Living With Ghosts (58 page)

He bit his lip, tasting blood, tasting himself. He cried out as his own bonds wove about him, jerking him to a halt. Think of Thiercelin, grim on his determined, half-comprehended path.
Think of Amalie and Urien and stern Yvelliane. Think even of Valdarrien, whoseverylife wastwinedroundGracielis’own,throughthepounding oftheriver.
Gracielis reached out and found iron beneath his hands. The rail of the bridge . . . He struggled to breathe, gasping out a word in turn.

He stood on the bridge, under two moons. Water ran down his face, soaking hair and clothing. From upstream he could hear the river gathering force.

He clutched at the rail, letting his hand find for him its nature. Iron from the earth, aspected like himself in stone. He raised his head to look at Quenfrida, bathed in moons’ light. Chains surrounded her, woven of mist, stretching into the night. He could see where they chafed, where they strained and tugged and had been repaired. He could see the space where Kenan should have stood. She held proud beneath the burden, and his heart turned cold.

He had never seen such power. Her control was flawed, but it was better than he had hoped. She had tied herself in blood and soul to the river, and she would have her way.

She returned his gaze. She said, “Will I show you again what I can do?”

His hand tightened on the rail. “No, Quena.”

“Then let me pass.”

“No, Quena.” Gracielis pushed down sharp fear and reached along the rail. It grew hot under his hand. He trembled as the bridge stirred, as lightning ran through it. Sparks struck off around him. He shuddered and drew them to him, forcing himself to open. Quenfrida did not stir. He was burning up. He set his teeth against a cry and flung his hands out before him.

White light flashed, carried through the moisture on the bridge. She cried out and her hair became a wild aura about her. Power of iron, most inimical to water . . . His palms were seared and blackened; he was dizzy with pain. He stumbled backward.

The light died. Quenfrida still stood there, shaking. She stepped toward him and said, “I promised you death, did I not? Try this.” She spoke a word he had never heard, and stepped back.

A force like dissolution ripped through him, binding the water from his veins. Blood dripped from his eyes, from his burned palms. He could feel the wind beginning to take him, to pull him apart into dust and oblivion. He reached out to her in terror and heard her start to laugh. He was crumbling away. He fought panic, clinging to what time he had left. Beneath his feet, water clutched at the bridge. He caught again at the rail, and mantled down into stone. Stone against air, calm, unyielding. He clung, gasping, forcing himself to be one thing only, to be whole.

When he opened his eyes, he was kneeling, arms locked about the rail. Quenfrida stood over him. He could feel the water gathering force with every second. He said, “Don’t,” and his voice was all but gone.

She reached a hand out to him. It was empty. She would not risk a blade here. She said, “You’re stronger than I thought. Perhaps I didn’t choose so badly after all, those years ago.”

“I failed you,” Gracielis said. Death stood before him in her flesh, and he could hope only to buy time. Pray Urien was watching. “Forgive me.”

“It seems unnecessary.” But her hand did not move to touch him, not yet.

“I love you,” he said, since she seemed to expect it. “I beg you.”

“We’ve been here before. And you lie; you’re
undarios
now. The bonds between us are broken.”

“Not those of memory,” he said. “Please.”

“Please what? Don’t hurt you?”

“No.” Where was Urien? “Say you forgive me.”

She was smiling; she was amused. She said, “For what? To make you happy?”

“Yes.”

“Why should I want to do that?”

“Because I’m yours.” Gracielis closed his eyes.

She was silent a few moments. Then she said very softly, “Look at me, my Gracielis.” He looked. Her face was pitiless. “No, I won’t forgive you.”

By rights he should have wept; that, too, she would expect. But the world had turned inverse, and he was beyond caring for appearances. He sent a thought, pain-winged, to Thiercelin and lowered his head. He felt the bridge under him, good iron. He relaxed into it and hoped it would sustain him. He said, “Then finish me.”

“Certainly.” He heard the creamy smile in her voice, as her hands came down. His own knotted in the structure of the bridge as he extended himself as far as he could. Think of polished steel, of obsidian. He bowed under the impact, fighting to be glass beneath her, fragile, fine, reflective . . .

Reflective. Talking had left him time to gather what energy remained to him. He blanked his mind as she touched him, emptying so that she should find only herself.

