Voice of the Lost : Medair Part 2 (7 page)

"Do you want to go through Bleak's Hoard tonight?" she asked, searching for some useful occupation.

"Describe it to me."

Medair made a soft noise in her throat.  No small task.  "There are twelve rings," she said.  "No, eleven now, since the invisibility one shattered.  One gives strength, along with recklessness.  One controls animals – much in the manner of the
vellin
spell.  One teleports the wearer to a place within sight.  I haven't the sensitivity for divination, so the others remain unknown, just as I don't know the function of four bracelets, seven swords, twelve knives, sixteen amulets, and a necklace and crown which appear to be part of a set.  There's a shield-caster which will cover, oh, a circle four feet in diameter.  Dozens of small objects – a set of cards, tiny scales, statuettes – which I never even attempted to understand.  The necklace and crown, one of the swords and a statuette are all so extraordinarily powerful that I wouldn't suggest even taking them from my satchel.  Any strong mage in the castle would sense them, for they proclaim their power almost as loudly as the Horn."

"Divination would best be left for the morning," Cor-Ibis said.  If he was surprised at how little she knew about the Hoard, he didn't reveal it.  "When our minds are clearer and it is possible to see without attracting attention with mageglows."  He lifted one faintly shining hand, perhaps ironically.  "Do you have strength enough to cast wend-whispers, Keris?  We can try to coordinate rejoining in the morning, though it will not be a simple matter, particularly if the mist rises again."

"To Avahn and Ileaha, yes.  The Kierash, perhaps the Mersian, I will try."  While not a complex spell, a wend-whisper required an exact mental impression to mark the recipient.

They settled the wording of a brief message, and Medair lost herself to the precision of casting.  It was worth an attempt, though there was no guarantee the bubbles of words she was creating would reach even Avahn and Ileaha.  Wend-whispers were described as 'relentless butterflies': they would keep on until they found their goal, but their course might be far from linear, and any careless foot could crush them.  With their missing companions so close by chances should be high, but the cloaking mist would be poorly designed if it did not interfere with exactly this sort of communication.

"Could you cast a trace, if we can't find them?" she asked, when the last of the messages blundered into the night.

"I might, with some difficulty, establish a link to those most familiar to me without having some object of theirs to focus upon.  The chances of failure are high."

Medair stiffened.  He had lifted his hands, and his fingers brushed her collarbone, her throat, then found the cord of the invested spell she wore.

"You have worn this long enough that I could use it to trace you if we are separated," he said, lifting it over her head.  "My chances certainly increase when you are not wearing it."

He slid the ward into his robe.  Then, after the most minute of pauses, reached out and took her hands in his.

CHAPTER FIVE

"Don't."

It was a feeble protest, and his long fingers only shifted a fraction in response.  He was silent and she couldn't say anything more, knowing how much she needed to pull away, and completely incapable of making that tiny, tremendous effort.  They sat there, hand-in-hand at the mouth of the cave, while futility chased its tail around Medair's mind.

She had admitted some of her feelings to herself, but to do anything about them was impossible.  He would never stop being Ibisian and she would always be Medair an Rynstar.  Loyal Palladian, failed hero.  Butcher.

"Do you remember our last meeting before the Conflagration?"

"Y-yes," she said, uncertainly.  That had been on the balcony, when he had theorised about her past.

"I have never regretted a moment more than that," he said.  His voice was as soft and calm as ever, and so bare in its sincerity that she had to stop herself from flinching.

"I knew that my people had given you reason to hate," he went on, choosing his words with eggshell care.  "I know now that to you I am a man who might be Palladian but is foremost a White Snake, one of the people who brought down the Empire you served.  I am everything you should hate, and if you do not, you will feel in your heart that you have turned your face from all you failed to save."

He glanced at her, and she couldn't say anything, because he had put her feelings into words exactly.

"That night, I wanted to tell you that nothing would please me more than to name you mine, to have between us a certainty which banished distance.  And I did not.  I thought it too cruel.  It is my eternal fortune to be allowed to make that choice again and, though the moment is perhaps harsher still, this time I do not bow down to the hold of the past."

