The Sleeping Life (Eferum Book 2) (37 page)

"Are the bugs still coming?" she asked.

"The casting should have removed much of their motive power," Rennyn said. "But there may be a remnant."

They all listened intently, and then Fallon's sister said: "I can hear noise, but I don't think it's bugs."

"Thirty mages." Lord Surclere crossed to take Rennyn from Sukata.

"Thirty confused, dirty, scared, cross mages," Kendall predicted.

"Hungry, too, I expect," Aurienne said. "And most of them weren't dressed for the cold, and some didn't have shoes."

They shared a mutual glance of 'what a headache', which became very odd for Kendall thanks to the Imperial Smugness' insufferable face getting in the way.

"How is Lieutenant Meniar?" Rennyn asked.

"Breathing," Darian Faille said.

"That was closer to his limit than I care to think about." Rennyn shut her eyes, but seemingly out of relief, not tiredness.

"Look at his hand," the Pest said, and then lifted Lieutenant Meniar's hand so that they could see the cut he'd given himself, neatly healed, and surrounded by a deep imprint of an ivy leaf.

"Thirty cross mages with leaves for hair," Aurienne said, brightly.

That made Rennyn laugh. "I hope not. As for the other concerns...I am going to attempt to reverse Nameen's Walk. It's a very energy-hungry casting, and I don't understand it enough to change the departure or destination points, but I think I can hold it for the amount of time it apparently took me to walk here in the first place." She glanced up at Captain Faille. "I think it's the best choice in the circumstances."

All Captain Faille did was nod, but there was no doubt he didn't like the idea. Not because he didn't trust Rennyn's casting, but because she was injured, sick, and a really big spell was guaranteed to lay her out. Though that was probably the exact same reason he didn't object. Back at Aurai's Rest there would be all the Sentene mages and the other Kellian to deal with whatever problems came up. The longer they stayed here, the less time and energy could be devoted to making sure Rennyn woke up tomorrow.

"They will find us frightening," Captain Faille said, frankly. "Fallon and Aurienne, do you feel you can act as less unnerving intermediaries?"

"Of course!" Aurienne said, and shot at her brother: "My Kolan's not
that
bad."

"Do you wish them brought to the entrance, or here?" Captain Faille asked Rennyn.

"I came out at the entrance, but I think this is the origin point. Perhaps the shield interfered? Anyway, yes, here would be best."

Kendall had never been more pleased not to know any Kolan than when she and Sukata were told to stay and look after Rennyn and Lieutenant Meniar, while everyone else went to herd mages. Since Rennyn simply sat herself before the wall where this 'Walk' was supposedly written down, Kendall turned to the little matter of broken golems. The one Sukata had smashed had vanished, but the south-facing corridor was all over glass.

Months of practice hadn't made Kendall as strong as Sukata yet, but she had definitely made leaps and bounds in the tidying things with her mind stakes. She swept all the big chunks to one side with a satisfactory clatter, and began work on the shards.

"You will bring back your headache," Sukata said, standing under the arched entrance to the central courtyard.

"Don't think I could make my head hurt worse than it already is," Kendall said, shrugging. "You just watch—you need to rest."

Sukata produced an uncharacteristically visible frown. "You will make yourself ill," she said.

"I suspect it's fine, Sukata," Rennyn said, from around the corner. "Come talk to me a moment, Kendall."

Suspicious. Kendall had had a sense all day that she'd missed part of a conversation, but she wasn't going to show her confusion, walking back to stand, arms folded, over Rennyn,

"Sit down," Rennyn said, and once Kendall had obeyed added cheerfully: "You don't lack for pigheadedness."

"Thanks heaps." What the Hells had she done to earn a lecture?

"It's a valuable trait in a Thought Mage. What you don't seem to have noticed is you made a transition, holding open Nameen's Walk. There is absolutely no way you could have achieved that without abstract Thought casting."

"What?" Kendall stared from Rennyn to Sukata, then shook her head. "I was just propping the roof up."

