Guardian Last (Lords of Syon Saga Book 2) (56 page)

But the smile on her lovely face faded quickly to
confusion.  “What is the meaning of this?  Who are you?  Where is Galorin?”

Dith only stared at her, absurdly fixated on the flowers
near her feet which had been blooming but now wilted and caught fire. 

“Answer me.”

But he could not.  He only stared at her, unable to move,
unable to speak.

“So,” came another voice, and near her, another being formed
from the darkness.  This voice was familiar.  It was the same voice Dith had
been hearing in his mind for months––Galorin.  But the voice was not tender or
fond.  If anything, it held a note of irritation. 

“You found me, Guardian.”  Galorin sighed.  “Well done. 
What do you want?” 

Guardian?  Who was this woman?  He tried to end the dream
and wake himself, but he could not.  

“Stop squirming, boy.  She will not let either of us go
until she’s had her say.  Best bear it with me, but do not draw attention to
yourself.  You do not know her purpose, and as you stand, you are vulnerable.”

The being taking form before him was not what he had
envisioned at all.  For some reason, he had always pictured Galorin as an old
man with long gray hair and a hunched back for no real reason other than that
the mage was ancient.

The man before him was instead lithe and muscular, perhaps a
few years older than Dith, with strong, even features surrounded by ringlets
cascading to his shoulders that were so black they might have been dipped in
birch tar oil.  His eyes were a murky green in an almost handsome face that
seemed prone to humor, but with a grim cut of a mouth that at the moment showed
no humor at all.  He stripped from his head a blue silk band that suddenly
appeared there and dashed it like glass against the bare rock that spread
beneath him where he stood.

The woman’s smile faltered––she had not expected this, it
seemed––but she reached out her arms to embrace him.  He stood fast, refusing
her invitation, and she abandoned the gesture.

“Come now, my love.  Four thousand years apart, and you’ve
not a single fond word for me, for your Ranala?”  The woman smiled appealingly
and cast a self-conscious glance at Dith.  “The others believe you died at your
little castle on the island, but I knew.  I was sure Nial’s hobby horses could
not defeat you.”

Dith turned awkwardly, feeling out of place.  He had no part
in the intimacy of this conversation.  He stared at the ugly misshapen rock
which glowed white hot in the presence of the two mages, and the strands of
power surrounding it became so dense that the writing on it was almost
completely obscured, as if a child had scribbled all over a masterpiece.  The
thought filled him with a mysterious apprehension. 

“You were wrong.”  Galorin sneered at her.  “So what do you
want?”

“I…my darling, I only…I…”

He crossed his arms.  “Stop playing the coy
ingénue
with me.  ‘Four thousand years,’” he mocked.  “The strands do not care about
distance or time.  But it took me returning to Byrandia’s very shores before
you could be bothered to seek me out.  So yes, you found me.  You want
something from me, or you would not be pestering me.  What is it?”

Tears filled her eyes.  “Pestering?  I only wanted to see
you.  After all this time––”

“After all this time, I have not forgotten your lies and
your betrayal.”

Her lip quivered fetchingly, and a blush lit her cheeks.

“Woman, do not think to play me like a drum.  Now speak to
the purpose or let us be.”

“Us?”  Curiosity burned away her pretense and quickly turned
to jealousy.  She looked at Dith and back to Galorin.  “Is he your lover,
then?  I should have known—”

“No, Ranala,” he said impatiently.  “Unlike you, not every
person I meet becomes my lover.”

She recoiled as if he had slapped her.  Her gaze hardened. 
“If he is not your lover, why do you keep me from seeing who he is?”  She
stared at Dith.  “I see that he is a mage, but I cannot…”  She whirled on
Galorin.  “A Wittister mage!”  She stepped back from Dith in horror.  You
allied with a Wittister mage!”

Galorin laughed.  “Don’t be ridiculous, Ranala.  He is no
more a Wittister mage than I am.”

“But there was a Wittister mage on the landbridge.”

He templed his fingers and nodded.  “More than likely there
was.”

She waited for him to elaborate, but he did not.

