by Lisa Lowell
She sat hunched over Gilead's body and began her work, testing each nerve. Her mind reached for the upper strand above the break and felt for its purpose; lumbar, and then began testing each on the lower half of the break. When she found its match she melded it together, all the way to the molecular level, though she had no idea how she was establishing this. Then she reached for another strand. The effort was exhausting and it took time to find and even more to be sure every single connection was perfect. It would be a shame if Gilead suffered pain or a limp from her work, if he were able to even walk again, just because this was new to her.
And as she worked, Gailin could feel the presence of Owailion hovering beyond her closed mind. He didn't want to interrupt but twice he did, suggesting she stop to eat or rest, but she ignored him as her answer. This was the first time she had done such precision work and Gilead could not afford for her to learn through mistakes. That Owailion remained with her was gratifying, but he really didn't need to do so. She could fend for herself, and yet Owailion stayed on the plains with her, watching to see that nothing else disturbed her and once, as the sun set she felt him place a blanket over her shoulders where she crouched over Gilead's inert body.
Finally, near midnight she had reattached every nerve in the patient's spine and removed the crushed bone. She elected not to try to repair the old vertebra but instead craft a new one out of magic-made bone, wrapping it protectively around his welded spinal column and then replaced the padding between the bones and the cartilage that allowed free movement. With that she left Gilead's body and opened her non-magical eyes.
The exhaustion descended on her like a bucket of water squashing out a fire. She reeled where she sat and would have fallen had she not already been on the ground. Across from her on the other side of the still unconscious Gilead sat Owailion with his back to a campfire watching her. He huddled under a blanket too, as if the night chill disturbed him but he slowly stretched up and moved stiffly. “Are you ready to eat something now?” he asked simply, his gruff voice chastising her for not taking care of herself. Really she felt little interest in eating but would rather fall asleep right there.
“No, you've got to eat. You're too tired to even know how hungry you should be,” Owailion insisted and handed her a bowl of some simple soup. The broth should have smelled wonderful, but it almost revolted her. She vaguely recognized this as a medical condition she should address, but didn't have the wherewithal to actually think about it.
“Eat anyway. It will taste better once you start eating,” Owailion replied to her unexpressed thoughts. She had grown too tired to even keep her shields up around him. Owailion's dark eyes flickered over to the patient before he added. “He can wake up in the morning and then you can test your handiwork.” So Owailion knew she didn't have the energy to maintain an actual conversation. “I've never seen that kind of magic and it was interesting to watch. I do much of my work in the same manner; looking within something, moving and manipulating it without actually seeing or touching it, but I work on machines, with metal, wood, and other things. You did the same thing but with living tissue. I like watching someone else do it. Very impressive.”
Owailion had been right about eating. The moment Gailin managed to get the first spoonful to her mouth she immediately felt hungry and couldn't get it down fast enough. She ate greedily but knew now that she had better ease into it, like a man frozen half to death. You didn't plunge him in the fire to thaw him out. Once finished she set the bowl aside and looked down at her patient. She still didn't have the energy to confront Owailion about what had actually happened here.
“Later. The morning will come soon enough. I will look after him,” Owailion assured her. And then suddenly sleep dropped down on Gailin. Her last conscious thought was that Owailion too knew the place in her brain to send her into dreamless sleep.
Chapter 15 – Checkmate
Gailin didn't wake at dawn as was her habit, for exhaustion wouldn't allow it, but eventually her own concerns must have driven her awake and she brushed a heavy blanket off her shoulders and sat up on the bare featureless plains. She saw Owailion cooking something over the fire and her patient Gilead remained in the protective sleep she had induced. She looked around and found nothing of Drake. In a panic she stood up, alarmed that he might have regained the ability to leave. She would have bet her Heart Stone that the snake would never walk again, that he had been rendered harmless.
Owailion looked at her with a quizzical eye. “Good morning,” he commented. “He's still asleep and you're rested now. Eat and then we can have this discussion.”
“Where is the other…” she couldn't say man, for she still doubted Drake's humanity, but she also didn't want to use his name to speak of him, nor show her alarm by questioning his whereabouts.
“I sent him to your old cabin. There's a bed there and he can lie there just as well as here and that way I won't be tempted to murder him anymore. I didn't think you would mind.” Owailion passed over a plate of toast and eggs and then turned to begin cooking for himself.
“You know about Drake,” Gailin commented between bites. “He….” She really could not speak about what had occurred to her husband. “What happened to him to go into that coma?”
Owailion peered out over the tortured land, now with little sign of the chaos it had endured the day before. “If I'm not mistaken, Vamilion drained the ley lines and without magic the sorcerer could not survive as…as whatever he was.”
Gailin shuddered with disgust before she asked, “What was he?”
Owailion snorted with derision. “One step above a snake and several below a man. Like you called him; a Soul Eater. I hope you don't mind me getting rid of him.”
“Mind?” Gailin scoffed. “No, I wiped his memory and every bit of knowledge he ever gained but I didn't kill him. I couldn't, I think the Heart Stone blocked me.”
