Child of the Sword, Book 1 of The Gods Within (54 page)

The archangel looked at France. “Forgive
her, swordsman. Her intelligence is not great, and she understands
even less than you.” Ellowyn looked again at the spark on her
finger, then back at France. “France, the swordsman, meet the
faerie Laelith.”

JohnEngine asked, “Why are you here?”

“And you, wizard,” Ellowyn said, turning to
JohnEngine. “Why do you ask so many questions?”

“I belong here. You do not. And I have only
asked two questions. Again, why have you come?”

The confused distress that she showed
earlier returned. “I am Ellowyn,” she said, as if that alone was
answer enough. “I was summoned to this moment.”

“Summoned?” JohnEngine asked. “Summoned by
whom?”

Again there was indecision in her face. “I’m
not quite sure, mortal.”

“Then from where did you come?”

“From far away,” she said, though her brow
wrinkled in a confused frown. But then her demeanor changed
suddenly. Her back straightened; her chin lifted. “Where is the one
called Morgin? I have an unpleasant task to perform.”

JohnEngine spoke cautiously. “He is here.
What task? And why do you ask?”

“He is the one I seek.”

“You’re too late,” France spit angrily.
“He’s dying. And no one can heal those wounds.”

Ellowyn shook her head sadly. “No he’s not,
unfortunately. He has his own task to perform, and until he does
so, he cannot be granted such peace.”

“What do you intend to do?” France
growled.

JohnEngine suddenly thought that he
understood Ellowyn, and her purpose. He touched France’s arm
gently. “France. Who would summon an archangel?”

France turned his anger upon JohnEngine.
“What in netherhell are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about an archangel, France. Who
would have the power to command an archangel? Who would dare?”

France’s eyes softened as comprehension came
to him. JohnEngine continued, “I think, my friend, that death means
very little to whoever summoned this angel.”

France pleaded, “Can’t we just leave him in
peace?”

JohnEngine shook his head. “I don’t think
it’s up to . . .”

~~~

JohnEngine awoke to the bright morning sun
slicing through the open window of his room. For a time his mind
refused to believe that the angel had been only a dream. She had
seemed so real, and he so wanted something to come and make
everything all right: to save Morgin and bring MichaelOff and Malka
back to life. But dreams and wishful thinking were not going to
change the reality he faced each morning, even if it was the same
dream night after night.

JohnEngine sat up, swung his legs off the
edge of the bed, rubbed circulation back into the leg where the
remnants of Bayellgae’s bite were a constant and painful reminder
of the little viper. He pulled on his breaches and a blouse and a
pair of rabbit fur slippers Wylow had lent him, searched out his
way to the kitchen for a bite to eat. There he found France and
Abileen seated grimly at a small table with a setting of cold meat
and hard bread and cheese. Both men chewed silently, and neither
spoke as JohnEngine pulled up a chair and sat down with them. A
serving maid brought him a mug of flat ale. He cut off some cheese
and meat, tore off a hunk of bread.

JohnEngine asked, “Any change in Morgin’s
condition?”

Abileen answered with a silent shake of his
head.

France asked, “You going to talk to your
mother today, lad?”

JohnEngine looked at France, was reminded of
the swordsman’s words of the day before:
“. . . refuses to rest herself, refuses to admit
he’s dying.”

JohnEngine rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Ya.
I’ll talk to her. Maybe if I agree to take her place by his side
she’ll get some rest.”

“You look tired, lad.”

JohnEngine nodded. “I slept poorly last
night.”

“I didn’t sleep much either.”

“Oh I slept,” JohnEngine said. “I just
didn’t sleep well. Kept having the same dream over and over
again.”

“I know what you mean, lad. Damn dreams been
keepin’ me awake too. Strangest kind of dreams: angels,
faeries—”

JohnEngine started and looked up, spilled
his mug of ale across the table. He locked eyes with France and
said only, “Ellowyn? Laelith?”

The swordsman rocked back in his chair as if
he’d been struck. “Outside the castle wall?” he asked. “At night?
With the sounds of the dying in our ears?”

JohnEngine was out of his chair and half way
across the kitchen headed for Morgin’s room, cursing his injured
leg for slowing him down. The swordsman sprinted past him.

