by Carol Berg
“No human will touch this misbegotten weakling, this sniveling creature I have called my son.” Nyel’s face appeared in the spinning maelstrom, his skin flushed, his mouth contorted, and his eyes ... the gods save us all ... his eyes wearing the hard glitter of madness. “What are you?” He was near spitting with disgust and loathing as he stood leaning on Kasparian’s arm looking down at me. “You—a Madonai-have allowed a human to defeat you. Whether from intent or your own incapability, it is all the same ... this shame ... all my hopes ... our history. I gave you everything. You were to bear the glory of the Madonai upon your shoulders, and now you lie here groveling before this human worm. You have ever been his slave, groveler, and only an old man’s foolish desire saw you else.”
The clouds had gathered again. The pall had sealed itself. I could not say what I had done or why, but I tried to assert control of my body, so that perhaps I could still determine my own fate. “Wait, Fyothe ... Father ...”
But one half of me was dead, the other lost to weakness for the moment. I could not yet move, and Nyel would not listen. “You are unworthy of my gifts. Vile, human-tainted flesh ...”
I knew what was coming. Nyel had only one answer to raging disappointment, and it had ever been death. Fear had no power over me, and so it did not much matter which of them, human or Madonai, did the deed. Regrets without shape flitted through my head as Nyel’s quivering hand snatched Aleksander’s knife. I closed my eyes, reached for clarity, and awaited the cold steel ...
But the harsh cry that echoed from the vaulted ceiling, that pierced the shadows behind the ranked columns to either side of us, that shook the foundations of the world, was not mine. I blinked open my eyes to discover a stone-faced Kasparian lowering Nyel gently to the earth.
“What have you done, attellé?” whispered Nyel.
“You were going to kill your son in anger, Master. The deed would have destroyed you.”
Necessity overcoming incapacity, I struggled to my knees and saw the knife hilt protruding from Nyel’s chest, and Kasparian rising to his feet.
“Kill Valdis? Never ... never could I do such a thing.” Nyel’s voice was weak, but did not quaver. “How could you think it? I gave everything to spare him—my freedom, my life, all the others-every Madonai dead. I have made him a god.”
Never before that hour had I seen such clear evidence of Nyel’s madness or the subtlety of it ... how he could shift from virulent loathing to reasoned hurt with no deception, no contrivance of manner. Far, far more dangerous than a monster is the honest madman. And I had once thought to set him free.
His hand reached out weakly. “Valdis? Where are you, lad? Remove this traitor’s knife. It pains me.”
“I’m here,” I said, dragging the weight of my half-dead body to his side. I knelt over him and considered the weapon. The knife had been carefully positioned. Once the blade was removed, even Madonai healing would not be fast enough to stanch the flow of blood. The Nameless God would die.
I laid my hand on the dagger hilt and looked into his old young eyes, no longer wild and dangerous, but bleak. Resigned. He knew the consequences of his death. He had no name. No one in any world would remember him beyond this day.
“I wanted to teach you more, my son. So much for you to learn.” He laid his hand on my arm, searching my face. “I have loved you beyond all others in the world. You will remember me?”
But what he asked, I could not give. Even those who had lived with him and talked with him would forget. I would forget. “As I am, I can neither love you nor grieve for you,” I said. “You have cured me of it. I will leave you behind as I have forgotten my human loves and griefs.” My head was clear again. I was as Nyel had made me.
Nyel’s hand gripped my bloodstained shirt. “But you will be strong, free. You can do as you wish. Force Kasparian the traitor to help you remember; surely he’ll not forget me. He is Madonai, my attellé. Command him.”
Kasparian was standing behind me like one of the stone columns. At this he walked away. He kicked Aleksander’s knife, fallen from Nyel’s hand, all the way to the wall, and, with a ferocious snap of sorcery, he freed the Prince of his paralyzing enchantment. Aleksander sat back on his heels, coughing and shaking his head. The woman hurried to his side, knelt beside him, and began to bind his injured arm with her cloth belt. His blood still smeared my hands.
