Angus Wells - The God Wars 03 (61 page)

           
Then Ochen said, "It's done. Do
we proceed to the next step?"

           
''Best you go swift/' said Rassuman,
and turned to face Cennaire. "Those gramaryes with which Anomius protected
the box are lifted, but with their lifting so, too, are those spells that
invest you with life weakened. You've little time left, Lady. I pray Burash
you've sufficient."

           
Cennaire nodded silently, staring
wide-eyed at the pyxis. Calandryll felt cold sweat bead his brow. To succeed so
far only to fail for lack of time? Dera, should Anomius yet revenge himself?
Drymouthed, his voice husky, he said, "Then do we go without delay?"

           
"We cannot aid you
further," Rassuman murmured. "May the gods speed you."

           
"Aye." Already the
wazir-narimasu came together, Ochen reaching out to take Cennaire's hand, to
draw her within their aegis. Calandryll went with her, holding her close as the
chant began and the darkening room shifted, flickering in and out of sight to
become . . .

           
. . . the council chamber in
Anwar-teng, Bracht and Katya starting up as the seven figures coalesced, their
expressions urgent, questions forming that Calandryll met with an outthrust
palm, turning to Ochen.

           
"How much time have we? What
must you do?"

           
"How much time I cannot
tell." Ochen peered about the chamber, his fellow sorcerers busying
themselves as Zedu barked orders. "Not much, I think. Horul, but Anomius
thought far ahead! This must be done swift, and without hesitation."

           
"Say you we can be
defeated?" Calandryll hugged Cennaire close, she silent, as if, her path
chosen, she consigned herself to fate. "That even now . . ." He bit
back the words and asked instead, "Can you not replace those gramaryes of
binding? Earn a little time?"

           
"No," said Ochen curtly.
"Once undone, those spells may not be woven again. This is a thing from
which there can be no turning back . . . There is only success or failure now.
And you've a part to play in this."

           
"I?" Calandryll shook his
head, confused. "Name it, and I'll do it. But what
can
I do? I'm no mage. For all you've tutored me, I scarce
understand this power I own."

           
"Love is seldom easily
understood-," said Ochen.

           
"Love?" Calandryll frowned
at the enigmatic response. "What's love to do with this?"

           
He felt Cennaire moan then,
shuddering within the compass of his arm. He turned his face toward her and saw
her pale beneath her tan, her dusky skin become ash-hued. The eyes she raised
were wide with pain, leaking tears. Her teeth began to chatter and she moaned
again, bending, a hand pressed to her breast. ‘

           
Low-voiced, she gasped, "The
spell unwinds, I think."

           
"Dera, no!" Calandryll
drew her close, calling on whatever magic he commanded to aid her, calling on
the Younger Gods to ease her pain, grant her time.

           
That power remained dormant; nor did
any god respond. He held her, feeling her shake as if ague wracked her, her
body cooling as if its life drained out. '

           
Ochen shouted, "Swift! We must
act now, and here. Clear the table!"

           
Hands reached for the detritus of
the meal, and wine jugs, cups. Swifter were the falchion and the saber Bracht
and Katya swung, sending plates, cups, all of it tumbling to the floor.
Delicate china broke, wine ran like blood. Wazir-narimasu began to chant,
urgently, others to painting sigils on the wood, arcane symbols that glowed
bright, loosing the almond scent.

           
"Disrobe," Ochen said.

           
Cennaire's hands fumbled, her
fingers shaking, numbed, at her clothes' fastenings. Katya spun, snatching
Bracht's dirk from the sheath, roughly shoving Calandryll away as she slashed
the lacings of Cennaire's tunic, hacked off the shirt beneath. Calandryll
tugged the ruined vestments clear, and caught Cennaire in his arms as she cried
out and fell. Katya knelt, ungentle in her urgency as she yanked the boots from
Cennaire's feet, the dirk slicing fast through leathern breeks, the
undergarments.

           
"Set her down."

           
Ochen pushed Calandryll toward the
table, indicating the pentagram marked there, and he lowered Cennaire to the
wood, the light emanating from the sigils reflected in the sweat that glistened
on her naked body. Her eyes fluttered open and her mouth moved: Calandryll
leaned close to hear.

           
"I love you," she
whispered. "I've no regrets, no matter ..."

           
Her voice tailed off. Her eyes
closed. Her mouth hung slack.

           
Calandryll cried, "No! You
cannot die! You must not!"

           
"She's not yet gone."
Ochen thrust him aside, stooping over the supine form, hands moving in
intricate patterns that left trailers of light behind, touching her mouth, her
breast, her forehead. The wazir-narimasu stood in a circle about the table,
their chanting soft now, so that Calandryll heard very clear Ochen's next
words.

           
"This part shall be the
hardest. Hard for us and worse for you."

           
"Worse?" Calandryll shook
his head, dismissing the question: there was no time for redundant words.
Instead he asked, "What must I do?"

           
Ochen glanced sidelong at Cennaire,
as though to reassure himself the vestiges of life remained. Urgently, he said,
"There's a power in you that transcends even such magic as we
wazir-narimasu command.
And you love her!
That, above all, is the vital factor now."

           
Helplessly Calandryll muttered,
"I fail to understand."

           
"You need not, only act,"
said Ochen. "Yours must be the hand that takes out what Anomius set within
her. Yours the hand that puts back her living heart."

           
Calandryll gasped, gaping, as sudden
sweat ran chill down ribs and spine, "I cannot! I've not the skill. I'm no
chirurgeon. Dera, I'd kill her!"