“It wouldn't block me,” the King of Creating replied frankly. “I just thought I'd better get your input before I did anything more permanent to him. I'm Owailion by the way. We haven't been formally introduced.”
Gailin nodded, but didn't say anything more, seeing as she didn't think using her real name bore consideration and she had not thought of what to call herself otherwise. Instead she continued with the list of questions her mind had gleaned since the earthquakes began and she had gained the upper hand over her enemy. “What happened to Drake? One minute he was ready to use name magic on me and the next he was practically catatonic. His eyes just rolled up in his head right after the earthquakes started. Are the two related?”
Owailion sighed, ignoring his breakfast that began cooling on his plate as he played with his fork, twisting it into a complicated knot of metal with his magic. “As I said, it has something to do with the ley lines. Vamilion and his earthquakes, they cracked the world open and those such as your Drake, they cannot last without magic in their veins, the magic of souls or pure magic from the earth. It was one thing to not be near them. It was a completely different thing to have them disappear altogether. He needed the ley lines and they are gone, at least here in the Land. I hope you weren't too alarmed by what the Mountain King did.”
“No.” Gailin shook her head with chagrin. “No, I just didn't think Vamilion took me seriously when I spoke about ley lines and the map. He never got back to me about that. Neither of you wrote back to me after that so I ended up having to marry Drake.”
Owailion straightened out his fork into a thin whip of metal and looked like he might flagellate himself with it before he replied. “That was my fault. I had to egg Vamilion into it. I had to make him so angry that he would break the world and you were the only way. You see, he's the most patient person I've ever met. He has such patience that it is almost impossible to rile him. Simply warning him of attacking waves of sorcerers wasn't enough. He needed to be furious in order to have the momentum to crack the ley lines. Vamilion had to lose you to the Soul Eater in order to build up that pressure, and then I had to pic
k a fight with him to ignite his anger. He probably still hasn't forgiven me.”
The way Owailion carefully flicked his eyes toward her and then her patient, it confirmed her suspicions. “This is Vamilion then, isn't it?” she murmured, unsure if she should feel upset or excited that she was finally meeting her mentor. She should be angry for this epic argument Owailion had apparently devised, forcing her into being with Drake just to enrage Vamilion enough to get the reaction he wanted. She also suspected the King of Creating had probably been responsible or even caused Vamilion's broken back. She indeed felt like a pawn in Owailion's dealings and it seemed that Vamilion was as well. And Owailion still seemed to be manipulating things thinking it was time to force the two to meet face to face. Well, she wasn't going to be a pawn any more. She refused to confront the situation that now had emerged. Vamilion wasn't going to wake up just yet.
Owailion really had no idea the motivations that lurked in the newest Wise One. He continued on, telling her his plan without realizing he wasn't gaining a friend with his forthrightness. “Yes. He called for you just as he ended the destruction, so he must know he needs you finally.”
Gailin kept her shields up. “Needs me?” She could not fathom what Vamilion needed from her other than healing. He had been content with Paget. He had been afraid of hurting Gailin and her being manipulated by magic. Vamilion had kept his distance for very good reasons; ones that she agreed with wholeheartedly. She also was not going to let the King of Creating know she would side with Vamilion in almost every instance if it avoided the violence this battle caused.
Owailion let out a disgusted snort, unaware of her distrust in him. “He still hasn't told you, has he? Vamilion needs you and that's why he was so upset when the Soul Eater started using name magic on you. He doesn't want to admit it. Has Vamilion told you that on the day you meet you will be drawn toward each other like a magnet to iron? Has he told you how he felt when you went with the snake off onto the plains? He never did because he has to be forced to see reality.”
Gailin tapped deeply into her clinical, emotionless mind before she spoke, lest she slap Owailion. “He told me of the compulsion. Vamilion didn't want my decisions to be pushed on me by magic,” she replied slowly, “But he couldn't help my being forced, could he? You were there forcing both of us, instead? You were supposed to take care of me while he took care of my grandmother and instead you abandoned me. And look where we ended up?”
Gailin could hear how her voice was growing more and more bitter, and abruptly she felt no need to stop or control herself. Her anger and frustration that she kept behind her healer's surface now came pouring out at Owailion. “I was forced into a loveless marriage to a man…a snake who basically raped me every day for months. You pressured Vamilion into fighting you, cracking the world open like an egg and broke his back, nearly killing him in the process. Now you are still manipulating us so that we are about to come face to face , even if we don't want to. I won't have it.”
Without giving Owailion any warning, Gailin drew the candle from her pack and disappeared. She escaped before Vamilion could wake from her spell. She refused to confront the awkward attraction that had already built up between them. She might want Vamilion with all her soul but she would not force the man she might love into breaking his own vows. And so Owailion was left with nothing but a steel lily that he had formed from his fork and to wait on the plains for the fruits of his plan.
* * *
Vamilion woke slowly. The sun felt luxurious on his face and burned away at the ache that lined his entire body like hoarfrost. He could not remember falling asleep or what had brought him out onto the plains. He wouldn't have come here voluntarily, but he knew where he was in relationship to the mountains before he ever bothered opening his eyes. Even breathing seemed an energy draining effort. Had he been in a battle? Slowly he remembered fighting Owailion but he could not recall why. It had something to do with a lightning storm and earthquakes. A volcano?
