Into the Dark Lands

by Michelle Sagara

  “Come, Erin, will you enter?”

  She nodded almost timidly and stepped into the tree, into the flash of light, and into the Lady’s Woodhall.

  “Will you wait for me?”

  “If you wish it.”

  “Please.”

  He smiled. “Go, then. I will be here.” And he watched as she walked down the hall, dwarfed by the grandeur of height and marble.

  The Lady was waiting for her. Erin could almost feel her presence as she stepped once again into the garden. She tilted her face toward the light, but felt no warmth from it. The breeze that touched her cheek was cool.

  Come on, Erin, she told herself as she took a step forward. You already made your choice.

  But it isn’t too late to unmake it.

  Go ahead. Then the Lady will know you for the coward you really are.

  No. No, I’m not afraid of this.

  But it wasn’t true; she was afraid, afraid of failing the line in such a crucial position. The power of the Lady was invested in one man or woman until the end of that person’s life—and once given, only death could call it back.

  But death was common in war.

  No. She had made her choice. She would not turn back from it now. She lifted her trembling chin and walked toward the center of the garden.

  The Lady sat, cross-legged, directly in front of the fountain. The alabaster statue looked like a white shadow of her outstretched face and arms.

  But where the statue held trickling water, the Lady held a dagger that caught the light, inner and outer, and kept it there.

  “Lady,” Erin said, surprised at how steady her own voice sounded. “I am ready.”

  “Erin. So soon?” But she rose, looming above her mortal grandchild. “Very well. I, too, am ready.”

  In one swift moment, she laid the dagger’s edge across her palm, then handed the golden-edged blade to Erin.

  Erin duplicated the motion, although she wondered at it; the Lady must know that it held no power for her.

  “No,” the Lady said, as if reading her thoughts, “we do not ward here; it is not required. The power that passes into you is not Lernan’s, but Elliath’s. Lift your hand.”

  Erin complied, watching beads of blood run into the lines of her palm.

  “Will you be Sarillorn?”

  “Yes.”

  The Lady nodded and raised her own palm. Slender, ageless hand touched callused, mortal one as blood met blood. The Lady’s fingers closed around Erin’s like iron clamps.

  Erin cried out. Her hand jerked back automatically, but with no success; the Lady’s hold was sure. She shouted yet again, giving release to a pain too sharp for words.

  She was on fire. Heat burned up through open palm, scorching her arm and spreading across all of her body. Only once in her life had she felt anything akin to it. Her left hand shot up toward her right one as she struggled, ineffectively, to free herself.

  Then, in the midst of the heat, she felt something cool and comforting.

  “What is mortal in you denies this. But what is Light within you will not. Hold fast.”

  Her knees gave way; if not for the Lady’s terrible strength, she would have fallen. Suspended by one hand, she bit her lip, trying to contain her cry.

  The fire continued to burn until the only thing she could see was the merciless glare of white behind her eyelids. Then she tumbled to the ground.

  “It is done.”

  Done? She knew, from the feel of moss beneath her cheek, that the Lady had released her—but the pain continued. She bit her lip, drawing and tasting blood, as her body curled into a tight little ball.

  “Erin. Remember your training. Remember what you are.”

  Pain. Pain? She could almost see Telvar in the drill circle. Could almost hear him shouting when she had failed, again, to summon the power necessary to continue the fight—power that she alone had.

  Desperately she called to it. Wounds, fractures, burns—these were things beyond her. But pain was a known: she had quieted or destroyed it for many of her line-mates over her four years of frontline service.

  A faint green glow struggled to surround her body. It was cool, like the waters of the Gifting, and like those waters it began to put the fires out.

  But something was different. Something felt strange. Before she had truly even begun to pull power, she felt a distinct snap. Where there had been pain just seconds before there was a dull warmth that grew and spread.

  She opened her eyes in surprise and moved her hands away from her face. Both were unscarred.

  She unfurled her legs hesitantly, but they, too, were free from any pain.

  “Erin?”

  She looked up, through drying tears, to see that the Lady of Elliath knelt beside her on the ground.

  “L-Lady.” She couldn’t stop herself from adding, “You should have warned me.”

  “I am sorry. Can you stand?”

  “I—I think so.” Once again she was surprised. She gained her feet with no difficulty. “Thank you for helping me.”

  “I did nothing, Erin. It was your power.”

  “My—but I—” Her eyes grew wide, and she looked once again at her hands. There was no cut. “I?”

  For the first time in two days, the Lady smiled. “Yes. You are Sarillorn. You have more power now than you did before—and that power answers to your call.”

  “I can do this?”

  The Lady nodded again, but this time more soberly. “Remember my warning, warrior. On the field, you must protect yourself against the call of pain—for you will feel it now more strongly than you have ever felt it. If you are not cautious, it will draw you as surely as Andin’s white-fire did, and you will expend what you have in healing and not in battle.”

  Erin nodded. Her eyes, as she met the Lady’s, were glistening, not with pain but with hope. Now she could truly fight; she need not fear her own inability. She called forth light, and the room suddenly paled in the blaze of it.