           
"You must!" Ochen's hand
fastened hard upon his wrist, the wrinkled face tilted up, narrow eyes burning
with a dreadful intensity as he stared into Calandryll's. "Hate it was
took out her heart and made her revenant—Anomius's hatred of you and your
companions. Love it must be that restores the organ. Without love, we've no
hope of success— and of all here, your love is the strongest. Do it! Or see her
die!"

           
Calandryll mpaned, a groan of
heartfelt agony, of awful indecision. He gazed at Cennaire, her body slick with
sweat now, the rise and fall of pumping lungs slowing, her lips gone pale, as
if the coursing of blood faltered.

           
"Do it!" the sorcerer
repeated, remorseless. "Or see her die! It's in your hands."

           
Calandryll's teeth gritted, lips
stretched back in rictal grimace. He willed his hands to still their trembling:
without effect. Then fingers clutched his shoulder, spinning him round to face
Bracht.

           
"Do it." The Kern's voice
was steady, steel-hard as the blue eyes that locked his gaze. "Quit your
mewling and do it."

           
"Do you truly love her, you
can." Beside the Kern Katya's grey eyes shone fierce. "The gods will
guide you."

           
Dumb, he nodded, a silent prayer
shaping in his mind:
Dera, be with me
now. Do you love me, be with me. Have I served you, grant me the strength to do
this.
He turned from those determined eyes, blue and grey, to find Ochen's
tawny slits, and ducked his head in frightened acceptance.

           
"What must I do?"

           
Ochen's smile was fleeting.
"Dera placed her blessing on that blade you wear. Use that."

           
Calandryll drew the straightsword
unthinking. Then hesitated, staring at the blade. No chirur- geon's tool this,
no delicate scalpel but a length of forged steel made for life's taking, not
its renewal. It seemed a clumsy, cumbersome thing now.

           
"That shall serve better than
any scalpel." It seemed Ochen read his mind; or the expression on his
face. "Trust in your goddess."

           
Calandryll licked parched lips,
passed a hand over tear-blurred eyes.
Dera,
I place my trust in you.
Aloud, he said, "Tell me what I must
do."

           
Ochen touched Cennaire's ribs, one
long nail scratching a faint line, dark against the pallor of her dying skin.
"Cut here."

           
Calandryll took a deep breath,
closed his eyes a moment, then leaned against the table, both hands about the
straightsword's hilt. Suddenly they were firm, steady, no longer shaking. His
vision cleared. It seemed in that instant he felt the power of the goddess in
the steel. His heart calmed, no longer racing, but pumping an even beat. He set
the blade against the line Ochen had drawn and cut.

           
Flesh parted, peeling from the
wound. A few drops of blood oozed. There should have been more, a flood did she
still live. He forced the doubt away.

           
Ochen said, "Deeper/
⁷
and he cut again, down through the underlying tissue until he saw exposed
within the cage of ribs a lump of black clay.

           
The chanting of the wazir-narimasu
grew louder, their words imbuing the darkening chamber with radiant blue light.
It seemed to Calandryll to wind and flow about the blade, that pulsing of its
own now, scintilla dancing within the metal.

           
At his shoulder, Ochen said,
"Sever those ties that bind it."

           
The straightsword was light,
weightless it seemed, sure as any scalpel, his hands resolute as he cut through
the linkages of arteries and veins, severing those connections with Anomius's
magic.

           
"Take out that
abomination."

           
He set the sword aside, unaware
whose hands took it from him, and reached into the cavity, lifting out the
clay. It burned his palms, a sour odor of corruption and decay offending his
nostrils, as if its final moments of existence were spent in spite, last
lingering memories of Anomius's malice. He turned, and Ochen reached to take
the fell burden from him. Zedu, still mouthing the incantation, leaned forward,
passing him Cennaire's heart. That lay warm in his hands, and he thought, or
hoped, he felt it pulse. He saw Ochen drop the clay into the pyxis a sorcerer
extended, and the lid close.

           
Ochen wiped his hands and said,
"Now give her back her heart."

           
Gently, delicately, he set the organ
in place.

           
"What now?"

           
"For you, no more. This part
belongs to us."

           
Ochen stretched out his arms, hands
palms-downward above the wound. His fellow sorcerers came closer, their
outthrust hands a benign canopy. Their chanting deepened and the air crackled
with the power of their magic, blue fire dancing, enveloping them and Cennaire
in its glow. Calandryll watched, breath held, as flesh moved, tubes writhing,
extending to the still organ, touching it, joining, reconnecting the channels,
the conduits of mortal existence. The sundered flesh moved, the lips of the
wound closing until only a thin pink line remained. Then that, too, was gone,
and Cennaire lay again entire.

           
Ochen once more touched gentle
fingers to her breast, her lips, her forehead, and then, one by one, all of the
wazir-narimasu did the same. Their chanting reached a crescendo and the blue
radiance enveloped Cennaire.

           
Then silence, a dying of the light.

           
Calandryll felt his held breath come
out in a ragged sigh.

           
Cennaire lay still.

           
No hint of life lifted her ribs,* no
breath came warm from her cold lips,- her eyes stared wide and sightless.

           
Calandryll saw, as if time slowed,
as if this final disappointment must be drawn out, lingering, that each final
particle of dashed hope be savored, Ochen turn toward him, desolation etched
clear in every wrinkle of his face. He saw the mage's lips move, heard each
word come ponderous, a threnody of despair.