Nethyal provided the townspeople with news that the king to the south grew jealous and threatened war upon them. The Kelmen were well fed, happy, and motivated to protect what they had built. They would die happily for their king, Nethyal reported, and the thought made Wynter eager to for Ahlric’s arrival. And the arrival of Lydria.
Leaving Nethyal in charge, Wynter headed west on his own, traveling light with his bow and some provisions. He had maintained his skills as an archer over the cold winter as much for something to do as for the good it did his body. His travels, he assured Nethyal, would not require the warrior’s skills. Wynter would see to his people and gather what intelligence he could on his own. He promised he would not go south beyond Brookside.
He lied.
THIRTY-FIVE
Wynter left Solwyn by the Western Governess Road and made sure he was seen as he made his way alone out of Solwyn. He didn’t hurry, putting his easy manner to good use in building his reputation as a king of the people. Everywhere he went he was treated with the respect and deference a king should be shown – even one who walked along the road and inquired into the lives of his people. But soon after the last farmhouse had been passed, he moved toward the south, toward the track he had taken to arrive at Solwyn, amidst the scrub growth and open frost fields.
Where his earlier trip had been cold and hungry with a watchful eye over his shoulder, this time he stood tall and walked like a man who did not care if he were seen or not. In fact, Wynter quite hoped he would be seen. Ahlric had spies everywhere but spies were rarely assassins. If his movements were noted by Ahlric, perhaps then the assassins would come, but his deeper hope, was that Lydria would hear of his travels.
Months earlier Wynter’s own spies had told him Lydria and Krieger, along with two Eifen had been seen entering the castle in Bayside. Shortly afterward alarms rang, and the guards were scrambling. The gates of the city were closed, and a search was made for ‘treasonous spies’. Life in Bayside since then had taken on a peculiar rhythm of tension and suspicion. Guards were sent off in each direction from the city on their search and rumor had it that men were being marshalled for an expedition that summer. The problem, for Wynter, was that he didn’t know if the army would march on Solwyn, the Eifen, or another unsuspecting kingdom to the south or the east.
Somehow, Lydria and her friends had escaped. Wynter thought it most likely they were holed up with Krieger, probably still within the city’s walls. It didn’t take much of a description from his network for him to surmise that they were with Haustis, the old woman who had left him in the clearing so long ago; and the other Eifen was almost certainly Nethyal’s sister.
After several days walking, the frost line receded. Spring was coming in full to the kingdom and Wynter realized he was near to the crater where he had found the stone.
Several days later he found it. The long line of destruction looked like it had always been there. Shoots of green appeared from under the blanket of forest debris and ash, but the devastation made him shiver involuntarily. Looking to the west down the clearing he saw a great mound of earth forming a small wall marking the crater’s furthest edge. There, in that hole in the ground, he had promised Lydria he would find and kill her. He walked back down the path he had hobbled from more than a year earlier and walked around the crater itself, which had been partially filled by leaves, debris, and dirt from the crater walls. Outside the crater, along the western edge, Wynter noticed a small marker had been placed in the ground. Surely, that was the soldier whose life he had mercifully ended, for his was the only body visible in the wreckage of the forest. He still remembered the face of the broken man, covered in his own blood, beaten and punctured by wood splinters like daggers. His eyes found Wynter and he had managed a rasping, bubbling request, ‘kill me.’ It had been the second time someone had asked Wynter for death to spare them from pain, and he didn’t hesitate. Using an arrow lying nearby he silenced the man before rummaging through his belongings to find what he could and moving to the crater where he found the stone and the woman, Lydria.
As he reached the grave it dawned on Wynter that Lydria must have known this man if she took the time to bury him – for who else could have done it? He could have been her husband, or brother, or father… it didn’t really matter. He had killed the man, and as he had left the instrument of his demise buried in his neck, it was likely Lydria guessed at Wynter’s part in his death.
“Why is it you are always around when people cry out for death?”
