Lunatic (16 page)

He could smell carrion birds in the distance. Smell something salty that tasted of copper. Feel the smallest of hairs move on his arm. And he could see the desert with hawk's eyes.

His arms and legs were completely white and scaly, flaking in coin-sized pieces. As were his stomach, sides, and chest.

"Anything from your invisible lady?" Silvie's dry voice was low and husky. Long cracks flaked along the creases in her face, now fixed in a constant frown. Her lip had split, and dried blood caked the corner of her mouth.

"No." Johnis tasted salt on his lips. He stopped, wiping away sweat that wasn't there. "We'll get to Natalga Gap and find help. Maybe find her. Maybe she can ..."

"I don't want the help of some imaginary woman." Silvie retreated beneath an overhang and pressed against a rock formation to rest. She slid down along the wall, slumped over. "It's over."

"It can't be over. We didn't do all of this just to keel over dead in the desert."

"We have no water, Johnis!" she snapped at him, gray eyes narrowed. Gray eyes with a sick, yellow cast to them. She scraped at her flesh. "We're dying."

"I didn't come out here to die!"

"They're dead."

Johnis clenched his teeth and tore at his hair. Hot tears stung his eyes. He'd saved them. He'd never hurt any of them.

But you did, didn't you, Johnis? You did hurt them, and you justified it. You'd do it again if you could.

"We won't find water in time, even if it's there to find. Assuming Darsal's alive, she's Horde too. We can't touch her. And if the others are there, we can't hope to find them. We're Horde. They'll kill us."

The sun dipped low in the horizon and churned the canyon's sparkling colors. Once more the clouds were rolling in, taming the brilliant colors to solemn shadows. Even a trace or two of yellowishgreen. A warm, stale breeze picked up, sharp and biting at first.

johnis ..

He froze. Realized where he was. "The woman. She said she would be out here. Somewhere." His thoughts or the woman's? "We should ..."

"No, Johnis. No beautiful women. Just me."

He frowned at her. Offered his hand. "Come on. It'll be better with the sun gone." She accepted, then followed him westor, rather, what he thought was west.

"This way .. .

The wind at their backs shifted head-on and forced them to turn aside. Fog dampened his cheeks. His limbs turned cold.

He couldn't see.

Johnis drew a sharp breath. "Silvie ... Remember what I told you?"

Even the dry sand turned to mud.

The desert was eerily quiet. No insects. No jackals, no coyotes howling. Out toward the horizon, across the dunes, and nestled in a canyon, the ground seemed to ripple, to shimmer.

"Silvie, are you seeing this?"

Deep blue flickered, rocked up and down, swirled like waves lapping a shore.

A river?

Silvie trembled, stepped forward. "Y-yes. Your visions ... ?"

He nodded dumbly.

Her arms went limp at her sides. Johnis found his legs and stumbled toward the river like a drunk. "We need water ..."

"Hello, mighty Chosen One ... Is this what you seek?"

Yes, they needed water. They would die without water, and then there would be no one left. No one but Scabs and Shataiki. But the Shataiki hadn't been so bad, had they? Oversized black bats, no trouble, no worries. And Scabs. Yes, he did have a scab, right on his left knee where he'd skinned it earlier. Minor things.

"Do you hear her now?"

Johnis could only bob his head. The woman's siren song floated toward him. Summoned him. This time he had no choice.

She was close. Very, very close.

The river seemed to move, ever beyond their grasp. It taunted him.

"We should run," Silvie said.

He forced his feet forward. "Yes, we should."

But neither increased speed. The energy required simply wasn't there, and the water constantly retreated from them.

He could see the woman in the surface of the water, just like before. Her white-blonde hair rippled. Her eyes, blue and purple flecked with red, swallowed him. Promised pleasure and power and life.

Colder. Darker.

Minutes passed.

A white fog settled over them, curling over desert shrub and rock like elongated fingers.

The dark haze swelled until he could see nothing.

Nothing, including Silvie.

He stopped and turned a tight circle without actually leaving the place where he stood. "Silvie?"

No answer. But she'd been right beside him, up until ...

His heart sank like lead into his boots when he realized he didn't know exactly when Silvie had gotten away from him. He neither saw nor heard her now.

