Skyfall (9 page)

“Bard of the Rillian Vales. They have more people there than we do in the Dalvador Plains.” His teeth were chattering. “I am Bard of Dalvador, but he is lord of all the lands, including mine.”

Roca wanted to shake the resort planners. The least they could have done was get their facts straight before they started playing with local cultures. She wondered if they even cared that they might endanger Eldri if they treated him as if he ranked above the true leader here. “Do you know Lord Rillia?”

“Of course. He and my father were friends.” He rubbed his palms together, making his gloves squeak. “Unlike Lord Avaril.”

“Who is Lord Avaril?”

“He lives in the Blue Dale Mountains.” His face paled even more than from the cold. “He swore he would kill my father. Now he says he will kill me.”

“Good gods, Eldri. Why?”

“He wants to be Bard in Dalvador.” Eldri wrapped his arms around his body. “He might have killed my father. We don’t know.”

She spoke gently, remembering his kindness when she had told him about her first husband. “I’m sorry your father died.”

“All my family did.” He sounded subdued now. “It was on this mountain during an avalanche. Possibly it was an accident. Such things happen here.”

“Possibly?”

“Many rumors claim Avaril caused it. He is my cousin, the son of my father’s brother.” Eldri stamped his feet in the snow. “If everyone in my family dies, he becomes Bard.”

It sounded all too familiar. The long histories of the Skolian noble Houses included their share of titles gained through assassination. If that was what had happened here, though, it hadn’t succeeded. “But you survived.”

“I was only a few months old, so they left me at Windward when they went riding. Garlin had to stay home and take care of me because he had misbehaved. He was sixteen.” Eldri was trying to sound unconcerned, but his bewildered pain was obvious. “The avalanche killed everyone, my parents, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, cousins…Garlin is my family now.”

“Ai, Eldri. I am so sorry.” Roca threaded her arm through his. Although she suspected Garlin had taken advantage of the situation over the years, it seemed unlikely he had helped cause the tragedy. From what she understood, titles here went through the male line, unlike in many Skolian cultures where it went through the female line. As a son of Eldri’s aunt on his mother’s side, Garlin wasn’t in the line of succession. If anything happened to Eldri, Garlin would lose the power he wielded now as the Bard’s chief adviser.

“Someday I will have a big family again,” Eldri said. Ice glittered on his eyelashes and he could barely get out the words.

Roca moved closer to him. “You are so cold.”

“Aren’t you?”

She grimaced. “Very.”

“You look warm.” He was obviously trying to achieve the same state, without success.

“Will you be able to sit out this storm?”

He had a strange look, as if she had cornered him. “I don’t think so. I don’t understand. Why does it not bother you?”

Roca’s foreboding was growing. At first she had thought the people here were physically better able to resist the cold, but now she realized they were just more used to it. Up to a point, she didn’t handle it as well as they did. But the nanomeds in her body monitored her physiology, and right now they were working overtime to keep her temperature at survival level. She felt the cold bitterly, and she would be ravenous after a while, but she could live for hours, maybe even days, as long as she had shelter.

The same might not be true for Eldri.

“Can we reach Windward from here?” she asked.

“I don’t think so.” He crossed his arms and hunched his shoulders. “You were right about the path being unsafe.”

“I have an idea.” She hesitated, uncertain how he would react. “It has to do with the way we share our emotions.”

“What?” His laugh was shaky. “That is crazy.”

Why did he deny it so vehemently? His panic sparked like fire whenever she suggested he might be different. “I know you feel it.”

He wouldn’t look at her.

“Eldri, listen. The traits are hereditary. If you and Garlin are cousins, he may have some of it, too.”

He still wouldn’t meet her gaze. She focused on his mind, gently, a visitor asking permission to enter. Although he didn’t sense her on a conscious level, he didn’t instinctively retreat either. She gathered impressions from him, enough to know he and Garlin had always been close, much more than she would have guessed from their strained relations these past two days. They did share their moods, though it frustrated Eldri that Garlin seemed less attuned to him than the reverse.

“Try to reach him,” Roca urged. “Let him know we are here. I can boost your signal.”

“Boost my signal?”

“Make your call to him stronger.”

His look turned doubtful. “That sounds very strange.”

Roca dug her hands in her pockets and scrunched her shoulders against the cold. “It is better than doing nothing at all.”

He grimaced. “Garlin will be angry when he finds us.”

“I’ve no doubt about that.” More quietly, she said, “I’m sorry I caused this trouble.”

“Roca, no, you caused no trouble. You only accepted my ill-timed invitation to come here.” He pulled her closer, as much for warmth as for affection. “Very well. Let us try this idea of yours.”

She closed her eyes, leaning into him, her arms around his waist, with only the faintly keening wind for company. His mood suffused hers, but she sensed nothing.

