Magesong (21 page)

Reyin hesitated as Malor raised the ax, but Farlo suddenly
doubled his gait, sprinting directly into the path of the hewing stroke, a
knife somehow appearing in his hand.  The ax came down with killing force. 
Farlo threw himself into it.

Lightning flashed again.  Malor lay thrashing at Farlo's
feet, blood spurting from his chest to be lost in the falling rain.

"Keep going," Reyin said, pushing Farlo ahead of
him.

They skirted past the dying sailor and broke for the top
platform of the lift where the giant basket hung in apparent readiness.  Farlo
held his left arm tight against his side.

"The son of a pig got me," he said as they ran.

Reyin looked over his shoulder.  The other magician stepped
from the sheltering doorway into the fury of the storm, pausing a moment to
attune himself with its energies.

"Bodoval," Reyin cried as he and Farlo fell into
the basket, "Now!  Quickly!"

The seven-story depression was a well of blackness.  Reyin
couldn't tell if Bodoval still waited at the bottom.

The sorcerer reached skyward.

"Bodoval!  Now!"

"
Schingzhe Zhiz
!" Orez screeched in an
unearthly voice, swinging his arm down in a sword stroke.

The gondola bearing Reyin and Farlo fell away with no
warning, plunging rapidly into the rain-swept darkness below.  Then they were
blinded by a scintillating flash that filled their vision, the explosion
smashing them down into the bottom of the basket.

Blackness.  Rain.

Through the ringing in his ears, Reyin heard from high
above, "Get down there and see if they're still alive.  If they are . . .
well, they've slain Malor — exact your vengeance as you see fit.  Just bring me
the treasure box."

Someone was dragging him out of the gondola.

"Find them, boys!" came a shout over breaking
thunder.  "They're hiding down there somewhere."

Farlo's voice:  "Did it hit us?"

"It was damn close," Bodoval answered.  "It
looked like the bolt struck the beam right above you.  Lucky it didn't crack
and bring the whole thing down."

Suddenly Reyin could see their faces and knew where he was.

"Try to get up," Bodoval said.  "The ones
chasing you are stuck on the third level.  They've split up to look for a way
down and they'll find it soon."

They sat sprawled a dozen paces from the singed basket,
beneath an overhang where a small lantern swung from a hook.  Reyin still held
the spirit box under one arm.  Bodoval had ripped away Farlo's left sleeve and
Reyin watched as dark red blood welled out of a deep, smiling wound across his
triceps.  Working quickly, Bodoval wrapped the bloody sleeve twice across the
cut and tied it off tightly.

"That won't do for very long," he said.

Reyin staggered to his feet.  "You had best go home
now."

"If you're going out the tunnel you'll want to take
this."  He handed Reyin the lamp.

"And you take our thanks."

Bodoval shook his hand then slipped away.

Reyin looked over his shoulder.  The pursuing sailors, well
lit by their storm-lanterns, gathered at the third level where a long ladder
reached all the way to the bottom.  He quickly led Farlo into the grotto.

Surprisingly, the floor of the tunnel ran with less than an
inch of water.  It must drain into the sewers somewhere, thought Reyin.

The lamp Bodoval had given them cast a circle of dim orange
light that was but a few steps wide.  They couldn't see the side walls or the
people who rested there, but they heard a low moan ahead, then the sound of
strained breathing.  A tall, skeletal man suddenly crossed into their light
right in front of them.  He was naked save for a scrap of cloth hanging from
his hips, and his hairless skin shone ghostly pale.  The man's eyes flashed red
in the lamplight and then he was gone.

They went on, picking their way carefully now as the footing
turned slippery and treacherous.  With a flash of lightning they saw the end of
the passage not far ahead.  Another flash, and a cloaked figure stood there.

"It's him," Reyin whispered.  "We must go
back."

But the sailors had already entered the tunnel, holding
their lanterns and cutlasses before them.  They went slowly, searching.

