ZYGRADON (6 page)

"What did I do?" Mrillis asked. He tried to ignore the staring, muttering
boys.

"Well..." Le'esha sat on the edge of his empty cot. "You answered the question
of whether you burned out your
imbrose
."

For a few seconds, Mrillis could only blink and try to clear his thoughts and
stare. Then he sucked in a loud breath when he realized what she meant.

"I did something. I brought you?"

"You contacted me unknowing." Le'esha shared a crooked little smile with
Theana. "You were loud enough to interrupt a boring discussion of household matters."
That earned a snort of laughter from Theana. "What were you doing?"

"I had a...." Mrillis sighed and looked around the dormitory. A few more boys
had awakened. It took all his courage to tell the truth. "I had a bad dream."

"A good dream, if you think about the results," Aelix said. She got to her feet
and gestured for Mrillis to stand.

Le'esha held out her hand, and Mrillis put his hand into her grip. She half-closed
her eyes and cupped his chin with her free hand. He shivered, feeling warmth, delicate as
gossamer, brush up against something deep inside his head. This totally new sensation
made him feel dizzy, nauseous, then exhilarated, so he thought he could leap straight
through the ceiling, all the layers of the Stronghold, out into the night sky.

"Yes," the Queen of Snows said. She nodded and slowly opened her eyes. "Yes,
something momentous has happened." Her crooked smile widened. "However, discussing
what has happened can wait until morning. To bed. All of you," she added as she got to
her feet. Her stern glance around the room hushed the mutters and groans. Blankets
rustled and cot frames creaked and boys burrowed under their covers again.

"Did I have a Seeing?" Mrillis whispered, and let Le'esha guide him back into his
cot. He lay down and she pulled the blanket up to his chin.

"We will decide that tomorrow," she said, just as quietly, and brushed a kiss
across his forehead.

Darkness crept over him, heavy and sweet and warm, and he knew she had
used magic to make him sleep. Mrillis closed his eyes and surrendered, grateful. He didn't
want to hear the other boys grumble or tease, and he didn't want to answer questions.
He just hoped he wouldn't dream again before morning.

* * * *

To Mrillis' surprise and disappointment, Le'esha didn't question him about his
dream when she called him into her office the next day. Instead, she gave him warmed
wine and honey, gritty with powdered herbs. When he drank it, she told him to
remember, but not think about the dream. He frowned, struggling to understand for so
long, she laughed.

"Trying to understand your dream could well change it in your memory," she
explained. She touched his chin with her index finger and tipped his head back. "Do you
feel sleepy yet?"

"A little. Will you look at my dreams while I'm asleep?"

"You won't sleep, my lad." She smiled and brushed his hair off his forehead.
"Close your eyes and think about your dream...and think about me being there, watching
over your shoulder."

That was easier than he anticipated. Whether that came from the potion, which
made him feel as if he floated a handspan above the chair, or through Le'esha's power,
Mrillis didn't know. Until the potion wore off, he didn't care, either. The sensation of
Le'esha being there at his side helped hold back the sharper, colder edge of his terror. Yet
he still cried out in shock again when he saw her face and the red-haired boy. It was a
relief to open his eyes and see her standing in front of him and feel her warm hands
cupping his head.

Le'esha's eyes were white with a Seeing. Long after Mrillis opened his eyes, she
stood as still as stone. Then she blinked, lowered her hands, and stepped back. She
sighed, and the white mist of the Seeing left her eyes with her exhaled breath.

"What, Lady?" he asked, his voice hushed.

"Why do you dream of someone trying to capture you?"

Mrillis sat back and stared into her pale green eyes. How could he know the
reasons for his dreams?

Le'esha stepped back and perched on the edge of her worktable. "I will phrase it
another way, my inquisitive, deep-thinking lad." She paused and waited until she had his
unblinking attention. "Who put the idea in your head that someone searched for you to
harm you?"

Mrillis bowed his head, suddenly afraid that she would see the answer in his
eyes. It was more important not to betray the existence of the bubble in the rock than to
answer without lying, even as he hid the truth.

