant Life to the Great Key, activating the crypt's defences, but because it was inside the goldlined walls...”
“...Your actions couldn't affect anything outside.”
“So, in that sense, my quest there was meaningless, just like the warnings said.” “My cousin Z'rcona takes the Great Key and gives it to Niltsiar and she tampers with it...I wonder why?”
“I imagine everything she does is intended to further her quest for the Well of Life.”
“Also if Artemis placed traps on the Great Key and various other things, he must have had a good reason.”
Eilidh nodded. “To slow her progress and give her enemy time to get there first.”
“That would be you,” Phaer pointed out. “The Du y Kharia, yes as if I needed reminding!” She snapped her fingers. “Of course! That's it! She's using her magic to take some kind of reading from various objects. When she gets all of the readings, she will know where to find the InterRealm Gateway to the Well of Life.”
“Like triangulating a magnetic source with a compass,” Phaer suggested.
“Good analogy,” she complimented. “So some combination of what I did and what Niltsiar did with the Great Key `unlocked` Spirit magic.”
“That gave my Life Gift a kick, and suddenly I’m a necromancer." "Which explains your ability to traverse the boundary between life and death, and stop Callie from stepping through Death's Door," Eilidh concluded. “Your voices were the voices of the dead, bleeding through.”
"Bleeding through because my Life Gift was out of control and I had no clue what I was doing. Genius!” Eilidh was thrilled. This was what she loved - Rochelle might be good with the books, but between them, without any outside help, she and Phaer had figured the whole thing out. Phaer was right, Eilidh decided. Why be modest about it? It really was genius.
“I've missed you,” Eilidh blurted out for the third time, blushing at her own forwardness. Mystaya had taught her well. “I'm glad you're not upset about the whole magic thing.”
“As long as I don't have to wear robes. I'm still a ranger, first and foremost.”
Eilidh giggled. “I can't imagine you in robes! Besides, that tight leather you wear shows off your figure better!”
Phaer gasped,“Eilidh Louise Hagram! I can’t believe you just said that!”
“Hey, you’ve been gone for ages,” she laughed. “I’ve missed having someone pretty to look at while I save the world!”
Phaer joined in her laughter. “That’s all I am to you, isn’t it?” He said in mock indignation.
“Why? Are you saying there’s more to you than meets the eye?” “Well, there’s more to you, that’s for sure,” he returned. “What happened to the serious, straight- laced Catalyst I saved from that Kij vine?”
“Oh, she’s still here,” she assured him. “Underneath these robes.”
“Maybe I should look,” Phaer teased. “Maybe you should,” Eilidh agreed. Moving in closer, she intended to go for another hug, but it seemed her body had other ideas, or her lips at any rate, because the next thing she knew they were kissing Phaer’s.
After sharing the kiss, Eilidh got up, feeling–what? Awkward? Embarrassed? Nervous? Excited? She wasn’t sure.
“Where are you going?” Phaer asked.
“I-I thought I'd better dismiss the guard on the door,” she said, thinking quickly. “`Do not disturb` no longer applies, really, does it?”
Phaer had other ideas, grabbing her hand and encouraging her to wait. “Actually,” he said, “I think I'd quite like it if we weren't disturbed for a bit longer.”
Eilidh offered a coy smile, giving her eyelashes her very best flutter. She allowed herself to be pulled a little closer. “Why? Whatever shall we do?”
Phaergrinned. “I have a couple of suggestions.”
“Mmmm,” she purred. “Do tell!” “How about I just show you?” He pulled her closer still, straight into his arms, a position they broke only briefly as they returned to sit on the bed. “By the way,” Phaer said, “I love the new look.” Eilidh looked at him, questioningly. “Your make-up,” he clarified. “It's a nice touch.”
Eilidh flushed deeper - she had quite forgotten she was wearing make-up. She supposed that was a testimony to how natural it felt, thanks to Mystaya's ministrations. She moved her face closer to his, invitingly. Then she closed her eyes as his lips met hers and an electric storm rushed through her body.
It was much more intense than the last one, yet when they broke the kiss, she found that out of her jumbled emotions, `excited` had risen to dominance and banished the others away. She smiled contentedly and then pouted. “You say you like my make-up and now you've gone and mussed it,” she complained.
“You can fix it later,” Phaer replied.
Eilidh decided that made practical sense and just gave in to her feelings.
There were no more words, then, as their kisses grew increasingly passionate. They moved from their sitting position to lying on the bed, losing clothes as they did so.
Chapter 21
Eilidh had really missed Phaer. More than she'd realised, though she'd liked him from the start. Of course, saving her life from the jaws of a carnivorous Kij vine was bound to have an effect on a girl, but it was deeper than that. She'd come to know him, enjoyed being with him. She respected his intelligence, his quick wit and valued his...uniqueness, if that was a word. He was no longer magically Dead, of course, but the change had only made him even more unique, if that was possible. Magic or no magic, it was all the same to her. As long as he was comfortable with who and what he was, that was all that mattered. She'd thought about him while they'd been separated, but she'd never considered the possibility that he might be interested in her. Things like that just didn't happen to Miss Eilidh Hagram.
For his part, Phaer had always had an eye for women, once he discovered life outside dark elf lands. In the few months since he'd met Eilidh, he'd been fascinated by Hannah, intrigued by Tanya and drawn to Bunny like
a moth to a flame, but the flame of the torch he'd been carrying for Eilidh had been smouldering constantly, almost unnoticed. Because of that, it had endured and grown while his other passing fancies, well, they passed. He supposed the first time he’d noticed his feelings was when he left her in such a huff. After all, why should he have been so upset? So hurt? She didn't owe him an explanation. She had, in fact, been absolutely right to keep the true nature of her quest secret. It was only through the events at Marina Fells, rescuing Princess Mystaya, that they had earned her trust. They had proved to be a good team and at that point it made sense for her to fill them in. So why had he been so upset?
Never mind the fear that was borne of knowing the lost history of who and what Niltsiar was. Phaer knew that wasn’t it. There had been much deeper emotions. There had been pain, a feeling of betrayal that she had kept this from him, even though he had no right, no rational reason to feel that way. Yes, he decided, that had been the start of his feelings for Eilidh, but he'd been so wrapped up in his own personal turmoil that he hadn't recognised it.
What was it Bunny always said? `Don't get so wrapped up in the world inside your head that you forget to pay adequate attention to the world outside`. She was right. It was a bad habit.
But the past was the past. What mattered was the here and now. Eilidh was here with him, and she was responding in a very positive way, with an awkwardness that was utterly charming. Eilidh was in heaven. She had never believed this could happen to her. Lovemaking happened to other girls, not her. She closed her eyes, melting at his touch. Her pulse racing, her heart pounding in her ears, ready for the moment that would soon come. It would never have happened in Merlyon, of course. There everyone knew and no-one would touch her. No-one wanted to be anywhere near her. But here at this moment, for the first time in her life, she could almost forget the reason why. Almost...
Her eyes flicked open in horror. What was she doing? She had to stop! She had to stop it now!
She pushed roughly against the half-elf.“Phaer!” she screamed. “No, Phaer! I can't! You mustn’t!”