She filled him. Her touch was bitter. She was chaos, fierce drives, fierce needs, all tangled and demanding. The power of the river ran through her, but it was blind to her desires. She clawed and scratched at it, consuming herself in the attempt to bind it into subservience to her will. She bore down on him, and he was glass. Her hands shook, and he felt himself again begin to crumble. Killing force ran through him; some small remaining conscious part of him recollected Valdarrien. Life from death. Death averted. Death reflected . . .

Quenfrida cried out. Gracielis twisted from under her grasp and crawled free. She did not seem to see him. Water poured off her, thunderous, continuous. Behind her the river still rose. She was even yet a part of it, and he had done nothing save strain her a little. The bonds were cool in the moons’ light. Only a handful betrayed stress.

Light bathed them. The water poured down. And behind Quenfrida, the river bore went on sweeping downstream.

Every step took them deeper into the mist: ankles, knees, waist. At the end of two hundred yards, Joyain could see no farther than the end of his arms. Beside him, Miraude was no more than a hint, a darker patch in the omnipresent gray. He could barely hear their footsteps; his breath was a faint tide within him. The air tasted bitter, filled with blood and dirt. Their torches guttered and flickered, more ghost than flame. His fear wrapped him, prickling through every inch of skin, tensing each fiber.

They were perhaps a third of the way along the alley when the attack came. A slithering, a slipping, slurping noise and then . . . Something—not human, not fleshy, something rubbery and icy—squelched and oozed against his legs. He leaped aside with a cry and lost hold of Miraude’s hand. He felt fabric tear away where he had been touched. Somewhere—it must be close, yet it came as from a distance—he heard Miraude gasp. He waved his torch around him wildly, yelled in alarm as it struck something solid. A wall, a gate . . . From his left, Miraude said, “Jean?” And then, “Someone?” She sounded terrified.

He narrowed his eyes, tried to make sense out of the boiling fog while keeping the torch moving. Maybe over there . . . Yes, to his left and a little ahead of him there was a paler patch. He called back, “I’m here. I’m all right.” He reached out to whatever it was he had struck and found it was a wall. Back to it, he inched forward toward her. “I’m coming.” A step, another and another and then there she was, huddled against a doorway. He reached out for her, found her arm and gripped it.

She said, “What . . . ?”

“Keep moving.”

They inched forward into the mist, backs to the wall. Tendrils and tongues of it lapped at them, tearing clothing, grazing skin. Joyain lost track of how far they had come. The alley sloped down toward the streets behind the Flower Market, he remembered that much, although it took several turnings and was intersected by a number of mews. He could not imagine how they would survive once their route widened out. When the wall at his back gave out, he stopped in a gateway shaking. Miraude said, “What is it?”

“Nothing. I’m just trying to work out where we go next.” But his voice shook, and he knew she heard it. “Once it gets wider, we’ll need to run.”

Easy to go astray in the mist. Even easier, while running. One or both of them could too easily trip or fall, drop a torch . . .

She said, “We’re near the Old Temple, I think.” That put them less than halfway down the alley. They must go twelve or fifteen times farther to reach the Island Temple, and in wider streets . . . Something snagged at his arm, and he pulled back. A thin cut traced along it in red. The longer they stood here . . . He said, “We need to find shelter. We can’t last out here.”

“But . . .” Miraude’s sentence ended in a yelp. Something had hold of her, shaking and tugging. Even as he turned, her hand was dragged from his. She cried out again and dropped her torch.

Inside Joyain something snapped. He had seen enough death, enough loss. He had been unable to save anyone. Perhaps that was still true. But he would fight back while he might. He dived for her torch, rolled upright, holding both of them before him. Together, their light was enough to push the mist back from him a little farther. The mist creatures still feared fire. Well, fire they should have. The wall might be stone, but the gate was wood. Gripping both torches in his left hand, he tugged his flask of lamp oil out of his pocket and flung it at the gate with all his might. With luck, it gave onto a stableyard, where there would be straw and more wood. The torches seemed to take strength from proximity to one another, flames brightening. He did not have long; he could hear Miraude struggling and gasping. This had to work . . . He thrust the torches against the oiled wood and closed his eyes. River bless, by stone and flame, wind and wave and darkness . . . There was nothing more left to him, to his city. One hand on the wall, one on the torches, he waited and hoped.

