Shadows and Light (22 page)

By the time Rafael got them both back up to the trail, he was sweating with exertion, and feeling a strange combination of overheating and freezing. He managed to lift Xian up long enough to get him over the horse’s back, but then his strength seemed to fade away and he all but collapsed against the cliff. He knew he should go back down, take Xian’s saddlebags off the body of his mount, bring them back up here… But he couldn’t. Fifteen feet had never seemed so far, and they were merely back on the trail, not yet to their destination. There had been no place worth stopping all night and the sky was already beginning to lighten ominously.

Finally Rafael decided that the bags could wait. There was nothing essential in them, he was the one carrying the blood and the needles. He unwrapped the horse’s reins and tied them loosely around his waist. If one of them was going down again, they all were, damn it. Then he set out along the trail, trying to remember the details of Xian’s description of his sister’s home, trying to spot any sign of habitation, trying desperately to keep himself from giving in to the panic that was nipping at his heels. He couldn’t afford to panic. Not now.

Rafael would have missed the turn into the valley entirely in all the fresh snow if the house in the distance hadn’t been blazing with light. It had windows, paned with real glass, not the skins that so many people here seemed to favor. It was only a single level but the windows extended all around the house, and they glowed like a flickering wreath of fire.

Honestly at this point Rafael didn’t care who the house belonged to. It could have been anyone’s home and he still would have stumbled up the snow-entrenched walk, beneath a corridor of looming trees, and banged ceaselessly on the door until he could beg the inhabitants for help. When the door opened on a woman, her golden hair gleaming like a halo but her face shadowed by the predawn darkness, Rafael gathered himself and prepared to do just that.

The woman stepped back from the door and suddenly the tall, imposing angel was transformed into an old woman, her hair white, not gold, her back still straight and strong but the lines of many decades mapping her face. She took another long look at the tableau in front of her and finally snapped, “Get him down and inside, boy.”

Rafael didn’t say anything, he just turned and pulled Xian’s body off the horse, biting back a groan of pain as the weight settled. His arms burned and his lungs ached, but he managed to drag his lover into the light. A padded leather bench waited, just wide enough for a body, and Rafael set Xian down as gently as he could.

“What did you do?” the woman exclaimed. It took a moment before Rafael realized that she wasn’t talking to him, she was talking to Xian, and her expression was both angry and tender. “Fool,” she said, sitting down on a stool placed nearby. “Old fool.” She touched his face, examining the wounds there, and glanced up at Rafael. “You only left Clare a month ago. Why does he look like this?” She caught sight of the manacles and her face became furious. “Get those off him! Why are they on in the first place? He shouldn’t need them yet.” Her voice was the voice of a much younger woman, low and smoky and probably sensual when she didn’t sound so incensed.

What order was Rafael supposed to answer those questions in? “Xian’s horse fell on the trail. The animal died and Xian broke his leg. I tried to fix it, but I’m not sure it’s straight. And he told me yesterday to put the manacles on, because he was getting…he was becoming…” When had he turned into a stutterer? Rafael reached wearily into his pouch and fumbled for the key, finally withdrawing it and managing to get it into the lock. The silver restraints fell onto the floor. Neither of them moved to pick them up.

The old woman eyed him for a moment, then sniffed and dismissed him. “Go tend to your horse. There’s a stable in the back.”

There was a task he could do, and needed to. Feeling suddenly very unnecessary, Rafael walked out of the brightly lit house and led his shuddering horse around to the stables. He removed the bags, the saddle and the bridle, threw a heavy blanket over the animal’s back and pulled out a brush. He smoothed it over the short, coarse hair, removing ice and debris, and gradually both of them calmed down. There was already hay and water in the stall, and eventually the horse was gentled enough to start eating.

“You have your priorities straight,” Rafael murmured, leaning into the large, warm body. He shut his eyes and sighed. He was so tired…

A bright shaft of lantern light flared against his eyelids, and Rafael started into wakefulness. The old woman was next to him, lantern in one hand, a cane in the other. She stood as straight as ever, but he could see now that she leaned most of her weight on her right side. “Come and help me move him,” was all she said. “The sun is almost up.”

“Oh, hell,” Rafael muttered. He bent painfully to grab the bags, but then her stick banged purposefully against his side. “Ow!”

