by Lou Hoffmann
“Aye, sir.” Lem glanced at Zhevi.
“Zhevi will keep silent, and he’s going to be conscious of keeping his thoughts to himself too. Right, Zhevi?”
“Uh…. Yes, sir.”
Lem smiled but sobered quickly. “The message?”
“Tell him Mahros needs his attention. He’ll know what that means.”
“On my way now, then. But might I ask, will ye be goin’ to view the… bodies now?”
“I’m sorry, no. I can’t. I need to see Luccan. I’ll pay my respects to the fallen and their families as soon as I can. As to the other bodies, if, as you said, ‘nobody knows what they are,’ I’m fairly certain I won’t, either. Anything else?”
“No, sir, and I didn’t mean to—”
“You were right to ask, Lem. No need to apologize. And thank you for taking the message to Tennehk. I know it’s been a long while since you were a simple messenger.”
“I don’t mind, sir. Farewell, then.”
A couple steps farther along, Han suddenly realized how very hot it was, and how the sun still rode low in the sky, though by now it was surely past midmorning. A very long, hot day….
“Zhevi,” he said, stopping in his tracks. “What month is it?”
“Seventh, sir.”
In the Sunlands, the New Year came in late fall—just a week before the Winter Solstice. That meant the season turned to summer in the seventh month. “And the day of the month?”
“Seventh, sir.”
Han felt as if he had been punched, and he said in a stressed whisper, “Midsummer!” In answer to Zhevi’s questioning look, he said, “It’s Luccan’s birthday.”
Zhevi still obviously wondered why that fact upset Han, but the fact was Luccan had not had a happy birthday in years. Han couldn’t think of a worse day of the year for Luccan to be in the throes of some mysterious malady.
“Thurlock, please hurry.” Han put as much force behind the thought as he could, but he didn’t waste time searching for a reply. Either Thurlock would be home soon or he wouldn’t. All Han could do right now was try to help Luccan by putting his own abilities to work.
“Zhevi, lend me your shoulder again. Help me get to Luccan as quickly as possible.”
Zhevi didn’t complain about Han’s weight, which must have been punishing for his still-developing shoulders, and Han was more than grateful for his willingness. He no longer cared at all what he must look like hopping across the lawns using Zhevi as a living crutch. He also no longer cared what Tahlina would do to him when he finally made it back to the infirmary—which at the moment seemed like a place of heavenly respite. What he did care about was somehow marshaling enough energy to help Luccan. But with each step, he became less sure he’d be able to do that.
Someone called Han’s name, but he didn’t stop. Suddenly, Olana, the diminutive Droghona woman, rushed past and turned to face him, forcing him to stop in order not to run her over. Rose and a soldier named Ehlani trotted up apologizing, but Olana held her hand out palm up and said in accented Karrish, “Please, I mean no disrespect. Just a word with my brother Han Rha-Behl Ah’Shieth, please.”
Han said, “I’m sorry, Olana. I’m in a hurry. I’ve something very important to attend to.”
“I am aware, Han,” she said. “I only ask leave to help you in that very effort. You are injured, and your energy is nearly spent. Although I am not a healer, I am a light-worker, and I can shore up your strength for your coming ordeal. It will only take a moment, a touch.”
Han searched her gaze and, as much as he could, her mind, and he found nothing at all dishonest or untoward. “Yes, then,” he said. “I would be grateful, Olana.”
He meant to ask what he needed to do to receive her gift, but before he could say another word, she stood on tiptoes and reached to touch the top of his head. A shower of light the colors of sunrise fell over him and left him feeling cleansed and refreshed. He stood blinking for a moment, and by the time he looked to where Olana had been standing, intending to thank her, she’d gone.
Chapter Ten: You’re a Dragon, Breathe Fire
WHEN LUCKY slipped back into unconsciousness, he fell straight down to the battleground, and at first the horrible noise of it surrounded him as he unwillingly listened to a steady flow of pleading, commanding, explaining, and remonstrating. It came from his mother, the Lady Grace Liliana—or rather her shade. That’s what Lucky had decided to call her, a shade, though at least in part she resembled a ghost, or a zombie, or a figment of a very sick imagination.
