by Tom Deitz
Avall grimaced sourly. “I guess there’s no good reason not to at least make the attempt, given that Krynneth is not only my friend, but has done untold service to Eron. And that’s not counting what he is to you.” He paused, looked Merryn in the eye. “What is he to you, anyway?”
Merryn shrugged again, though she—almost—smiled. “Mostly a possibility, I’d say. I don’t know if I’d ever love a man enough to wed him. But I might love one enough to try a year-bonding. And Krynneth is one of those men.”
“I see.”
“He also likes you—a lot. More than you know, in fact. I was thinking that maybe, between the two of us, we could bring him to himself again. I really think that all he wants is to feel safe and wanted.”
Avall snorted. “He didn’t feel that way at court after the war?”
“He did, but he had a burden of guilt on him then—a burden I understood and may, frankly, still be carrying around. And something I suspect you understand a little better now. But that’s beside the point. It’ll be night soon, and I know you want to start back north tomorrow. Forgetting ethics, Krynneth’s the most unpredictable person in your entourage right now. Wouldn’t you rather be able to trust him?”
Avall patted Merryn’s hand. “You don’t have to convince me of the need, sister, only that it’s necessary now.”
“This may be the best time,” Merryn replied soberly.
“Well,” Avall sighed, “lead the way. Where is Kryn, anyway?”
Merryn grinned wickedly. “We were all so preoccupied after dinner that I was afraid he’d wander off, or do something rash or stupid and get himself hurt. So I made sure he drank a lot, on top of which I put some sleeping herb in his wine, then helped him to our tent and left him there.”
“ ‘Our’ tent?”
“We share one. Div and Strynn did, too—before you arrived; it was safer than putting Div in with him.”
Avall could think of no reasonable reply.
They could see the cluster of boulders that marked their surrogate home by then, and hastened their steps that way. A small tent rose on the far side of it, midway between the stones themselves and the rope perimeter: close enough for inclusion, far enough away for privacy.
“Will this be noisy?” Merryn inquired, as they paused beside the entrance. “I don’t want to wake Strynn.”
Avall couldn’t suppress a smirk. “Shouldn’t be. We’ll see.”
Merryn undid the ties, then motioned Avall in ahead, before joining him. There was room for three lying side by side on the ground, with maybe half a span extra in either direction. Krynneth lay in the middle, flat on his back, legs crossed at the ankles, arms folded on his chest, breathing peacefully, all in the efficiently precise manner Eronese children were taught to adopt as soon as they were old enough for quarters of their own.
Avall blinked at the soft, subtle light where he had been expecting near darkness, since the outside world was quickly slipping from twilight into true night. But then he saw the source: a glow-globe in the smallest size anyone could make, nested on a tripod of small stones in the farthest corner.
“Lykkon,” Merryn offered. “He had a few among his stores. He said he didn’t think they were needed on the island, so he was saving them.”
“Typical,” Avall growled good-naturedly. “That’s why we love the boy.”
“More a man now, in case you haven’t noticed,” Merryn corrected. “His birthday is coming up soon. He’ll be twenty, and eligible for Fateing.”
Avall shook his head. “I’d almost forgotten about that! I wonder if Priest-Clan is even bothering to implement it. Or if that institution, too, has fallen by the way.”
“That’s one I personally could do without.”
Avall’s only reply was to claim a place on the ground close by Krynneth’s torso. “It’s one of the few things that does work: the way we educate people.”
“Doesn’t matter now, anyway,” Merryn murmured. “Do what you came to do.”
Avall bristled a little at being dismissed so casually, but began to compose himself as best he could. Which was difficult in light of the day’s events.
But maybe this was good for him, he reflected. And maybe Merryn knew that and was finding a way for him to calm himself. In any case, there was little to lose by trying.
“Should we wake him?” Merryn asked seriously, as she scooted around to Krynneth’s other side.
Avall shook his head again. “Kylin was sleeping when I did what I did with him, so that’s probably what we should do here. But I’ll tell you what: You can do the cutting.”