"I heard. When Master Breylon came. About the boys. Killed by Encindi," he
blurted, studying the toes of his boots pressed hard against the smoothed stone floor of
her office.

"Ah. That explains some of it."

Mrillis raised his head and dared look at her again. He couldn't quite believe the
hint of laughter in her voice. Le'esha certainly looked serious. No, he realized a moment
later. She looked tired. And worried.

His fault, no doubt.

"Haven't you been listening to your teachers? That which fills your mind has
power over you. Thinking about the Nameless One, wondering what he will do to find
you, opened a doorway between you. He is indeed looking for you, and even if he has
not yet found you in your dreams, you sensed his presence."

"What about the boy?"

"The boy." She shook her head. "Someone else whose mind you touched when
you touched mine last night."

"He was afraid."

"Yes. I gathered that."

"I wish I could help him."

"That is a good and honorable wish." She held out her hands. Mrillis stood and
stepped toward her and put his hands into her grasp. "However, it is dangerous.
Reaching untrained for another mind and soul could open you to danger in the realm of
spirit and mind. Promise me, my lad, you will fill your mind with your lessons and leave
off worrying about the Nameless One and his useless threats against you."

Mrillis wanted to ask her why she was so worried, if the rebel enchanter wasn't
a danger. He looked into her weary eyes and knew better than to ask.

"We will protect you. All the Rey'kil children. The Nameless One is a threat to
all Rey'kil, not just you." She released his hands, and enfolded him in her arms. "I promise
you, my dear one, we will gather all our strength and fight this danger. You will not
grow up in fear or tainted by danger."

That night, Mrillis dreamed of the red-haired boy he had seen. The boy didn't
look horrified, only sad. He spoke, but Mrillis couldn't hear a word the other boy said.
He thought of what Le'esha had told him, what his teachers had taught him about his
duty to help and protect.

Maybe he had been shown this boy because it would be his duty to find him
and help him?

If this boy lived with the Nameless One, he definitely needed helping.

* * * *

When Mrillis and the other boys gathered at the door of the tunnel to
Wynystrys, to return to the island for lessons, Le'esha joined them. She wore a hooded
cloak against the chill in the tunnel, and carried a basket filled with pottery jars that
clinked softly among rags swaddling them against breakage. Mrillis caught a glimpse of
the markings on the jars and knew she took healing salve and other potions to the island.
Like the other boys, he was reluctant to ask why she was going to Wynystrys. They all
just stood there in the antechamber, waiting while the door was unbarred and pulled
open. Finally, Le'esha laughed, startling them all.

"I'm not certain what you're afraid of," she said, and nodded thanks to the two
sentinels who had unbound the sealing magic on the tunnel door. "Do you think the
Stronghold will fall to rubble if I leave it for a day? Or are you afraid I'm going to
oversee your lessons on the island, as well as here?"

Mrillis held out his hand, offering silently to take the basket. He wasn't quite
sure what he sensed, but he knew all would be well if Le'esha didn't let him carry the
basket for her. The Queen of Snows smiled at him.

"Thank you, my dear, but the walk is short, and you will have to hurry off to
your lessons as soon as we arrive. I'm going to have a nice, long talk with Master Breylon
and leave some salves for his healers, and then come home again. Nothing to worry
about." She nodded toward the black, gaping mouth of the tunnel. "Percus, you can lead
the way this time."

The white-haired, gray-eyed boy jumped when she said his name, but he
grinned and bowed with a flourish of his cape, and stepped into the darkness. Starting in
the summer, Percus would be old enough to stay all spring and summer on the island.
Mrillis envied him a little. Not enough to want to leave his home in the Stronghold for
moons at a time, but enough to look forward to the time he would be old
enough.

Mrillis walked beside Le'esha, watching her, fearing some sign that she had
come along with the boys to protect them. But the Queen of Snows chatted with the
boys around her on the short walk and seemed unconcerned. Mrillis wished his
imbrose
was strong enough, sensitive enough, that he could feel if she tested
the protective magic of the tunnel. He didn't have that strength of sensitivity yet, so all
he could do was watch, and hope that if the Nameless One attacked them, he would be
able to help Le'esha defend them.