But she wasn’t that. Not imagination. Whatever she was and wherever it was she took him, she sat atop her shade-horse in a glamour, trying to convince him that what she’d become was beautiful, and that she cared about him. She tried to convince him she wanted to make Ethra better. She wanted to bring about a new world, one where emotion would be quelled, magic would stay in the hands of the strong. They would rule, and those who did not would willingly serve, for that was their purpose.
“You are strong,” she said. “I can make you stronger still. Join your power to mine willingly and we can rule this new world together. You can have everything.”
The promise echoed what the Witch-Mortaine Isa had said, and he took his cue from that, as to how to respond. I am Luccan Elieth Perdhro, Mannatha, Suth Chiell, and I will not join you, he’d answered. Over and over she cajoled and convinced; again and again he refused. While she ranted, he considered whether she was now what Isa had been, but he decided that wasn’t the case. As terrible as Isa had been, she had been alive and in the physical world. Lucky wasn’t quite sure his mother was truly dead, but he knew she wasn’t alive. If he could escape this awful place she held him in, she could not follow him into the everyday world.
He had no idea how to do that, though, and the way her voice lashed him, and the cold invaded him, and the way he hurt everywhere even though he was at the same time numb, he thought it more likely he would eventually die here than that he would ever escape.
The clash of swords and screams of agony from the ongoing battle grew louder and louder, and his mother seemed to revel in it. When it reached what surely must have been maximum volume, with an exultant, expansive gesture, she swept everything up—all the ghost soldiers and their weapons, the living blue lights, the pools of blood, the ropes and pillars of black mist—she swept it all up into a whirlwind. Then the whole collection was blown apart and away like so much sand in a dust storm. The ground fell away beneath Luccan and he began descending, pulled down and down through an endless realm ever darker and colder and filled to the brim with misery. He felt pressure growing, like what he’d read about happening to deep-sea divers in Earth. With the pressure came new pain, and finally it got so bad, Lucky thought he could feel his bones crumbling in on themselves.
“Oh, you are truly in great pain, son, but look. I’m here with you and I feel no pain at all. It would be a simple thing for me to take your pain away. Simply touch your power to mine—”
“I am Luccan Elieth Perdhro, Mannatha, Suth Chiell, and I will not.”
She clicked her tongue and sighed in frustration and just for that instant, Lucky almost thought she was, after all, still his mother. But she said, “Oh, child. Let me assure you. You will. But perhaps you need another kind of convincing.”
Instantly, Lucky’s slow descent became freefall. He tumbled, loose-limbed and without any sense of up or down or direction. Pain lessened everywhere except around his chest, where a rope of black mist gripped him like an evil version of a bungee; there, pain blossomed. The substance seared his flesh like a brand. Dizzy did not begin to describe the way his head was spinning—or maybe everything else was spinning around him. Nausea came on worse than anything. He felt sicker than he ever could have imagined being, felt it everywhere, even in his skin. He thought he would vomit and wondered if he’d choke on it. There didn’t seem any point in worrying about it. If he died, he died. At least he would not have let this new form of evil—in the shape of his own
mother—use him and twist his magic, which he’d been born with so he could do good things, into something horrific.
He came abruptly to a dead stop, the mist-rope yanking tight around him and pulling him up short.
“Son,” he heard his mother say, though he couldn’t see her now. “You don’t yet understand the joy in glory and might and setting the world to rights, but if you do not choose to join me, you will end up like the others. Look around. I’m offering you escape from the fate you see.”
What seemed like screens of sick blue light encircled him, and on them, like watching a security camera monitor, he saw children—many, many children. Mostly they were young, but some looked to be in their teens. Some lay unmoving in hospital-style beds hooked up to tubes and machines, while strangely misshapen people moved among them.
“Terrathians,” his mother said, laughing a little.
