Springwar (47 page)

“Strynn, lay out the gems,” Avall murmured. While she fumbled with the pouch that never left her side, he rubbed absently at a water stain on the lustrous wood. The grain fascinated him, as the patterns of ice crystals had fascinated him when he’d begun the helm, as the whorls of Strynn’s fingertips had fascinated him, which he’d never told her about, either. It was something else to explore. When he had time to explore again.

And then all he saw were Strynn’s hands, laying a strip of fabric atop the stain, and slowly upending the pouch over it. Stones clinked against each other: four smooth ovals of murky red, lit with inner fire. The smallest was the size of the end joint of his little finger, the largest the size of a human eye—bigger, by a bit, than the one he’d lost. Using the tip of his dagger, he arranged them in a line, then passed the
dagger to Rann. Another breath, and he slowly touched each gem in turn, seeking any reaction.

There wasn’t—at first. But he tried again, sweat now dampening his fingertips. The smallest one was dormant. The next two were much of a size, almost twins—like him and Merryn. He hesitated between the two, then moved on to the large stone. It—rejected him. Not with dislike, but with a strange, gentle firmness, like a mother denying the breast to a child that had grown too old.

Back to the twins. He closed his eyes. Touched one, then the other. Then the first again.

“That one glowed,” Rann murmured. “I saw it, very faintly.”

Avall opened his eyes. “Knife,” he whispered.

Rann handed it to him.

Steeling himself to enact a rite he hadn’t undertaken in far too long, and the repercussions of which he both anticipated and dreaded, he drew the blade along the tip of that same finger. Once, twice, before blood showed. Then, taking yet another deep breath, he rested his wrist on the table and touched the bleeding finger to the gem.

Fire ran up his arm—not a flame of pain, but of greeting. It was like he felt when he poured himself into Strynn and Rann, except that something in the gem was responding to something in him that was
not
him. And that conflagration was spreading, racing through him like fire through straw, or dye through water, leaving him forever changed. Forever brighter, forever deeper, forever … stronger.

He gasped, for his heart had been too startled to beat, and then had been unable to beat as that power wrapped around it. It reached his brain and with it his
self
, and his soul, and began to flood out there.

“Rann, Strynn—” he choked.

And that part of him that could still feel, felt their hands fold over his wrists. Part of him knew, too, that there’d been no time for them to cut themselves, to contribute their own blood. Yet there was still a joining.

Even better, he felt Strynn and Rann experiencing what he’d just experienced himself, but through their own stones.
And once again there was that eerie spark of recognition, as though something in him but not part of him joined in celebration with a part of them that was not
of them
.

Somehow Div was there, too, and Avall felt … strength—or power—or energy—or magic—or whatever it was, start to flow in a circle between them, from him to Strynn to Div to Rann and back to him, each time stronger.

But each circuit forced him farther away from himself as well, and closer to what he called the Overworld. That place where strange things happened he was not yet ready to confront.

But the energy was there, as well, and he knew he had to use it.

He never knew whether it was
his
thought that focused it, or Strynn’s or Rann’s, or maybe even the gem’s itself, but all at once they were out of themselves entirely, and looking down on all the vast length of Eron, with one goal alone in mind.

Merryn.

We have to include her in this
, came Strynn’s thought.
It is too wonderful to restrict to us
.

Whatever pleases you
, Rann replied.
I’m only here to be
.

Merryn
, was all Avall thought. Simply
Merryn. Merryn. Merryn
.

For a moment they spiraled through nothingness, and then Avall felt something familiar, that to his companions in nothingness must surely feel passing strange. He felt them all four lodge in another mind. But this time that mind was not asleep. This time their strength was such that they had reached her full awake.

Avall opened his eyes, but the eyes he gazed through were his twin’s.

“Brother,” she whispered into the gloom of what looked like some kind of ill-lit cell. “Where are you?”

Within you, sister
, Strynn replied.

A confusion of startled joy clanged through Avall, so strong he almost withdrew.
We must be quick
, he said.
We have found more gems. We are … I suppose we are seeking the other
.

The one Eddyn stole?
from Merryn.

How did you know that?

He … told me
.

He is there?

Yes. But oh, Avall, War-Hold has fallen, and there is war everywhere and I am captive and—

Slowly, sister
, Avall advised.
Tell us where you are and how you came there and what of the traitor Eddyn
.

He’s no traitor
, Merryn shot back.
They seek to use him in every way and he resists. He did not come here of his own free will
.

But he has the gem
.

He could almost feel her shake her head.
Barrax has the gem. He wants us to show him how to use it, but we don’t
know
how
.

But—

Remember how it was before, Avall
, Merryn broke in, her silent impatience like shouting.
We did not
need
to use words to explain what had happened. And it was both clearer and faster
.

The vehemence of that admonition rattled Avall—
he
was supposed to be the expert on gem lore, after all—but then he thrust his vanity aside and “told” her as much of what had transpired since their last contact as he could manage—not as narrative so much as pure bursts of images and emotions. And then it was her turn. Avall felt memories slide into his brain and lodge there that he knew he’d be able to sort out later. For now it was enough that he’d found Merryn. Enough that she and Strynn were finally able to share some of the closeness he and Rann had shared.

More and more information she poured into him, and he into her, and they reveled in that contact after so long apart. Yet every moment took more effort, more strength that no longer felt quite so inexhaustible, now that the first flush of joy had faded.

More effort, and then more yet, and Avall had to work to sustain the link, and then he could
not
sustain it. He grabbed for it frantically, to no avail.