“Leave them. The boy will bring them in later in the day,” she said. She looked him up and down with gimlet eyes. They were brown, Rafael realized. Wet and rheumy, but brown. “I doubt you could haul them in at this point anyway.” She turned and limped out of the small, four-stall stable, and Rafael followed her.

The center door leading off from the living area was open. The interior of the room beyond it was utterly dark. “Push the bench inside,” the woman directed.

Rafael looked blurrily at Xian, but the other didn’t appear to have moved at all, and still seemed completely unconscious. Rafael’s fingers itched to touch his lover, but an impatient bang of the cane next to his foot broke him out of his reverie. He bent his shoulder to the bench and pushed, surprised by how easily it slid across the smooth wooden floor. Once it was entirely inside, the woman entered. The lantern light revealed a pile of blankets in one corner, a ceramic basin filled with water on a low table, another stool, and fixed into the wall were a set of bulky steel manacles. Even as tired as he was, Rafael knew enough to glare at the woman.

“These ones aren’t silver,” she said haughtily, then shoved at him with the cane again. “The room next door has water to bathe with and a bed for you. Go rest. I’ll tend to him now.”

“I want to stay,” Rafael protested, not willing to be parted from Xian now after so long together. The woman could see he was serious.

“You will stay,” she said soothingly. “Later. For now, go and rest.” She paused for a moment, then added, “You may call me Nailah.”

“His sister…” Rafael said muzzily.

“Yes, I’m his sister. He told you that much about me?”

“Not very much.”

“More than I thought he would,” Nailah said with one raised eyebrow. “Go. Sleep.”

Exactly how he found his way to the room she had prepared for him, managed to shed his ruined clothes and had the sense of mind to rinse the worst of the filth from his body before sliding between the cool sheets, Rafael didn’t know. He only knew that as soon as his head hit the pillow, he was swaddled in darkness so deep and soothing that even his fears couldn’t penetrate it, and he slept for once without dreams or nightmares.

Chapter Eighteen

The scent of food brought him out of it eventually. Food and smoke―a strange, thick smoke that smelled faintly herbal. Rafael’s body ached intensely, but there were no sharp pains and the cuts on his arms and legs were already halfway healed. His saddlebags had been brought in and set on a mat against one of the walls. A simple woolen tunic and trousers had been laid at the foot of his bed, and after taking care of necessities, he tugged them on, then headed into the main room.

Nailah was there, sitting in a high-backed rocking chair that somehow managed to look regal. She had her left hand lying still on the armrest, and in her right she held a thick cheroot, one end flaring with a reddish glow as she drew the smoke into her lungs. Her feet were propped up on a footstool, and the fire burning in the enormous grate to her left blazed merrily with a dozen large logs. The room was almost hot, and Rafael fell in love with it instantly.

It was still dark outside. “How long did I sleep?” he asked, looking from her to the doorway to Xian’s room. It was open, just a crack, but there was no light coming from within.

“All through the day and into evening,” Nailah replied. She waved toward the chair opposite hers. “You might as well get some food and sit down. He’s still sleeping, and will be for some time.”

Rafael looked and found a pot simmering over banked coals in the kitchen, which was set back a bit from the central room. He spooned soup of some kind into a bowl, filled another bowl with clear water from a nearby barrel, then returned to Nailah. She said nothing. He sat, ate a bite, and also said nothing. They stared stubbornly at each other for a long time before the old woman sighed.

“You’re hardly what I expected him to settle for in the end.”

“He didn’t settle for me, he chose me,” Rafael said firmly.

“Calm down,” Nailah said with a dismissive wave, taking another drag from her cigar. “I know my brother rather better than you do, I think, and I know how adamant he can be about things once his mind is made up. I’m certain he did choose you. I just wish he could have gotten his head out of his rear end sooner, that’s all.” She glanced over to Rafael before looking back into the fire. “Is Myrtea dead?”

The question surprised him. “I don’t know,” Rafael replied. “She wasn’t when I last saw her.”

“More’s the pity,” Nailah interjected. The look they shared this time was entirely in accord. Nailah’s lips twisted then, a bitter parody of a smile. “So, Clare has finally fallen?”

