The Guardian (20 page)

“To order into battle, yes.” Dival frowned as he ducked his head. “But this?”

“They go to battle,” Talan said. “They go to find Ellyn.”

Dival studied the five hunters with obvious disapproval. “And do they find her? What then? Shall they bring her back or tear her apart?”

“I’ll wed her if I can, but if I cannot, then …” Talan shrugged. “Better Chaldor have no heir than some symbol of Andur’s line. Would you not agree, my general?”

Dival grunted, turning uncomfortably on his chair. “I’d not thought it would go this way.”

“These are modern times,” Talan said, “and we use modern methods. Must I use a Vachyn sorcerer, then I shall—and use his methods to conquer.”

Dival nodded mournfully. “And when you’ve Ellyn—alive or dead?”

“I shall own Chaldor beyond dispute.” Talan raised a goblet, waiting for a servant to fill the cup. “And none shall argue my dominion. I shall own both sides of the Durrakym and make Danant the greatest kingdom this world has ever known.”

“Save you’ll owe it to the Vachyn.”

Talan shrugged. “Nestor’s a hired man. I’ve paid his price and he works for me.”

“And when he’s given you what you want?”

“I shall discharge him. He’ll go back to the temple.”

“Will he?”

“What else?” Talan drank wine. “The Vachyn work for money, no? They hire their magicks to the highest bidder, and when they’re done …”

“I wonder,” Dival said. “Do they go home to that temple of theirs, or do they … linger?”

“I’ve paid Nestor to give me Chaldor.” Talan set down his cup, staring at his doubtful general. “Already he’s given me Andur’s head and Chorym. Now he’ll give me Ellyn and dominion over Chaldor. Then he’ll go away.”

Nestor came into the chamber then. The things he had made panted hotter at sight of him, as if his presence energized them. He smiled and motioned them silent, like a huntsman calming his pack.

“It’s arranged.” The Vachyn seated himself. “A cart awaits and they can be taken unseen from the city. I’ll take the cart myself and let them loose some distance from Chorym. They’ll find her.” He smiled and gestured for a servant to bring him wine. “My word on it.”

“How long shall that take?” Talan asked.

“It depends,” Nestor answered, far calmer than his employer, “on where Gailard has taken her.”

“The sooner the better,” Talan said. “I’d not linger too long here—I’d go back to Danant.”

“Of course.” Nestor made a placatory gesture. “And I’d return to the Vachyn temple. But it shall take as long as it takes.”

Egor Dival snorted and the sorcerer smiled at him.

“My general doubts you,” Talan said. “He wonders at your motives.”

Nestor’s smile grew wider; Egor Dival scowled.

“My motives?” Nestor spread his hands wide, beaming at Dival. “I do what I am hired to do, General. Your king has hired me to win him a war and I am doing so. Do you argue with that?”

Sullenly, Dival shook his head.

“Then we’ve no dispute.” Nestor pushed back his chair, looking at Talan. “Shall I release my hunters?”

Talan nodded, avoiding Egor Dival’s angry stare.

The Vachyn went to the chamber’s door and beckoned.

The five hunters paced forward. The sorcerer opened the door and went through, his creatures following.

“This will not sit well with most folk,” Dival said. “They’ll say you league with dark magicks.”

“Does it win me Chaldor, I’ll not complain.” Talan held out his cup that a servant might fill it again. “Does it win me Ellyn, I’ll thank Nestor.”

Egor Dival sighed and watched the door swing closed.

N
estor took his creatures down through the corridors of Ryadne’s conquered palace to the waiting wagon. He saw them safe on board, then climbed astride the seat. He flicked the reins and murmured words to the four restive horses, steering them down through the rubble-filled streets to the East Gate. He passed that portal and drove awhile through ravaged farmlands. It was a mild afternoon, the sky blue and filled with billows of high white cloud. Swallows oblivious of the dramas beneath them darted in pursuit of insects. Nestor drove the wagon a league or so clear of Chorym, then halted.

