Major Pieces, page 18
“Very little, I’m afraid,” Lisinthir said. “She set an entire pirate base on fire, and from what little we can tell almost destroyed herself in the effort. I am no healer to know the details, but my cousin is, and you’ll find him with her.”
“That would be… Jeasa’s son?”
“Yes.” Lisinthir paused. “He heals with his mind. He kept me from dying that way, with the help of his Glaseah.”
“Did he? How…?”
“I don’t know,” Lisinthir said, rueful. “Magic. Corel’s legacy, perhaps. I should stay, I imagine. The staff here tried replicating blood for me and it failed, but transfusions didn’t. Perhaps I might be useful.”
Now the other man was frowning. “Replicated blood shouldn’t fail.”
“So they told me, and yet.”
“Then, yes, stay. We’ll talk more.” He considered Lisinthir. “Yes. We shall talk more.”
“My lord,” Lisinthir said, and couldn’t finish the title because… ‘once Jisiensire’s sealbearer’?
As he touched the toggle that generated the hygienic face shield, the other mind-mage smiled faintly. “Hirianthial Sarel Eddings Laisrathera. But most simply call me Lord of War.”
God and Living Air, a Lord of War. How long had it been since their people had had one? And yet, how appropriate to appoint one who crushed the fabric of reality around him just by breathing. “Lord of War. I will dispose myself in the waiting room against my cousin’s need.”
If he hadn’t been needed so desperately and so immediately, Hirianthial would have tarried to marvel at what had sprung out of Imthereli’s breast. Liolesa had mentioned the newest Eldritch mind-mages, but to hear tell of them was a matter entirely different from experiencing them in the flesh. Valthial had accustomed Hirianthial to reaching for and sensing the shape of another mind-mage’s powers, but Valthial had spent his life honing his talents, until the feel of them was smooth as honey and mellow as an antique brandy: one could almost mistake him for a minor power, the way he presented himself, all smooth shields and clear aura.
Lisinthir Nase Galare was a defiant fire, and no modest planetbound bonfire at that, but the rage of an exultant star, violent and vitalizing. Who had trained him? Who would dare have come close? God and Lady, but Val would find the man bewitching—the priest was desperate to teach anyone with even a modicum of talent and had been scouring their world in search of candidates. To think this had been incubating before their eyes in their court! What a sense of humor the Divine had.
But he was needed, and the Nase heir could wait. Liolesa’s couldn’t. He stepped through the decontamination field and into the surgical theater… into another surprise, a pacifying aura so powerful it evoked lullabies from his cradle—no, that was no evocation. He could hear singing, and not with mortal ear, because all the noises of a medical team attempting to keep someone from dying were entering through those.
Hirianthial stepped to the heir’s bedside, and the aura billowed around him, like a morning breeze. He both felt its calming invitation… and a call, gentle but insistent: Come back, come back. Come back, come back. It wove through the words of a lullaby, the one about the morning lark that loved the evening sky so much that he refused to sleep before he could sing to her.
The second of Liolesa’s new mind-mages was sitting at the heir’s head, beside the anesthesiologist. Behind him, a Glaseah had a hand on his back, head bent forward. Hirianthial thought he was in trance with his Eldritch, but no… he slitted one brown eye open and said, “We’re working on it.”
God and Lady, working on what? He glanced at the head of surgery, who shrugged and said, “Whatever they’re doing, it’s helping immensely. Which is great because we’ve got a lot of work in front of us.”
Hirianthial finally read the monitors and grimaced, despite his long experience. “Yes. I see that we do.”
“Let’s get this done. The first session, anyway.”
The Tam-illee was prescient, as one might have expected given her seniority. If nothing else, Hirianthial now had a data point on the dangers of sudden, explosive emergence of mind-magic in Eldritch… because Liolesa’s heir was doing her best to bleed to death from the inside. He had little time for contemplation of the newest additions to the ranks of Eldritch mages, though it occurred to him to marvel at it when directing the Nase heir to the technicians to draw blood, or observing that the Seni heir had fallen asleep in the corner and was somehow still generating that enveloping field, if less powerfully. But when he was awake and properly tranced, Hirianthial felt it working on him and the other medical technicians: it promoted, somehow, a unity of purpose, as if the friction of normal interactions had been smoothed away by flowing water. The mood in the theater was far less frenzied and jangled than it should have been given the severity of their patient’s injuries.
Four sessions later—Hirianthial had lost track of time, having fallen into the usual routine of catnapping when possible on whatever flat surface was available—Sediryl once-Nuera Galare could be left unattended without crashing. He stepped out of the acute care ward to find the sunfire brilliance of the Nase heir blocking his way. “You must drag him out of there or he’ll never rest, and then he’ll be your next patient.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“My cousin,” Lisinthir said. “The mind-healer. If you don’t walk back in there and carry him out, and that Glaseah of his with him, then I will, and I’m not gowned for it.”