~~~

“I don’t want to go back,” Morgin told the
skeleton king. They both sat on an old, rotted log in a forest in
some lost memory of a dream. “Please don’t make me go back.”

The skeleton king sighed and adjusted the
crown on his head. He looked at Morgin with eyeless sockets, and
said, “The choice is not mine, Lord Mortal. It is yours. But if you
don’t go back now you’ll spend the rest of eternity like me, going
neither forward nor back, forever waiting.”

“That doesn’t seem so bad.”

The skeleton king shrugged. “No. It isn’t.
Not at first. But I just sit here and wait, and the days turn into
years, and the years into centuries, and the centuries into
millennia. And ever and ever I wait.”

“What are you waiting for?”

“I’ve been waiting for you to release
me.”

“To release you? Me?”

“Yes. You. Only you can release me, and then
I can go on.” The skeleton king looked upward wistfully. “I’m
frightened of what I’ll find there, but anything will be better
than this. Anything.”

“But how can I release you?”

“By going back.”

“But I don’t want to go back.”

“But you must. If not for yourself then for
me.”

Morgin thought long and hard for a moment.
He didn’t want to go back, because he was tired of the pain and the
sorrow that awaited him there. But deep within he knew he must go
back. He turned toward the skeleton king to tell him his decision,
but the king was gone, and so were the log and the forest, and all
sight and sound and existence. Only darkness remained.

One day Morgin became suddenly aware of his
surroundings again; though not suddenly awake. For many days but
had lain in a stupor of unawareness, passive, unknowing and
uncaring. And then suddenly he looked in the eyes of a woman and
realized he lay in the arms of an angel. “My lord,” she said
softly, tracing her fingers across the enormous, ugly scar in the
center of his chest. “It gladdens me to see that you have chosen to
rejoin the living.”

But angels were for dreams, and by that he
knew he was dreaming, and he knew that with this dream’s end would
come a painful reality.

Ellowyn was gone when he truly awoke, though
Rhianne sat in a chair near his bed. She’d fallen asleep there, her
head bowed, her hair loose and draped about her face, her mouth
open in a very unladylike way. And yet, she was still so beautiful,
not Ellowyn’s kind of beauty, which was a cold thing to admire from
afar. No, Rhianne’s attraction was the simple beauty of a pretty
girl with a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye. He longed
to see her open her eyes, to see that mischievous twinkle that
seemed to imply the two of them shared some hidden secret. But he
hadn’t seen that twinkle in years.

She started, opened her eyes, blinked
several times in that moment of confusion that comes with waking in
a strange place. She yawned, extended her arms and stretched,
arching her back, and Morgin wondered why everything had gone so
wrong between them. Yes, she’d been the first to slight him,
selfish and self-centered, she’d humiliated him. But he had more
than paid her back, had put her through two years of pure grief.
Only a few moons ago it had been time to mend the rift between
them, and then he’d watched her betray him, watched her go
willingly to Valso’s bed, and all of his longing desire crashed
about him.

She stood and took a moment to straighten
her dress, still not aware that he was awake and watching her. When
she did finally look his way, and saw that his eyes were open, she
froze.

“Morgin!” She crossed the room in an
instant, hovered over him. “Are you in pain? What should I do?”

She’d gone willingly to Valso’s bed. It hurt
to speak, but he would let nothing stop him from saying the one
thing he needed to say. “You can get out of my sight, you
traitorous slut.”