Just as she was beginning to think they would fail, she felt a stirring of his mind. He reached out on instinct, with no training, no idea how to proceed. But he did reach out and Roca helped him, using her skill to direct and augment his undefined call. Whether or not he made contact, she couldn’t tell; she had trouble sensing Garlin clearly even when he was nearby. His animosity toward her swamped his other emotions. She had no idea if he would recognize their cry for help.

Sometime later Eldri’s hold loosened. Roca opened her eyes to see his pale face. Snow encrusted his eyebrows.

“I am so very cold,” he whispered. Then his eyes glazed over and his face went blank.

“Eldri?” Roca shook his arm. “What is wrong?”

No response.

“Eldri!”

He stood unmoving, his mind diffuse. Mentally, she suddenly felt odd, as if she stood on the edges of a storm. She had the curious sensation that static had muddled their connection.

Suddenly he focused on her. “Roca…?”

She took his hand. “What happened?”

“Happened?” He sounded lost.

“You blanked out.” His mental static was gone now.

“
No
…nothing wrong.” He looked around. “I need to sit.”

“It would be better if we kept moving.”

Eldri didn’t seem to hear her. He went to a wall and slid down to sit in the snow. Roca bit her lip, knowing he would get cold faster that way. But he looked as if he would pass out on his feet. She was becoming more and more alarmed, afraid Garlin wouldn’t arrive in time, if at all.

With misgiving, she settled on the ground next to him, in the snow, with drifts on either side. He put his arms around her and they squeezed as close together as possible.

Then they waited.

“E
ldri, no.” Roca grasped his arm as he walked back to the wall. Over the past few hours, she had needed to prod him to his feet more times than she could count. “You must keep moving.”

He spoke leadenly. “I need sleep.”

“We cannot.” She dragged at him when he tried to sit down. “Keep walking.”

He swayed on his feet, his face drawn. Then he wearily took her arm and stumbled away from the wall, plowing through a drift of snow, making blue powder cascade off his knee-boots.

Together, they began another trek around the cottage. He said nothing, just plodded, his eyes downcast and glazed. Roca didn’t believe she would ever feel warm again.

And night was coming.

A shout came from outside.

Roca stiffened. “Did you hear?”

Eldri kept plodding.

Another shout.

“Listen!” She shook his arm. “I heard someone.”

He stopped, his eyes focusing. “Yes. I think so.”

They started toward the broken wall, where snow was sifting in from the storm. Before they made it halfway, a figure shoved past its broken edge, someone taller than most Lyshrioli men, long and lanky in his heavy clothes and hooded jacket.

“Garlin!” Eldri jerked forward, then stumbled and nearly lost his balance.

Roca caught his arm, giddy with relief. He snagged her around the waist, grinning now, and limped toward Garlin, pulling her along. More people were pushing through the break in the wall, crowding into the cottage.

Garlin grabbed Eldri and pulled him into a bear hug, drawing him away from Roca. As the cousins embraced, she stood to the side. Relief overflowed Garlin’s mind—and anger. He didn’t even look at her.

The other people in the rescue party kept glancing in her direction. She recognized many of them from dinner last night. From their minds, she gathered that she and Eldri were in better shape than anyone had expected. No one seemed hostile; in fact, they wanted to rejoice with her. But they took their lead from Garlin.

The cousins finally separated, laughing and talking at the same time. The rescue party gathered around, their voices rising like a swell of music. Someone handed Eldri a ceramic jug. When he uncovered it, puffs of blue condensation rose into his face. He drank with steam wreathing his cheeks, and Roca watched from outside the circle, shivering, her hands scrunched in her pockets.

Suddenly he lowered the jug and looked over the heads of the people around him. Catching sight of Roca, he motioned her over. As everyone turned, she came forward, self-conscious, aware of their guarded responses to her.

When she reached Eldri, he hugged her against his side with undisguised enthusiasm. “They can take us back!” His voice had regained some strength. “They tied ropes together so we have a line all the way to Windward. So much rope! They used every coil, sheet, and line in Windward. We can follow it through the snow.”

She managed a nod, too cold to do more. He pushed the jug in her hand and fragrant steam rose into her face. As much as it relieved her that they would soon be warm at Windward, it also meant she would end up no closer to the port than she had been this morning.

The supply ship would arrive in less than a day.

The hall where they had dined last night looked much different today, empty, with only a fire roaring in the hearth, no people. Garlin had sent away everyone except Roca and Eldri. Woolly bolts of cloth were strewn across the table, along with half-done tapestries and glasswood cups.

