The Shattered Vigil

by Patrick W. Carr

  Fess! Balean! Pry him loose.

  But they couldn’t hear her. Outside the delve she would appear perfectly calm, utterly tranquil right up to the moment Rhue died and her mind died with him.

  Light fled from his memory and she fell into nothingness.

  She hurtled downward, pressure building, scaling upward until she felt the cords that bound her soul to her mind stretch, a preface to shattering. Dissociated past feeling, she imagined herself lifting her fingers from Rhue’s skin.

  And raced away from the delve. Sobs of relief that would never touch her face wracked her mind and soul. But just before she blinked and became aware of her surroundings once more, threads of blackness came for her.

  With a contemptuous swipe of her gift, she cut them all away, watched them fall into dissolution.

  All but one, a fragment that lodged in her mind, a splinter of purest black.

  She opened her eyes to firelight and blood.

  Fess had his hand pressed against his side. Trickles of blood filled the cracks between his fingers, flowed in crimson rivulets. A steady patter of drops hit the floor, oddly loud in the silence, but he held a throwing knife in the other hand in a shaky grip. A bit of broken furniture burned on the fire.

  Balean held her head in his lap, scanning the interior of the inn. The fire made it impossible to see beyond the shadows it cast. Inside its radiance they were safe, but the streets of Havenwold were dark.

  “It’s inside me,” Bronwyn whispered.

  Her guard laid her head gently on the floor and searched her for wounds, his hands professional as a healer’s and as thorough. She hardly cared. Inside the organized memories of her mind, she could feel the splinter, a shard of the purest black.

  “I can’t find any injury, my lady,” Balean said. “If you can walk, we must go. We can’t stay here.”

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand.” Aer help her, she could feel it in her thoughts. “It’s here.” She tapped her forehead with one finger. “The two of you aren’t safe.”

  “No argument there.” Fess kicked a piece of broken chair toward the hearth, his face white with the effort. “But you’re not the problem, Lady Bronwyn.” He nodded toward the windows. “It’s still the early part of night. If they were going to attack us, wouldn’t it be happening now?”

  “I don’t know.” She had to force the words past the constriction of her throat.

  “Either way, we need a healer,” Fess said. “I’m starting to feel . . .”

  His knees buckled and he fell forward. Balean gathered his legs and launched himself across the space separating them in time to catch Fess before his head could hit the floor.

  “He’s right,” her guard said.

  Bronwyn levered herself up, her body communicating in distinct terms the exact location of every bruise and scratch she’d gathered during the brief fight. She blinked in the growing light of the fire, searching for her bag, then found it beside an overturned table. “Pull his shirt up,” she ordered. “I’ll tend to him.”

  “You?” Balean asked.

  She nodded. “You’ve been my guard for fifteen years, and you’ve been a friend to an old lady as well, Balean, but I’m over six hundred years old. It shouldn’t be a surprise that sometime during my long sojourn I thought it would be a good idea to study the art of healing. Now pull up his shirt. He doesn’t need someone gifted—he needs someone now.”

  She positioned herself by the fire and managed to spear the eye of a needle with fine dark thread. The color reminded her of the splinter lodged in her mind, and she fought to control her stomach.

  Fess, pale and unconscious, lay in the light of the fire.

  “How are you going to stitch the wound without touching him?”

  She sighed. “Very carefully, and with your help.”

  “No, Lady Bronwyn, I can’t guard you and help you at the same time. We need to leave this inn. Of the six that attacked us, three escaped. We cannot remain.”

  She reached out and grabbed his sleeve, knowing he could have avoided her with childish ease if he had wished, but his respect for her kept him rooted to the floor. “You will do as I say.” She stopped, took hold of herself. Anger wouldn’t help her. “Balean, there is a splinter in my mind, a shard of blackness that comes straight from the evil of the Darkwater. I have no idea what it will do to me, but evil grows. He’s my apprentice.” She paused for a moment. “I may have to pass my gift to him far sooner than any of us wish.”