“Yes.” Rafael didn’t prevaricate this time.

“It was time. Past time, really.” Her eyelids lowered to half-mast, the irises barely visible through the drifting smoke. “Anyone with sense had known this would happen. The gods never give a gift for free, not even to their own offspring. Why would mere humans be any different?”

“I don’t think people consider things like that when they’re desperate,” Rafael said after eating a few more bites. “Impossible things seem possible, because you want them so badly. Eternal youth seems like a good idea, despite all the difficulties that come with it.”

“Did you think it seemed like a good idea during your apprenticeship?” Nailah asked frankly.

“I wanted whatever Xian wanted.”

“Is that still true?”

“Now I just want him,” Rafael confessed quietly. “I want him however I can have him.”

“And he must want you, otherwise neither of you would be here.” She sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. “Has he told you what to expect of what’s coming to him?”

“Only that it’s going to be very hard, and he’ll need pain to get through it.”

Nailah snorted. “Simplistic man. Pain, yes, but love as well. Understanding. A connection. You have to know what he needs and how to give it to him. My trade is tinctures and poultices, boy. Its rustic medical knowledge that will keep him breathing, but not give him what he needs.” She raised her left hand, the joints swollen with age and use. “Seven years ago I had a fit that left me weak on this side. My balance is poor and my strength is insufficient to the task of making a dent in his thick hide. That work will fall to you.”

“I can do it.”

“You can do some of it,” Nailah agreed. “And you’ll learn the rest of it.” She leaned forward, capturing his eyes with hers. “Make no mistake, boy. Erran’s blood is a poison that we must leach out of his body drop by drop, just fast enough that the bad is replenished with good. New blood, new bones, new organs. It is a process that takes months, sometimes years to complete, and for the worst of it he’ll be insensible. He won’t be the man you think you know.”

“I know it will take a long time,” Rafael said. He was so weary of being questioned. “I know he’ll change. That’s the entire point, he either changes or dies, and I know which I’d rather have. You can doubt me, he can doubt me, but I don’t doubt myself. I won’t leave him and I won’t just let him die.” He set his bowl down and stood up. “Now I’m going to see him.” He turned and walked over to the room and stepped inside, then started with surprise as the lantern light kindled. Xian blew out the small flame he’d used to start it and looked up at Rafael with a smile. He seemed gaunt and exhausted, but calm.

Rafael immediately came to his side. “I thought you were asleep.”

“I woke up when I heard you start talking. I figured it would be better for me to let the two of you get the introductions out of the way before I entered the discussion.” He looked Rafael over, running light fingers down his arm. “No injuries that I need to know about, either from the ride or from that harridan out there?”

“Injuries, hah!” Nailah limped into the room, a scowl firmly fixed on her weathered face. “He can at least walk, can’t he? I’d like to see you put weight on that leg of yours.”

“I can’t,” Xian replied simply.

“It didn’t heal well?” Rafael was on his knees a second later, pulling up Xian’s legging and exposing the bandaged wound beneath it. Even to his untrained eyes the bones clearly hadn’t set right. There was a lumpy mass on one side of Xian’s shin that felt hard beneath Rafael’s fingertips. “I did it wrong.” He looked up at Xian, stricken. “You can’t walk?”

“You did the best you could,” Xian said softly, touching Rafael’s cheek. “And I will be able to walk, with a bit more time. Bones have always taken longer to heal than flesh, even when I was at the height of my power.”

“Which you’re well past now,” Nailah groused, sitting down heavily on the stool. “How in heavens did you spend yourself so quickly?”

“Getting us out of the ruins of Clare might have contributed to that, Nailah.” He looked her over, his face betraying nothing. “It’s good to see you again.”

“To see what I’ve become?” She tilted her head, her eyes shining but her expression hard. “To see how I’ve decayed? You come at the end when you swore to me you’d be there from the beginning.”

“Things didn’t happen like either of us had hoped then,” Xian said regretfully. “But I’m here now. And it’s clear that you and I have things to say to each other.” He turned to Rafael. “Will you give us a few minutes, pet? My sister and I need to renew our understanding.” Nailah said nothing, just averted her eyes. For a moment Rafael saw her as she must have been long ago, pale and ageless, her skin smooth but her face petulant and unhappy.