"Silvie, don't do this to me."

Not this. Not now. Not after Middle and the Scabs and losing his parents and sister. And Darsal.

Alone.

No family to hound and scold him.

No supreme commander to kick his butt and put him back to work.

No Darsal to call him an idealistic fool.

No Silvie to slap him around.

Just absolute solitude and darkness.

"Silvie? Where are you?" Johnis took several tentative steps, listening, straining to see or hear any sign of her.

Silence.

He called out again, ignoring the way his voice broke, that he sounded like a child and should be embarrassed for it.

Not Silvie. Not her too.

He dropped to his knees and groaned.

"Fear not, my Chosen One. Raise up your head."

He obeyed without hesitation, half-aware the woman's voice was outside his head.

Silvie. Prone. On the sand.

Johnis started, then touched her cheek. "Silvie? Silvie, wake up!" She merely groaned, stirred, and rolled over. "Silvie, talk to me. Wake up. Wake up!"

"She lives."

The woman spoke from behind. Her voice carried the weight of authority, gentle and calm. The two words flowed off her tongue, trailing back as if she could say more but preferred not to trouble him. In the dense fog he couldn't see the woman.

Johnis whirled around and jumped to his feet. It was her! He'd found her!

"Where are you?"

A bemused chuckle. The fog parted a little and two vibrant, glowing eyes sparkled at him. The left eye was a startling purple with a sliver of rich crimson. The right, a vibrant blue with the same crimson half-moon slice. Perfect almonds, shining like jewels in sunlight.

"Peace, Johnis. She sleeps. She will soon wake."

He lowered Silvie's dagger halfway. "You're ... real."

"I am."

The woman had a sweet scent. Alluring, in the same way the smell of baking bread is alluring to a starving man. And her eyes-those huge, intoxicating eyes with thick black lashes.

"How ... did you do that?"

"In time, my Chosen One." She shrugged the fog back the way she might a cloak and let it fall from her shoulders. It drifted to the ground. "Such is more easily shown than explained."

"I thought you were in trouble."

"So such appears ..."

She was even more beautiful up close. Johnis lost himself in her. Her lips parted in a seductive smile. The woman was tall and exquisitely shaped, everything about her long and willowy. She wore a strapless white dress that fell to her ankles and made a feathery train behind her. A small chain circled her neck, silver with a blue stone pendant. Her feet were bare.

"Look upon me, son of Ramos ..."

The woman's riveting eyes commanded his attention, and he was lost in them once more. She smiled and took a bite of the fruit he only now saw in her hand. It was pear-shaped, with purple translucent skin that seemed to glow.

His mind was drifting.

Elyon alive, she was breathtaking.

Fight, johnis. Silvie's unconscious.

"What have you done to Silvie?"

The woman glided to him, stopping so close he could feel her warmth. She licked the wound on the face of the fruit.

"The female has not been harmed."

He stepped back, still holding Silvie's knife. "Why is she on the ground? And how do you know my name?"

Her eyes narrowed for a moment, displeased with his answer. "I am armed with fruit and drink alone, yet I pose a threat?"

She had a point.

"Did you see the hidden pool?" The woman asked softly. Her voice was even. Cool, like fresh water sliding down his throat and quenching his thirst.

"I saw you." Johnis maintained his stance, indecisive. "She hasn't awakened, either."

Something about this woman was heady, sent gooseflesh across his skin, and hypnotized him. He could drink her, he thought, and never thirst again.

The woman seemed amused.

"I do not speak of your red Forest Guard pool. And perhaps she sipped too long on my eluweiss."

He took a step back. "The mirage?"

More gentle laughter. "I merely made visible that which is invisible, Johnis. Your female wished for water."

"Eluweiss?"

She slid her fingers up the side of his neck and along his cheek, traced his lips with needlelike nails. All the world gave way, leaving only her eyes.

A purple haze fell around them.

"My water is soothing and sweet," the woman continued. "My food is rich and sustaining. My slumber ..." She motioned to Silvie. "Complete."

"What did you give her? Who are you?"

Her free hand slid along his shoulder and arm-a tingly sensation-and gently slipped the weapon from his hand. The edge nicked his thumb.

