by Lisa Lowell
Drake spoke for her. “No, we must be going. How much do we owe you?” Then to put emphasis on his decision, Drake added privately to her alone. “I'm hungry enough to kill him, Gailin, so don't make a scene.”
Carefully she nodded and did not look up.
“You don't owe me a thing, sir. Your wife here has done more than pay for the medicines. And if you'll let me, I have one more thing for you.” The Apothecary found a leather pouch in the mess Gailin had not reached yet and swept their purchases into the bag and then he added a small mortar and pestle that he put directly into Gailin's hands. She looked down into the stone bowl and found something else in the bottom of it. She didn't dare react or look closely to see what he had added. There would be time later.
The Apothecary saw them to the door and off with a wave, a smile and an invitation to return any time they were near Lake Ameloni. And as they walked off into the twilight, Gailin made a show of putting their newly acquired medicines into her bag. Then she was finally able to feel what he had given her inside the mortar.
A little pendent, silver and pearl, with a stylized lily carved into the metal. With an effort Gailin resisted the temptation to look closely at it, but she now realized she had found something she didn't think she would be capable of while in the chains of Drake's name magic; a pendent, the key to opening her palace, given to her by her future doorkeeper.
Gailin smiled in secret rebellion and followed after her husband back over the pass and into the mountains.
* * *
Two months later Gailin looked at the palace and could not breathe. It gleamed in the setting winter sun, setting off the white marble walls carved with graceful bas relief scenes of forests and lilies. The stained glass windows and the snow blinded her in gold and lavender light. She wished passionately that she could see this place in the summer, with rich gardens not buried under snow or the chill of winter closing in on her, but nonetheless, she knew her home. Privately she tried not to seem enchanted, but for Drake's sake she said nothing and kept her eyes on the building itself.
“What's it doing here in the middle of this tight little valley? It's indefensible,” Drake commented from behind her as they hiked down out of the pass.
“Not everything is about war or defense,” Gailin commented, letting him pass her by so that she could continue to admire the sight. Also, she feared lest her newly acquired pendent would really open the place even though she had not completed her Seeking tasks. “This place is far enough away from people to be at peace no matter what happens in the rest of the world. It was not meant to be a fortress but an oasis.”
Her husband groused privately at that comment, but he didn't object to the idea of staying in a warm hall that night since they had been climbing into the mountains for two months now and it made him edgy. This was the mountain man's territory and he felt exposed especially with the surrounding mountain walls, despite his renewed access to ley lines. The invisibility spell Drake maintained on their movements took a lot of energy and while the place bristled with power and he had Gailin to sustain him, Drake couldn't help but think the mountains were watching him.
“So, can we get in?” Drake asked. But just as he said the words he plowed face first into an invisible wall fifty feet from the actual wall of the palace, about where the land leveled out and the snow buried gardens began. “Damn, it's like before, when the Land was sealed. Why is it sealed to you if this is your palace?”
Gailin stepped up to the seal and placed her hand gently against the invisible barrier. It wasn't opened to her yet, she realized with relief. She would find a way to keep Drake out of her palace even if it meant never entering it herself. While she was just speculating, she had to answer something. “I told you, as a Wise One there are certain duties and skills I must learn before I can take my place here.”
Drake's inherent impatience expressed itself in a huff. “It seems a waste. You aren't rulers and you hardly use the magic you've got. Why the fancy clothing and royal homes if you aren't truly acting like a queen? And they won't even let you in…whoever 'they' are?”
Gailin looked over at her husband with a mixture of pity and resignation. She had often tried to at least explain what she understood of her duties and the ethical bounds of being a Wise One but they seemed like nothing but hurdles to Drake, meant to be knocked down or ignored. On their trip up into the mountains twice more she had felt the compulsion to go help someone they passed in the villages that lined the river and while he had not forbidden her to help, Drake had also watched her healing with deep suspicion. She had cured a rampant fever with a touch and had helped lessen the terrible scarring of a child who had fallen in a fire. She actively used her gift of magic as well as her knowledge of the important herbs and medicines to do her work and everyone who witnessed her healing acknowledged it was magic. And there had not been a peep about hanging a witch this time. Drake had not commented but later he expressed disappointment.
“Too bad you cannot do that to yourself,” he had muttered, not really meaning to be overheard, but he was anyway. The fact that she had not yet come up pregnant rankled at him and he was growing increasingly impatient. Since they were following her instincts into the mountains with deep winter coming on, he had hoped to find someplace warm to really work on that aspect of his plan.
“I don't know why we have the grand palaces,” Gailin replied to the long forgotten comment. “I assume so it impresses people like you. You didn't trust me until I wore that fancy clothing. Others like you, seeing a Wise One in the palace, might take our magic a bit more seriously.”
“Not if it weren't on the ley lines. There are three that pass within twenty miles of here, did you know?”
“No,” she reminded him, “I don't feel them.