Garlin strode along the table, whipping off the long scarf he wore around his neck and tossing it onto a high-backed chair. Watching him, Roca and Eldri stopped at the end of the table. Eldri pulled his blanket around his shoulders tighter and took another sip from his mulled wine. Roca set her blanket on the end of the table. She wasn’t so cold now; the soup they had given her had helped replenish the energy used up by her nanomeds, which were working full-time to keep her warm.

Eldri started toward Garlin, his gait stiff from their bout with the storm. He stopped abruptly when Garlin spun around and glowered at him. Then Garlin stalked back down the length of the table to him. He spoke in their language, his words astoundingly beautiful despite his anger. Eldri listened with a patience that astounded Roca. He answered when Garlin demanded a response and otherwise stood quietly. She had the sense it wasn’t the first time this scene had played out.

After several moments of this, Garlin walked in a measured gait to Roca. His icy gaze could have frozen her far more than had the storm. He spoke in English. “Did you enjoy your game?”

“I play no game,” she said tightly. She hadn’t liked the way he had spoken to Eldri and she had no intention of accepting such treatment from him.

“You don’t call it a game?” His voice had an edge like a knife. “You have done nothing but display yourself since the moment you saw Eldrinson. So cold, so perfect—” His gaze traveled down her body and back to her face. “So
blatant.
Well, you got what you wanted. Now I suggest you leave him alone, before you do more damage.”

“Garlin, wait.” Eldri came over to them.

Roca met Garlin’s gaze steadily. “It threatens you much that he care for another person?” In her anger, she was losing her command of English. “You cannot control him forever. He is adult now, not child.”

“Roca, don’t.” Eldri tried to step between them, but Garlin pushed him aside.

“Haughty words,” Garlin spat at her. “For one so young.”

Her voice chilled. “I suggest you worry about your own maturity. Or lack of it. I have son your age.”

He jerked his hand in dismissal. “You offworlders lie so easily. Did it mean nothing to you that you could kill Eldri by tempting him to cavort around the mountain in this weather? Did you ever once think of him instead of yourself?”

Roca gave him a regal stare. “Did you ever once think I might have good reasons for my actions?”

He made no attempt to hide his incredulity. “For three years I have dealt with you people, you ‘planners’ and ‘marketers.’ For three years I have listened to you talk about our lives and lands as if they were nothing but goods for your use.”

Eldri inserted himself between them. “She isn’t in that group. She comes from another one.”

Garlin glared at him. “You trust them too easily.”

Roca bit back her response. Exhausted from their ordeal and shaky from the cold, she knew if she stayed longer, she might say things she would regret. Taking a deep breath, she turned and walked to the stairs. But they were only a few meters away, which wasn’t enough to let her anger subside. The first few steps led to a landing; then the stairs turned at a right angle and ran up the wall to a second landing.

“Wait,” Eldri said as she climbed the first steps.

“Let her go,” Garlin said. “She is bored with her new toy.”

That’s it.
Roca was tired of his insults. She swung around on the first landing, her hand clenched on its railing. “You overstep yourself, Garlin.”

He came forward, past Eldri, to the foot of the stairs, his anger like sparks, crackling against her barriers. “You come here, so full of condescension. You play with Eldri as if he were no more than a toy to entertain you, though among our people he claims great respect.” His voice rose, powerful in the hall, with the astonishing richness only the Lyshrioli could attain. “And you presume to say
I
overstep myself?”

“Stop it!” Eldri strode past him and climbed the first two steps. “Both of you.”

Roca braced herself against the waves of hostility from Garlin that flooded her mind. She could barely control her voice as she spoke to him. “Among my people, you could be imprisoned for speaking to me in that manner.”

“Please,” Eldri said. “Don’t tear at each other this way.”

Garlin never took his gaze from Roca. “Among my people, you are nothing.”

“Stop!” Eldri said. “You are the two people I—I most—I—” His eyes suddenly lost focus. He grunted—

And then he fell.

Caught off guard, Roca froze. Garlin reacted faster, lunging to catch Eldri as the younger man toppled down the stairs. Eldri’s body had gone rigid. As Garlin eased him to the floor, Roca started down the stairs, her fear for Eldri swamping her anger.

His entire body jerked, his torso arching, his arms and legs moving violently back and forth. A convulsion wracked him from foot to head. Garlin pulled off his jacket and eased it under Eldri’s head, to keep him from cracking his skull on the stone floor. Then he shed his overshirt and put it under Eldri’s legs. He turned Eldri on his side and knelt by his cousin, staying back just enough to keep from being hit by Eldri’s jerking limbs.

The seizure seemed to last forever. To Roca’s mind, it felt like a raging fire, buffered by her defenses but threatening to overwhelm them. When Eldri’s face turned blue, her breath caught with fear. For a moment she thought the seizure had ended, but then he began to jerk again. Garlin remained by his side, his face agonized, his hands hovering in the air as if he wanted to help but could do nothing more.