  He checked the room one last time, then knelt beside her with his sword on the floor in easy reach, but his eyes held something she’d never seen before.

  “Check the wound to see if it’s clean,” she ordered.

  “If it’s not?” he asked.

  “Then we’ll have to flush it,” she said.

  He looked around the interior of the inn, his nose wrinkling in distaste. “In here? Anything you use will probably foul the cut.”

  “Rough men like rough drink. There’s probably a bottle of spirits stashed somewhere.”

  Balean lifted Fess’s shirt, the blood thick between the cloth and his skin. A network of thick scars originating on his back wrapped around his side and then tapered away. Balean pointed to one that crossed the wound. “I don’t know about the rest of those scars, Lady Bronwyn, but he should wear this one with pride.”

  “We will let him decide that,” she said, pulling a clean cloth from her bag. “Open the wound so that I can clean it.”

  Balean followed her instructions, and fresh blood pulsed from the center of the cut to soak her rag. “I’m going to have to stitch his artery first.” She pulled a pair of medical grips from her bag.

  “Hold him steady,” she said, her voice tight. “If he flinches while I’m doing this, we’re going to lose him to blood loss.” She pulled a deep breath. “Aer,” she prayed, “keep this boy still.”

  Fess moaned at the first bite of the needle, but Balean’s hand on his chest kept him from rolling against the pain. Bronwyn moved as close to the wound as light and space would allow, overstitching the cut along the artery until the bleeding stopped. Twice she had to go back and add sutures.

  She dabbed at the wound, searching for the telltale pulses that would signal any other cut arteries.

  “I think you got it,” Balean said.

  She nodded. “Agreed.” She pulled the rest of the thread from the needle and resupplied it from the spool in her purse. “Squeeze the wound together. Try to line up the edges. There’s no reason to make the scar any worse than it has to be, and it will heal faster.”

  Bronwyn measured time unconsciously with the beats of her heart rushing through her ears. As she leaned over to begin stitching again, she slipped, and reflexively she caught herself with her other hand on his bare chest.

  Unbidden, she fell through sight and sound and into his mind, but this time the delve was hers to control. Only a few days had passed since she’d last looked into his memories, and the few he’d garnered since then were shared with her and Balean. They carried no weight, but as she made a conscious effort to break the contact she’d made with his skin, she sifted through them.

  And gasped. Every memory of her since she’d slapped him and apologized for it carried a different tenor. Though Fess nodded his respect and called her Lady Bronwyn, within the depths of his mind he called her something else. Mother.

  She blinked, her guard’s face coming back into focus. “No,” she sighed. “I can’t bear it.”

  “My lady?” Balean asked.

  Perhaps it was the fatigue or possibly the stress that made her tongue unguarded, but she answered even as she reached out, almost brushing the hair back from Fess’s forehead. “He thinks of me as Mother.” She caught Balean’s gaze. “Laewan was like a son to me, and despite all the love and encouragement I could give, he fell into the corruption of the Darkwater. Somewhere I failed him.”

  “That burden doesn’t belong to you.” Her guard’s voice was flat with denial
. “The Darkwater has changed. Its evil must be fought, no matter the cost.”

  “You’re loyal,” she said, “even to my feelings, but Laewan was my responsibility, not Pellin’s, or Jorgen’s, or even Elwin’s. My inexperience cost us one of the Vigil. I find myself filled with wishes and regrets, but mostly I would like to know exactly how I failed him.”

  “In battle, men fall,” Balean said. “Sometimes they are new to the sword, and sometimes they are the best on the line—betrayed by poor footing or a chance arrow that finds a weakness in their armor. Their brothers-in-arms grieve and keep fighting. They do not waste time accusing themselves.”

  He was right. Questions of failure and blame were unanswerable, but she still couldn’t help wondering. She forced the needle through skin on each side of the cut that had laid Fess open and pulled, the thread cinching the flesh back together. By the time she finished stitching and binding the wound, nearly an hour had passed.

