Marion Zimmer Bradley & Holly Lisle - [Glenraven 01]

by Glenraven (v1. 5) (html)

  Blood, blood

  we want—

  Do you promise—

  his blood all of his blood

  we want to drink him dry

  Do you swear?

  I want to hurt him,

  you, you, you, do you swear

  swear you will give us his blood?

  She won't she won't she won't—

  Aidris snarled, "Enough! I'll give you his blood. I said I would, didn't I? Have I ever broken a promise to you? I'll give you anything you want—I swear it. But don't bother me with that. Go now, and bring him to me quickly. And bring the hearts of the wizards he stole from me."

  The Watchers coalesced into a single face that floated just above the floor and terminated a handbreadth below the ceiling. The face's eyes began to glow—dull red, bloodred, ruby red—growing brighter and more intense. Aidris had never seen the hunters form a single unified shape before; she had not realized that her minions could act in such complete unison. They'd created a beautiful face; except for those hungry, terrible eyes, it was a face that would have suited a goddess.

  "We'll have our blood," that face said, speaking in a single voice—in her voice—and then she recognized that the face the Watchers had created was a replica of her face.

  She smiled, flattered by their demonstration of subservience. "Yes," she told them. "We'll have our blood."

  Her illuminated face smiled back at her, and the smile it gave her was hard, cruel. Then her Watchers dissipated into motes of light and streamed out of the Wizards Bell through the window, a rapidly retreating magical ribbon of light.

  She hoped the Watchers would reform their image of her face when they caught Matthiall and killed the Machnan wizards. She wanted him to know precisely who had sent his death. She wanted him to taste despair.

  With the Watchers gone, she turned her attention to a relic she'd stolen from one of the last of the Aregen lords before she'd killed the little monster. It was a viewing bell, and because she wasn't Aregen, she should not have been able to use it. She'd discovered, however, that if she coated her hands with some of the blood of an Aregen just before she tapped the rim, the bell would listen to her and she could direct it to show her the things she wished to see. She'd drained the blood from every Aregen she slaughtered after that, and had a little Machnan flunky dry it and powder it for her. Now hundreds of vials of the dark brown powder lined one wall of her work space.

  She took a bit of the powder, sprinkled it into a mortar, and used her spittle to moisten it. She'd experimented until she found that spittle formed the fluid most like fresh blood; she got the best results that way, and results mattered to her.

  She smeared the brown, stinking fluid on her palms and, while it was still wet, tapped the rim of the flat silver bell. It rang softly and light shimmered out from the center. By concentrating, she guided the bell toward her hunting parties that slipped through the darkness, outward in a slow, spreading circle from Cotha Maest. She watched the black hulks of trees streaming past, the glow of moonlight reflected in water, and suddenly she was upon her line of hunters. She watched, moving from Kin to Kin-hera, studying each of her people and making sure that none of them failed in their duty. She wanted no mistakes. There would be no last-minute mercy, no bribes taken and cleverly hidden. She would be satisfied with nothing less than the destruction of her enemies. And she was taking no chances in making sure she got what she wanted.

  When she had looked in on her hunters and satisfied herself that they searched diligently, she turned her attention to finding her Watchers. She ranged farther afield, seeking them by using the telltale feel of their magic and the light they gave off. She couldn't find them; not at all. She frowned, puzzled. Even when she couldn't see them, she had tracked them down by trailing their magic, so that she could have the pleasure of watching them destroy their victims. But now they seemed to be gone.

  For a moment she panicked. Perhaps they had abandoned her, or returned to their Rift.

  Then she considered: they hunted Matthiall, who was a Kintari strong enough to fight them off. If they had a way to hide their presence, they would surely use it.

  She thought about that for a while and decided her Watchers were only exercising the intelligent caution that would bring them to their quarry faster, and that would give her what she wanted all the sooner.

  She would be satisfied to wait.

  She cleared the viewing bell and rinsed her hands. She intended to be well rested when Matthiall came in. No one had ever betrayed her so fully before; no one had successfully put her in jeopardy in centuries. She wanted to enjoy his contrition, and when he had groveled and begged for his life, when he had sufficiently abased himself, she would force him to become her consort. Or she would savor his death. Either way, his life belonged to her.

  Forty-four

  Matthiall laid Jayjay on the floor of the tent, on top of the bedroll her friend had put out. He stripped his own shirt off, then carefully removed hers. The bizarre garment underneath he left in place, uncertain of its purpose or the method by which he might effect its removal. He knelt beside her, not touching her. She was so near death—so very near.

  Was she his eyra?

  The Kin could have only one mate in a lifetime. One eyra, one soul. Every soul had a song that it shared with only one other; and from the moment Matthiall had found Jayjay in the woods, under attack by Aidris Akalan's Watchers, he had heard that song. Impossible as it seemed to him, impossible as it should have been, for he was Kin and she was, if not Machnan, then something very like Machnan, she appeared to be the other half of him.

  Was she? Was she?

  Lying there dying, she could not answer his questions. She could not look into his eyes and promise to love him, could not take eternal vows; she could not sit in silence and let her soul respond to his without words. Lying there dying, she could give him no answer to his question; and still he could hear and feel and touch the maddening elusive magical song of her soul.