“Cutting?”
“How soon you forget, sister. I’ll need access to his blood. Mine, too, but that should be no problem, given that I just used the regalia.”
He left her to it, seeing her only from the corner of his eyes as she reached for Krynneth’s hand, while he fumbled in the pouch for the least innocuous gem, which was also the one that had healed Kylin. He found it by feel as much as anything: a sliver of glittering red folded in a square of sylk. It was fragile: so fragile that he feared he would break it.
He withdrew it carefully and unwrapped it, then stretched himself along Krynneth’s right side, while Merryn did the same on the other. It took a moment to find a comfortable position, but then he had one: lying on his left side, with his left hand curled above his head and his right ready to clutch Krynneth’s now-bleeding hand, which Merryn had just laid on his chest.
“Anything I can do?” she asked softly.
“Watch and wait—and break the contact if anything untoward occurs.”
“Will it?”
“It hasn’t—not with this gem. But that doesn’t mean it won’t.”
Merryn nodded silently, then, to Avall’s surprise, reached up to stroke the curve of Krynneth’s jaw. “He doesn’t deserve so much pain,” she whispered. “And I know exactly what I mean when I say ‘deserve.’ ”
“Yes,” Avall agreed with conviction, “you do.”
With that, he closed his eyes, trying to relax, for this was something better done by feel than by sight. Already—after only that oh-so-brief contact with the gem—he could feel his senses shift to a finer pitch. The gloom in the tent took on brighter, if still subtle, colors. Breath sounded louder, but with a comforting susurration, like distant waves. He smelled the earth and the tent, leather and whatever soap Merryn had used last, mingled with a fair bit of mildew and sweat. He smelled Krynneth, too—the man definitely needed a bath, but Avall understood the complications of him actually getting one. In any case, it was nothing he hadn’t endured before with Rann on their first impossible overland trek. Indeed, he found himself recalling the interludes of quiet fellowship that had punctuated that reckless mission, which in turn helped him relax. This wasn’t that different, actually: approaching darkness, and a tent, though the other time it had been Rann close beside him, and both of them tired from a day’s exertions, but grateful simply for each other’s presence, each other’s warmth …
Without quite knowing when he did it, Avall slid the gem into his palm, and as soon as he felt the power start to draw, joined that hand with Krynneth’s.
Power joined them, too, but not the expected strong surge of it; instead, there came a steady, almost gentle, rush. Avall welcomed it cautiously, and tried to direct its flow away from himself and into his friend. He was aware of Krynneth’s hand now—more keenly than would normally have been the case; could feel the bones and know where muscle belonged that sporadic diet had worn away; could touch the calluses on his fingers and know which came from sword work, which from working wood—for wood was Krynneth’s birth-craft as well as Riff’s.
All at once, he was simply riding along, journeying with Krynneth’s blood in search of Krynneth’s brain.
Which was odd. Most of the other times he had bonded with someone through a gem, he had met the intellect as soon as he met the body, or even sooner. Even with poor Rrath.
But maybe that was because he
had wanted to meet those minds. He might—troubling notion—actually be afraid of Krynneth’s. Especially if, as Merryn had suggested, Krynneth had tucked his higher self away to hide from guilt. And guilt was something Avall knew all too well. But maybe Merryn had known that, too, and had arranged this healing as much for him as for her friend.
But that would be subtle even for her; and depended on information she did not possess. Or shouldn’t possess, he amended—though, given that she was his twin, she still might—especially with all that gemwork in which they had both indulged so recently.
Where was Krynneth, anyway? This wasn’t like Rrath’s situation, where the victim had walled himself away beyond reach. No, Krynneth had simply hidden—apparently by diverting anything that resembled thought or personality away from a large portion of his recent memories. Which didn’t mean they weren’t still present—as Avall discovered when he blundered into a batch of them: mostly memories of fighting along endless corridors. He knew those corridors, too, had walked them himself, in fact: long ago when he’d done his own quarter at War-Hold. But Krynneth wasn’t there now.
