Redstar cried out in pain, Nesilia’s spirit with him. The world flashed, and for a moment, the circle of warlocks and the fighting Shieldsmen were revealed. Then, Torsten was back in what he assumed was Elsewhere. He looked up and saw Pi still in the air.
“I will not fail you,” he whispered, although the boy couldn’t hear him. He took a step toward Pi when the two people fleeing demons raced by him. For a moment Torsten thought he recognized them, though he couldn’t believe his eyes in this other world, then tendrils of darkness closed in around them, coating their faces in shadow as they stopped to kiss. A circle of chanting warlocks halted the darkness, forming a magical shield that glowed red hot. Their screams rang out as the tendrils tore into them, worlds literally colliding.
Torsten ignored it all and extended his hand toward the young King. He could feel Nesilia's power, or perhaps Elsewhere itself pushing him back. The bones of his fingers felt like they were going to snap as they passed through the Buried Goddess’ spectral form. His arm pushed forward, and he felt the pain in his forearm, then his elbow.
“Your world is open, and I shall walk it again,” Nesilia said. “All those who have forgotten me will be punished!”
“We are the right hand of Iam,” Torsten groaned through clenched teeth, desperate to distract himself from both Nesilia’s words and the unbearable pain afflicting him. “We are the sword of His justice, and the Shield that guards the light of this world.” Her fingers wrapped Pi’s skinny arm. “For Liam!” he shouted and yanked backward.
He and Pi fell and slammed into the snow, his arms wrapped around the boy. Above him, the portal stayed open, sizzling in the sky like fat over a flame. Torsten covered Pi’s ears and searched his surroundings, his vision impaired again now that he was beyond Elsewhere. Another blurry body soared across the rift. It slammed through a group of warlocks before rolling to a stop.
“You have stopped nothing,” Nesilia’s voice lingered on the air. “Deny my body this world, but the will of fire is mine…” And with that, she went silent, and the summit along with it. Torsten rolled over and saw with his blurred vision that the moons were now parting, revealing the light of the sun again.
Glass soldiers now surrounded the six remaining warlocks who hadn't been slaughtered by demons, Sir Mulliner at their lead. They looked from side to side, confused, weak. The ritual had melted the paint on the heathens faces, revealing only pale, scared appearances.
A red-stained hand suddenly grasped at Pi. Torsten wrenched it back and pulled the man it belonged to close.
“It’s over, Redstar!” he cried over the sound of Elsewhere’s veil.
“It can’t be…” Redstar choked on blood. “It was her time...”
“It is yours alone.”
Torsten wished his eyes worked properly so he could see every ounce of anguish in Redstar’s eyes before he rolled over and his last breaths rattled through his lips. His arm fell limp into the bloody snow.
“Drad Redstar!” Freydis abandoned her defense and ran to Redstar’s side. She cradled him as blood dripped from his mouth. “Help me with him, you fools!” she hissed at the other warlocks.
“They killed him,” one said nervously.
“How could this happen?” asked another.
“Now your time comes to an end, witch.” Austun lifted his blade and went at Freydis, but Torsten raised a hand.
“No,” he rasped. “Enough have died today.”
The warlocks looked to each other, then ran for the stairs. The soldiers let them go. They were all so weakened by the ritual they were no longer any harm to anyone if they even made it down the mountain.
“Cowards!” Freydis shrieked. She pulled Redstar close and whispered to him in Drav Crava. Her lips fell upon his, blood and all. A few guards ignored Torsten’s orders and attempted to seize her. She slashed one in the leg, howled like a wild dire wolf, and went to slit her own throat. She was bashed in the back of the head before she could and crumpled atop her master.
“Sir Unger?” a small voice spoke beneath him. Torsten released Pi so he could look upon his face, but his vision was worse than ever as the magical burns Redstar left him with settled. All Torsten could tell was that Pi no longer sounded twice his age.
“You’re all right, Your Gra—”
“Mother!” Pi interrupted him.