  If she was not his eyra and he tried to claim her, he would die. That was the bargain he would have to make to take the chance. He didn't want to die, but for the chance of discovering that they were eyra to each other, when he had believed all his life that there was no one for him, that there never would be, he would risk more than death.

  He took his dagger from his belt and pressed the flat of the blade to his forehead.

  He pulled his shoulders back and took a deep breath. Still kneeling, he held the dagger aloft in his right hand, and said softly, "Hear me now. I call upon the forces of earth and sky, of wind and water, of the hot white fire of day and the cold black fire of night. I summon as witnesses the spirits of my straba that have gone before to note the promises I make and bind me to them." He paused and took another deep breath. Resolved, he continued. "I offer my life to this woman," he whispered. "I offer my blood." He nicked his finger with the point of the blade, and when the dark red drop welled up, pressed the drop of blood to Jayjay's forehead. "I offer my breath." He inhaled slowly, and pressed his lips to hers, and slowly, gently, exhaled.

  "I offer my heart." He sat cross-legged beside her and lifted her up, positioning her with some difficulty so that her legs went around his waist and her chest pressed against his. He felt the terrible racing pace of her heartbeat, the weakness of her pulse, the way her arms hung limply at her sides and the way her head lolled against his neck.

  He paused for a moment, considering whether he should bind her to him as he had bound himself to her. He should, he thought. If he gave her his health and strength and half of his life, if he took the poison from her blood and bore it in his, he should have the right to take for her the vows she was unable to take for herself. If he was offering his life to save hers, he ought to know that when she woke, she would not be able to reject him.

  But he wanted her love to be love. Not duty and obligation and a magical binding, not compulsion. Perhaps he would feel no difference between the two states…but he would know the
difference existed.

  He wanted her to choose him as he chose her.

  What fools we are for love, he thought. What utter fools.

  If she rejected him, if she refused to take the vows he had taken, if she left him, then he would die as surely as he would if she were not his one true eyra. He didn't want to die. He didn't want to live alone.

  But he would not coerce her love.

  "Because she cannot offer her promises of her own free will, I release her from them, and bear these oaths alone. I declare us eyra, and I declare my soul inseparable from hers."

  "I am one half of her."

  He stilled himself and focused on the rhythm of her breathing. Gently, he followed the path he had drawn, between them into her lungs. He became her breath; they breathed together. He willed himself deeper into the trance, and felt the pounding of her heart against his chest, and felt his blood coursing through his own veins. Then slowly he became his blood and his heart. He found the bond between them, the bond he had created with his oaths, and again traced the path, becoming her heart, her blood.

  He knew her pain, the fire of poison in her veins, the agony of the visions that tormented her mind. He knew her wish to be free from the pain, to escape the torture of the cage her body had become. He felt with her the hunger for death, for silence, for respite.

  The part of him that was her begged that release, and while her breath filled his lungs and her blood coursed through his veins, he yearned to grant it to her—to give her release. But his own blood and his own breath called out to him to live, to fight death as the enemy, to rejoice in blood and breath and the pounding dance of his heart, her heart.

  Through the currents that sang between them, he called out, I have found you! I have found you! You are me! My soul, my soul, wake and know me. I will share your pain. I will carry your hurts. Share my love, and let it fill you.

  He breathed her breath, she breathed his breath—sucked in air like fire that devoured everything it touched. Their hearts galloped, thundered, and the pain screamed, lashed, howled through their veins—and yes, Matthiall prayed, yes, let me share all your pain. Let it come to me.

  The poison burned in his veins, dulled his sensations, made him numb. He fought the numbness, for the voragel poison was not her only pain. Memories washed over him—pictures he didn't understand. A lean man, pale-eyed and handsome, in a bed with a woman who didn't belong there. He felt her flinch back; she'd felt the pain as a stab to her heart, ran with her when she turned and fled. A blur, a flash, and then another picture—a dark-haired man, his fist raised in fury, and that fist smashing into her face. Matthiall felt his own body stiffen, felt himself trying to tear that man limb from limb, but he couldn't change the memory. She lay screaming, curled on a cold hard floor while a foot slammed into her stomach again and again. Blood, too much blood, and she wept. She had been with child, and her child was suddenly gone.

  Matthiall felt her anguish as his own, her loss as his. It became darkness, but he fought it off and faced the vision of another man, another bed, another stranger with him, but this time when the one Jay knew and loved rose to greet her, the stranger beneath him was also a man. The men laughed, shrugged; one of them opened his arms and beckoned to her, and again she turned and fled, her soul torn by loss, betrayal, confusion, the pain of shame. And then there were more pictures, flashes, glimpses. Faces, faces on street corners and in a multitude of rooms, faces that stared at her with cold, hostile eyes. She felt their censure. He felt it with her.

  So much pain.

  Matthiall carried the pain, but he couldn't ease all of it. The memories flooded over him, dark and harsh and ugly, until the poison began to sing to him, to call him to come to the silence, to the peace where there was no joy, but also no pain.

  He breathed with her.

  He breathed for her.