Dith had questions of his own, but he could not ask.  He
dared not ask.  Whoever this woman, this Guardian, might be––

“Ranala.  She is the eldest of the Guardians, something
of a leader.  I have no doubt you will get to know her very well.  She will see
to it.”

––he would likely learn more by listening than by talking.

“No, absolutely not,” Ranala said with finality.  She sat
back in the cushions of her seat.  “What you propose is far too dangerous. The
potential damage to the threads and to the certainty trees is unthinkable, to
say nothing of the risk to ourselves, and by extension everything else.”

He swore.  “Have you looked at the threads?  They’re
weakened already!”

“If even one of us should fall to the Wittisters,”
Kesastra said with the usual edge of panic in her voice, “they would become
nigh invincible.  We simply cannot allow it.”

Galorin paced impatiently.  “And what do you suppose they
will do, once they have killed every mage in Byrandia?  Do you suppose they’ll
wait patiently on Cragen’s leash or will they come at last to the Citadel with
that great massing of power, to finish off the craven Guardians who could not
be bothered––”

“Mind your tongue!”  Ranala stood, her eyes sparking with
anger.

He met her gaze, emphasizing each word as he spoke it. 
“Who could not be bothered, I say, to stop them.”

Nial crossed his arms and watched with vague amusement.

“It is quite possible,” Dolik offered quietly from where
he sat, “that the Wittisters, once sated, will leave our Citadel alone.  A sort
of gentlemen’s agreement, as it were.”

“Bought with the blood of every––!”

“In any event,” he continued over Galorin, “I believe the
five of us could hold off all but the most vigorous onslaught.  We’ve but to
maintain, as we always have.”

Galorin stared at the balding middle aged one among them
in disbelief.  “Maintain?  Hold off?” he gasped.  “Do you think they drain the
life from these mages to pass the time?”

Nial cleared his throat.  “They do so at King Cragen’s
will.”

Galorin turned and glared at Nial.  “They are building
their power, you ignorant fool!”  He grabbed Dolik by the front of his robe and
lowered his voice to a seething whisper.  “Why is that?  Set your great mind to
pondering that.  In the meantime, this world is not ready to be rid of magic,”
he snarled, throwing the Dolik aside. “So I will be saving the mages of
Byrandia in the only way I can, by getting them as far from here as possible.”

He stormed out of the chamber and through the corridors
of the Citadel, out into the bright sunlight of the canyon shelf.  At the
bottom of the cliff, huddled against the canyon wall at the rim of the Byrandian
badlands, he could see G’ragne with its modest shops and homes, and beyond it,
empty desert. 

“Guardian!”  The voice was Ranala’s, and it was a tone of
command.  Of course it was.  He shook his head angrily without looking back at
her and lifted his hand.

“Galorin,” she tried again, her tone softer, more
intimate.  “Wait, please.” 

He would not face her.  She was almost in tears, at that
perfect pretty stage of sorrow that she knew men could not resist.  It was her
finest performance.  He had been her audience for it so many times before.  He
did not need to see it again.

“Please, do not go.  I need you here beside me.”

He sneered and walked away from her. 

“Please, what more can I say or do?  Galorin, you know he
was a passing fancy, nothing more.  He was just a townsman!”

Was that supposed to ease the pain somehow? This “just a
townsman” had meant nothing to her, and yet he had been worth sacrificing
centuries of trust between them?  He laughed at how pathetic they must look,
these two supremely powerful entities, alive for thousands upon thousands of
years, yet still plagued with the absurd, sordid pettiness of those who moved
through their miserable, short lives below.

“I learned how much I love you and how wrong I was…”

He drew a deep breath and turned to face her. “Do you
believe I care about any of that now?  Do you care about anything outside
yourself and what you want in the next minute?”  He looked at her coldly. 
“Help me, Ranala.  Help me save these people.”

She closed her eyes, considering.  “If I help you save
them, you will come back to me, yes?  We can be together again, yes?”

He studied the streets below and sighed with resignation. 
She was, after all, Ranala.

He turned and looked at her, his normally grey-green eyes
turned to obsidian. 

“No.”  A moment later, he was gone.

“So you are living in this child’s mind,” she said.  Dith
felt her eyes probing through the darkness to find him, to study him like a
child studies ants.  “Do you control him, or does he control you?”