I watched the two of them and felt nothing. No pain behind my eyes. No gaping wound. No comprehension of the determination that racked the Prince’s face or the hand the woman laid softly upon his shoulder. Only reason served me anymore. Only reason. Forever. I turned back to the dying Madonai. “Perhaps I can offer something that will serve us both. I have a bargaining chip you cannot imagine.” I bent down to his ear and spoke my terms.
“No!” His weak protest was almost unhearable. Dark blood welled from around the knife. We did not have long. “I will not.”
I had no passion with which to beg. Only reason. “As you have loved me, Madonai, love me now,” I said. “Each of us will get what he desires. I will be as I am meant to be. You will not be forgotten.”
“My good and glorious Valdis, do not ask me ...” But I did not relent, even to this pleading, and at last, as the death rattle robbed him of speech, he gave in.
“Kasparian,” I said. “If you please. One last service for your master.”
It seemed, at first, as if the old sorcerer might refuse. But he was incapable of denying Nyel for long. So he knelt on the dirt beside us, and when I told him what was required, he showed the first sign of astonishment I had ever seen from him. “When it is done, you will set the Prince free,” I said. “He may take the woman and the child and go about his business.”
Kasparian nodded, laid one wide hand on Nyel’s head and one on mine, and then struck the spark of Madonai enchantment as only he could do within the precinct of Tyrrad Nor.
When the deed was done, I imagine that he leaned toward the dying Madonai and spoke softly, saying, “My good master Kerouan, rest well and know you will be remembered and honored until the end of my days.” But I could not claim truthfully that I heard him say it, for I was screaming with such pain as I had never known, as my power was stripped away, my mind turned inside out, and my body forced to remember what it was like to be human.
CHAPTER 44
I longed for the flame. It was so tiny, a wisp of gold flecked with blue, so distant from the dark and lonely place where I existed, but I had such hope that it might warm me. Sometimes it grew larger, and I would hear hissing, sputtering whispers that tickled and teased at my hearing, but refused to shape themselves into words. Patience. Patience. Listen long enough and you will hear... if they are truly words and not just the echoes of dying dreams. A fearsome thing, that flame. What might its light expose ? Perhaps darkness, cold, and silence were better. Sometimes it winked like a cat’s eye. And though I dreaded the revelations of its light, each time it flicked out, I cried out in despair that it might never shine again.
My cries made no sound, of course. My voice had been used up long ago, screaming. For a very long while, I had known nothing but chaos. Profound darkness. Rootless terror. Agony without form or focus. But at some time I had crawled onto this desolate shore, and here I sat, shivering, hoping, afraid, bereft of sense and memory, watching the distant light. Patience.
“If we could just take him home, where there’s sun, and life, and food with substance that is not enchantment. I can get so little down him; he’s wasting away.”
“We daren’t take him out of here, Linnie. He could die from it ... or worse. Stars of night, it’s only your word that prevents the Aveddi killing him. If we only knew what really happened, what he was, what he is. Will this Kasparian tell you nothing?”
“I think he grieves. He sits by that game board day and night, never sleeping. At least he sustains us. I believe that if he chose, the servants, the food, everything would disappear ...”
I could not open my eyes for the brightness.
And though the whispers had at last taken form, their shapes were drawn with such pain, I could not bear listening. Nor could I decipher the meanings as yet, only that I did not want to know. I turned and fled back to the darkness.
“Why won’t he wake up, Mam? My ship won’t fly anymore. He’ll make it fly.”
“I don’t know, child. Perhaps he needs to sleep for a while yet. He’s very ill.”
“He said he would teach me to make it fly when I was bigger. Will you teach me?”
“I wish I could, but I need more teaching myself. Here, come sit with me beside him. No, it’s all right. He would never hurt you. He loves you very much, more than you will ever know, I think ...”
“... swear he’s better. Closer. His left hand moved yesterday when Evan started climbing on the bed.”
“Linnie, you’ve got to go back. Your cough is worse, and I see no change in him at all. I’ll stay. Or Gorrid-he’s offered to take your place.”
“We’ve discussed this before. I won’t leave without Evan, and I’m not taking Seyonne’s son away from him.”