The gate rocked, rattled, and caught light, a slight fringe at first, growing and winding upward, outward, warming and brightening and reigniting the torches. With a yell, Joyain charged, swinging the torch about him in a great arc. Mist reached for him from behind, and he cursed and kept running. Teeth rasped one ankle; he felt his boot begin to give. Clinging onto the torches, he cannoned into Miraude, knocking them both to the ground. She clutched at him, sobbing. He said, “All right?”

“They bit me . . .” She gulped, wound her fingers into his jacket. He pulled himself to his knees. In the renewed light, her face was dirty. She bled from a jagged gap in her left shoulder. Her cloak was gone and her outer garments shredded to rags. He handed her one torch as she climbed to her feet. He said, “We have to get indoors.” The gate was solidly ablaze, its glow clearing a substantial arc through the fog. Miraude leaned against him as he looked around. Perhaps they could take refuge in a stable somewhere . . .

She said, “The Old Temple!”

“What?” He looked at her. She pointed toward the wall opposite.

“It’s the back of the Old Temple, where the excavation is.” Her words made no sense at all to him. She pulled at him. “There’s a tunnel, it goes down to the river. We can use that.”

Yvelliane stood on the roof of the temple tower, and looked west. All about her, the priests went about their ritual. Her companions moved amongst them, baffled, resentful. By the light of the two moons, Merafi looked peaceful; more a lake now than a city. She looked up and glimpsed wings high overhead. She felt very calm.

There was little mist. She could see a long way upriver, to the old wall and beyond. The three channels braided the plain, spreading toward each other. There was movement in the silvered distance. She watched it, and almost smiled.

A priest summoned her back to the rite. She followed obediently for the prayer, and the first of the prescribed bathings of hands. Then she withdrew again to her vantage point. Two figures stood below her on the Dancing Bridge. She watched them, feeling the wind on her face.

Two cloaked forms made their way across the roof toward her, one leaning on the other. She frowned a little, unwilling to be disturbed. She had fielded enough questions from the courtiers. She needed these last few minutes alone. The figures halted a few feet away and one sank down, back against the parapet. She could hear his breathing even over the chanting.

After a few minutes he pushed back his hood and looked up at her. Thiercelin. There was a lump in her throat, closing it, impeding her breathing. She had thought . . . She had expected that his injury would keep him safely away. She should have known better. She should have expected this. She wound her hands in the folds of her cloak. She could not bear this, not now . . .

He said, “Yviane.”

“Thierry,” she said. “Why are you here? You should be resting.”

“I wanted to come.”

She wanted to bury her face in his shoulder and have him banish all her pain and fear. She wanted to run away. She could afford to do neither. She said, softly, “Oh, Thierry . . .” and felt tears form in her eyes.

“What’s wrong?” He held out a hand to her, wincing as it pulled at his injury. “It’s all right. Gracielis and Urien . . .”

He did not know. She had begged that of Urien. If she had only known she would meet him here and now . . . She said, “I’m tired, I . . .”

“You’re lying.” He frowned. “Something’s going to happen. What is it?”

“It’s all right.”

She watched fear and puzzlement battle each other across his face. He said, “Is it Graelis? Will he . . .”

“What he’s doing is dangerous.” Perhaps this was her way out, his concern for his friend. She felt no jealousy, she was beyond that. Perhaps, if Gracielis survived, he could bring Thiercelin some measure of comfort. She said, “You’re fond of him, aren’t you?”

“Not like that,” Thiercelin said. “I love
you
, Yviane. He’s a friend, that’s all.”

She reached out and touched his shoulder. “I’m glad.” “What?” Fear was winning out in Thiercelin’s face. “What is it? Tell me?”

She could not. It would break her and, with that, condemn Merafi. Standing on tiptoe, she kissed him once, gently, on the mouth. “It’s all right, Thierry. Everything’s going to be all right.”

There was a silence. She had to escape, or she would give way. She said, “I have to go. I’m so sorry, Thierry,” and walked away along the parapet, to the gate onto the leads, moving quickly lest he suspect her weakness.