Darkened Blade: A Fallen Blade Novel (21 page)

The lava tube ran up and back at a gentle angle, curving this way and that as it went. It was lit by round shafts that had been bored through to the surface above every fifty feet or so. Maybe a hundred yards up from the place where I left the others, the sand ended, and I continued from there along a floor that looked as though someone had carefully smoothed it. I walked for perhaps an hour before I saw a much brighter light ahead.

The lava tube ended partway up the wall of a high-walled circular crater—one of the secondary peaks of the larger mountain perhaps. A steep trail led down to a deep pool that filled the floor of the crater. The water was an intense impossible blue with no visible bottom. A floating wooden pier continued on from the trail out to something that looked like a miniature version of one of those round, open-roofed theaters that were so popular in Dan Eyre. Only, where the groundlings would normally have stood, the floor was open to the deep water below.

I climbed down the path to the pier, feeling all the while as though I were following directions I had heard in a dream I couldn’t otherwise remember. The theater-like structure was a sort of cross between a raft and a reception hall, with tables and chairs placed on the broad plank circle around the pool at its heart. One table, just to the right of the entrance, held a pitcher of clear water, a rock-crystal goblet, a plate of finely sliced raw fish and freshwater seaweed, and a pair of Zhani-style chopsticks. A lone chair sat at the table facing the pool.

I take it we’re expected,
sent Triss.

I believe that we are, though I couldn’t begin to tell you how I know that. I followed a forgotten dream to get here.

My, but doesn’t that just fill me with confidence and hope.

Have I ever mentioned that you have a sarcastic streak?
I asked.

Not that I can remember.

Remind me to correct that later. For now, I think it best if I do the expected.

I sat and filled the goblet, taking a sip. The water felt cold and light on my tongue, and . . . like so much more than water. Drinking it reminded me of listening to someone reading a fine poem. It was as exhilarating as an exceptional vintage of the sweetest white wine, without any of the blurring of intoxication. I knew that I could drink down the whole pitcher without worrying about any loss of control.

For someone like me, who has to fight each day not to go back to the bottle again, it was a remarkable gift. After a few minutes slid past with no change in my surroundings, I picked up the chopsticks and took some of the fish and a bit of seaweed. It was fresh and quite as good as anything I could have found at one of the fancier dockside restaurants in Tien, but almost a disappointment after the revelation of the water.

When I had finished with the meal, I pushed my plate aside and poured the last of the water into my goblet. At that precise instant, a ripple began at the center of the enclosed pool, and something like an enormous pearl rose up from the deeps below. I nodded as though I had been expecting it all along. Somewhere, down deep, where dreams live, I knew that I had.

The pearl, if that was what it was, must have been a good ten feet through the center, and as perfect in color and luster as anything I’d ever seen gracing a great lady’s jewelry chest. It rose up until only the bottom third of it remained in the water, and then it opened like the oyster that might have birthed it. Inside sat an absolutely ancient woman on a nacreous throne that faced me. The Lady of Leivas, whom some called more than half a goddess.

Her hair was long and silver, brighter than the finest chain made by any Durkoth smith and dense with curls. It rolled down over her right shoulder and across the arm of her throne, spilling to almost touch the floor. She wore a deep green gown that covered her from throat to wrists and hid
her feet completely. The fabric looked like living seaweed. Her skin was dark as old mahogany, and the intricate wrinkles on her face could have mapped a hundred labyrinths. Her eyes were black from lid to lid like a bird’s—a sharp contrast to the blinding whiteness of her teeth when she smiled at me.

“I see that you received my invitation,” she said.

“I did, though I’ve no idea how you delivered it,” I responded.

“And, somehow, I missed it completely.” Triss reshaped my shadow into his own dragon form as he spoke.

“That’s because you have no water in you, shadowkin. The lake can no more speak in your heart than a stone could. Whereas Aral here is more than half water, red though it runs.”

“You know my name, then,” I said. “I take it Shallowshunter announced us?”