Farlo's jaw tightened.  "I don't think I can take more
than two of them with this bad arm."

Reyin shuttered his lamp, but the wet walls of the grotto
now cast an aurora that left no shadowed place.  Dozens of vacant eyes stared
out at them from shallow niches.

The sorcerer advanced toward them with deliberate steps, the
ashen glove held poised.

"I will suffer no more indignities at your hands, amateur,"
he said calmly.  "But I am curious about you.  I will have to dreamspeak
you after I have taken your life.  We all know that while the living can lie,
the dead must tell the truth.  I am particularly interested in who taught you
and where they are now.  .  And I want to know other things.  Do you even know
what you have there?"

Sudden anger drove away all of Reyin's fear, and he spat out
the words contemptuously.  "How could the Unknowable Forces permit someone
tainted as you to wield power?"

"They do not judge."

"No," Farlo said, death in his voice, "but I
do."  He strode out to meet the sorcerer, knife in hand.

Reyin screamed, "Farlo! 
No
!"

The sorcerer stepped back, making an arcane gesture with his
ungloved hand, and Farlo's legs collapsed under him.  Wincing in pain, he
dropped the knife to clutch at his knee.

"Your friend is far too dangerous to allow within arm's
reach," the supplicant said with a crooked smile, focusing on the grey
glove.  "You, on the other hand . . . "

Reyin set the spirit box and the little lantern down in the
mud, then reached into his purse and took out a fistful of salt.

If this be nothing more than desperate defiance, then let
it be
.

"
Iurna Astyzaq
," he intoned, throwing a
pinch of sea salt into the air.

The gloved magician cocked his head as he walked leisurely
toward him.  "What are you doing?"

"Begone foul spirits and vanish airs of ill.  Banish
the nameless.  Deny the unclean will."

"A ritual purification?  I suppose it is fitting,
considering that this place will be your tomb."  He was only a few steps
away now.

"Come forth unseen flames. 
Milluvian Gan
!  Make
pure with your light this place and this man!"  And with the last word
Reyin flung the handful of salt full upon his enemy.

Outside, lightning rained down from the heavens.

The supplicant shrieked, his back arching as he sank to his
knees, his face fixed in unbearable anguish, as if the salt clinging to his wet
clothes burned into his flesh and his spirit.  He screamed again, then fell
over and was still.

"I didn't know," Reyin said weakly, almost
apologetically.  "I wasn't sure. . . . "

Abruptly released from his pain, Farlo flexed his knee to
find that it worked perfectly.  His eyes widened suddenly and he scrambled for
his knife.

Reyin, aware now that he stood bathed in yellow light,
turned to face the group of sailors.  They stopped and looked at him, their
weapons held low.

"The charm he held over you is broken," Reyin
said.  "You are free to do as you will, but he will not be coming with
you."

The sailors looked at one another as if they all woke from
the same dream.

"I'm going back to the ship," muttered one of
them.  Without any more words the sailors put away their weapons and started
back the way they had come.

Reyin watched as they trudged away through the puddles and
mud, the grotto growing dim.  At last they left the tunnel to be swallowed by
the gale raging outside.

"He's alive," Farlo called.  He knelt over the
form of the fallen sorcerer.  "He weeps."

Reyin went to them.  By the orange glow of his lamp, he saw
the flowing tears.  But the feeble sound he heard was that of laughter twisted
around a cry.

"
Ne'er for hadnedith bine.  Caaless dormir hed bowth
to noolun
."

Farlo gripped his knife tightly.  "What is that?  Some
kind of magical tongue."

"It's no language that I know," Reyin said,
puzzling over his enemy.  The man had made no effort to rise out of the mud. 
"I think it's only gibberish."

"Are you sure that he isn't casting some evil at
us."

Reyin looked at the babbling man.  "Yes.  He can no
longer harm anyone by sorcerous means.  His magical essence is now fled."