"Ideally, your day today would have involved a lot of meditation and carefully controlled exercises. Though I doubt you would have been much impressed by the meditation. On the whole I don't hold a great deal of concern about you accidentally setting things alight: your control is very good. However, I would prefer you didn't cast unnecessarily over the next few days while I am busy being unconscious."

Hot all over, Kendall started to speak, threw away a half dozen things she wanted to shout on the subject of important information that should be mentioned sooner, and finally said: "And if you kill yourself with this Nameen's Walk stunt?"

"Then I have most conveniently written a little manual on how to become a Thought Mage in six simple steps," Rennyn said, and obviously thought herself funny. "Seb can take over your training—he truly is capable of focusing on the practical aspects instead of the theory—but I'd recommend not waiting until you get back to Tyrland before going through the exercises I outlined."

The roaring sound had come back, but it seemed to be all inside Kendall's head. She glared at the source of her anger, snapped: "Shouldn't you be concentrating on figuring out that spell?" and went back to clearing away glass. And not thinking about setting things on fire.

Sukata had followed her, but was being all hesitant, so Kendall made herself cool down a little and asked in an even sort of voice: "You knew?"

"I was not told," Sukata said, which meant Kellian hearing.

"And you didn't tell me because—?"

That made Sukata turn particularly grave. "Because I do not repeat private conversations."

There was no answer to that which wouldn't make Sukata feel all tied up, so Kendall dropped the point. "It should have been you," she said instead.

"Why?" Sukata started to hold out her hand, then lowered it. "I know I made it seem like we were in competition, that I was angry that you—"

"No you didn't," Kendall said, sharply. "I never thought you were—well, not for more than five minutes. That's not how you work. I've
told
you that."

"And avoided me. Stopped talking to me. Wouldn't meet my eyes."

"That's because of that stupid Emperor!" Kendall snapped, and then regretted it because she couldn't just leave it there. "He—he went on at me about how people just go around doing what the Kellian want, and asked what you get out of me and…and…" Kendall had made it worse, and hurried on frantically. "I didn't believe him, told him he was an idiot. I'm sorry. I didn't believe him, but I kept remembering what he said. And I couldn't answer his question. I couldn't say why you were my friend and…" She hung her head, feeling worse than she ever had in her life because whatever she tried she just seemed to keep hurting Sukata.

And Sukata laughed. Kendall hadn't even known that she could. It was a strange little muted sound, but definitely a laugh and though Sukata wasn't smiling when Kendall's head shot up, her eyes were blazing bright.

"Have you noticed," Sukata said, in her thin, broken voice, "that the best parts of being alive don't need an explanation?"

Kendall had never been kissed before. She did not know what to do when Sukata bent her head. She felt clumsy and awkward and confused and resentful.

And happy.

"I am so proud of you, Kendall," Sukata said, and squeezed her tight, then kissed her again.

Someone cleared their throat. Kendall hastily let go and turned to find a woman standing watching with an air of patience, as if she'd been there for a while. One of the mages.

She didn't have leaves for hair—it was braided in an elaborate style, though with strands sticking out all over the place—and dressed in what had once been a very nice dress and now…was not. But that was not the thing that made Kendall struggle not to stare. The deep brown skin of the woman's cheeks was ever-so-faintly indented by the unmistakeable outline of a leaf, of an entire, interconnected pattern of leaves, as if she was a puzzle put together from ivy pieces.

She talked in Kolan gabble, of course, but didn't fire up at whatever Sukata said in response, and followed without fuss when Sukata led her to the central courtyard. Kendall was not quite glad about the interruption, but it gave her a moment to try to put what had just happened into some sort of recognisable state. She felt as if she was Rennyn: as likely to fall down as to take the next step.

"Rennyn Claire!" the leafy woman repeated, when Sukata had made introductions, and then when Rennyn indicated the faint carvings on the wall, the name 'Nameen' came up in all the gabble that followed—gabble that grew and grew as Captain Faille and the Pest escorted in four more mages, and Darian Faille and Aurienne brought five more, and left almost right away. Not all of these wanted to talk about Nameen, and one was shouting more than gabbling, and Kendall could see that Rennyn was going to be left with no voice at all if she tried explaining the same things over and over. She'd already moved past croaky on to hoarse.