Had he—he should have known that what the Seni heir had been doing had been work. Deeply physical work. Hadn’t he wound up in the clinic himself after too great an effort? Suppressing a curse, Hirianthial ducked back into the room, feeling the fire-brilliance of the Nase heir at his back, just behind the field.
“The Glaseah first,” Lisinthir called. “He’ll bring Jahir out gradually.”
Sensible. How had a Glaseah become adept at mind-healing trances? God and Lady, how had anyone? Such a thing was entirely unknown. Hirianthial brushed the Glaseah’s shoulder, receiving with that touch the unexpected sensation of sun-warmed earth beneath his feet, and chocolate melting in his mouth. Come to that, when had he eaten last?
Blinking blearily, the Glaseah said, “Mph. Yes? Is it safe to stop now?”
“For now, yes,” Hirianthial said. “You and your friend should rest.”
Shaking out his back legs, one at a time, the Glaseah straightened. “Thank the Goddess.” He glanced at the monitors. “I can’t read those with Jahir asleep. Is she going to be all right? It’ll help to tell him.”
“For now, she’s stable,” Hirianthial said. “I can’t promise more than that.”
The Glaseah sighed, shoulders slumping. “Oh, Sediryl.” He rubbed his face. “All right, well, we’re in this to the end, and Goddess willing, that end will be a good one. Let me bring him home.”
An astonishing way of contextualizing that act: bringing him home. Hirianthial could feel the experiences that had created it like echoes in the words… could see it, now that he had the leisure to bring his own abilities to bear to watch the Glaseah’s aura spreading until it engulfed the Eldritch’s, like an embrace. The merging was so seamless, and so easy, that it had to be the product of years of experience… which was yet another astonishing revelation in a set of days with many.
Jahir Seni Galare welled back into himself: that was the only way to describe it, that pouring of mind and spirit back into a shell, and with that empowered his unique aura, subjugated too many days to the needs of their patient. Yet another vast power, but one that evoked the mysteries of the sea, its calm, its inexorability. And the wistful beauty of music, heard in the distance.
What did they see when they looked at him, he wondered? And was it as improbable, and as unforgettable?
/Come back, ariihir. You’ve got to rest. Really rest in your body, not in the Pattern./
Good advice that, and yet Jahir instantly regretted his return because every part of him had revolted against his long work. Cramped muscles, headache, hunger faintness, thirst, God and Lady, what had he done to himself?
/Overdid it, as usual,/ Vasiht’h replied tartly, affection dusting the words with powdered sugar. /But I’m serious. You’ve got a window to rest and you’re going to take it or all of us are going to tie you down. Lisinthir’s standing outside looking like he’s about to try to scoop you up and carry you off. And uh… this Eldritch I don’t know is actually in the room with us, and he’s big enough to actually manage it./
Another Eldritch? He tried opening his eyes and couldn’t see for the shining in them. /Why… are the lights so bright?/
/They’re not? They have them dimmed now they’re not working./
Jahir looked up without lifting his head, and found the shining was shaped like a man, and it made his eyes water. “Tell him to turn it down,” he managed, and thought he was speaking aloud but couldn’t tell.
“Living Air, Galare,” came his cousin’s voice. “Don’t make me come into that room and make you mind your health.”
“I might prefer that,” Jahir murmured, and felt Vasiht’h helping him up. “Sediryl?”
“Stable for now,” said a stranger’s voice, who was not a stranger because Jahir had felt his presence for… hours… days… eternity, while in this room. “But still seriously ill, I’m afraid. You should sleep while you have the opportunity, as we will need you again. What you do…” He paused. “You do that on purpose, don’t you.”
“I don’t think we know you,” Vasiht’h said from beside Jahir. “I’m Vasiht’h, Jahir’s brother, and mindbonded partner. This is Jahir Seni Galare. We’re xenotherapists, and he’s a healer-assist. We figured out the ‘use Eldritch abilities as medical procedures’ thing on Lisinthir over there, when Lisinthir was almost dying on the way back from the Chatcaavan Empire.”
The shining stranger hesitated. “I find myself with a great deal of questions, all of which can wait. I am Hirianthial Sarel Eddings Jisiensire, Liolesa’s cousin and the Eldritch Lord of War. And the second mind-mage since Corel, since I have discovered that Valthial was hiding his light beneath a basket. You and Lord Nase Galare… you would be the third and fourth.” A pause. “And Sediryl Nuera, the fifth.”
Jahir heard his thought as if he’d said it aloud. “She’ll survive,” he said. “She wouldn’t let this kill her.”
Another pause. More gently, “Perhaps not. But she’ll need help to make good on that desire, and so, you should dispose yourself on that bench outside the decontamination field, eat, and sleep. In that order.”