The walk went twice as swiftly as usual, and Mrillis wondered if perhaps the
magic had been augmented to compress time and distance even more. He checked the
angle of the sun when they emerged from the cave on the shore facing Wynystrys. As far
as he could tell, it was the same hour of the day they always emerged when the boys
returned for their studies. He laughed at himself when he realized he was
disappointed.

Just as Le'esha had said, the moment the ferry reached Wynystrys, the boys had
to dash to put away their belongings in their dormitory huts and hurry to their lessons.
Mrillis looked back once and nearly ran into another boy when he thought he saw
Graddon's bald head glinting in the sunshine, just before the seer stepped into Breylon's
stone house.

What would bring the recluse all the way from Whispering Vale in the south of
Lygroes?

Mrillis shivered in anticipation, and knew that Le'esha had come for a meeting
with the seer and High Scholar Breylon. That was the sensible answer. If only there was a
tunnel with a bubble in the rock where he could listen in to this meeting.

* * * *

Both Graddon and Breylon were silent after Le'esha had told them of Mrillis'
nightmare and his sudden burst of
imbrose
that let him touch her mind. She
showed them the images she had taken from Mrillis' memory.

"The Child of Blood, you think?" Graddon murmured in his rumbling, rocky
voice.

"Son of the Nameless One, he would have to be," Breylon said, nodding. "If he
grows up. If his father doesn't succeed in killing Mrillis."

"That is a far distant future," Le'esha said, shaking her head. "We have all seen
many prophecies proven...not false, but vague and misinterpreted. Mirroring is prevalent
in our prophecies of late. Something that we thought fulfilled long ago is fulfilled for a
second time, in a new and strange way. We are fallible mortals, my friends. If we can
intervene, this nameless boy can be turned from the destiny his father has bred him
for."

"Intervene." Graddon nodded. "I have had a vision. Three drops of blood. A
boy and his two sisters. Two different fulfillments. Definitely a mirrored prophecy. If the
Nameless One has fathered a son and two daughters, then we must act before the vision
becomes set in stone."

"I agree." Breylon rested his chin in his hands, his elbows planted on his
worktable. "There have been more attacks on boys heading home from Wynystrys. We
must end this threat
now
. It is time to go to Flintan and beard the enemy in his
den."

"And rescue the boy," Le'esha said. "If we rescue our enemy's boy, we rescue our
boy."

"Children," Graddon said. "Three drops of blood, shed by one father. They shall
shake the foundations of the World far more than the most deadly starshower has ever
done."

* * * *

Ceera waited with news, the next time Mrillis went home to the Stronghold.
Afron Warhawk had come to the Stronghold to meet with the Queen of Snows.
Graddon of Whispering Vale and High Scholar Breylon of Wynystrys had been there,
waiting for him. Ceera had gone to the bubble in the rock behind Le'esha's office and
listened, but she was delayed and only heard the very end. What she heard was
enough.

"The Nameless One is preparing enough blood magic to drown the world, the
Warhawk said," Ceera whispered, when the children retreated to the privacy of her
bedroom. She wrapped her arms around herself and hunched her shoulders a little more.
"What did he mean?"

"He's getting ready for an attack, I suppose. And he wants to be strong enough
to overcome us." Mrillis leaned back against the wall. "I think the Warhawk's spies have
found out something, and he came here to see if our Lady understood what they
learned. Did they say what they were going to do?"

"They're riding to war. They're going to Flintan." She shivered. "What if the
Nameless One kills her?"

"I won't let him. I'll ride with her, and I promise I won't let anybody hurt our
Lady."

He bit his lip to keep from telling Ceera about the red-haired boy from his
vision. This might be his only chance to find and help him. Mrillis had heard enough war
stories; he understood that innocents were often killed during battles and sieges. Perhaps
the Estall had shown him this boy as a command to help him. It would be dangerous,
but it was the perfect opportunity to go to Flintan and find the boy from his
dream.

"They won't let you. They were talking about you, and they think the Nameless
One is trying to control you." Ceera cocked her head to one side as a new thought
visibly took her attention. "What if they're going to Flintan to fight for you?"