Sunset of Lantonne (42 page)

Biting her lip, Ilarra said nothing, instead looking around at the room helplessly, waiting for some clue what to do next. As she waited, she began watching the other newcomer, the soldier at the door.

The elven man that had followed the dwarf into the room closed the door behind himself, then took up a position blocking it. He was wearing chain armor and the sashes all of the keep’s soldiers wore, but something in the way he never looked at anything but the floor caught Ilarra’s attention. Other than that one detail, he looked entirely normal. Shoulder-length yellow-brown hair in the style most of the elven men wore, standard clothing for the keep, and entirely average-looking equipment made him seem so entirely average that Ilarra could not stop watching him. Something seemed…wrong.

Meanwhile, the dwarven woman had taken up a position directly in front of Ilarra and was eyeing her suspiciously. After a moment, she said firmly, “You look fine, child. Tell me what your issue is or I’m going back to my room. The necromancer was bitching about you being sick and between you, me, and the walls, I think he’s been drinking.”

Glancing around the room at the three men present, Ilarra lowered her voice and answered, “It’s something in the blood I think. The skin over my heart is discolored.”

“Right,” Arlind announced, clapping her hands. “Boys…get out or I’ll put you out the window. No free shows and I’m too expensive for the lot of you.”

The soldier wasted no time opening the door. He whispered something to the other soldiers waiting outside, who escorted Raeln and Greth from the room in a hurry. Once they were out of sight down the hall, the elven man closed the door and bolted it.

Crossing her arms, Arlind tapped her foot impatiently as she glared at the soldier. “Which part of ‘boys’ was unclear, soldier?”

The man’s eyes came up from the floor slowly, and then he blinked like he had not realized anyone was speaking to him. “Me?” he asked, sounding truly confused.

“Yes. Get out or I put my boot in your ass.”

“My orders were to watch Ilarra. Ask any of the soldiers.”

“She isn’t leaving except through that door,” snapped Arlind. “Unless you think she can fly, you can ensure she’s still here by staying right outside.”

The man thought on that, then shook his head, saying in a completely neutral tone, “I doubt she can fly, but I would rather be sure that she is here. What reason do you have for wanting me to leave?”

“The girl has to take her shirt off and doesn’t want to be ogled by some pervert.”

“Ah, I think I understand. This is because I am male,” said the man in such a dry analytical tone that he almost reminded Ilarra of her father when he was lost in thought. The man turned in place to face the door. “Proceed.”

Groaning, Arlind turned back to Ilarra. “Sorry, child. The king hires some strange ones. This one’s high on that bloody list. I think he’s new.”

Ilarra giggled and nodded, then lifted her shirt high enough to show the gruesome black flesh she had seen two nights prior. When she looked, her skin prickled with chill as she saw the discoloration was almost entirely gone. A faint bruise-like discoloration covered the skin over much of the left side of her chest, but it looked as though it were healing.

“I see an overly-primped little girl who got hit too hard in traveling and thought she had the plague,” noted Arlind, poking Ilarra’s chest with a stubby finger. “Tell me you’re not one of those pansy elves who runs screaming for a healer every time they break a nail…I don’t take well to those kind.”

“No, it was there two days ago. The skin looked dead and Greth—the shorter wildling—said he smelled death on me.”

Arlind rubbed at her chin, staring absently toward where the wildlings had gone. “Let me try something,” she finally told Ilarra. “Cover up, child. I’ve seen enough and we’d like the stump at the door to not see any more than he has. I’m going to use a little magic and see what it shows me. Some of the weird diseases go dormant and try to hide. If it’s still in you, I’ll find it.”

Ilarra pulled her shirt back in place, giving the soldier another glance to be sure he had not been watching her. Thankfully, the man seemed to have remained perfectly still. He barely seemed to be breathing, let alone making any effort to peek.

Once Ilarra was ready, the magister grabbed Ilarra’s shirt to pull her down and then put a thick hand to Ilarra’s head and closed her eyes. Arlind remained like that for several minutes, her lips moving ever so slightly as she whispered to herself. Finally, she took her hand away.

“I felt nothing,” she said, shrugging helplessly. “Maybe whatever it was has already passed…”

A cramp shot through Ilarra’s stomach and moved into her lungs, making her gag. Gasping for breath, she fell to the floor, her whole body burning as it had the night she had killed the bear. Just like that time, she began vomiting, and when she opened her eyes, she saw blood all over the floor.

“That’s a new one,” muttered Arlind, helping Ilarra sit up as the spasms ended. “Hold still while I check again.”

Again, Arlind went through checking Ilarra’s neck and wrist, squinting into her eyes, and had her open her mouth wide. This time, Arlind looked genuinely shaken by the time she was done with her examination.

“I…I can’t help you,” the dwarf said quickly, backing away from Ilarra. “I’m sorry. I have to go…” Before Ilarra could answer, the woman ran, pushing past the soldier at the door and running down the hall.

“What was that about?” Ilarra wondered aloud, staring nervously at the blood that had already begun to dry.

“She fears what she has never seen before,” answered the soldier, picking up a blanket from the chair alongside him and coming over to stand beside Ilarra. “This is older than she is and yet unknown in these lands.”

Placing the blanket on Ilarra’s shoulders, the man stood at her side, watching her as she pulled the blanket tighter to shield herself from his eyes. As she did, she noticed the thin golden pattern in the otherwise drab cloth he had given her. “This was Mairlee’s,” she realized, finding the spot where Mairlee had yanked a thread from the sheet. “Who are you?”