Remembering she had a coat full of distractions, Kendall handily drew off almost all of the mages by offering the collection of focuses. And then the first woman they'd met, who seemed to be called Maja Keshkant, took charge. She shooed everyone away from Rennyn, and made them stand in line to take a turn scuffling through the collection in Kendall's coat. She sent Sukata off for water. She examined Lieutenant Meniar, then snaffled his slate and chalk box and cast something on Rennyn to help with her throat.

'Maja' was Kolan for 'Magister', and since everyone in the room was an upper-reaches sort of mage, and they were all talking at each other, it was Maja, Maja, Maja all over the place. They sounded like a herd of cranky goats. But, Kendall had to admit, most of them soon shifted to quiet listening, explaining things to the next group of arrivals, and organising a hunt about for any focuses that had been missed among the roots of the vine.

When Sukata came back carrying a lot of water in a segment of golem, one mage figured out a way to smooth the edges of other collected pieces so they had some useable glasses. Another filched all the slates and made detailed sketches of the readable sections of the carving Rennyn had been studying.

"Do you think maybe we should try and talk Herself out of casting this Walk?" Kendall murmured to Sukata, when the Kellian girl had finally been freed of water duty, and Kendall couldn't find any other way to shut up the argument in her head about whether to take hold of Sukata's hand. "This lot can cast all the spells we need."

"Look at the Duchess' feet."

Kendall looked, and grimaced. Although Captain Faille had been carrying Rennyn about most of the time, the bottom of the makeshift bandages was dusty-black, and damp in patches. Oozing. Even with all the advantages of a couple of dozen mages, they were still out in the middle of nowhere having to make their supplies from scratch, and were already close to running out of spare shirts.

"We spent all morning building a house for nothing."

"I was not looking forward to sleeping in it."

"I suppose we would have all caught Herself's cold, too."

"Perhaps." Sukata reached out and took Kendall's hand, and squeezed it. "She will come through this. She has her own brand of pigheadedness."

"Bah," Kendall said, and squeezed back. The air was decidedly nippy now, but she felt hot all over.

Captain Faille had returned once again, and the mages clustered closest to Rennyn parted like magic to let him through to pick her up. Kendall guessed that he told her that there were no more mages to come, for she nodded briskly, and said something to Maja Keshkant, who promptly clapped her hands together like a teacher bringing a class to order.

"We are to line up in pairs," Sukata translated, as the Kolan woman began speaking. "It is important that we stay as close as possible together, and move briskly. If anyone lags or stumbles, those around must do what they can to keep them moving. It is important to not prolong the casting time."

Darian Faille had Lieutenant Meniar slung over her shoulder. The Pest and his sister-Samarin linked elbows. The more squabbly of the mages reluctantly found someone to hang on to. Tesin, toting the Imperial Smugness' sword, trotted down to play rear guard—and perhaps gee up anyone who started to lag.

Invisible, intangible, loudly there, a tunnel opened. Kendall clutched Sukata's hand, remembering the headache she'd earned last time, and how that had apparently let her in for accidentally doing all sorts of things. That was probably important not to think about right now, so she kept her head down, and trooped forward with the rest.

It seemed like no time at all before the feeling of a tunnel went away, along with the last trace of late afternoon. They were somewhere dark and cold, and Kendall briefly wondered if Rennyn had managed to send them altogether wrong, but then she turned and saw the lights of Aurai's Rest. And there came Lieutenant Faral, bounding at the head of a crowd to find Lieutenant Meniar in the confusion and snatch him into her arms.

She must have squeezed him tight, because he woke up with a gasp, and then said: "Keste," in a pleased little voice, before going straight back to sleep.

Rennyn had actually managed to keep her eyes open. Too many people were crowding around her for Kendall to get a proper look, even when they started conjuring little lights, and moving toward the nearest buildings. But she'd got them here, and there would be a warm bath, clean clothes, and probably half a dozen healers to fuss over her. Rennyn would be all right.

She would.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Rennyn woke, and celebrated that fact. Then she groaned, coughed, and croaked: "Illidian?"

"Off at a Kellian meeting."