  “One would think that the commotion of our fight would have brought the town watch,” she said.

  Balean shook his head. “Fights in taverns such as this are a common thing. No watchman with sense will intervene until he’s sure it’s safe. As long as it’s dark, Lady Bronwyn, we’re in danger here. We’ve barely started the night.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand it. If those three men had wanted us dead, a few arrows through the front window would have done the trick.”

  “No. This is what we discovered in Bunard. Those corrupted by the Darkwater cannot abide light. To aim well, they would have to look into the light, which they cannot do. Their very strength becomes their weakness. We need only attract the attention of the watch somehow and they can escort us to safety.”

  On the floor, Fess stirred, and his eyelids fluttered but without achieving consciousness.

  Chapter 37

  Bronwyn’s eyes snapped open, brought to wakefulness by a host of aches and pains that combined to make even the slightest movements a trial. Her gaze found Balean by the door, standing with his weapons ready, the same position he’d adopted after the watch guards had escorted them to their room at the inn near the southern gate the previous night. Outside, the palest suggestion of gray heralded sunrise, but no hint of yellow or orange showed in the sky yet.

  Fess slept on the other bed, coaxed to sleep by the draught of mint and paperin the healer had given him. A bit of color had returned to his cheeks. She didn’t want to remember how he’d looked lying on the floor. Already pale complexioned, blood loss had contrived to make him spectral, and only the rise and fall of his lungs told her he lived.

  He would probably sleep for a week, which was fine with her. Yet when she rose from her bed, her body mimicking the creaks and groans of the furniture, her apprentice blinked and, after a misguided effort at rising, tucked his arms against his side and rolled off the bed to his feet.

  He grunted from his bent position. “Are they all dead?” The expressions that chased each other across his face as he tried to straighten would have been comedic had she not known their cause.

  Balean answered for her. “Half, thanks in large measure to your daggers.” He stepped from the door and put a pair of knives on the bed. “I sharpened and oiled them for you.” He gave her half a shrug. “It gave me something to do last night.”

  “What of the three who came in after?”

  “They fled as soon as the parchment you threw onto the coals of the fire flared into light.” He nodded his approval. “Quick thinking. If you had a physical gift, I’d be willing to take you as my apprentice.”

  “Those were the men from the marketplace. We have to find them,” Fess said.

  “No.” She pointed to his wounded side. “You need at least two weeks to heal and get your strength back.” A growl from his stomach punctuated her refusal. “You see. You require food and rest.”

  He set his jaw and stood, trying not to show any discomfort and failing. “Lady Bronwyn, I’ll be happy to rest so long as those men are in Havenwold, but we interrupted some plan last night. If they’re still here, nothing has changed. You need to delve them.”

  A tremor started in her right hand, the one she used for delving, and she clenched a fist. It was inside of her. “We can talk about that later.” She looked away.

  “Lady Bronwyn?”

  “Go easy, lad,” Balean said. “You weren’t the only one injured last night.”

  “No, the boy’s right. There’s been no outcry here in Havenwold. No constables searching for killers after last night’s fight. Doesn’t that strike you as strange? Something is amiss, and we need to trace it to its root.” Her stomach chose that moment to growl. “We’ll eat, then see what we can find.” A memory, unbidden, came from behind one of the myriad doors within her mind—innocuous, of porridge and dark bread.

  She’d never eaten dark bread for breakfast. With a mental thrust, she put the memory away. Perhaps she just needed to rest. Yes, that was it. A few days here at this inn would do both her and Fess well. “They may have left the city already.”

  Balean shook his head. “Possibly, but don’t forget the guards we saw when we entered the town. Those men would have to find a way to sneak out the gates or bribe the watch. They’re here.”

  “I’ll find them,” Fess said. He turned toward the door, too quickly, and gasped with the effort. His face lost what little color it held, and he tottered.

  “You’re not going anywhere,” Bronwyn said, pointing to the bed for him to sit. “The first thing you’re going to do this morning is eat.” She sniffed. “I can’t believe you would even suggest such a thing. Those men have seen you twice now. You’ll be recognized.”