I stood at the brink of the light again, undecided, shivering. I could come now, of my own will, to the place where the veil of fire filled my vision and the darkness was behind me. Patience. The heat is still too intense. But as I turned to leave, something small and soft reached through the veil of fire and touched my cheek, smearing a spot of dampness.
“Don’t cry” came the whisper. “Mam will take care of you. Go back to sleep.”
I went, but not quite so far as I had thought to.
“My lord, you must persuade her to go back. I don’t know where in the name of the stars she came by this infernal stubbornness.”
“Perhaps it runs in the family. You’ve got your own measure of it. You say she’s well?”
“Kasparian’s concoction has helped her a great deal, but I don’t trust it ... or him; he still refuses to speak with us. And she won’t leave without Seyonne.”
I had learned to recognize the difference in the voices, to think of them as different minds expressing themselves. A very basic concept, but the best I could do.
“Athos’ balls, he’s naught but bones.” The newcomer stood very close, smelling of sweat and horse and leather. It surprised me that I could picture horses and leather and know what they were used for. I could almost visualize the speaker himself. His every word was packed with images, as if he were an entire world all unto himself. “You’ve seen no sign of change?”
“I’m no good at looking. I see what I hope to see-a twitch of an eye, something I think is a smile, especially when the boy is close. Linnie’s worse than me about it. That’s why I dragged you here. You’re the one to say if we dare take him out.” This speaker came often. Kind. Worried always. He loved.
I was waiting for the other voices, the two that were with me all the time. The ones who spoke to me, sometimes with words, sometimes with touch, strong and sure or soft and teasing, prodding me to move, beckoning me to venture farther into the flame.
“Aveddi! It’s been too long.”
There. Better. Just the sound of her made me warmer. And he would be nearby—the small one who told me stories, who whispered secrets that made even less sense than the other talk, who bounced and jostled until the woman told him to settle or she would send him away, but in a tone that told me and him that she would never send him away. The small hand slipped into mine. “It’s Uncle Blaise has come,” he said, tickling my ear, he was so close. “And he’s brought the ‘veddi Zander. Do you want some milk? Mam said not until she’s talked to Uncle Blaise and Zander. It’s very important.”
Milk was good. Cheese would be better. But I was happy to listen, too. Perhaps this time something would make sense.
“Mistress! I’m glad to see you well,” said the horseman. “Every day for two months I’ve wanted to come, but Capharna would not lie down for us.”
“But now you’ve won it, all gods be praised, and Blaise tells me that your cousin has taken Vayapol. I want to hear everything, and I would guess Seyonne does, too.”
“Seyonne! Has he—?”
“He’s not spoken, no. And he’s not yet opened his eyes.” I felt her move close. A scent of winter air and wood smoke. A cool hand on my brow for one brief moment. Sweet breath feathering my skin as she spoke. “But I watch him as we talk, and I believe there’s sense in him. And if he’s here with us, then he cares about what you have to tell.”
The one who smelled of horse and leather came closer, too. A massive presence. “And you truly believe he is Seyonne and not the other?”
“My lord, did you not feel him with you on that day?”
“I hoped for it until the end-of course I did-but what I felt was his sword. I’ve got the scars to prove it. There was no mistaking his intent, Mistress. It was no friend I fought.”
“Certainly you’re right. The change I saw was only for a moment. But for that moment, it was so clear. If you’d not been half dead yourself, you would have noticed.” Secrets were bursting from this woman. I clung to her voice, believing she held the key to my future. “He let you take him, Aveddi. I’m sure of it.”
The child began tugging at my hair. Damn! A painful, scraping yank indicated an inexpertly wielded comb.
“Sorry,” he whispered, and began again. No one seemed to be paying him any mind.
“He gave himself the name of the Ezzarian god,” said the horseman. “But Blaise saw him-I saw him-as the very image Seyonne described to me from his dream, the sorcerer who despised humans and would see us all in torment-the one he feared.”
“And he was that sorcerer. No mistaking it. But he was Seyonne, too, no matter what he claimed or believed. Remember what he said just before you struck him down. Think of the words. The exact words.”