"I am the past," she said, finally gathering the will to pull her hands from his, but his fingers tightened and held her still.

"You are from the past," he said, firmly.  "I doubt I will ever succeed in freeing you completely from that cage, from the weight of circumstance crushing you.  But you are not failing the dead by living, Medair.  You are here, now, and I would be–"  He stopped and she heard him take a breath; the imperturbable Illukar, struggling for words.

The thousand arguments she needed to fling in his face would not come to her, sabotaged by a pathetic need.

He looked down, then traced a question on her palm.  "Even without your past, we did not have an auspicious start," he said, and she was again conscious of the excruciating care with which he spoke.  "A geas by way of introduction and spell-shock to exacerbate matters.  You had so many reasons to be angry, and you did not quite hide that there was an old enmity to spice the mix.  And you were so meticulously, so scrupulously just.  When every feeling must have urged you against it, you returned the rahlstones to me.  Purely because you believed it the right thing to do.  I have rarely met such honour."  He paused again, then raised his head.  "I have loved you from that moment," he said, and his voice was raw.

Out of sheer, numb-minded stupidity she tightened her hands in his and that was sufficient encouragement for him to lean forward, to touch her lips with his.  His skin was cool and he kissed her with exquisite care, all Ibisian delicacy, but the quiver which ran through his hands matched her own.

Her throat tightened with panic, and she broke away.  "I can't do this," she said, but she had to force the words, to not shout her need for him.  He remained very still for a moment, then drew back as well, though not nearly far enough for her peace of mind.

"Hardly the place, I know," he said, and his voice was fully mastered once again.  There was a time she had thought Ibisians a wholly passionless race, but their extreme control was no indication of their hearts.

"I'm sorry," she said, and felt foolish.

"Now tell me why," he said, as merciless as Ieskar.  And not nearly so dead.

She choked on arguments which ran in every direction.

"If I had spoken, the night of the Conflagration, I would not have been able to sway you," he went on, thoughtfully.  His calm had returned, perhaps bolstered by her obvious confusion.  She should not have leaned into his embrace, should not have pressed against him as if she'd been waiting an eternity to do so.

She should be able to not hate the idea of loving him.

"You still had the Horn then, and all your secrets," he continued.  "Your oath to the throne, your office as Herald, and the legend built up about your name.  But now everything has changed.  You proclaimed yourself before Kier Inelkar.  You left your badge of office on the floor of the throne room.  You used the Horn to defend Athere and fulfilled the legend in doing so.  There is no bar left, no true reason.  Not the sheer simple fact of my race."

Battered by all she had done that day, Medair shuddered.  She did not feel freed by her use of the Horn, but further trapped in a succession of wrongs which could not be righted.

"No legend involved slaughtering people who thought themselves loyal to Palladium," she said harshly, and realised with a plummeting disgust that she was hoping that he would convince her, that he would reason a way out of the endless loop of rhetoric in her head.  That she could allow herself to believe that she had done only what was necessary, and that it was right to stop hating.

"You heard the words of your Emperor," he said.  "There was no thread of blame.  You heard his words to the Kierash.  Your oath is to Palladium, Islantar is its future.  There is no conflict, no–"  He stopped, perhaps sensing that part of her was stubbornly attempting to close her mind to any hope of a future.  That part of her calling him White Snake still, even blaming him for what she had needed to do.

Then those cool, slim fingers touched her cheek and he spoke in a whisper which did not hide how very afraid he was.  "Please, Medair."

He took a breath to continue, but did not, turning his head attentively.  Medair, so close, caught a faint shred of sound but could not make it out.

"A wend-whisper?" she asked, unspeakably relieved by the interruption.

"The Kierash."  Cor-Ibis had straightened, and was surveying the forest below.  "He has found a large cave, in the shadow of that spur of rock.  I will bring him back here.  Better to have him high, if any of those animals are released."

"No."  Medair held out a belaying hand, but stopped short of touching him.  "I'll go.  Unless you can dim that glow, it's too great a risk for you to cross those shadows twice more."