She blinked her eyes several times, clearly
confused. Obviously, she still believed he had no idea she’d
betrayed him, betrayed them all. A tear rolled down her cheek, then
she fled from the room.

~~~

Morgin was quite helpless, horribly weak,
unable to stand or even sit, the slightest movement demanding a
toll of pain that often sent him back into unconsciousness. But he
was never allowed to be alone, for clearly Rhianne had been tasked
with caring for him. She hovered fearfully in the background when
he was awake, and the angel and the faerie were ever at hand in his
dreams, ministering to him, frequently knowing his desires even
before he did.

AnnaRail came to see him soon after he first
regained consciousness. He could see in her face that she wanted to
hold him and nurture him, but she hesitated, looked at him as if he
were a stranger, and in that hesitation he saw distrust.

“Mother,” he said softly, which was as loud
as he could say anything.

“Morgin?” she said, speaking his name almost
as if it were a question. She reached out, touched his face gently,
but the comfort he’d expected was not there. “You are Morgin,
aren’t you? You are my son?”

He tried to nod. “I am as much your son as I
have ever been.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Her brow
wrinkled as she clearly wondered if there was some hidden meaning
there. But then she smiled warmly and touched his face. “Yes. You
are my son,” she said, but he sensed doubt in her voice.

She sat down in the straight-backed, wooden
chair that Ellowyn—or was it Rhianne—kept near his bed, and she
tried to pretend that her face did not mirror her feelings. But
Morgin sensed a certain reserve within her, a wall between them
that had never been there before.

“Are they treating you well?” she asked.

“As well as they can,” he answered.

“I’m glad.”

A long uncomfortable silence settled between
them. He kept thinking of all the things he should tell her, wanted
to tell her, but for some unknown reason he held back, remained
silent.

“You’re tired,” she said, breaking the
silence. “I can see that you’re tired.”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“I’ll go then, and give you a chance to
rest.”

She stood. As she walked out of the room he
whispered, “Please come again.” But she seemed not to hear.

The days of summer were hot, and often he
would fever badly. At such times Ellowyn would cool his brow with
water while Laelith hovered above him, casting a gentle breeze by
fluttering her tiny wings. Not infrequently his fever would turn to
chill and Ellowyn would lie beside him, warming him with the warmth
of her own naked body. Later, when the fever had passed and he
could think again clearly, he remembered that even though she was
an angel she had the body of a woman, complete in every detail,
without the slightest hint that she was herself not mortal. Or was
it Rhianne who had lain beside him to warm him? His dreams left him
so confused.

In the days that followed Morgin received a
steady stream of visitors, all anxious to pay their respects to the
great warrior lord who had single handedly defeated the Decouix
menace. Of course Rhianne—or was it Ellowyn—always hovered in the
background.

Wylow was the first to come. Lord of Castle
Inetka, it was his privilege to precede all others in his own
house. One of his five sons had died on the battlefield at Csairne
Glen, and another had been sorely wounded, lived for three days of
agony, then finally succumbed to the mutilation of his body. But
the three that remained accompanied their father during his visit
with the great Elhiyne lord, for they were all comrades in arms
now.

Wylow’s three sons were about Morgin’s age,
and yet they treated him as if he were much older, a great warrior
sorcerer deserving of their respect, even their awe. Even Wylow
lacked some of his usual exuberance, bowing respectfully where he
would normally have slapped Morgin on the back and made some ribald
joke by way of greeting.

One of his sons had acquired an enormous
scar where a Kull saber had slid across his ribs. He lifted his
tunic and displayed it proudly, a badge of honor, a trophy of
battle, a testament to his courage and manhood. No doubt the boy
would show it to as many of the young ladies as possible, and brag
of his prowess as a warrior. And, oddly enough, his two brothers
looked as if they wished they had been lucky enough to be so
maimed. But the degree of the wound’s healing reminded Morgin of
how impossibly long he’d lain unconscious, and not of this
world.

The boy with the scar said, “Even from the
far side of the glen we could sense your power. You were truly
magnificent. You were the greatest wizard there, the greatest
sorcerer any of us has ever seen.”

“You exaggerate,” Morgin said. He was
uncomfortable with the hero worship he saw in the boy’s eyes.

“Aye,” Wylow said. “The boy exaggerates. His
eye is still filled with the glory of battle, and his heart with
the glory of victory. But perhaps he does not exaggerate as much as
you believe . . . ShadowLord.”

That was the first time since Csairne Glen
that anyone had called him by that name. Once Wylow and his sons
were gone Morgin thought long and hard on that. They had spoken of
more war, of uniting the Lesser Clans and carrying the battle to
the north, even perhaps to Durin, where they would lay siege to the
Council of the Greater Clans. Morgin had a vision of another
Csairne Glen, of the northern lands strewn with dead, and the
carnage stretching from horizon to horizon.