Wynter had kept his wife from his thoughts as he walked from Solwyn, but walking through the trench and crater, he had let his guard down. He answered out loud, as he did when they spoke the last time they were in this place.
“Maybe because it’s my job, and I’m very good at it,” he replied smoothly. “Think of how horrible your death, and his, would have been if not for me. You should both be thanking me.” And he shut her out again before she could reply.
Wynter picked up a helmet near the burial site and wondered how it had come through the destruction so unscathed. He was ready to drop it when he paused and raised his head in time to see a rabbit darting through the underbrush and Wynter laughed to himself wondering if he were starting to hear things. He dropped the helmet and turned to head back to the crater but stopped again almost immediately.
“So, you are Wynter.” It wasn’t a question. “I told you that you would regain your ability to walk. Have you decided finally, to turn away from the north and death, and move south?”
Wynter smiled. “Haustis, is it.” Again, not a question, just the repetition of formalities. “The north has been a welcoming home to me. I’ve made a fine life there and if you visit, you’ll find the people of my kingdom are happy and prosperous. I’ve swept away the charlatans and overlords who would keep people starving and poor, and I’ve created a new society. Why ever would I look to the south?”
Haustis was surprised both by his candor and his words. If it were true, perhaps she had misjudged him. But, she knew what Wynter was capable of and the spirits had been telling her for months the world would be a better place without him. Still, she sensed no dishonesty in his words.
“You have not been to the north since I’ve remade it, have you? You still judge me on what your spirits told you. But, as you said yourself, the spirits are only guides. Why don’t you see for yourself before you condemn me?”
“You speak as one trying to convince a father that he is fit for their daughter. It does not sit well with you, Wynter. The spirits, they still hold that your loss would be but a good thing for the earth.”
“Are you here to kill me then?”
“Are you deserving or desirous of death?”
“We are all deserving of death, Haustis. You know that. Each of us in our turn, sneaking up around your circle, doing things that we ought not. The question isn’t whether we are deserving of death, but whether at what point we deserve death. I think I still have much to do before I pass. More to the point, I don’t think you are the one who will call me from this place.”
Wynter shifted slightly but didn’t move his feet, preparing himself for her next move. What he didn’t expect was an invitation.
“Will you share a pipe with me, Wynter, and join me with the spirits?”
THIRTY-SIX
Lydria heard the world around her but could not communicate. In fact, she thought, hearing the world might be too much – she was generally aware of it. The way she viewed the world through her mind was how a traveler viewed the distance through a thick fog. The noises she could hear were slowly starting to reveal themselves as voices and she concluded by their tone, they were the voices of friends. Krieger at least, she could identify by his rich, deep, voice. She could not hear Haidrea but could feel her presence close by. Anything more specific than this was closed to her senses.
From the point where she recognized Krieger, it felt like days had gone by before her mind snapped open to a new intrusion.
“Lyd
ria. Lydria. If you can hear me, let me know.”
The voice was sad. It sounded defeated, as if it were asking the question out of habit. Lydria strained her senses to hear more but no more came until days later when the same voice said the same thing, but this time she felt something else as well – compassion, love, fear.
“Lydria.”
“I hear you.” It was all she could think to answer, but she couldn’t put the thought into words. Lydria felt as though she were only a thought with no body, mired in a haze.
“You can hear me!” The voice jumped into her consciousness and slowly Lydria began to remember Kimi, the owner of the voice and her lost spirit soared with happiness. Kimi was still with her.
“I can’t move, Kimi!” She was about to tell the cat to stop licking her face, but the sensation was so overwhelming she let him continue, allowing the scrape of his rough tongue across her cheeks and eyes fill her with awareness and the joy that came from being able to feel once more. “What’s happened, where are we?”
“I have only recently found you. But it appears you’ve been gone for a long time.”