“Well, I do and they have made this a wonderful place to build a cabin and winter over. This will do.” Drake dropped his bag and from the set in his body, she knew he intended to remain, no matter what compulsion she felt, which meant she had to stay there with him. With a sigh Gailin set down her own bag and pushed up the sleeves of her coat. Despite wanting to keep some of her abilities secret, she had finally admitted to Drake that she could conjure far more than water or they would have starved. Conjuring allowed them to feed themselves in these cold mountains and their warmer clothing had been enough to impress Drake, who didn't seem to be able to bring more than the simple things into being. He dealt with fire, wind and simple, one element items like a dagger of steel and such. It was her responsibility to create food and shelter every night. Now it seemed he had no intention of moving on from this magically rich valley until spring arrived.
Unwillingly Gailin swept snow away from the ground in a square large enough to build a little cabin. River stones began to lift out of the frozen earth and stacked themselves into a foundation off the ground and then planks and walls began forming. She hated to add anything to this perfect place but she knew she would be commanded if she didn't do it willingly.
While she worked Drake watched her with possessive glee. She didn't fight him much outwardly when it came to magic; he still used her name daily to reinforce the original commands he had given her, but she also remained silent with most of his other desires. He wanted that son and she was forced to let him try. Other than that there was little to discuss and he preferred to ignore her as he would a horse or his boots; necessary and useful but little else. This meant she wasn't obliged to explain other things to him like compulsions, Talismans or Vamilion and the book. Those things she still kept close to her heart in hopes that something would change. Now that she had a little hope that the Apothecary would get out her message, she found silence easier to bear.
Somewhere within she might have lost hope for a while. Surely Vamilion was looking for her now but there was nothing new in the book and no sign that anyone wanted to find her. This pained her but for all she knew the invasion of which Vamilion spoke had come and he had other duties. She looked daily and wrote often of her thoughts when she had the
chance, but Drake demanded to see what she wrote often. The book that she had used as an anatomy text and to record her observations in herbs had now become a journal as well. She used an invisibility spell over quite a bit that she wrote but always had something innocuous to show Drake if he snatched it out of her hands unexpectedly. His impatience drove him to snap at inopportune times. Was he hoping for news from these invaders and hadn't heard? Well, then they both were hoping for someone that was not coming.
Because it was obvious she wasn't going to get pregnant instantly, Drake had insisted that they keep moving, wearing themselves out and living on the very edge of settled areas, as if he were afraid to be discovered. And he demanded an explanation as to why she was not yet pregnant.
“I don't know why,” she replied frankly. “I haven't studied the female body in much detail like we studied a male in the summer. It didn't come up and…”
He cut her off with a threat. “Then I'll have to get a female body to examine and you'll find out what is wrong with you.”
Half a dozen rude comments flashed through Gailin's mind, safely behind her shields, not passing her lips. Instead she spoke with a measured tone, dangerous and threatening. “If you kill some poor woman to bring me a body, I swear it won't help you understand or get you your son.” To emphasize her point, that oath put her into her stunning regalia, complete with a warm white fur cloak to compliment the frigid weather. “Name magic can't 'order' me to understand what I don't want to understand.”
Drake had to consider her words for a few hours before he dropped the subject, though he never admitted she was right. Fortunately they had already left the more populated areas at the foot of the mountains and women of child bearing age were few. If he did manage to find someone already dead, Gailin would have kept her promise if only to hinder him. She wasn't the one who wanted children and at this point the thought of bringing a child into this toxic and dangerous relationship seemed foolhardy. With every prayer for her own rescue she also yearned to not become pregnant. She knew of herbs that would prevent it but she couldn't manage to break the compulsion enough to put them in a tea for herself. He had commanded her to bear him a child. Perhaps prayers were just as effective as herbs. Every month, when her cycle came she smiled privately and hoped her luck would hold.
Now winter in her magic-crafted cabin strung along eternally. Cooped up with Drake, with nothing to do but feel the endless tension of his impatience nearly drove her insane. The constant, glorious reminder that was her castle stood like the marble tombstone of a giant right outside her door. She wanted to leave – go on walks in the snow, explore the valley, learn the plants of the area, climb a mountain just to see something new, but any time she suggested it or tried to leave, Drake wanted to try again for the baby. The days became weeks, and then months and the snow only grew deeper. To show her restlessness and just to irritate him, Gailin knitted baby things out of conjured wool she spun in her fingers. For his part Drake whittled spikes that he drove into the snow like hidden traps. Winter felt like it would never end.
Then one night she had another momentous dream. It fell like the rain that would melt the pervasive snow in her mind and wash everything away. She felt clean again after months of Drake's clammy hands about her neck and she wanted to hold onto it. In her dream she stood on the stoop of the cabin looking up onto the night toward the mountain tops, not daring to take the step down to the ground for Drake would call her back. Instead she reached for the invisible bag she kept over her shoulder where she hid her book, the candle that had no purpose, the pendant and the Heart Stone. For some reason her hand found the candle and brought it out. With a thought she lit it magically and then held it high against the winter stars. She didn't know why but her desire to see that candle and know its purpose now became a magical compulsion. She whispered one thing into the night.
“Crack the lines.”