Or was he?
He felt Krynneth flinch when Avall paused at those particular recollections, as though someone had touched a wound that was far too tender.
He tried to call to him: to summon him from his pain and fright like a timid deer at the edge of the wood. But Krynneth wouldn’t come.
Yet somehow Avall knew that he would come—that part of him wanted to come—if only he could avoid those parts of his memory that tortured him. Once he did that—maybe—Avall or Merryn or one of his other friends (he wondered, suddenly, if Krynneth had a bond-brother and if not, why someone so brave, handsome, and accomplished didn’t) could go with him and confront them an item at a time.
But was he the person for that? He tried to determine who might be best—who, of everyone Krynneth knew, he trusted most. Yet Avall’s efforts at that were clumsy, and once again Krynneth flinched away.
He doesn’t trust me, he realized. He identifies me with the problem, even though I wasn’t there. But I was part of the war. He remembers me as a soldier, not as a smith and not as a friend.
But what about Merryn? She and Krynneth had been close indeed, almost lovers—as Merryn had admitted.
“Merry?” Avall murmured, so softly he wasn’t certain he spoke with his mouth or his mind alone. “Join me. Cut yourself and join me. He needs you more than he needs me. There’s a barrier between him and me I don’t think he’ll breach, but he might breach it with you.”
“If you’re sure. I’m not good at this.”
“You will be. I’ll be with you—at first. And then I’ll slip away. He’ll never miss me. And while you and I are together, I’ll show you what I know, and what I think needs to be done.”
Avall felt her hesitation, but he likewise felt her resolve. And he also felt—in some odd way, though they were not physically connected—Merryn cut her hand and slide it onto Krynneth’s chest beside his. Finally, he felt the moment when their blood touched and mingled and the moment the gem acknowledged Merryn’s presence and drew her into their bond. Avall moved deftly, then—both in body and in mind. He slid his hand free of the gem, but in such a way that it was now lodged between Merryn’s hand and Krynneth’s. And then he slid his mind free as well, letting Merryn fill the space where he had been.
But he never withdrew completely, for there was a terrible comfort there, like someone come home at last, or seeing a treasured friend once more.
“I’m here, Kryn,” Merryn assured him. Whether aloud or through the gem was irrelevant.
“Merry …?” And that was spoken.
“Kryn.”
“I hurt. In my soul, I hurt.”
“I know, Kryn. But we can fix that. Given time, we can fix that. And so much of you doesn’t hurt.”
“I—”
Words failed the rest, as Krynneth succumbed to a flood of emotion that was well-nigh overpowering. And atop that flood came a heartbreaking longing to be cared for simply as himself, not as a sick man, or a handsome man, or the best warrior Wood had produced in a generation.
But along with that longing came need: unfocused desire to be touched in body as well as mind. Avall slid his hand away from Merryn’s, then upward and across Krynneth’s chest, stroking him lightly, which was all he could think to do, for he could feel the bond decreasing. But he could feel Krynneth’s appreciation, too, and his desire that those caresses continue.
He could also feel Merryn’s alarm. Only it was not so much alarm as startlement. Avall knew what had to happen now. Gently, gently, he returned his hand to where Merryn’s hand still twined with Krynneth’s, and ever so slowly began to slide them both downward along the length of Krynneth’s body until they found the ties to Krynneth’s hose. “You know what to do,” Avall whispered, as he let his fingers linger there, working at the simple knot. “You’ve wanted it for a very long time; he has, too—and now he also needs it. I don’t think you’ll even need the gem, though I’ll leave that sliver with you. And if you do—it should be easy to renew the bond, with both of you still bleeding.”
With that, Avall moved his hand away, leaving Merryn to remove what clothing she would from both of them. A moment later, he left the tent entirely.
It was more than a hand after his departure that Merryn likewise emerged, looking serious, smug, and sated.