Occasionally lightning crackled in the distance, no doubt
the manifestation of her anger in his mind.

“The insinuation is petty, Ranala.  It is beneath you and
absolutely expected.  The answer is, neither.  Just as I need not take everyone
to bed––”

“A shame,” she purred, still peering at Dith, still trying
to see his face.  Finally, she reached out and touched Dith’s face as if he had
no protections at all.  Then again, she would not fire his protections since he
was only dreaming.  Wasn’t he? 

“He’s pretty,” she smiled without a trace of warmth.  Her
hands traced down his chest.  “And you got old.”

“I also died.”  Galorin added dispassionately. 

Ranala’s hand traced lower on his chest, to his belly, and
Dith turned pointedly away from her.  He saw Galorin’s smile of satisfaction
through the corner of his eye. 

“Not every man can turn Ranala away.”  Galorin shrugged.  “Still,
I admire your resolve.” 

She laughed a pretty, brittle laugh at Dith’s rejection of
her advances.  A freezing drizzle of rain began to fall over the dying flowers,
and it froze to their petals.

“You asked what I want,” she said at last.  “I want
nothing.”

Galorin snorted.  “I find that impossible to believe.”

“Believe what you want,” she snapped.  “I had hoped only to
see you again, to assure myself that you yet live, even if you are no longer
mine.  That, and I bring you a warning.”  She looked distant for a moment. 
“You still have time, but not much.  You are about to be under attack.  I see a
large force moving toward you.”

Galorin turned, and a massive network of threads exploded around
them, interconnected, weaving over and under other threads, binding to
everything.  “The same army that we fought on the landbridge?”

She shook her head.  “No, not the same force.  This one…
even I cannot see who drives it.  As a Guardian…”

“As a Guardian, you can do nothing,” Galorin sneered.

“No.”  She looked at him, and for the first time, Dith saw
sincerity in her eyes.  “As a Guardian, I dare do nothing or it will bring
unwanted attention before you are prepared.” 

“From the draemondrae?” Galorin asked.  “We have already
beaten them once.”

“Just draemondrae?”  Her eyes met his.  “Oh, no.”  She
looked down, and a sad smile crossed her lips.  “I may have put you at risk as
it is, but I had to see you again.  I had to warn you.”  She considered
carefully.  “Above all, you must understand:  They come tasked with a singular
goal.”  She looked between the two men.  “They come to kill Damerien.”

Renda was on her feet with her sword drawn before she’d come
fully awake, already scanning her surroundings, evaluating the threat.  The
coastal night air had condensed to a thick fog covering the camp, leaving her
all but blind and deaf beyond the pounding of her heart in her ears, but in
only a moment, despite her disorientation, she focused on what had awakened
her.  The sound grew louder: a wet rumble of heavy footfalls in the mud.

They could not be far off, and they were moving impossibly
fast.  She looked around her, trying to orient herself and plan a strategy. 
Her father and Laniel had relieved her for the watch—that could not have been
more than a few hours ago, but she did not see them now.  Around her, the rest
of the knights were scrambling to find their weapons and to armor each other in
the fog.

A chain coif was pulled down smartly over her head, and
knowing hands were cinching her breastplate around her.  “Gikka?” she
whispered.

“Peace,” murmured Gikka, “I am at your side.”  She nodded
ahead toward the rising sound.  “Chul and I crested a hill and found ourselves
in their very midst, like a stampede of cattle.  We rode in with them nearly at
our heels, running at all speed this way.  ”

“Demons?”

“Like the others.” 

“Mages?”

“Not as I saw, but could be.  I seen the demons’ front-most
ranks, but they have numbers behind.”  She patted the strap she had just
fastened and listened.  “We’ve no time for more, so the breastplate will have
to serve.”

“It will have to be enough,” the knight said, gripping her
sword.  Around her, she saw the rest of the knights forming up.  They had no
cover, so they took position as they could, with Grayson and Qorlin taking up
bows and the rest swords. 

Suddenly a great rush of shadows erupted from the fog.  The
enemy was among them, storming their camp in impossible numbers.  She staggered
to keep her feet against the force of their rush and raised her sword to defend
herself against the attack.