  Fess cocked his head to one side, then nodded, but he moved to his pack and proceeded to unroll the blue robe he used to impersonate an acolyte of the Absold. “Actually, Lady Bronwyn, if what you’ve told me is correct, they’ve only seen me once. It’s daylight. What they’ve seen in the night while their vaults were open is inaccessible to them.”

  She stood. “Very well, don your robe, but my command remains. We will eat first. I won’t have my apprentice dropping dead of blood loss in the street. Pellin frowns on that sort of thing.”

  Another memory, her own this time, came forward with such force that the room and her companions instantly faded from awareness.

  “What do you think of our newest apprentice?” Pellin asked.

  She nodded. “He’s brilliant. If I didn’t know it to be impossible, I would suspect that Peret Volsk holds the gift of kings, so quickly does he learn and understand everything he’s taught.”

  Pellin nodded. “His ability to synthesize and extrapolate is impressive, and . . .” He stopped, catching her expression. “Something’s troubling you.”

  “I’ve noticed him watching Toria Deel. It’s not the way an apprentice usually looks at one of his mentors.”

  Pellin chuckled. “She’s still young by the way we count such things, Bronwyn. Physically she is probably still in her twenties, and she’s beautiful. Don’t fault Peret for noticing what any other man would.”

  She caught Pellin’s gaze. “She returns those looks, Pellin. I think one of us should tell the Eldest.”

  A mask, old and familiar, dropped over Pellin’s expression at the mention of his brother, the way it had for hundreds of years. “Doubtless he knows already,” he said. “Cesla knows everything.”

  The room, her guard, and Fess came back into focus. Neither of the men commented or appeared to have noticed her slip, but inside her mind she searched for the splinter.

  An hour later Fess left to find the men he’d first seen in the marketplace, and Bronwyn surveyed the carnage he’d left behind. She waved at the pile of dishes. “I’m almost tempted to recite the antidon for the dead, Balean. Look at it all. I know I told him to eat . . . ” Words failed her. “But look at it.”

  Balean nodded. “He lost a lot of blood, Lady Bronwyn, and he’s a growing young man.” He glanced down at the mound of plates and scattered mo
rsels of food that had somehow escaped Fess’s rapacious appetite. “And don’t forget he spent years on the streets as an urchin. Hunger became a way of life for him. For the first time in his life, he knows what it is to be filled. Being with you probably seems a bit like heaven to him.” He looked down at the table and grunted. “But I have to admit, it is a little alarming.”

  There was no gentle way to broach the topic, and she had never believed in mincing words anyway. People who did spent far too much time dancing around a subject only to end up having to confront it head on later. “My mind is slipping,” she said. “Is your knife sharp?”

  Balean stared at her, stillness falling over him until he became a statue, the product of the temperament of observation that all the Vigil guards possessed. “You’re not even as old as Pellin.”

  She shook her head. “Age is only part of it. You know this. Elwin was of an age with Pellin, but he was mere weeks from passing, used up by his gift and his search for Cesla’s killer.”

  “You’re not him,” he said flatly. “You use your gift even more sparingly than Pellin.”

  A whisper of a sigh escaped from her. “Look at me, Balean.” She lifted her hands to trace the withered skin of her face and neck. “Did you think I would outlive you?”

  When he didn’t answer, she went on, oddly nervous in front of the man who lived to safeguard her every breath. “After I woke from the delve last night, there remained a splinter in my mind, less than a vault, but more than a memory. Balean, I can’t lock it away.”

  She’d had hundreds of years to prepare for this moment, to ready herself for the day when she would have to surrender the gift to another. But in all her imaginings in which she’d envisioned that necessary rite of blessing, she’d seen herself enfeebled physically by age, her mind still intact. In her nightmares she remembered Cronin, old nearly past reckoning when she’d first come to the Vigil, succumbing to the weight of memories, his decline into crippling senility made faster by the gift he carried.