Voice of the Lost : Medair Part 2, page 5
After endless blind stumbling, Medair found the sudden transition wholly disorienting. The sharp wind cut through her clothes while barely stirring the white wall from which they had emerged. The back of her neck ached with tension, and she took slow, steady breaths to try and quell her shaking.
Cor-Ibis dismissed his mageglow, then produced a swatch of cloth from within his demi-robe. Dabbing at a bleeding scratch which stretched from the corner of his eye down his cheek, he surveyed their surroundings. Medair had not fared as badly, though her hands were marked with tiny slashes and there was a painful welt on the side of her throat. She was cold and damp, with no hope of a hot bath or warm bed in the near future.
Cold, at least, she could try to do something about. She fished a thick jacket from her satchel and then her lambs wool cloak for Cor-Ibis, who donned it without comment.
"Should we wait for the others?" she asked, her voice sounding loud and unfamiliar to numbed ears. She started to untwist the rope about her waist.
"No. Even if we could be sure they had not reached this point before us, this is too exposed." He was gazing upwards to towers and walkways, then noticed her untying the rope and held out a deterring hand. "We may need to retreat to the mist, if there are patrols or watchers."
They had barely started circling east when they discovered the first cave, the opening nearly ten paces across and twice Medair's height. A gate of dull black metal blocked the way, and Medair could see little in the inky blackness beyond the bars. Then she heard something move within, and backed away. The gate appeared to be designed to raise up into the rock and there was a faint scent of animal, not wholly unpleasant.
"Something which snatches," Cor-Ibis suggested. "Whoever is meant to raise the gates when the mist descends has not been attending his duty."
Medair stared at his cool profile, then continued walking. She felt a brief resistance on the rope before he too moved away from the cave.
"Had you been in Decia, before the Conflagration?" she asked, turning her mind from the ordeal she had just endured and whatever was within that cage. There were too many things she couldn't bear thinking of.
"Not officially."
More shape-changing. "Was it as...foul?"
"No. Estarion was simply a greedy man. Competitive, domineering, but not cruel. A capable leader, although he left much of the practicalities of his rule to his sister, preferring to treat and deal and scheme for expansion. He had a hatred of losing, for it rocked his belief in his own superiority. It is not altogether surprising that he was arrogant enough to turn to wild magic, though I might wish I had anticipated it."
"Why would he remake Decia into this?" she asked, staring up. The castle was like the backdrop to a mummer's play: lowering, evil, and wrong.
"I doubt he had any thought of transformation. Certainly no considered scheme of any would-be conqueror need include the resurrection of the Mersians' capital, or the creation of inland seas – or gods. Estarion merely opened a door."
"If he does so again, what determines if there'll be another Conflagration, or the creeping blackness which took Sar‑Ibis?"
He didn't answer, looking ahead at another cave closed off with an iron gate.
"This is different," Medair said, stopping some distance from the gate and wrinkling her nose at the rank scent. A high, whining growl whipped into the night, redolent with hunger and frustration, and Medair was hard put not to step back. "Not what was in the last cave."
"No. I do not recognise the cry, but this is obviously a predator. The last cage was not a meat-eater, unless I miss my guess. Perhaps food for this one, or for some other purpose." He took her arm and they edged past the cave, then several more without gates as they made their way around to the eastern face of Falcon Hill.
A ramp stretched down from the southern corner of the hill toward the road east. Medair and Cor-Ibis, at the northern corner, were able to gaze directly along the ascent as it rose through two blockhouses to the massive castle gates. Great braziers on either side of the gates held tapering mounds of fire, reminding Medair inevitably of the Conflagration. Orange light gleamed off brass bindings. Both of the blockhouses were also alight, huge bowls of leaping fire on the flat roofs of the watching posts, casting the heavy portcullises below into deep shadow.
"The road east is likely also blocked," Cor-Ibis said. "When the moon drops the shadow of the hill would shield us most of the way to the first fortification, but we will not risk going so close. That rock bluff three-quarters of the distance along is ideal, for we will need to cross unseen in the morning."
"Through the forest again?"
"That remains to be seen. We will need to keep to the edge of the mist along here."
That was hard, to step back into the muffling chill, and walk almost wholly submerged. The corridor, clear of both mist and trees, drew her toward exposure, but though the watching-posts were distant, whoever manned them would surely have been alerted by the rise of the mist. Anyone striding along the gap would be asking for notice.
Before reaching the spur, Cor-Ibis stopped again.
"Can you climb this?" he asked, gazing across the corridor to the shadowy rocks rising upward.
The hill was not a sheer wall, closer to ladder than slope, but the sharp-cut moonlight created inky shadows which would make footing more than uncertain. "Probably," she said, touching the rope which bound them. His faint glow was nothing in the mist, or even the corridor, but would stand out against the black and silver of the rocks.
She tried to make out what it was he was looking at, and thought she could see a darker outline directly above. The prospect of finding a place to shelter for the night did not cheer her, not when she would be alone with Cor-Ibis.
Before heading up, they took advantage of the muffling quality of the mist to relieve themselves, then Medair coiled the rope and tucked it back into her satchel. The ascent proved relatively easy, though Medair's shins gained several bruises in the process because they could not risk going slowly.
Keridahl-glow did little to help Medair navigate the cave entrance, which gave them room to move side by side, but not quite enough for Cor-Ibis to stand upright. He motioned for her to wait, and felt his way blindly forward, head lowered. She could see from the way he bent further that they had not found anything sizeable.
"The base is almost level," he said, returning, "but it lowers and narrows, and I believe ends shortly beyond the point I could reach." He glanced at a spike of rock on the ramp side of the cave's entrance, which cut off view of the watching-posts. "We will wait here for dawn."
Medair turned to practicalities, because there were an overwhelming number of things she did not want to think about. They could not stand comfortably in the cave, and the fact that Cor-Ibis had not cast a simple night-sight enchantment told her how very near the edge of exhaustion he was. She groped in her satchel, knowing she would have to stand guard while he rested.
Bedrolls and blankets served to pad the uneven floor, and they sat on the rim of the cave entrance to eat the modest meal fished from the depths of Medair's satchel. Dried fruit, nuts and stale biscuits. But now that they were out of the wind, and were no longer focused on moving, black memory threatened to crush her. The weight of it was exhausting. How long had it been, since she had woken? She'd lost track of time after the Horn.
"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.