Chapter 14 – Broken Body, Empty Mind
Waking might be a poor word for what made the cairn crack. Ideas drove into the stone of Vamilion's mind and began to melt the frost on his bones, but he became aware. And these ideas had not come from long rumination, for he had been unaware during his hibernation. For all he knew Owailion still lingered outside the stones ready to blast him to rubble, but these ideas came and harried him until he relented and began thinking.
Gailin – you know her name. You never swore not to use her name that way. It's wrong to have such absolute control over someone, but is there not a time to use it? Owailion used it on you. Does that justify it? Vamilion's second idea stemmed from that. You don't want to call her because it might be perceived as need, but at least hear from her. You have not used the tablet. You destroyed it in your misery and anger. You're a fool, but maybe you can reestablish the connection to the book and you can learn where she is that way.
Then he remembered the last time he had read a message from her book, before she had been taken. She had been so excited about finding that blasted map with its ley lines. That memory stunned him, for he had not even recalled something she had mentioned. Gailin had written it only in passing – about the ley line map and how it might be possible to crack the ley lines back into the earth and strip any magic of these invaders that relied on shallow ley line magic. Why hadn't he thought of that?
Because you're a fool, he again told himself. You let your worry and anger at being manipulated overwhelm your common sense. Owailion arranged for Gailin to be manipulated on purpose and you wanted only to figure out why she had disappeared instead of relying on your bond with her. Just because you know Owailion better and wanted to understand him, you ignored all you could have learned from her. Call her.
If I call her, I'll see her. The bond will become a compulsion. You won't be able to escape loving her, he warned himself. You are still being a fool, he thought next. The bond is already addling your mind. You need her to be safe and that is the first and only priority. So the misery of a split heart lasts twenty years longer. What of it. You're going to have to look her in the eye eventually. Now is better. What about Paget? What will she think?
“Forget her, you fool,” Owailion's mind voice rumbled through, interrupting Vamilion's scattered thoughts. Had the King of Creating hovered there just outside of the cairn's range for months, waiting for his reawakening to give him that familiar message?
“Stay away from me unless you have something worthwhile to say,” Vamilion shot back and then blocked further interruption. He wanted to think for himself, but he hated it when Owailion was right. He needed to forget Paget's feelings for the moment and work on helping Gailin. And that meant calling her with name magic.
Without any real idea how it would work, Vamilion shook the petrifaction from his eyes and found he could see the sky though he hadn't managed to move yet. The scent of spring had come to the plains and he wanted to consider the clouds and the warmth that began slowly to creep into his cairn. Then, with a tremendous effort he tried to move. And he discovered he couldn't.
The pain rippled through his body like an avalanche of stone had hit him all at once and buried him again. Within the agony Vamilion managed to master the magic to become completely human again and then tried to move his legs. Nothing worked. He could move his arms a little and tried to leverage himself up but a second wave of torture rolled down his spine and he collapsed again. A little below his chest he found nothing worked. He could feel a little but that could be his imagination. Was he paralyzed? Had he been so damaged by that fall? The thought horrified him. He knew as a Seated King he could not die, but nothing in the Wise One ethos said anything about living an eternity as an invalid. Vamilion let the torment echo across the valley of his mind while this thought crashed onto him. Then, without willing it he turned these incredible pangs into something else. He felt the earth begin quaking underneath him.
The pressure to rise began to shake the ground and Vamilion forced his mind down into the bowels of the earth straining for something to snap into place. An ear
thquake rippled through his back, with the two pieces pressing and straining against each other, about to move with devastating consequences. He felt the rotation of the earth as the clouds passed heedlessly overhead. His breath formed into wind and his fingers reached into the stone and bedrock. He felt the molten core of the earth underneath and then with a roar, he tore the earth open.
Crack the ley lines? He imagined them like rivers flowing over bare stone, past seams and crevices, but tied to the bedrock on which it relied. He expanded his mind to the edges of the Land; to Jonjonel in the northwest, to Tamaar in the southwest, to the nameless lake of fog in the far northeast and the Don Forest in the southeast. He sensed the great pan of the plate on which his mountains grew. They were the diamonds about the graceful neck of the Land and he knew her intimately. And he would break her. Like an egg cracking open, he squeezed, feeling the magma ooze through his fingers. The rock wailed in protest. Hundreds of earthquakes shook the villages and great cracks appeared above ground, swallowing the remaining winter snows. The sea pulled away from the coasts and then washed in, filling the marshy deltas with salt and killing the soil there.
But the blue light of magic that flowed and tempted outlander magicians sank into the cracks he created. His magic had altered the stone so profoundly that power clung, clambering to stay on the bedrock. Vamilion did not listen to its voice. He poured ley magic like ice down on the hot coals of the beating heart of the world where it steamed instantly, joined the core and became something to feed the well magic of the Wise Ones. Basking in the well magic's heat, his mind stretched back over his domain, seeking anywhere the magic had flowed and found nothing. It all had been cracked open and spilled, the lifeblood of evil magic. Outlanders would have to bring their own power in order to work their spells here ever after. Then Vamilion ponderously sealed up the cracks and healed scars of his tearing hands, smoothing the stones again, leaving the Land to reverberate like a bell a while longer until it grew still and recovered.