Roca had no formal medical training, but her node stored some knowledge. Eldri was having a generalized tonic clonic seizure caused by an overload of neurons firing in his brain. People sometimes put an object in the person’s mouth to keep him from biting his tongue, but Skolian doctors advised against it. Garlin’s quick response suggested this had happened before, enough that he had learned what to do.

Finally, mercifully, Eldri’s body went limp. He seemed to collapse into himself, his muscles releasing their vise-lock on his body. For a moment the three of them remained frozen in a tableau. Then, in the same moment that Roca stepped forward, Garlin laid his hand on his cousin’s shoulder.

Eldri’s eyelashes fluttered up. “Garlin?” he whispered.

Garlin’s voice cracked as he spoke in their language, and his reassuring tone had the sound of desperation. As Eldri’s eyes closed, his face went slack. For one horrible instant Roca thought he had died. But no, he was breathing, the rhythm shallow but regular. Her surge of relief was so intense, it almost hurt.

With great care, Garlin slid one arm under Eldri’s legs and the other around his back. Then he lifted his cousin and stood up, holding Eldri’s limp body. When he turned to Roca, she saw the same guilt in his eyes that she felt in her heart. Had their argument done this? She couldn’t speak, couldn’t ask that damning question.

Garlin carried Eldri up the stairs and she followed. Eldri was sleeping now; the firestorm in his mind had ended.

In Eldri’s suite, Garlin laid him on the bed and pulled off his boots. As he drew the quilt over his cousin, Eldri opened his eyes and spoke. Roca recognized none of the words except her name.

Garlin stiffened. He straightened up and stood, staring at Eldri, his face frozen. Then he turned to Roca with a leaden gaze. “He wishes to speak to you alone.”

She answered quietly. “Thank you.”

He just shook his head. Then he left. Roca watched him go, wishing she knew how to heal this pain. Turning back to Eldri, she sat next to him on the bed. “Are you all right?”

His lashes drooped. “Now you know.”

“Yes,” she murmured. “Do you have the seizures often?”

He opened his eyes, struggling with the effort. “More as I am older. Every ten or twenty days. Lately…every few days. It is why we came to the mountains. I improve here.” His voice was fading. “Happens more if I become upset…”

“I am so sorry,” she whispered.

“Not your fault.” He gave up the struggle and let his eyes close.

“The demons have come all my life…long before you and Garlin didn’t like each other.”

“Demons?”

“Garlin says they shake my body.”

“Ai, no.” Roca felt as if her heart ached. What else would he believe, in a society with so little health care, one where they became old in their thirties? She hated to think what he must have felt, spending his life convinced angry spirits wracked his body with such violence, growing stronger each year.

She spoke softly. “There are no demons, Eldri. You have a medical condition, a treatable one. I think it is epilepsy.”

“I do not know this word.”

“It means your brain has a problem.”

He smiled wanly. “When I was young, Garlin said similar. I often got into mischief. He would intone about my behaving myself. But really, he liked fun, even if he tried to be stern…” His voice trailed off.

After a moment, Roca realized he had fallen asleep. She watched him for a while, smoothing the hair off his forehead when he stirred. He looked younger in sleep, hardly more than a boy.

Brad Tompkins had asked if she had ever had to watch someone she loved die because they lacked medical care. She remembered all too well her self-righteous response. Gods, she wished she could take back those words. Of course she had never suffered such heartbreaks. Everyone in her circle had the best medical care possible. Eldri lived on the other side, in the bleak struggle to survive an illness with no cure among his people, no treatment, no explanation.

The severity of his attack frightened her. Having so many of his neurons fire at once had to be like a storm sweeping his brain. And psions had extra neural structures. She had never known an empath or telepath with epilepsy before, but she could see how having so many more neurons could worsen his condition. His seizure had lasted longer than the one or two minutes predicted by her node. Her files listed a condition, status epilepticus, in which the seizures didn’t stop, but kept on going. Mercifully, Eldri’s had ended. But if he experienced such severe attacks often, increasing in frequency as he grew older, then without treatment he had no chance of a normal life. It was no wonder he wanted to live his life with such intensity now, fearing he might die tomorrow.

He could be right.

Roca walked down the Vista Hall, a long, narrow room that overlooked the northern mountains, behind the castle, on the side opposite the approach from the plains. The windows here were twice the height of a person and wider than she could stretch her arms. Normally they let in copious sunlight, but today most had their shutters closed. At the end, one pair was open, letting light and freezing air pour into the hall. Outside, across the canyon that surrounded Windward, a secluded valley nestled in the cliffs. The Backbone Mountains rose above it like gigantic, contorted needles.