"What happened."

"I don't really know.  The ritual of purification is a
spell which designs on the spirit plane.  I thought that if I could purify
something of his spirit he would forget revenge and not murder me."

Farlo nodded as if he understood.  "A poisoned soul,
suddenly cleansed, could not live in the same body with a poisoned mind."

Reyin shrugged.  "It is seldom that simple, but maybe
so."

He peeled the grey glove from the man's hand and used his
lantern to set it aflame.  Blackened pearls fell to be lost in the mud.  When
nothing was left but a tangle of burned strings, he dropped it and ground it
beneath the heel of his boot.

"Foul, disgusting thing — your power, too, is broken."

Farlo plucked the fire ruby from the other hand.  "Is
this cursed as well?"

Reyin took it for a moment.  "No more than any other
weapon that can kill.  Why?"

"Then we'll use it to buy our passage back to the
Pallenborne."

The man who was no longer a magician sat up slowly now,
looking at Reyin and Farlo with blank yet seeing eyes.  He rose to his feet,
starting one way, then another.

"What's your name?" Reyin asked him.

He stood still, as if he had heard the question, but only
blinked at them.

"He doesn't know his own name," Farlo said.

Reyin nodded.  "I wonder if there's anyone in the world
who does?"

The nameless man shuffled away to sit on a large stone
against the side wall.

"What are we going to do with him?" Farlo asked.

Reyin shook his head.  "Leave him here.  I think, now,
that this is the only home he will ever find."

The open boat pushed across the open sea, gracefully topping
the mild swells.  Reyin and Farlo sat beneath a faded blue awning in the stern
of the boat, their lips dry and cracked and encrusted with salt, their
wind-burned faces solemn, their eyes fixed on the horizon.  They had not spoken
aloud all that day.  Each did what was necessary, Reyin working the tiller,
Farlo trimming the broad yellow lateen.  An old canvass duffle lay between
them.

The ocean had been friendly and forgiving during the
month-long voyage from Mira-Delvin, and whenever the summer squalls came
dangerously close Reyin spoke to them soothingly.  But it was also a journey
that had weathered them.

A horn-shaped peak rose out of the haze that lay ahead where
thin clouds began to gather.  Farlo looked to Reyin and held his eye. 
Hoarsely, he said, "Land ho."

Reyin could only return his look.

They sailed on in silence for a time, watching as the sun
overhead cast a glory on the mists surrounding the Skialfanmir.

"Farlo," Reyin said at last.  "I was wrong
about you.  And I am sorry."

Farlo continued to face the brown and grey land that had
replaced the line where sea met sky.  He cleared his throat.  "No, you
were mostly right.  But thanks for saying it."

The sea turned a deeper color. 
The breeze freshened, and Farlo brought the sheet in tighter as they sailed
closer to the wind.  More clouds crept over the mountains as they went, and the
heavens grew dark as they tacked into the bay where Reyin had landed a season
before.

All the villagers of Lorendal stood in a circle around the touching
stone, where newborn children were publicly named on the first full moon after
their birth.  Syliva smiled as she held the tiny infant in the crook of her
arm.  With her free hand, she held a miniature silver cup to the baby's lips
and let a single drop of water fall.

"And so she is named," Syliva pronounced to the
circle.  They all clapped hands, the men slapping one another on the back as if
each one were an uncle or godfather.  A dozen young women rushed forward to
surround the child, and Syliva allowed one of them to take her.

The company broke into small groups of friends, and they
stood in idle chatter, watching the charcoal-colored sky form roiling clouds
above their heads.

"Do you think it will happen this time?" Kurnt
said.

Aksel and Celvake both shrugged.  Syliva took her husband's
arm.  "It sure looks like rain," she said, "but this isn't the
first time.  I'm afraid of hoping too much."

They heard galloping footfalls.  "There you are,"
Syliva called.  "Where have you been?"