He squirmed free and ran to his mother, too far for Torsten to see clearly. He could hear the boy crying, shedding love upon Oleander as if the past year had been a nightmare and he’d only then woken. Sir Uriah Davies always spoke of how kind the son of Liam Nothhelm and Oleander Ruuhar was. Now, after all this time, Torsten saw the truth in that.
For a moment, Torsten’s heart grew heavy, then he saw that Oleander’s chest still rose and fell. He exhaled and rolled onto his back to face the brightening sun, as Loutis moved off and Celeste half-covered her path toward the horizon. His hand brushed against a seemingly harmless little doll a devoted mother had made for her son on the day of his birth. He raised it toward the light.
“You held onto that thing all this time?” The voice that spoke those words sounded familiar but was so overwhelmed by exhaustion it was hard to tell.
Torsten rolled his head to face whoever it was. He could see only splotches and shapes, but that was all he needed to recognize the face. Whitney Blisslayer, formerly the bane of his existence, lay in the trampled snow where the warlocks had been.
Torsten let his head fall back and hoped he was dreaming. When he looked back, his vision was even worse, and Whitney remained.
“I thought I was dreaming too,” Whitney said. “But it’s really you, isn’t it? You’re really here.”
“Against all odds.” Torsten drew a long, deep breath of the cold air.
“That means I’m here…” Whitney patted his own chest. “And she’s…”
“Sir, who is this?” Sir Mulliner placed his sword against Whitney’s neck. The thief crawled backward until the body of a fallen warlock blocked his way.
“I’m a friend to the Crown,” Whitney said, raising his hands. “Lord Blisslayer, the master thief who helped your Wearer steal that doll.”
“He isn’t Wearer any longer,” Mulliner said.
“Seems to be a theme with him.”
“Forget the thief,” Torsten said. “Get the King and his mother to safety and see to her wounds.”
Mulliner hesitated for a second, then sheathed his sword. “You heard him,” he said to the soldiers. “Help them and lock up any heathens who still breathe.”
“Oh, and Sir Mulliner," Torsten tossed the doll at the Shieldsman’s feet. "Burn this."
“After all we went through to get it?” Whitney asked.
“He’s right. For Iam’s sake, drown the ashes in the Torrential Sea.” He let his head fall back into the snow. The loving arms of exhaustion wrapped their proverbial arms around him, and he gave in. Whitney said something, but he didn’t hear him.
For the first time in a long time, concern over the future of the kingdom didn’t make rest impossible to come by. Neither the impetuous thief nor the cold—nothing could keep him from it.
XXXV
THE THIEF
“Torsten, wake up,” Whitney said. “Torsten!”
The big Shieldsman shot upright in his bed. They were in the physician’s hall in the Glass Castle, where Torsten had remained resting for the better part of a day. Whitney wasn’t exactly sure what had happened to cause so much upheaval since they parted in Winde Port—something about Redstar taking over and Torsten being imprisoned.
Masked Cultists of Nesilia had rioted throughout the city during the Dawning, burning down half of South Corner. Eventually, the city guard put them down, and when the Shieldsmen returned from the mountain, they began rounding up the Drav Cra and sending them out to their tents. Things were safer within the castle, that was for sure.
All Whitney knew was none of it could have been stranger than what he’d gone through. Just breathing the Pantego air ag
ain was a thing of beauty, even if the room smelled like stale blood and piss.
“Who is that?” Torsten grumbled. He rolled his head to face Whitney, but a bloody bandage covered his eyes.
“Your very best friend,” Whitney replied.
“Whitney? You’re still here?”
“You were in rough shape up there. I couldn’t just leave you.”
“And they let you in here?” Torsten asked, incredulous.
“Wouldn’t you know it. One of the Shieldsmen remembered you ennobling me. I always knew that would come in handy.”
“What happened… I… the King and Queen.”
He tried to slide his legs off the bed, grimaced. Whitney placed a hand on his shoulder to stop him. Whatever had happened, he was fairly beat up beyond being unable to see.