"I am called Shaeda, a ruler among the Leedhan."

Johnis felt the cut start to bleed. Blood crashed through his veins, shoved through his body with the force of a sledgehammer.

Her eyes. Her strange, intoxicating eyes ...

Her fingers slid up into his hair and fingered it. She circled until the train of her dress surrounded him.

"I've never heard of a Leedhan," he said.

Shaeda let her unfinished fruit fall to the ground. "I have journeyed from the far side of the River, my friend."

"What river?"

The Leedhan seemed amused. "Did I not show you, my pet? Beyond the desert, beyond a labyrinth of canyons, is a river that spans the world, my friend, and cleaves her in twain. On both sides of the river are the most glorious of springs. From the far side of the world I come, and therefore your eyes have never known me."

She recited a chant in a foreign tongue. Her presence clung to him like a garment. Engulfed him. He felt numb, dazed.

A silver goblet appeared in Shaeda's hand. She had summoned it from the air. "This is eluweiss. It is made from badaii juice, along with a few teas and herbs. I carry food and drink to satisfy your hunger and sustain your life."

Johnis could smell a pungent citrus stronger than any he'd ever known before. Something niggled at the back of his mind, a pinprick amid the haze and shadows, from an old legend Thomas and the older ones used to tell.

"Such your female has also tasted. She but sleeps."

"I can't trust the water."

"Such is not water. It is better than your water. "

Still, the bitter thought would not relent-that he could trust no one.

"This is eluweiss, my pet." Shaeda sipped at the citrus-flavored drink and gave an understanding nod.

Sustenance you seek, do you not?"

Johnis went wide-eyed. He was hearing her thoughts.

She seemed even more amused at his surprise.

"Look at me, my johnis .. .

How could he refuse her?

"Why refuse?"

Did she say that, or did he think it?

Looking into her eyes, smelling the drink, feeling her presence and the barely contained powers he'd seen only shadows of ...

"Terrible legends fill your mind, do they not? Terrible things spoken by mortal man doomed to die." She took another sip and extended the goblet toward him. "Taste and see ..."

He needed something to drink, he and Silvie both. If they didn't drink, they would die of dehydration. Johnis ran his tongue over his mouth. His mind was falling into a tunnel, surrounded by cloud.

Shaeda's eyes seemed to permeate his skin and go straight through into his soul. They beckoned him, asked him to trust.

The scent itself filled him.

She massaged his neck and caressed his flaking skin, soothing the pain. A single thought entered his mind, a small thing nibbling at him just beyond comprehension.

His mind's eye saw swarming bats, the Shataiki queen who had tried to kill them. He relived his mother's capture, relived the horrors of the other world, Billos, the hard chains of a Romanian prison. Darsal's stunning betrayal that nearly sabotaged the mission, destroyed an entire planet, and killed him and Silvie.

All of that for nothing.

All of that to find Scabs living in Middle.

Johnis furrowed his brow. The Leedhan offered him more than fruit and eluweiss.

Shaeda leaned close and smelled his neck, then his hair.

"Too much from you has been stolen."

A longing filled him. Weeping for his lover. No, Silvie was not dead. Shaedas eyes swallowed him. Her lover. The Leedhan had a mate.

Shaeda shut down the memory. Another took its place.

A coppery tasted flooded his mouth, rich and dark. Memory of the cold shackles around his wrists and the horrific understanding that all was lost caved in on him. He'd come home to marry. To celebrate. To go home.

Sucrow was in Middle Forest.

He scowled.

"You are indeed chosen, Johnis. And your mission is not yet complete. That alone is why you and the female survived."

We share commonality, do we not?

Shaedas eyes roved over him. Her smile faded. "Your mind is clouded, your body and soul weak from lack of sustenance. Taste my healing drink. You are correct in believing I have more authority beyond the River. I have the power to heal, my friend, the power to exact justice and extend mercy, to provide rest for the soul."

A vein in his temple began to pound.

"I've never heard of the Leedhan," he rasped. But ... still ... she had food, and she had ... what was it? ... eluweiss ...

"Why linger so long in doubt?" Shaeda's voice was low and soft. "Is life so difficult to choose, my friend?"