And then sudden cold enfolded him and the link was
severed, and he blinked back to Eellon’s workroom to see Lykkon standing beside him, clutching a pitcher of water he’d just splashed over the four of them. To his horror, some of it was freezing as it touched his skin.

Lykkon looked frightened beyond reason. “It was all I knew to do,” he stammered through chattering teeth. “I felt cold, and then colder, and then cold enough to scare myself, and there was ice in the air around you. And …”

“Eellon!” Avall cried, rushing for the door. Bingg met him there also shivering, but his cheeks were more flushed. “He fainted just now. I was coming to tell you.”

Avall seized him savagely. “But he lives? Tell me he lives!”

“He lives, but he’s very, very cold. As were we all. But that means it … worked. Right?”

“It worked,” Avall agreed dazedly. “Maybe it worked too well. But let’s pray we haven’t paid too high a price for that success.”

“Aye,” Rann acknowledged. “But at least we know Merryn is alive.”

“I’m not sure I
want
to know where,” Strynn added grimly.

“Doesn’t matter,” Avall replied. “No matter where she is, we’ll have to get her out of there.”

Rann regarded him strangely. “Well,” he yawned, “I guess one thing at least is … better.”

Merryn was lost.

Utterly and completely lost. Not from anything as prosaic as landscape, either; she was lost from her very
body
. Her senses told her nothing. Sight showed not blackness, but an utter absence of color. She heard nothing. Not wind, not the low drone of voices that had been her constant companion for days uncounted. Not the distant clank of weapons being cleaned or practiced with, or honed. There was nothing to smell because there was no air. Nothing to taste save the fear that welled up in some distant part of her.

Nothing to feel but cold.

Yet even that was distant.

She was nowhere: a thread stretched too tight in the night, then severed, left dangling in winds that didn’t blow, beneath a sky that
wasn’t
.

And only a moment before she’d been oh-so-firmly anchored by Avall, by Strynn, by Rann—by someone she didn’t know, but for whom they all held deep regard. She clutched at it desperately. She hadn’t finished what she had to say, dammit, and she wanted that comfort back.

But something sought to draw her away as well: a second, more substantial anchor, which reached to this not-place to torture her with cold.

Which, at least, was a feeling.

Avall?
she cried one last time.
Strynn, my sister. Rann …

Silence answered. Silence within a greater void.

But the cold was stronger and she acquiesced to it, let it reel her in like a fish on a line. Back and back and back, to where sensations slowly returned.

Where there was a redness behind closed eyelids.

Where men shouted encouragement in endless weapons drills.

Where the air smelled of smoke and sweat and horses and drying dung. And spring.

Where the taste of fear in her mouth was like wine in its intensity.

Where she was cold beyond reason.

So cold …

Too cold to live. A vibration in her bones, a clatter in her ears like thunder, was her own teeth chattering. A pain like twin daggers in her breast was her lungs fighting to breathe ice. Her heart beat wildly, as it tried to pump frozen blood.

She blinked once at a world where even the most minor stimulus was orders of magnitude too intense.

And then found a place inside herself to hide.

In every sense but one, she died.

Only her will remained alive. Fighting stubbornly to bring warm air to fight the cold in her lungs. Reveling in the warmth of the circle of sunlight into which she’d fallen.

For fallen she had, in a noisy clatter of wooden crockery.

Rhyxx min Mykkix stood at nominal attention halfway down the columned arcade that had once been some kind of cloister, but which now fronted twenty make-do prison cells. That was the exact number, too; the Gods knew he’d counted them often enough since being stationed here. As he’d checked the locks and hinges often enough as well—new hardware fixed to thick old wood, with everything on the
outside
, so as to keep prisoners confined. Ironic, that: The priestly former occupants had bolted the doors on the inside, to protect their contemplation.

He supposed he should consider this post an honor—these were very important prisoners, after all, including the king’s son himself. Still, maintaining vigilance while doing nothing was more tiring than one thought. Why—

He froze. He’d heard something. A rattle and a thump, like someone falling, down in the corner cell, the one occupied by the Eronese woman. Probably nothing, besides which, someone else had duty down there. He scratched an itch under his armor, sighed, and tried to stand up straighter. And waited. There was no sign of Keexin moving to investigate. No sign of Keexin at all, in fact. Then again, Keexin had a notoriously strong appetite, which often resulted in fluxes the next day. He’d certainly indulged himself enough the previous evening; probably he’d gone to the garderobe. Still, he should’ve told someone before disappearing.

But suppose something
was
wrong? These prisoners were mostly High Clan and therefore well behaved, as well as being important enough—some of them—to be summoned to audience with the king himself. Any atypical noise should therefore be investigated.

Especially when it came from that cell in particular.

A deep breath, and he signaled Keexin’s counterpart, Tymm, who was stationed down by Kraxxi’s cell, at the opposite corner from the noise, motioning the younger man to join him.

Tymm shouted something unintelligible, then shrugged, and started up the arcade. Meanwhile, Rhyxx had gone on
ahead, and was fumbling with the suspect cell’s tiny spy hatch. It took longer than expected to open, and longer again for his eyes to adjust to the gloom inside. But then he saw Merryn, sprawled from her stool into the scanty patch of sunlight provided by the cell’s far window.

Horror filled him. She was—

She couldn’t be.

“Tymm,” he hissed. “Keep watch, and if anything is amiss—”

Tymm peered past his companion, and scowled. “Your call, Rhyxx, but she’s surely too smart to expect that old ruse to succeed.”