She laughed lightly. “You were born in Emain Tarn on the shores of my domain. I have known your name longer than you have, child. When your mother first whispered it to herself in the quiet darkness one morning in the sixth month of her pregnancy, I heard. I knew you before you were you, and in ways that no one other than your goddess ever did. The tides that turn in your blood were born of the rhythms of my lake of Leivas.”

“Uh . . .” I had no idea how to answer that. “The stories paint you aloof to the concerns of mortals. I had no idea that you paid that much attention to the comings and goings of those who live beside the lake.”

“How could I not?” she asked. “I am no immortal, and the water of your life is the water of mine. Leivas is the living heart of everything that lies between the mountains and the deep wastes. The lake is the center of her soul, but her awareness extends throughout the whole of the watershed. Her power is greatest in deep water and still, and weakest at the little springs high in the mountains or the dying, magic-slicked pools of the great western reach. You were born here, and became the Kingslayer on shores hardly
a day away. Though I had nothing to do with the shaping of you, you are a child of my soul’s sister.”

“What is Leivas?” Triss asked suddenly. “As we crossed the water on our way here, I sensed nothing like what I would expect from one of the greater elementals. But you speak of the lake as a sorcerer speaks of her familiar, and you feel . . . both human and . . . not. I don’t understand.”

“That is because I
am
human and not. Once, long ago, in the years when our kind first walked under the blue sky, I was not so very different from your Aral. More naturally gifted than most sorcerers perhaps, but fundamentally a creature not unlike what you call human, though I am of the founding generation and I had no parents other than the will of the gods. Then I met Leivas and she made me her own, and we became one.”

“I have never heard any of that before,” I said. “The people of Varya speak of the Lady of Leivas and think of you as something more akin to the divine than one of us.”

“The story was once widely known,” said the Lady. “But it is not, I think, sufficiently grand to suit the standards of the tellers of tales. And so, they embroider here and there, each adding their own bits, ultimately making of me more than I am.”

“I’ve some familiarity with that particular effect,” I said, wryly.

Again, the Lady laughed. “I imagine that you do, Slayer of Kings.” Then she turned her gaze back to Triss. “But I still haven’t answered your original question, little shadow. Leivas IS.”

“Uh . . .” Triss made a throat clearing noise, though he no more had a throat to clear than he had bone or blood or water in his substance—a bit of non-verbal communication learned from the humans who surrounded him.

“That is the fundamental truth,” said the Lady. “Leivas IS. But she is also a lake, and a mighty queen, and the mother of all freshwater dragons, though she has not taken that latter shape in half a millennia. This pearl that houses
my throne is a cast-off jewel from her forehead, a token of her third eye.”

“Oh.” Triss’s voice sounded very small. “I . . . oh.”

I had to agree. I felt utterly overwhelmed at the thought of that, of the Lady and her companion, and well, everything about the experience.

“Why did you call us here?” I finally asked, though I managed not to add, “What could we possibly have or do that you would care about?”

“Your goddess was dear to me. You were dear to her. I see her through you, and that pleases me.”

“Nothing more than that?” I asked, confused.

“Oh, child.” She shook her head. “You say that like the sight of a departed friend is a slight thing. I hope that you live long enough to understand that it is one of the true graces, even if, as in my case with you, you only have the chance to see your departed in reflection. There are few indeed who remember me in my youth—the Master of White Fang, some small number among the Sylvani and other First kindreds, the distant and detached gods. . . . None of them were friends to me in the same way that your Namara was. To see her as she is in your heart . . . it eases my old soul.”

“And?” I said.

“And what?” she asked.

“Exactly. We both know there’s more to it than that. Do you intend to tell me about it, or do I have to guess?”

Triss sat back on his haunches.
Aral, tread lightly. Her power here in the heart of the lake is as great as one of the buried gods.

I won’t be lied to.

Sigh.
He flicked his wings in a so-be-it sort of gesture.

“You doubt,” said the Lady.

“What?” I blinked. “I’m not sure I follow you.”

“You doubt your course and yourself,” she said. “I do not know what it is that you have set out to do, but I know that you do not know whether you can achieve it, or even if you should.”

“You read minds,” I said.