Smiling, the soldier knelt at her side, studying her face in much the same way Arlind had. He showed no fear…or any other emotion.

“What you did to that animal in the woods alerted a great many things across this part of Eldvar,” he told her, speaking more softly. “I cannot heal this, Ilarra. What I can do is show you what it means and how to fight it for a time and aid you in doing so. In the end, the only thing I can promise you is death.”

Squeaking and hopping to her feet, Ilarra backed away from the man, raising a hand toward him. She had hoped the gesture might make him fear her, as most of the soldiers already knew she was a wizard. Instead, he continued to watch her with that same emotionless calm stare.

“Get out of my room!” she ordered. Keeping her hand aimed at the man, she tried to force herself to concentrate, readying herself to cast a spell if he tried to hurt her.

“That will only speed things along,” the man told her, waving dismissively at her. As he did, the magic she had reached for in her mind was gone, pushed away from her grasp. “Consider that my first gift. Learn to live without magic and you might extend your life somewhat. Every touch of magic will make your condition worse.”

“What is my condition?” Ilarra demanded, tightening her grip on the blanket. “Who are you?”

“Now is no time to show you what has happened. Take some time and accept what has been done to you before I show you more. Call me when you are ready and I will do what I can.”

“Why should I trust you?”

The man smiled and stood up, walking across the spot where blood had stained the floor a second before. Now, the boards were clean.

Stopping just far enough away that Ilarra could not have reached out and touched him, the man clasped his hands behind his back and bowed. “You met my mother out on the plains,” he explained. “I apologize, but I have no name from these lands to give you. I have been away from this place for far too long. The last name I was given was Nenophar, so you may use that if you wish.”

“Tell me what’s going on…whether my father is going to be okay…”

Nenophar smiled, though there was no emotion or warmth in it. “You are still a child, worried about family and friends. What is going to happen to Eldvar in the next year will destroy a child mercilessly. You will need to be an adult, or you will be lost even to me. Call me when you think you have found your strength, Ilarra.”

Ilarra blinked and the man was gone, leaving the room still and empty. The sheet around her shoulders remained, giving Ilarra the only indication that the man had ever been there at all.

Shaken and confused, Ilarra curled up on the room’s large bed, wrapping herself up in the sheet from Mairlee’s house. She stared at the floor where she had coughed up blood, even though the stain was gone. Deep down, she wondered how bad this had to be to scare a magister and warrant the somewhat-creepy visit from Nenophar. Each time she began to feel sorry for herself, her thoughts shifted to her father and his apprentices, miles away and without anyone that could help them. Inevitably, she thought about Raeln, wondering how her condition might affect him over time and whether he was suffering the same problems she was…thankfully, he had no magic, which seemed to be the trigger for her bouts. That might buy her more time to figure this out without having to tell him.

A click at the door startled Ilarra, and she realized that the room was quite dark, as the sun had fully set outside. No one had lit the torches or lanterns in the room, leaving it illuminated only by the stub of a candle at the table nearest the door.

Raeln, followed by Greth, snuck into the room, both men watching Ilarra to see if she was awake. She could see their concern even in the low light, letting her know that they had heard something of her visit with Arlind.

“She says I’ll be fine,” lied Ilarra, offering a fake smile. “They’re working on a cure for it. No reason to worry.”

Greth seemed to take that at face-value, immediately turning his attention to finding a spot to bed down for the night. He grabbed a pile of blankets and unceremoniously threw them into a heap in a corner, then flopped atop them, curling into a tight ball with his legs under him and tail almost wrapped around to his nose.

Raeln was far less swayed by Ilarra’s story. He remained at the door—which was hurriedly closed and locked by the soldiers outside—watching her for clues to whether she was lying to him. Somehow, he always knew. If nothing else, he would understand that she did not want to talk about it and leave it alone for a while, giving her time to figure out the details.

After a short period of Raeln standing there watching Ilarra, he finally lowered his head and went to the remaining open space on the room’s floor, opposite Greth and closer to the bed. Turning in place to smooth out the rug he stood on, Raeln sat down and closed his eyes, his back straight as he drifted off into his meditation.

Still curled up in the sheet, Ilarra tried to make herself lay down and sleep, but she could not make her mind stop racing with “what-if’s” of the strange condition she had. She simply was not tired and knew that she would spend the whole night worrying if she did not find some way to relax.

After a few long minutes, she got up off the bed and went over to Raeln. Like she had as a child, she lay down at his side and put her head against his chest, listening to his powerful heartbeat as a constant to focus on when she was afraid or worried. She had always found it soothing to hear that booming beat of his heart and feel the comparatively tiny thump of her own and he had welcomed her using him as a pillow when she needed the comfort.

This time, Ilarra did not find the sound nearly as comforting as she had in the past. It took her a minute to realize why. She could hear Raeln’s heart beating strongly, but that was the only heartbeat she heard.

Touching her wrist, Ilarra’s stomach clenched nervously as she sought her pulse. She checked her neck and similarly found nothing. It was as if her heart had stopped and she went on living and breathing.

Ilarra struggled to keep from shaking Raeln, begging for his help. Instead, she lay back and stared at the ceiling, wondering what was happening to her. From the corner of her eyes, she thought she saw Greth’s eyes pop open briefly, watching her, but when she looked, he appeared to be asleep.