Lydria considered his use of ‘a long time’ and dismissed it as the panic at seeing someone you love wounded or hurt. She had seen many women in the camps claim they had watched their husbands die for weeks when often it was no more than hours or days. Time passed differently for those who waited, Lydria thought.
“Lydria, you have been lying here for a half-dozen moons, at least,” the bobcat told her. “When you left for Bayside the winter had not come on full – and now spring is giving way to summer.”
Months? She repeated her question to Kimi and didn’t wait for a response as she demanded to know what had happened, where they were and what was going on with the king and Wynter. “Slowly, my friend, slowly. First, I must make the others understand you are with us. Things are … complicated.”
“Fine.” Lydria’s voice was a whisper. She could feel herself going back to sleep and pushed rest from her mind willing herself to stay awake. “I am tired, my friend. What’s happening?”
There was a pause, as if Kimi were trying to best decide how to answer the question. Short chirrups, purrs of happiness at having his friend back, cut off as he prepared to speak, only to start again as he hesitated.
“What do you remember, Lydria?”
Lydria thought she could feel that cat’s weight resting on the back of her shoulder, as if he were whispering in her ear. “I remember…Haidrea!”
Reliving her memories of Ahlric’s throne room caused a wave of nausea to wash over Lydria, but she persisted, providing all the detail she could recall and waiting until Kimi’s next question helped trigger more. When she was finished, it was as if she had cut down, chopped and moved the wood of a great oak by magic. She was exhausted, emotionally and physically.
“Now I need to tell you what happened next.”
Kimi told the story well although it was nearly impossible to believe. The blast in the throne room had not only knocked back the soldiers moving toward them, it had taken Lydria, Haidrea, Krieger, and Haustis from that place to the outpost where they had first met Wae Relin.
But what of Haidrea?
“I think it’s best if we speak of that when everyone has arrived. I need to try to make it known that you have returned and are with us once more. For now, sleep, my friend. Sleep to regain your strength.” And she did.
When Lydria woke again, she was groggy and sore, like she had engaged in combat practice late into the evening – and lost. But she could hear now. Sounds of the room, muted and dull were coming to her as if spoken behind a wall. Krieger was with her and Kimi as well. Haidrea, it seemed was nearby as well, but Lydria could not hear her. Still, it was some relief to feel that her friend was alive.
“Kimi, I need your eyes and ears.”
Hesitantly, Kimi acquiesced, knowing of no better way to pass information to his friend, who had still not opened her own eyes. Lydria blinked the cat’s eyes out of habit as she got used to the light that streamed into her own head and reacquainted herself with the different arrangement of colors she enjoyed while part of the bobcat. The first thing she noticed was Haidrea, laying on her back, her head resting on cushions. There was a cloth covering her chest, and a bright light seeping out from the folds. Lydria saw her own left hand under the cloth, her three and half fingers pointed up toward Haidrea’s chin, her palm resting just beneath the warrior’s ribcage. Seeing herself lying with her face against Haidrea’s leg was odd, as her own right hand was trapped under her as she rested partially on her stomach and on her left side.
“No one dared move you for fear of breaking your contact with Haidrea.”
Lydria looked up and saw Krieger, Wae Relin, and Branch, all of whom were watching Kimi with interest. Krieger smiled and said, “welcome back, Lydria.”
“Lydria, it is Wae Relin, can you hear me?”
Lydria had Kimi move to Wae Relin and put a paw on the man’s knee to signal that she could hear, and the warrior continued. “Haidrea is alive, but only just. We believe your magic has been keeping her alive and that if you remove your hand…”
Lydria reeled at the explanation and immediately withdrew from Kimi and set her mind to looking inward at the magic that flowed through her hand. As she started to make the connections and feel the power flow from her, she knew it to be true. She gently shifted her focus to her own skin and as she regained the sensations of her flesh, she focused outward. Straining to see, her right eye opened slightly, months of disuse built up like a fog across her sight, but she was able to make out the outline of Haidrea’s chest rising and falling in a slow rhythm. With a steadying thought, Lydria moved her attention to her arm and left hand where three and half fingers formed a barrier below Haidrea’s ribcage. Under the warrior’s skin, she felt a shard of metal and the foulness of disease that reached through her magic and assaulted her nose as if she was amid a battle tending to wounded men.