“They say the Queen will live at the cost of her beauty,” Whitney said. “Though if you heard her screaming echoing down the hall, you wouldn’t think it. And the King is well, talking again.”
“I need to speak with them.”
“Hold your zhulong, old friend. If I let you up too soon, they’ll never let me back here.”
“That’s fine because you aren’t supposed to be here.” Torsten tried to adjust his position, winced in pain some more, then laid back. “How did you get up there anyway?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“After what I saw on the mountain, there’s nothing I wouldn’t believe.”
“Honestly? Elsewhere.”
“What?”
“I was there for years, trapped by Sora thanks to a spell gone wrong.”
Torsten turned over. “C’mon, thief. I said I’d believe anything, but must you always push your stories too far?”
“Hey, I’m serious! There was an upyr, and Barty Darkings, and Troborough wasn’t burned down, and… you have no idea how good it feels to be out of that place.” He considered telling Torsten that he too was there, as a blind priest, but it seemed like it would only sound like an insult considering his current state. He’d learned a thing or two in Elsewhere about watching his tongue around people that could beat him to death like Kazimir.
“Sounds like a bad dream.”
“I hoped so too until I was spat out onto Mount Lister after Sora freed me. Any chance you’ve seen her?”
Torsten tugged on the bandage over his eyes. “I don’t see much of anything now, thief. Besides, as you know, I’ve been here.”
Whitney's head hung. “I just meant... Maybe you’d heard something about a Panpingese woman around here from guards passing through. I don’t know.” Whitney didn’t add that was the real reason he was sticking around. Hoping Sora had been thrown out of the rift between worlds in another direction and was close, and that she wasn’t still stuck in Elsewhere with that goddess.
Goddess? You know who that was Whitney.
Torsten turned back. “I haven’t heard a thing about anyone except cultists and Drav Cra refusing to be kicked out to their camp. Last I saw Sora was barely a month ago.”
“What? Really? How was she?” Whitney asked.
“You tell me. You were there, floating away from Winde Port on a stolen ship after helping me walk right into an ambush thanks to those Darkings traitors.”
“A month?” Whitney recoiled. “It’s only been a month here?”
He felt sick. He knew it hadn’t been six years in Pantego while he was gone. He wasn’t stupid. The Prince—or King—didn’t appear much older after all and neither did Sora. Six years imagining her face, he would have noticed any extra wrinkles. He’d figured at least one year had passed and he’d arrived at the next Dawning. He couldn’t stomach asking any guards on the way down from Mount Lister, but now he knew.
“Whatever really happened to bring you to that mountaintop did a number on you, didn’t it, kid?” Torsten said. “Did Redstar put a spell on you to go after the orepul or something?”
“Something like that… I… look.” Whitney slid across the bed to get closer to Torsten’s head. “If Sora isn’t here, then I think she's in Panping, and she’s in trouble. I saw mystics around her, and…” He swallowed the lump forming in his throat. “Nesilia.”
“You had a bad dream, Whitney. There are no mystics anymore, and Redstar’s attempt at reviving the Buried Goddess failed. He’s gone.” Whitney could tell the knight didn't even believe his own words.
“Torsten, it wasn’t a dream. I was in Elsewhere for six years. You can’t make that up.”
“Then maybe you’ll do a bit of good in your life, so next time you'll reach the Gate of Light.”
“You really don’t believe me?”
“I’m sorry Redstar’s evil got to you, Whitney. I truly am. But it’s over now. The madness is finished, and it’s time to rebuild this broken kingdom from the inside out. The people have lost trust in the Crown and in Iam. Rebellion still rages in the Black Sands. The King is… I don’t know why I’m telling you all this.”
“Because we’re best friends, like I said.”
Torsten groaned. Whitney smiled.
“You’re still a stubborn old mule; you know that?” Whitney said.
“And you’re still a rotten thief,” Torsten replied.
“So, I guess that means you aren’t going to help me find Sora? Because I faintly remember there was a bargain struck in Winde Port that if I helped you, you’d help me save her. Considering she saved herself, you still owe me.”