  Live, he said. Pain tires of itself; it grows dull and weak. We can bear this pain. We can bear it, we can overcome it, we can put it behind us. I am you, you are me. We are not alone. You are with me and I love you and you will never be alone again.

  As you to me, so I to you.

  My soul, my love.

  His breath, her breath, all one. It steadied.

  Yours, he told her. I am yours. I am yours.

  He felt a stirring of consciousness within her then. He exulted. Breathe my breath, he urged her. Let my heart beat for you, let my blood feed you.

  He felt her confusion, but her soul moved to his and embraced him. The fire of her life burned inside of him; the wonder of her flowed through him, and he felt whole. A part of her wakening self sought life. She let him catch their runaway breathing and carry it down, slowly, gently down, let him make it deeper and bigger and richer, each breath dragging in and holding cool clear air, each long, slow breath washing out the fire.

  Her tortured coma lifted, and she drifted without waking into the healthier realm of deep, weary sleep.

  They still lived. She was his eyra, and he was hers.

  My love, his soul whispered into her dreams, where have you been for so long? Oh my soul…

  Forty-five

  Sophie stretched and paced, trying to stay awake and alert. The silence of the night was restful rather than ominous. Matthialls voice, soft and deep and somehow desperate, had become silent perhaps half an hour earlier, and since then, she had heard nothing beyond the night noises of insects and animals and the wind in the grass. There had been, in the last few moments that she'd heard him talking—or possibly praying—a joy in his voice that Sophie thought boded well for Jay's survival.

  Be all right, Jay, she thought. Please be all right.

  She made a circuit around the perimeter of their camp, full of hope; hope that Jay would survive, that the night would remain peaceful and safe, that she and Jay would leave Glenraven alive.

  As she came around to the front of the tent, she noticed that Jayjay's backpack had begun to glow. Sophie frowned. It hadn't been glowing before. She drew her sword, and cautiously stepped nearer. The glow was warm and inviting, like light from the windows of home on a cold and rainy night. It wasn't doing anything—changing shape or color, making noise, moving. It was mere light, nothing more, and it glowed through the nylon of the backpack almost like light through stained glass, and shone out around the edges, beckoning her closer.

  She flipped the bag open with the tip of her sword. The light streamed upward like a beacon to heaven, and Sophie found herself hoping no one was out there to see that light. Still nothing attacked, nothing moved, nothing changed.

  Holding her breath, she poked inside the backpack with the sword and stirred the contents.

  Nothing happened.

  Well, she thought, I can't very well start fishing things out with the sword. That would take all night. And I can't leave this alone without knowing what it is.

  That left sticking her hand into the backpack.

  She hated Glenraven. Things like this simply didn't happen back home.

  She moved nearer, and, with her blood pounding in her ears and her mouth dry as a drought-stricken field, she fumbled around until she found the object that glowed so brilliantly. When her hand touched it, it dimmed to a soft, gentle yellow light, still glowing, but no longer so bright that she feared it would lead trouble to her. She pulled it out.

  The book. Jay's Fodor's Guide to Glenraven.

  She should have known. After all, that was the book that had started all this trouble. She opened it up, and was surprised to find that the pages were blank. Glowing, blank.

  What does that mean? she wondered.

  Words appeared on the page she held open; not as if they were being written, but all at once.

  "The first condition has been met."

  "What first condition?" she blurted. The words vanished, and a block of text replaced them.

  "You, Glenraven's chosen heroes, move one step closer to fulfilling your destiny, and freeing Glenraven from oppression and annihilation. Two conditions remain to
be fulfilled. Have courage."

  "Wrong. I'm not having courage, and I'm not fulfilling any damned destiny. Glenraven survived just fine without me until now, and it will survive without me when I'm gone. I'm taking Jayjay and the two of us are going to get out of here."

  The words of encouragement vanished. The page remained blank for a long moment, and then the book said:

  "The first condition has been met."

  Sophie glared at the printed words, then asked, "Okay—what are the other two conditions you think Jay and I are going to meet? Unless the first of them is leaving this dump, you're going to be disappointed."

  The page cleared again. She waited even longer for a response. Then:

  "You know what you need to know. The first condition has been met."

  Sophie hated anything that was intentionally cryptic. She said, "What is going to happen? Answer, or you're going into the campfire."

  The page went blank for so long she thought the book had decided not to answer her. But then it gave her its message.

  "You're going to be a hero. Wait and see."

  The light went out of the pages. End of interview, evidently, and she had no idea what the damned book had been talking about. She frowned and tossed the Fodor's back into Jay's pack and pulled the flap over it. If it decided to glow again, she didn't want those searchlight beams getting out.

  As she was resheathing her sword, she heard a faint grumbling, growling sound that might have been thunder had the sky been clouded over. She froze and listened, and when she'd located the noise, turned to face it.

  By the pale light of a thin, cloud-splotched moon, misshapen forms approached—the creatures of the Alfkindir. Sophie watched them skulking toward her; she listened to the preternatural rumbling of their voices, to the swish of their legs through the dry grass; as they moved nearer she felt the thud of feet so heavy they shook the ground beneath her.