“Kimi, I need your help. I need you to remove this cloth from Haidrea’s chest.”
Kimi quickly grabbed the cloth with his teeth and pulled it away, drenching the room with a warm yellow light emanating from Lydria’s hand and the wound in Haidrea’s chest. The others drew back out of reflex but just as quickly moved forward, turning their attention back to Haidrea, where between Lydria’s half-index finger and her middle finger, a piece of metal began to emerge. Branch reacted first, kneeling and drawing the metal out and pushing Lydria’s fingers back together again.
Glancing quickly with Kimi’s eyes, Lydria saw the metal removed and then withdrew to her own eyes and waited long, anxious minutes for Haidrea’s breathing to return to a steady, even pace.
With that finished, Lydria turned her attention to her surroundings and saw a fire pit close by with a stew pot and bowls her friends had likely used to feed the two women for months. Further away from the fire pit was Lydria’s spirit bag.
“This metal you have taken from Haidrea, Lydria, it is well you have removed it, but I do not think that is what ails her now.” Wae Relin spoke directly to Lydria, and to the others as well. “We have you back, and you must work to regain your strength, for we have lost much time and as summer begins, the movement of men to the east starts in earnest.”
“Does he think we should let Haidrea die?”
“No, Lydria. He believes she is already gone. He believes her spirit has started the journey to join those of her ancestors. While you hold on and while Haidrea draws breath, there is a connection between those two worlds – Haidrea is still held here, unable to journey on. It is a connection, he thinks, that does not do well for a soul to linger in.”
“He wants me to let go?”
“I do not think he wants you to, but while you hold on to Haidrea, you both remain helpless. War is coming, if it is not already here, and you are needed.”
“Haidrea is needed as well. By me. What of Haustis, where is she and what does she think?”
Kimi r
ested his chin on her shoulder and purred softly. He was a fully-grown bobcat now and Lydria could feel the weight of his head. No longer would he ride happily around her neck.
“Lydria, Haustis has joined the spirits herself. Early in this spring, she set off to the east, back to where you found me and there she met her end. I found her lying next to the burial mound of your father. She held only this,” and Kimi withdrew to fetch the necklace Haustis had used to explain the concept of Grey to her and others.
“How, Kimi?”
“I smelled the odor of another there, Wynter, and I believe they sat peacefully together for a time before they fought. I can tell you Haustis did not leave Wynter unharmed. If he did not have magic, I am certain he would be dead now. Despite her end, Haustis looked calm and serene.”
“Are you sure it was Wynter, Kimi?”
“Yes. His smell awakened something in me – he smells, in some ways, like you. The magic becomes a part of those who wear the collar and it lingers in you in much the same way as any strong scent.”
Lydria looked at the necklace Kimi had dropped in front of her. “Kimi, is my bag from Drae Ghern here? Bring it to me.”
Seeing the bobcat dragging the bag toward Lydria, Wae Relin hurried to help and opened it quickly, taking out each item in turn and placing them before Lydria so she could see each. Kimi pawed a parcel wrapped in bearskin and Branch reached down to unwrap it, revealing a stone, similar in hue to the one Lydria took from the crater. But it was a river stone that had been polished and worked so that it was hollowed out, deeply, like a thimble. The outside was carved with a delicately detailed hand print but with half an index finger, and it was topped with a jewel.
“It is a clever and beautiful thing that is very finely done,” said Wae Relin with sincere appreciation for the craftsmanship of the piece. “The etching shows this was meant as jewelry for your finger, perhaps to protect the naked stub. The women of Eifynar thought very highly of you to have made you such a gift.”
Magic's Genesis- The Grey Page 24