Torsten tapped his forehead. “Wouldn’t be much help looking for anything now, would I?”
“I suppose not.”
A period of silence passed between them. Torsten's expression grew dourer than ever from another reminder of his injury.
“I never had a chance to thank you, Whitney,” Torsten said, finally.
“Go on,” Whitney said.
“You kept your word in Winde Port when no one else did. Your distraction of Muskigo was exceptional.”
“Exceptional, eh?”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
“Too late,” Whitney joked.
Whitney thought he heard a soft chuckle slip through the Shieldman’s lips.
“That’s two thank yous in as many days from men I never thought I’d get them from,” Whitney said. “All those years in Elsewhere have really improved my influence.”
“You’re really going to stick with that story?” Torsten said.
“I always tell the truth.”
“You’re impossible.”
“I missed this.” Whitney slapped Torsten on the shoulder, forgetting his many injuries. The Shieldsman winced but didn’t make a sound. Then Whitney hopped to his feet.
“Well, since you’re all right, I guess it’s time I head off,” he said. “Better get out of this city before something else crazy happens to me.”
“Whitney.” Torsten grabbed his wrist. “That was you and Sora I saw together when I entered that hellish breach in the world, wasn’t it?”
“So, you do believe me!”
“I don’t know what I believe anymore, but it seems every time I have all reason to give up hope, your friend Sora is there to make sure I don’t.”
“She’s the best there is.”
Torsten nodded. “Whatever happened, I hope you find her again. I mean it. Even you deserve some sort of happiness in this broken world of ours.”
“Torsten Unger, you continue to surprise me.”
He scoffed. “Before you go, would you mind getting this thing off me?” He fought through the pain to swing his legs around and sit upright.
“Why?” Whitney said. “You look like one of your priests; it’s fitting.”
“Whitney.”
“I don’t want to get into trouble.”
“Just do it. I need to know.”
Whitney sighed. He sat beside Torsten and began unwinding the bandage covering his eyes. The sight underneath was grizzly. His brown skin was ragged and bubbled across his brow, and his eyelids were nearly burned sh
ut, the lashes seared away. What little of his eyes Whitney could see were gray and calloused.
Torsten turned his head from side to side after the bandage fell free. He looked up, down, then straight toward Whitney. Whitney didn’t need the Shieldsman's words for him to know he could see nothing. He’d played the part of blind priest before.
“Anything?” Whitney said anyway.
Torsten shook his head, but he didn’t seem saddened by the revelation. “Not even blurs now.”
“I’m sorry Torsten.”
“Don’t be. Thank Iam for letting my vision linger long enough to stop Redstar before he dug this kingdom any deeper into exile.” He reached up slowly, one of his arms shaking from the pain. Whitney helped it the rest of the way so that the Shieldsman could circle his worthless eyes in prayer to Iam. He didn’t say it, but he nodded to Whitney in thanks for helping him.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to be alone with Him right now,” Torsten said.
“Always at his side, just like in Elsewhere,” Whitney said.
“I won’t even pretend to understand what you’re talking about.”
“I never do.” Whitney stood and took a few long strides toward the exit. He stopped and fell into an exaggerated bow. “Fare thee well, fair knight. Good luck with rebuilding your kingdom. I’m off to find my lady. See you soon—er, until we meet again.”
“I have little doubt we will. Goodbye, thief.”
At that, Whitney spun on his heel and made his way out the door. He nearly bumped a masked physician on the way out, mumbling his apologies as he sidestepped.
As soon as he was alone his smile faded and his features darkened. He even had to stop for a moment to lean on the wall and breathe. It wasn’t just seeing the mighty Shieldsman so vulnerable that affected him. It was everything.
It’d been six years for him since they’d last talked, and he had to act as if no time at all had passed. It was a lie. Maybe Whitney looked the same, but when they traversed the Webbed Woods together, it felt like he was still only a kid. A kid with a crush he refused to recognize that had become so much more.
The Redstar Rising Trilogy Page 117