But other children, filthy and bloated from starvation, crouched in dark cages waiting to die. Still others worked, driven with whips and harsh voices. Liliana didn’t tell him anything about this place, but it didn’t matter. Lucky remembered it—he’d been there, in the caves under the mountain. His blood seemed to freeze in his veins because suddenly he understood: The bloody battleground might have represented something real—whether past or present or future—but this… this was real. It was happening somewhere, and it was happening now. And his mother—this cold, evil, undead version of the person who should have loved him—would let it happen to him if he did not join her awful cause.
“No,” she said, apparently able to read his thoughts, though she hadn’t had that ability in life. “I would not let it happen. But things are in motion, wheels turn, and a power such as yours will not be wasted, one way or another. I do love you, Luccan, and I would see you let go of the foolishness of the wizard and his god. I would have you join me. You do not have to die. Simply touch your power to mine. Then you will change; you will see the truth of the world.”
Overwhelmed all of a sudden with grief for what could have been if the mother he’d missed during his years in Earth had really existed, he felt tears course down his cheeks. But still… “I am Luccan Elieth Perdhro, Mannatha, Suth Chiell, and I will not.”
Abruptly, true darkness closed in, the absence of life and light. He felt, rather than saw, the mist-rope bindings wind around him, pinning him in nothingness.
“Think on it awhile,” his mother’s shade said, and then she left him there. Alone.
THURLOCK FOUGHT the urge to hold his breath as he felt solid ground beneath his feet. He had to talk himself into opening his eyes.
His recent Portal travels had gone awry every time, and he worried that it was somehow his fault. After so many years—centuries—of using the Portals of Naught without incident, he’d had a string of poor results. The list had appeared and posted itself in his mind during this Portal trip as if someone had tacked it up on a post in there with a nail.
Lost Luccan on the way.
Landed in collapsed Portal entrance with Luccan.
Ended up in a weird world where skinny-headed people torture children.
Landed in a strange place instead of the Sisterhold.
Attempted to use a Portal of Naught after clearing the entrance of dead things and strange smelly mists.
Now, the moment of truth. Let’s see how number five turned out, shall we? He opened his eyes and looked around.
“Yes!” he said, raising a fist in triumph, a habit he’d picked up from watching television during his stay in Earth. Unfortunately, it startled Lemon Martinez, who’d been resting quite contentedly in the crook of his other arm, and of course, the cat scratched. Unable to stop himself, he let out a very loud “ouch,” sending Lemon, hackles raised and yowling, out of the small Portal cave and off into the orchard.
The orchard. “Behl eth Dahn,” Thurlock said. He took two steps to stand outside the Portal cave, and—so happy was he to be home—he caught himself just before kneeling to kiss the blessed ground of the Sisterhold. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t want to kiss it, or that he thought it was beneath his dignity. He was just feeling rather stiff and tired and wasn’t sure he could get back up once he got down. He felt pretty sure Lemon would be fine on his own and would find his way to the Sisterhold—the cat far preferred cooked food and could hone in on it from a mile away—so he gathered what he sometimes thought of as his premier-wizardliness, and turned to welcome Henry and Maizie to the Sisterhold.
They weren’t there.
He closed his mouth, which had been open in readiness to speak, and stepped back inside the small cave that served as Portal entrance. Looking around, he made a note to thank the stoneworkers who’d fixed this place back up after he and Luccan somehow collapsed it last fall. They’d done a nice job of opening it back up and smoothing over the rough places. It had always been a small place, though, and now it was smaller than ever, so it didn’t take much looking around to determine it was empty. He stepped forward and peered into the Portal of Naught, then promptly rolled his eyes at his own behavior. It was ridiculous—one couldn’t see into the vortices.