“No. I read hearts in the rhythms of the blood they pump. Yours is as troubled as any I’ve ever touched. You anticipate something that you cannot see your way through or around.”

Is that true?
asked Triss.
I thought that you had decided you must slay the Son of Heaven.

“It’s true,” I said, answering both the Lady and Triss. “There is a thing I believe that I must attempt, and yet, I believe the doing of it will destroy me.”

Oh, my friend . . .

“If you will unburden your soul to me, perhaps I can help you,” said the Lady. “I am as old as humanity itself and have learned at least a little of wisdom in those years.”

“All right.” I didn’t think there was anything she could do, but perhaps simply talking about it might help. “Where should I start . . . ?” I took a deep breath. “Perhaps with the man who should have died. In those days he was known as Corik Nofather and he was a priest of Shan. . . .”

I slowly spun out the tale of the way that Corik had first been infected with and then bonded to the risen curse. I talked about how he had used his knowledge of the curse to hide its effects on those he infected and made his own, by having them bathe in the blood of the living. I spoke of how he had taken over the High Church of the East by filling the hierarchy with hidden undead who owed him their abject allegiance, and the way that he had then used his undead priests to infect and master most of the rulers and high nobles of the eleven kingdoms, including the new great khan.

I paused then when she held up a hand and said, “Bide.”

The Lady’s eyes went far away, and I sensed that she was communing with the soul of Leivas.

After a time she returned. “The curse has spread far indeed. It is a subtle thing when leavened with fresh blood, very hard to sense. But now that I know to look for it . . .” Her expression was grave. “Leivas cannot reach those who stand too far from the edges of open water here in the western basin, but even that reveals many thousands who harbor
the hidden version of the curse. So many rulers and priests and leaders of men . . . The world will shake to its very foundations when the Son of Heaven falls. Thrones will tumble and armies shatter. Blood will run in rivers as those who remain fight for mastery.”

“And
that
is the core of my problem,” I said. “Namara is dead, and my fellows have placed what is left of her authority in my hands. Justice cries out for me to face the Son of Heaven and make him pay for his crimes, but justice also cries for all the many innocent lives that will be lost in the ruin of empires.”

“I think I begin to understand your dilemma,” said the Lady. “It has fallen on you to decide the fate of the East.”

“And no matter what I choose, the decision will unmake me,” I said, finally speaking aloud the realization that had been growing in my heart. “If I choose to kill the Son of Heaven, all the ruin that follows will be mine. I will have become the Kingdomslayer, and that is too much weight for my shoulders. But, if I choose
not
to kill the Son of Heaven, all the evil that he does from that day forward will belong to me, and my heart will wither and blacken in my chest. So, each day, I move closer to facing the Son of Heaven, hoping against hope that something will relieve me of the choice before I must make it.”

“The forces you face are terrible in their strength,” said the Lady. “You may well fall before you reach that point of decision.”

“Lady, were it not for my shadow, I would pray for that.” I had not admitted the thing even to myself until now, but I could no longer deny it. Death in the course of duty attempted would buy me free of the burden of choice, and if it wouldn’t end Triss as well, I would gratefully seek it.

“Aral, you can’t mean that!” Triss spoke aloud, his voice thick with anguish as he climbed up onto the table and looked into my eyes.

I didn’t answer him, because I couldn’t bring myself to speak the words, but through our link I could feel how much my silence told him.

“I didn’t know,” said Triss. “I didn’t understand it was hurting you so. Oh, Aral.”

“It’s all right, Triss. You couldn’t have seen it. However well you know and love me, I had hidden the worst of it even from myself till this very moment.”

“No, it’s more than that,” said Triss, sounding very worried indeed. “I am not human. I love you, and I think I understand your kind better than almost any of my fellows, but in the deeps of my soul I am not one of you. Regret I grasp, and remorse to a lesser degree, but I do not know guilt as your people describe it. For my kind, once a thing is done, it is done. If it was done badly, we might work to correct it, but that is the next thing, not a part of the thing passed. We do not carry the weight of our mistakes in the same way that you do.”