Avall started to speak to her, but she hushed him—as was getting to be a habit—with a finger, then pointed back toward the tent. A dark head emerged from the opening there. But instead of a blank stare, Krynneth’s face split in the silliest grin Avall had ever seen. It was just as well the sun had set, Avall concluded, else he was certain he would have seen his sister blushing.
Abruptly Krynneth’s grin vanished, so suddenly Avall feared he had hidden himself away again. But then he spoke once more, only this time his expression was perplexed and solemn. “I’m better,” he said carefully, as though surprised to discover that he could speak. “Not well, mind you, but on the road to mending. Thank you.”
“And I,” Merryn added loftily, “will be there to explore every twist and turn with you.” She looked at Avall and winked. “Did you know he has a mole—?”
“No,” Avall told her firmly. “And I don’t want to know, unless he chooses to tell me.”
Merryn shrugged wickedly. “You know,” she drawled, “I got up way before dawn this morning; I think it’s time I went back to bed.” Without another word, she pushed Krynneth back into the tent, leaving Avall to stare at the encroaching night.
The hunters were back by then—empty-handed, which was just as well, but eager to swap tales with Bingg, Rann, and Kylin around the fire they had stoked up again.
For himself—Avall was like Merryn: He’d had a very hard day. Strynn was still asleep, but there was room and more than room beside her, and Krynneth wasn’t the only soul desperate for comfort. It had been a long time, he reckoned, since he had awakened beside his wife. But she was there when he drifted off to slumber. And she was still there, awake and smiling at him through the clear light of dawn, when he reawakened.
INTERLUDE: A VISITATION
(ERON: EAST OF TIR-ERON–HIGH SUMMER: DAY LXXXVI–NEAR MIDNIGHT)
Evvion san Criff y Argen-a had come to despise the night, when once she had loved it far, far better than the day. Loved it for the peace it conferred, she thought—and for the softness it spread across the world: wrapping all harshness with shadows, easing contrasts between dark and light, hiding the harder things in life, or rendering them remote and unreal and thereby less threatening.
That was before night had become irrevocably linked in her mind with fire—Fire from Mask Night, the unrestrained chaos of which she had always loathed, so that she had, as had become her habit, fled Tir-Eron in anticipation of it. That departure had probably saved her life, too—and that of Strynn and Eddyn’s child, young Averryn, who even now wriggled and twisted in her arms as she paced a
bout the common hall of the suite she had been given in this, Stonecraft’s most formidable citadel.
A citadel that was ringed by more cursed fires now, courtesy of a besieging force—not quite an army, but formidable for all that—that could not, so far, come closer than the narrow shard of beach that showed below Canarra Isle’s sheer cliffs when the tides in the Ri-Eron ran low. Most times they waited: a small armada of Ninth Face boats surrounding the island, their deck-torches proclaiming as eloquently as words that while Evvion and the other refugees who had found themselves stranded here after the coup on Mask Night were safe from Ninth Face swords for the nonce, they were not safe from the grimmer demon of starvation.
Or from winter, when the Ri-Eron might well freeze solid this close to the shore—solid enough, at any rate, to support the weight of trebuchets.
And so Evvion waited—and paced, and drank very indifferent wine, and tried only to think of now, and of protecting what was not, and never would be, Avall’s son.
Which did not imply that Averryn was not important or that she did not love the little boy, now almost half a year old and growing quickly; only that she had a practical streak, and had reserved a portion—the best portion, she hoped—of her love for what would be the true fruit of her son’s loins.
She wondered how that son fared, there in the west. The last report she had received before the coup stated only that Avall’s army was rather more than halfway to its destination. Since then—nothing.
Nothing.
Nothing but waiting. And waiting. And waiting.
A cough at the chamber door startled her, making her start and spin around in a manner she normally found unseemly, and which Averryn patently did not like. A hall page stood there, clad in Stonecraft gray and black, which most of the staff now wore in preference to Eemon’s midnight blue or Criff’s yellow and cream. For while Eemon blue was not the same shade of blue the Ninth Face wore, it was close enough to bring that hue to mind—and the Ninth Face came to mind often enough already.