He sighed wearily and prepared to turn back around, planning to sit in the sun and think about this kink in his progress. Before he could actually get his old bones to move, though, he was struck by two flying objects—Henry and Maizie to be precise. Henry apparently had some control of his… wings… yes, wings to fly out of the cave entrance. Thurlock, on the other hand, flew out under the driving force of a fast-moving ball of large dog. He landed on his back, the wind knocked out of him. Once he’d painfully recovered the ability to breathe, a quick self-inventory told him he wasn’t otherwise hurt, possibly due to the fact that he’d managed to retain his grip on his staff.
Maizie had rolled off, and also seemed unhurt, though she panted and whined a little, obviously having not enjoyed the ride. Thurlock rolled onto his side and found Henry about eight feet away, perched on a rock and making clicking and grunting noises that sounded like a stream of invective.
“If you’d be so kind as to resume human form, Henry, you could help me up.”
Henry hopped in a furious-looking circle, winged over to Thurlock’s side, stuck his head under Thurlock’s arm, and began flapping as if to pull him to a standing position that way.
“Wait,” Thurlock said, his voice calm though he felt grouchier than he had in a long time, and that was saying something. “I take it you are unable to change back, correct?”
Henry responded with a lot of clicking and head-bobbing and finally ducked his head under his wing, much the way, Thurlock thought, proverbial ostriches—though not real ostriches—hide their heads in the sand.
“Okay, okay. Don’t panic,” he said. “We’ll figure it out.”
Thurlock rolled onto his stomach, then decided that while he was down there he might as well kiss the ground after all. Despite everything, he truly was quite happy to be home and thankful to have arrived in one piece. That done, he muttered some wizardly words to borrow strength from the sun and groaned and creaked into a standing position. “This way,” he said, pointing south, where the Orchard Road they were next to would take them to the East-West Way, for while it wasn’t the shortest route to the Sisterhold from there, it was the easiest, and easy sounded very appealing to Thurlock at that moment.
As he started on the way, both Maizie and Henry hung back.
“Don’t worry about Lemon Martinez,” he said. “He took a shortcut. I’m sure he’s already at the Sisterhold. Pilfering in the kitchen, no doubt.”
The summer day was fine, and the air felt good, and as they walked, Thurlock hummed a happy little tune he’d learned in Earth, “Good Day Sunshine.”
But when they came within sight of the East-West Way, he saw Zhevi. And when Zhevi saw Thurlock, he started running toward him, looking very troubled indeed.
OLANA’S GIFT energized Han, but it didn’t change his grim, purposeful mood. When he reached Luccan’s door, he almost crashed thro
ugh it in a rush, but he reminded himself that the last he’d heard, Luccan was awake, and though he’d been confused and unable to converse with Zhevi, he might have improved over the last hour. It wouldn’t do to frighten him by bursting into his room like a madman. He held himself in check, calmly pushed the door open and entered slowly with Zhevi at his heels.
He’d thought he’d prepared himself for whatever he would find. He’d thought he could take in Luccan’s condition calmly and decide coolly what he needed to do, if anything.
He’d been wrong.
Luccan wasn’t awake. He wasn’t improved. He’d gone under again and the look of him terrified Han.
Aware of the fear rolling off the occupants of two chairs against the wall farthest from Luccan’s bed, Han felt a rush of pique. Surely Tahlina could have found someone to keep watch who actually cared about Luccan more than they feared what was happening to him. He squelched the emotion, though, sensing already that more hostility was the last thing Luccan needed around him.
He stepped over to the bed and sat on its edge. Cold emanated from Luccan, and Han’s breath misted visibly in the chill. Luccan’s chest moved with quick shallow breaths.
He is, at least, alive, Han reassured himself, though colder than any Night House corpse.
Everything about Luccan’s appearance was wrong, so much so that Han could have convinced himself this was another boy lying in his nephew’s bed. This person’s skin wasn’t exactly gray, nor exactly white, but it was pasty, or maybe waxy described it better. It certainly wasn’t Luccan’s usual red-brown complexion. And this boy looked far too gaunt to be Luccan, who after his long adventure had been lean but strong and healthy. And the person lying before Han smelled of rot and death. Everything about Luccan—his Luccan—sang of life.