  “Yes. Much that you have done before will be easier now. But it is not the power of the ward; it is not the power that you have found in the Hand of God.”

  Erin didn’t hear her.

  I can heal! She looked at her wounded hand. I can really heal now! / can fight—I’m good, even Telvar has said so. She wanted to be on the field; wanted to test her blade and the strength of this power against the Enemy’s minions.

  “Sarillorn.”

  She looked up.

  “I see the warrior’s light in your eyes. Let the Malanthi be ware. But even in battle, you must remember this: nothing is unalloyed. In you, there is hatred, chaos, and some small measure of darkness.”

  Erin was silent.

  “In a like wise, the Malanthi have their love, their order, and their light. It is peculiar and dim; it does not affect the whole—but never doubt that it is there.

  “This is the fruit of the Awakening, and the heritage of the Sundered, that everything but the Bright Heart and the Dark Heart must bear the taint of his enemy. Even I, First Sundered, First of Lernan, must acknowledge the truth of this. So it is with the First of the Dark Heart as well, although he denies it.”

  Although she understood what the Lady was saying, Erin was confused. Why was she telling her this? Why did she think it important? No trace of darkness could ever sway the Lady from the Bright Heart, just as no trace of light could ever move the Servants of the Dark one.

  The Lady stared at her intently.

  “Lady, I don’t understand. Are you saying that the Malanthi or the Lernari might change somehow? Do you think that even though we aren’t as strong of blood as our founders that either of us might falter from our course?”

  “No, Sarillorn.” But the reply was a weary one. “In the end you will prove true to your heritage. But I ask this of you, if you will grant it. Remember that in change, no matter how strange or slight the chance, all hope lies.” She turned suddenly, unwilling to share the expression that caught her face.

  “If
there were no darkness, no Dark Heart, we—none of us—would exist. Try to see this when you walk in darkness. Try to forgive it, though you walk with light.” The straight, rigid line of her back sagged slightly.

  “Do what I cannot do, child. Hope that in touching the darkness you can change it instead of destroying it. For if you have no such hope, you will in time become as we—hard, cold, a weapon for which war has use, and peace none. Our warriors are thus, but for a healer it is a kind of death that I do not wish you to die.”

  Erin caught a hint of pain in the Lady’s words, but it was nothing compared to what she felt beneath them.

  She stepped forward and rested one hand against a stiff, white shoulder. She couldn’t help it; her feet had moved before she could consider what she was doing.

  Gently and surely she summoned her power, spinning it about the Lady like a gossamer web of green warmth.

  “I will try,” she heard herself say.

  The Lady only nodded. “She was my daughter. I never thought it would be so hard. Forgive me. ”

  Erin wondered if she would ever understand the Lady’s words.

  Latham watched as Erin made her way toward him. She walked in the exact center of the hall, as if following a path visible to her eyes alone.

  Ah, he thought. He stared at her more closely, knowing what he would see beyond the strained pale face of youth.

  When she reached him, he dropped to one knee and bowed his head. “Sarillorn,” he whispered softly.

  She started in confusion and then smiled weakly. “Yes.”

  This time, when they left the hall, he did not offer her his hand or his support. And she missed it.

  interlude

  The sounds of screaming filtered out into the cold stone halls and shattered against the beamed arches of the ceiling.

  The priest frowned a moment and then schooled his face more carefully. How long will this go on? He turned, an impatient swirl of red-tinted black, and crossed his arms.

  He did not speak aloud, however, or touch the closed door that stopped him from carrying his message to Lord Stefanos. He doubted whether God Himself would dare to interrupt the First of His Servants when he was feeding.

  The screams stopped abruptly, but it gave the priest no hope; he could surmise, from their tenor, that they would begin again in a few minutes when the Lord was ready to resume.

  Annoyed, he stalked down the hall to glance out of the one large window there. Beyond it, the city lay shadowed, and the moon was high. His reflection came back at him, the narrowed point of his jaw convoluted by colorless glass.

  At least two hours had passed. Were the moon full, he might be able to make a better estimate; but were it full, his Lord would be more available.

  Screams.

  He walked back to the door, his hands clenching and unclenching. There was nowhere to sit, something the priest felt ambivalent about. Were there a chair, he might be tempted to take it.

  No one sat in the presence of the First of Malthan, not in his private quarters.

  To still his annoyance, he caught the strangled web of screams and folded them into private fantasy. Although he knew well that the victim was one of the villagers they had taken two months ago, he spun a picture of a different body dying so slowly under the Servant’s hunger—the new Sarillorn of God-cursed Elliath.

  If it were possible, he could almost regret the death of the Sarillar. The man, older and perhaps less tainted, had not the effect the young woman managed to achieve.

  Who could possibly imagine that the trait of healing, a lowly and insipid use of true power, could have such an effect? He almost reached for the report again, before he stilled his hands. He had verified the numbers himself.

  It is the nonblooded among us.