"They're back!" Jonn shouted, sliding to a halt in
the center of the village, throwing up a curtain of dust.  "They're here! 
Farlo and the stranger.  They came sailing in a boat, but not the same
one."

Aksel went to his son.  "Where are they?"

"Coming up the path.  Right now.  Everyone from Siadal
is with them."

Kestrin turned to Syliva, wonder and relief and fear at war
within her.

"Oh Spirit," she said, her voice breaking.  "Syliva
. . . "

"Just wait."

Thunder spoke softly in the sky as Reyin and Farlo broke out
of the desiccated forest with the folk of the seaside hamlet close behind.  The
canvass sack having been discarded, Reyin held out the gleaming star-shaped
vessel for all to see.  Farlo walked next to him, his head held high, his eyes
fierce, one arm swinging less freely than the other.

Farlo pointed to the west.  "The trail to the
Skialfanmir is that way."

Reyin shook his head.

"Don't you mean to return it to the mountaintop?"

"No."

Then, her baby tight against her breast, Lovisa stepped out
of the crowd, and Farlo ran to them.  Lovisa blinked away her tears and simply
smiled at him as he took her in his arms.

He pulled back a little to see his child.  "Is it a
girl?"

"Yes," Lovisa laughed, "this is your
daughter.  We just finished naming her."

"What did you . . . "

"I've named her Farla."

"What?  That's a foul name for a little girl."

"No.  It's a very good one."

He took his daughter then and held her high on his chest. 
Tiny hands reached and plucked at his long beard.

Reyin walked steadily toward the villagers, stopping at last
behind the touching stone.  He raised the spirit box, and lowering it slowly,
placed it on the stone where it perfectly fit the star-shaped groove.

Gently, quietly, a fine rain began to fall.

He fixed his eyes upon Syliva.  She looked back at him, not
understanding.

Ever so lightly, he touched the ancient vessel and whispered
a word.  The face of the imprisoning device fell away into dust, and everyone
saw what lay within.

It was a mirror.

The mirror shimmered in its blackness, and in the depths of
it they saw an amorphous light that pulsed now into the shape of a face, and
now into the form of a teardrop.

Syliva looked back to Reyin.

"I can do no more," he told her in her own
language.  "It is for you to complete this act of power."

She stared back at him helplessly.  "I don't know what
to do."

His answer was stern, almost angry.  "You are the only
one who does know.  If it is to be done, you must do it."

The valley stood in silence for a long time.  Rain ran in
channels down Syliva's face.

She stepped forward and knelt before the stone.  With one
hand, with one finger, she reached out and touched the mirror.  The spirit
trapped within caugh the edge of her finger and stayed there as she withdrew
it.  It danced on her fingertip for a moment like a tiny star, then floated
free, rising, spreading, disappearing into the clouds and returning on drops of
rain to at last and again unite with the land.

A single point of light refused to leave Syliva's hand for a
moment, and then it faded away.

Reyin looked at her with magesight.  On the spirit plane the
point of light had not disappeared; it grew and engulfed her, bathing her with
its aura, merging with her own spirit, combining and forming a pure essence of
being, the essence of the healer.  More rare than magic was such a one.

The people of Lorendal all gathered around Syliva, speaking
excitedly, wanting to know what had happened and if the land would now yield
crops and grass and fruit.  Reyin backed away.  Farlo and Lovisa still stood to
the side, discovering only now that they were getting wet.  Slowly, Reyin
turned full circle, taking in the glistening sheen that overlaid the valley.

Suddenly he knew that she was standing near him.  He turned
back, and the slender young woman with hair the color of fire smiled nervously.

"Hello Reyin," she said.  "Do you remember
me?"

He stepped closer and took her hand.  Then he began
laughing.  He threw back his head and sang his laughter to the sky.  Kestrin
was taken aback, not sure of what it meant, but she didn't let go of his hand.

"Yes," he said to her, "I remember you."