He climbed from the seat and beckoned his creations down. They ranked about him, eager to hunt. He said, “Find Ellyn,” and set them loose.

He stood awhile, watching as they sniffed about, then set out running eastward. He smiled as he watched them disappear. All went well, just as he’d anticipated.

I
died.

I went beyond pain into a terrible darkness, and felt myself fall away, embracing that promised oblivion. I wanted it to end; I had failed. I had lost Ellyn to Eryk, who’d use her as he would to further his ends. I had failed Ryadne’s trust and Andur’s geas. It had been better I died in the Darach Pass than come to this, failing all who set their trust in me. I thought I had lost my honor, and in despair gave myself to oblivion. I dived into the darkness, willing that it take me. I thought that this must have been how it was for the men we lost on the river, coming back from our defeat at the Darrach Pass—all those who fell into the Durrakym, weighted by their armor and sinking remorseless into the water.

Then I saw light: a long, wide tunnel of brilliance that opened—far off—onto a brighter land. Promise hung in that light, like a lantern calling a wanderer home.

I wondered if the gods called me.

I gave up my body and—I can only describe it as swimming, for all I cannot swim—swam toward the light. I wanted to go there; I wanted to be free of this agony, and find peace.

And there I found a light so bright I was forced to open my hurting eyes, and found them healed and my body
painless, so that I stared into the brightness, and felt gentle hands cleanse my wounds, and saw a woman lave my naked body with tender touches.

It did not occur to me to feel embarrassment. I asked: “Who are you?”

“My name is Shara,” she said, “and I shall bring you back to life.”

“Then I did die?” I asked. It did not occur to me, then, to wonder how or why she saved me.

She nodded. “Yes.”

Her face was solemn and lovely. Hair black as a raven’s wing hung about her shoulders and I wondered how I could smell it; it was clean and scented like fresh juniper as it brushed my face. Her eyes were grey, and I thought she was not young. Webworks of age and care set crow’s-feet about those calm orbs, and there were lines on her face, about her mouth and cheeks; but they only seemed to me to make her more beautiful. She wore a robe, or armor—I could not tell which, for my vision floated about, and perhaps she was even naked—but she touched my body and my pain ceased. I saw again, clearly, and felt a great confusion.

“Are you a goddess?” I asked her.

She shook her head—which sent tendrils of that long black hair to stroking across my face—and said, “No; far less than that. Better think of me as a penitent seeking to make reparations for old sins.”

“Then how,” I asked, “can you return me to life?”

“Because I can,” she said.

It did not then—as pain ceased and I accepted that, in some manner I could not understand, I lived—occur to me to ask more questions. I did not ask her how she might work my resurrection, or to what end. I only looked down at my body and saw it healed;
felt
it healed.

I said, “Thank you,” and she touched my face and said, “Sleep now, and come the morning we’ll be on our way.”

I slept on her touch.

I
woke to a warming fire and the scent of heather. I stretched—wary—and found my body limber, healed of the dragging and the whipping and the crows’ attentions. I looked at the sky above me and saw clouds scudding across the blue; I felt a warm wind on my face, and heard it rustling the branches of the tree I’d been hung on. I rose and stretched and paced, examining my body and finding it clear of the scars I’d expected.

I was confused. Was I alive or dead? Was I gone to some benign afterlife or tormented by some succubus? I stared about, recognizing my surroundings and finding them entirely normal. I felt the grass under my feet and the wind on my skin, and realized I was naked.

There was no sign of Shara, but a fire burned and a prosaic kettle steamed. I felt embarrassed now, and confused, and crouched under my execution tree with my hands pressed about my genitals. I wondered what happened; I could not understand it. I had died and a beautiful woman had brought me back to life. I wondered where Ellyn was, and felt fresh guilt; Eryk’s camp was gone and I supposed Ellyn gone with them. I could see the detritus of their trail, leading away toward the Dur territory, but I could not see how I might follow. Not naked and afoot—even was I truly alive.

“Shall we eat breakfast and then go on?”