  For where the Sarillar had routed the nonblooded who served with the Malanthi, the Sarillorn used a different—and unpredictable—approach. She did not use her granted power to destroy or kill—he suspected she did not have the ability—but rather to heal. To heal!

  He looked down at his fists and forced his hands to relax.

  Because of the Sarillorn, many of the nonblooded soldiers left the army. This was natural, although the priests and Swords made sure that any who were caught served God in one way when they would not serve Him properly on the field. What was unnatural was that they often chose treason instead of flight. They served her.

  And she accepted them, although the lines had never before employed the nonblooded in their battles.

  Another advantage lost.

  He had not, himself, seen her on the field and was grateful for it; too many of the Malanthi perished at her touch. This at least he understood; the white-fire ate away at the glory of the red. But still, some stories were circulating of her first appearance on the field. After the victory, she had wandered among the fallen, healing those that had dared to raise arms against her. Healing her enemies! And while the Swords and the priests could be counted on to see this as the infirmity that it was, it had a different effect on some of the nonblooded.

  He wanted to spit, but refrained from doing so.

  The screams showed no signs of abating, and he continued to wait.

  Granddaughter.

  The Lady gestured once, an elegant, subtle movement, and the waters of her fountain stilled. She gazed into them, brushing the strands of her hair from her cheeks.

  Erin was sleeping.

  Of course. It was night, after all, but the front had been quiet. The Lady hesitated a moment and then continued to watch the even rise and fall of Erin’s chest.

  Do you dream, child ? she thought. Do you dream of the future that I have set upon you?

  The tiny smile that tugged at the corners of Erin’s mouth gave the Lady her answer.

  You have done well, better than any expected. You still have not learned to control the pain-call, but this weakness has served the line well.

  It was true. For three years now, Erin had been the talk of the council when it met. The Grandfather and Latham followed closely all of her battles and the outcomes of them. Only once had voices been raised, and that over the question of allowing the nonblooded to join in the fight against the Enemy.

  Erin had not been present at any of these meetings, of course. Her place was on the field. And it was on the field that she won her point. Many of the nonblooded now joined the Elliath front.

  They could not be relied upon as surely as the Lernari, but they did not flee nearly as often as the Grandfather had feared. Indeed, twice they had been instrumental in saving the Sarillorn’s life.

  The Lady gestured, the equivalent of the sigh she would not express, and the image vanished.

  The Sarillorn’s life would not have been in danger had the call to heal not been so strong. Not without reason had she refrained from choosing a healer as Sarillar or Sarillorn in the past.

  She rose; it was night and she felt a sudden yearning for the open sky.

  Stefanos looked up, his face a careful study of controlled annoyance. Beneath him, the glowing contours of the continent twisted midway between the smooth, polished marble of floor and the hewn wood and stone of rounded ceiling. He saw a man, robed head to toe in the dark night of the Karnari colors. Only one of those would dare to disturb him here.

  The high priest bowed deferentially, but without the fear that the lesser Malanthi always felt in the presence of the First. His dark head was still a moment before he raised his face to meet his Lord’s gaze.

  “You interrupt me.”

  “At your order, Lord.” He stepped forward. “I have ridden these past three weeks with news.”

  “And it could not wait?”

  “If you wish it, although you asked that I report in person when I arrived.”

  “I see. The information?”

  “Three of the Elliath units and one of Cormont have been destroyed.”

  Stefanos looked down at his map. “Where?”

  “Along the northern front. We have advanced some th
irty miles; four of the Lernari villages are now ours.”

  “The northern front?” The First Servant smiled. “That is Telvar of Elliath’s domain.”

  “It was.”

  The map twisted again and red lines slashed through white ones.

  “The news is good.”

  The high priest nodded.

  “And Telvar of Elliath?”

  “Dead,” the man replied, but with less satisfaction.

  “Is there more?”

  “Yes.” The high priest bowed. “The news is not mine; I was not present for it.”

  Stefanos looked up once again. He did not like the tone that the priest chose to use. “And?”

  “The army in the east is gone.”

  “Gone?” He crossed the room, the map forgotten. Shadow curled around his silent feet. “Gone?”

  The high priest nodded. He had elected to present this news to the First Servant; too many of the priests had been destroyed in the last year as it was.

  “How?”

  “The Sarillorn took to the field, Stanthos’s division made the mistake of wounding her fatally in some way that allowed her to touch the Bright Heart.

  “Shortly after this, the command structure of the army was destroyed.”

  “White-fire.”

  The high priest nodded.

  “The nonblooded?”

  “They broke, for the most part. But again, we lost a number to the Lernari, and not through their deaths.”

  “And our Swords cannot deal with one who is nearly a child?”

  “It is an unusual case, my Lord. While the Sarillorn does not choose to use the Bright Heart’s power on the field proper, she will call it when mortal injury is done to her.” He shrugged.

  “That makes no sense.”

  “No, Lord. We have tried to make sense of it, with little luck. The Lernari are strange. But she is one of the healers of the line; they are few. The last one died some years ago—but you will recall that the Servant Valeth was sent against her. ”