Someone nearby moved, pacing back and forth and Vamilion could hear the grass brush against someone's legs. Did he have the energy to open his eyes to see? When Vamilion stretched out his magical mind, it hurt to try, but he came up against an alarmingly familiar wall; Owailion. Had his adversary come to finish the task of killing him? Why was Owailion hovering if the battle was finished? They couldn't actually kill each other – unless this was being dead. Well, Owailion could kill him with his name but if that was the goal, he hadn't done it in the past twenty-five years.
“I know you're awake in there,” Owailion grumbled. “Are you hungry?”
That didn't sound like someone willing to strike him down with a lightning bolt again. Besides, the warmth of the sun told him the sky was clear; no lightning ready to strike. Reluctantly Vamilion opened his eyes. “It hurts to lift my eyelids,” he replied in a cracking voice. Crack? That word running through his head brought other memories. He had cracked the earth. What had he done? His fingers ached from the effort of crushing stone and his back bowed in memory of lifting whole mountains of earth. He might be a big, strong body but no one should lift mountains. It hurt too much.
“The Queen healed your back.” Owailion then put a full plate on Vamilion's chest just to expedite his waking. “You should probably thank her by doing something towards your survival.”
That comment got Vamilion's eyes to open up more fully and a flood of memories came rushing in. Gailin, the pain, calling her, he had poured the ley lines out of existence. Had he really broken his back? No, Owailion had done that for him but apparently he held no grudge seeing as the King of Creating was making him breakfast. At last, with the blue sky overhead and memories back in place Vamilion decided he could not sleep forever. Carefully he lifted the breakfast plate away and sat up. That he could do so was a miracle.
“She's good,” Owailion commented from the safety of the far side of a campfire. “But she also left before you woke up.”
Vamilion chuckled painfully. “Good for her,” he commented and began eating slowly. “She knows why I don't want to meet face to face and respects it….unlike you.”
“Are you trying to pick a fight with me again?” Owailion muttered in disgust. “She's your mate and we will need her before year's end. There is another attack, remember? That ship you intercepted was a feint. The main body is coming from the south west, a combination of Marewn and Demonian sorcerers. We cannot hope to block them all.”
Vamilion sighed with exhaustion despite the rest he had recently acquired. “The Queen will help if we ask her to come, and she doesn't have to meet me to do that,” he replied and then stopped as he speculated on something. “Is that why you allowed her to go off with the snake and then get pregnant by him as well? You wanted to breed more magicians? That's beneath even your harsh methods.”
Owailion rolled his eyes in disgust. “I've told you before. Wise Ones can't pass on their magic to another. We cannot have children, and no, I wouldn't have done that. I had other reasons for getting you down off your mountain top.”
Vamilion clenched his teeth in anger, refusing to let go of the one implied comment. “Wait, you are saying the Queen cannot have children, but….”
“And you can't either. Your boys aren't your boys. No Wise One can reproduce.” Owailion said the strange sentences slowly, bitterly, and it sounded like he had actually practiced this conversation so he would finally make himself clear.
Vamilion carefully set down the plate he had slowly been eating from, appalled by this revelation from Owailion. He was glad Gailin wasn't here for this either, for he was fairly sure he was going to punch the King of Creating in the face if he could scrounge up the energy to stand. How could Owailion say that about his sons? He implied that Paget….
“She wasn't faithful to you Gilead,” Owailion reiterated. “You've been putting your devotion into a relationship, an oath that she broke years ago, before you were ever a Wise One. You just assumed that your children were yours and that you didn't have an
y more children because you became a magician later. In fact, you've always been a magician and those boys aren't yours. If you don't believe me…”
Vamilion finally struggled to his feet with effort. It took a moment for him to gain his balance and then he looked down at Owailion from his considerable height with an amazing mix of emotions: roiling anger, disgust, a profound grief, amazement and wonder. Part of him wanted to begin a physical brawl. He would have been able to kill Owailion in a fist fight or swords if they had both been simply men. He probably had half a foot and fifty pounds on his peer, but that was not where their battles would take them. In emotional battles, Owailion had far more practice and ammunition. He knew how to drive in that knife. And truth drove every word. A Wise One could not lie.
“Go and ask her,” Owailion whispered, still sitting beside his fire, no longer caring to see the agony he had caused in the Mountain King's eyes.
Vamilion looked out over the plains as if he wanted nothing better than to do just that, but there wasn't a single mountain in view and not even the dark line of forest or river to give him some sense of where he had landed. He would only weaken his already unsteady recovery if he tried to leave this spot. And Vamilion didn't want to go speak with Paget. Indeed, he preferred to seek for years for a way to not have to confront what she had done. Why would his wife be unfaithful to him? True, he had been a trader and away from their home often during the early part of their marriage, but she had never expressed discontent with that way of life. Vamilion had tried to be a considerate husband and when they were together they had enjoyed each other passionately. Why would she deceive him? And why had he not known all these years?