She didn't give him a chance to argue, slipping her satchel from her shoulder and plunging down the slope, by some fortune managing it without more than a knocked elbow.  She crossed the passage into the mist without hesitation, and then stopped dead, folding over.

What had she been doing?  What did Cor-Ibis think they could do?  Impossible.  To touch, to talk of love, after she had stood on the walls of Athere and summoned death.

He had known she might run from him, from her response to him.  That was why he had taken her trace ward.  Part of Medair wanted to do exactly that, to keep walking into the mist, to get as much distance between them as possible, so she could never again hear him say 'please'.  But, if she ran at all, it could not be now.  There would be time enough later for cowardice.

Taking a deep breath, Medair turned, walking along the border of the mist, near enough to stir the edge's tendrils for a few steps before sinking back.  Her link to her satchel made it easy to keep track of the cave where Cor-Ibis waited, so her only difficulty in reaching the spur of rock was the uneven ground and the occasional bush or branch.

A single step took her into the spur's shadow, and she followed its shape with her hand as she moved out of moonglow into pitch.

"Keris."

Kierash Islantar, nowhere near as drained as Cor-Ibis, had obviously cast a night-sight enchantment.  A step in the dark and he was with her, this boy the Emperor had commanded to heal Palladium.  While it might not be possible for Medair to find a right way forward, she could at least support those words.  Ibisian blood or not, this was Palladium's heir, and the only thing she could see to do was get him safely out of Decia.

"I am glad to discover you safe, Keris," he said, formal as ever.

"Can any of us be safe here?" she asked.  "The Keridahl has at least found a more sheltered cave."

She turned, less than willing to talk, and he followed her obediently across to the mist.  Without the rope, she thought it best to take his hand, and led him with only a few stumbles to the point below the cave.  From that angle, Cor-Ibis' glow could be mistaken for a reflection of moonlight, and was not the beacon she had feared.  So  long as he stayed still, it was unlikely to lead any Decians to them.

"Follow close," she murmured to Islantar, and led him quickly up to join that still, gleaming figure.

"Kierash."

"Keridahl."  For a moment Islantar's youth showed in a tone of simple relief, then he moved forward, kneeling as he discovered the low ceiling.  "Where did you find these blankets?" he asked.  "Ah, of course.  Your satchel, Keris, is a wonder beyond compare."

"I–"  Hearing the quaver in her voice, Medair made an effort to pull herself together.  She would go mad while this habit of hatred struggled against its opposite.  "I can offer you a meal of sorts, Kierash," she said, almost steadily.  "Dried fruit, nuts, even brandy."

She also produced a spare jacket, and more blankets.  They were manoeuvring around the problem of three people sitting in a cave barely able to accommodate them when a cry rose above the muffled silence of the fog.  A scream, eldritch and unnatural, rattled against the hillside and stole any semblance of safety from the tiny cave.

"Is that–?" Medair began, but couldn't finish.

Islantar half-rose, but settled back.  "Not human."

"No," Cor-Ibis agreed.  "A hunting cry."

"Hunting one of us."  Medair had received no replies to her wend-whispers, and was particularly concerned about Ileaha, whose sensitivity to magic might not be enough to lead her to the hill.

"Very likely."  Cor-Ibis was sitting closest to the entrance, and she could see his dimly luminescent form leaning forward as he gazed down at the forest.  "The mist is lifting."

"They've released whatever it was in those caged caves.  The thing which snatches.  Or the other."  The killer.

"Can we do anything?" Islantar eased alongside Medair so he could look over Cor-Ibis' shoulder.

Cor-Ibis shook his head.  "Expose ourselves to the hunter and the guards, though we have little chance of even locating our companions?  No."  He turned back into the darkness of the cave, getting down to business.  "Your reserves are still high, Kierash?"

"Yes.  I have done little today but watch the valour of others."

"Then cast wend-whispers, to supplement any lost to the mist.  Avahn was with the Mersian Herald and Kaschen las Cormar, so one casting will be sufficient for three.  Do you know Ileaha las Goranum well enough for a wend-whisper to find her?"