“ ‘I am my father, and my father before him ...’ ” The horseman’s voice trailed away. I wanted to retreat into the darkness, to run from the wounding, but the child had taken my hand again, and I had not the strength to pull away.
The woman broke the silence. “He was staggering as he said it, and holding his head. I had seen him do that once before, on the night he heard me telling Evan his father’s stories. And then, what did he do? He raised his sword against you, and every law of combat, every evidence of that day—your condition, his strength, his skill-tells me that you should be dead, Aveddi. Only you’re not. Which father was he was invoking in that moment?”
“I need to think on it, Mistress. I swore to him—”
The child bounced and jerked away. “Mam. Mam, we’re hungry. We want cheese and milk.”
The talk changed after that, first to food and drink, and then to tales of war. The horseman-the Aveddi—was preparing for a dangerous battle, and I found myself drawn into the complexities of the plan he laid out. The names of places and people appeared as small gray voids as his voice led me through the map of his tale, but as the time passed I saw them take shape in the landscape unfolding in my mind: Kiril, Gorrid, Bek, Naddasine, Mardek, Capharna, Vayapol, Karn‘Hegeth, Parnifour ... Zhagad. Aleksander.
“... But even if I can take Edik alive and put him on trial, as Blaise suggests, who can I get to sit as judge? Who has the strength, the power, and the neutrality to make it honest? I won’t see this new world birthed in vengeance, but everyone is caught up in the war ...”
The new world. Someone was needed to mete out justice to end the old order so the new could take its place. Such a one would need to be fearless, stubborn, above reproach, uninterested in the spoils of power and able to convince the weary thousands of it. I knew someone like that, if I could but remember the name...
The talk went on around me, the easy talk of friends in hard times, the subdued laughter that makes no attempt to mask the sorrow and worry that exist alongside it, but only to balance and soothe and witness to ongoing life. The woman spooned milk into my mouth and shooed the child away, lest he bounce it all out again. But my mind was off racing, hunting for the name
and considering the consequences. Yes, that was it—the answer he needed. I was bathed in fire.
Come on out. I imagined the boy just behind me, shoving me forward. It won’t hurt. I promise. Mam will take care of you.
“Evan, what are you dreaming, child? Eat your supper.” The talk went on. The clatter of dishes, a soft laugh.
The small hand nudged me again. Come on, Papa.
“Fiona.”
The room fell silent, and I had to force my eyes open to make sure anyone was still there to hear. The effort to speak was so great that I saw no use in wasting it. But they were there, the four of them sitting at a round table lit by candles. I was propped up in a chair by the hearth, a red blanket laid over my lap.
“What was that?” The three adults spoke as one. “Did you say something Blaise ... Linnie ... Aveddi?” The child was intent on carving a block of cheese into giblets with his small knife.
“You need Fiona. To judge.” My voice was little more than a whisper, but it might have been a lightning bolt, for it loosed such a storm of words and questions and solicitations that no hurricane could rival it.
Aleksander reached me first, leaping over a chair and then kneeling on the floor in front of me, the better to examine my face. “Seyonne?” he said. His gaze was raw. Bleeding.
“My father ... is Gareth ... of the line of Ezraelle,” I said, reaching deep for the right words, able to push them out only slowly with long gaps in between. “And if you don’t stop mooning about, my lord, these people will start to think you have a heart.” A very bad joke.
One might have thought the sun had taken up residence in that cold room.
I was infernally weak. And no wonder to it. Nyel’s changes to my body and mind had taken almost four months of enchantment to accomplish, and all had been undone in a single instant. So devastating was this reversal that for more than eight weeks I had lain in unmoving stupor, losing almost a quarter of my weight. Aleksander’s blow to my side had taken its toll as well. My right arm remained almost useless, only a slight prickling in my fingertips hinting that the limb was alive. I had to hold it close to my belly with my left hand to prevent it dangling at my side or flopping on the bedclothes like a dead fish. It would take some getting used to. As for my mind, both knowledge and memory seemed intact, though distant, which left my speech slow and hesitant, and my thinking easily confused.