I jumped like a startled hare. I was not used to anyone creeping up on me, but Shara had caught me unawares. I covered myself as best I could and stared at the two fresh trout she held.

I still wondered if I lived, or if this was all some dream.

If the latter, then my dreams contained a remarkable semblance of reality, for the trout sizzled in the pan she set on the fire and I could smell their flesh crisping, feel saliva in my mouth as I realized I was very hungry. She sprinkled them with herbs and dropped leaves into the boiling kettle, then looked at me and smiled.

“Forgive me, I had forgotten.” She gestured toward the tree. “You’ll want your clothes.”

I followed the direction of her eyes and saw my gear set out, neatly folded. Undergarments and shirt, tunic and breeches, my boots, even my sword and shield—all was there, and I pulled them on, too grateful to wonder what magic delivered them.

Shara said, “I am sorry I could not bring you a horse, but that’s too large a burden to carry.”

“Carry?” I laced my breeks. “You
carried
these from Eryk’s camp?”

“Not as you mean it.” She shrugged, laughing. “I brought them by other means.”

I frowned and her smile faded. “Of course, you are Devyn, no? And you Devyn mistrust magic.”

I was no longer so sure I did, but still I asked her, “Who are you?
What
are you?” I felt mightily confused. “Am I alive or dead?”

“Alive,” she said. “Can you not feel that, not know it?”

I reexamined my body. I set my hands against the tree and felt its bark. I saw the marks I’d left there, red against the grey. There were still insects making the last of their feasting. I ducked my head. “I feel alive, but I do not understand.”

“Eat.” She passed me a platter. “Eat and listen, for we must soon be on our way if we’re to rescue Ellyn.”

Her voice was mellow, but I heard beneath its softness an urgency that matched my own. I nodded and took the plate and set to picking at the fish as she spoke, explaining what she’d done, with me interrupting as I failed to grasp the wonder of her magic. This was such stuff as baffled and befuddled me, and gave me hope and left me wondering, all at the same time.

“Two days you hung on the tree before I understood what I must do,” she told me. “I took another five to bring you back to life.”

“So I was dead for seven days?”

“I think only five; you clung hard to life, Gailard.” She smiled. “You’re strong, and your sense of honor supported you. I’d suppose that’s why you clung so hard to life—because of that geas.”

I shrugged, still anticipating that such a movement must bring me pain, and felt none. It was an odd feeling to have died and been resurrected, as if I could no longer be sure who I was, or who owned my life. I had owed debts before. Men had saved me in battle, but that was a thing of clashing swords and support of comrades—a thing warriors understood—whilst this was … I could not tell.

“You accepted Andur’s geas,” she said, then paused to delicately extract a bone from her mouth, “and Ryadne’s wishes. You did your best for Ellyn.”

I choked on what I ate. “Poor best with her taken by Eryk.”

“We’ll catch them up,” she said. “My word on that. But …”

“But?” I asked.

She sipped tea and looked me in the eyes. “There are things you must accept, or reject. Perhaps things you’ll not much like.”

“Such as?”

She set her cup aside. “Likely the first is that I am a Vachyn sorcerer.”

I reached for my blade and Shara smiled sadly.

“Ah, is that not ever the reaction? Because of what my people have done—would do.”

I held the sword above my head. I had not known I rose, only that I stood above her, poised to deliver a cut that should strike her head from her shoulders and cleave her to the waist.

She only went on smiling. “Shall you kill me, then?”

I hesitated, afraid of some trick. “You gave me back my life, so I’m in your debt. But you’re a Vachyn?”

“I am. Or was.” She nodded, seemingly unperturbed by my threatening stance. I wondered if I
could
kill her. “Do you sheathe that sword and hear me out?”

I could not possibly owe her less, so I nodded and settled to the ground. But I held my blade naked across my legs.

“I was born Vachyn,” she said sadly, as if telling an old, regretted story, “and I owned—
own
—much power. What do you know of the Vachyn, Gailard?”