“What he said,” Vasiht’h agreed, helping him stand. /You’re weak as a new puppy, ariihir. You’re no help to her like this./
Vague memories of Allen Tiber’s puppy Sarah gamboled through the mindline, made him smile. “Yes.” He staggered as he tried to walk, grimaced. /My cousin will be displeased with me, won’t he./
/Fortunately for you he’s already vanished to get you food./
/I am spared his belt, then. Alas./
Vasiht’h chuckled wearily. /You really are tired, to say something like that without blushing./ Jahir felt his partner twisting to look over a shoulder. /So there are more mind-mages, and Liolesa’s cousin is one of them!/
When he was less tired, it would strike him… that he and Lisinthir—and now Sediryl—were not alone. That in fact they might not have been the first. When he was less tired, it would relieve him… would give him an ethical and cultural context for his talents outside the one he and Lisinthir had so painfully carved out for themselves while struggling with their abilities on an Alliance starbase on the eve of a war. But he could not give himself to that now. Not with Sediryl still so ill, and he… he had work to do yet, to sing her home.
By the time Vasiht’h had disposed him on the bench, Lisinthir had returned. Jahir leaned on them both and let them feed him, and then with his head on Lisinthir’s lap and his hand in Vasiht’h’s, he fell instantly asleep. In his dreams, he piloted a small boat bearing precious cargo, and a lighthouse drew him unerringly to shore.
“My heir?”
“Is in serious condition, I won’t lie, Lia. But she’s strong and young, and the facilities here are extraordinary as you well know. They’ve told me they don’t need my services any further, so they think she’s past the point of heroic measures. She’ll be ill for some time, though.” Hirianthial chose one of the decanters on the sideboard and poured for himself. Some sort of cognac; he added another glass for her. “The negotiations?”
“Quite well. I should be able to leave soon, and I must. There are things that need my attention at home.” She accepted the crystal, sipped. “I suppose you will be going home with me, then.”
“Yes. I have every faith in the personnel here.” Hirianthial sat across from her, finally admitting to the fatigue that pulled at his joints. “You have developed some rather astonishing additions to your fold of mind-mages.”
“Ah! You met them! What do you think?”
Hirianthial tasted the brandy, savored the trail it burned down his throat. “I think,” he said, “that we are well on the way to developing a very dangerous defense for our world. That is your plan, isn’t it?”
“You say that as if I had at all a hand in the surfacing of these talents!”
He snorted. “I would put nothing past you, Lia. Even magic.”
Something about her smile—but her smiles were always complicated, and her motivations and thoughts even more so. “Thank rather the Lord and Lady, to whom we address all our gratitude for the mysteries. But truly. Your opinion? As Lord of War?”
“As Lord of War?” Hirianthial thought of the Nase Galare’s sunfire aggression, and the inevitability of the sea in the Seni Galare’s soul… finished off by the chocolate-and-sunlight normalcy of a Glaseah who could blend auras with them so effortlessly. “They’ll suit. Very well indeed.” He glanced up at her. “Why, Lia? Is there some new war you have an eye on waging that you haven’t told me about yet?”
“Oh… no,” she said. “But… one never knows. It’s wisest to be prepared for every contingency.”
Hirianthial watched her take another sip from her glass, effecting that breezy non-concern for which she was so famous, and knew better. Val was very much not the first mind-mage since Corel’s death, if he was any judge, and all of them were her instruments. As, he thought, it should be. “As you say, my lady. One never knows.”
Keepers
During PG6, after the previous vignette and before Chapter 23
Vasiht’h wasn’t sure when pirate-hunting had become an acceptable distraction from fear, but he guessed having personal history with those pirates made sense of the impulse. A little. What didn’t make sense was that he could prefer pirate-hunting to watching over people in a hospital. He was sure—mostly—that in the past he would have lunged for the hospital vigil in a heart-beat, if given the choice between it and chasing down slavers alongside the military. But somehow, he was not that person anymore. Maybe it was just too close to the anxieties he was trying to forget; to go from worrying that Sehvi and her family might be dead, leaving him bereft, to worrying that Sediryl might die, leaving Jahir bereft…
The medical personnel no longer acted as concerned as they had when she’d arrived, but there were still far too many of them checking on her. It had been almost two weeks; Vasiht’h would have thought she’d have woken by now.
Jahir was exhausting himself, as usual. Vasiht’h let him, though, because he knew, in that secret place where the Goddess spoke, that his partner’s efforts had been largely responsible for Sediryl surviving. Oh, the surgeons had been necessary, and without them she would have died. But without Jahir calling her, those surgeons would have had nothing to work with. A body, maybe, but no spirit to animate it ever again. Vasiht’h had parked himself beside Jahir and kept him anchored to the world, and that had given Lisinthir a channel into them both; it was Lisinthir who decided when they could step back, based on the medical team’s reports, step back and rest, eat, and then resume.
Vasiht’h could tell they weren’t necessary anymore. Whatever was keeping Sediryl unconscious now was less about her body failing and more about something internal and personal, a path she had to walk alone, a choice she had to make. They’d helped her reach the point where she could, but now? Now it was up to her, and all they could do was keep her company. He stayed because she was a friend… and because Jahir refused to leave, and how could he possibly tell Jahir to leave, when Vasiht’h himself would have been glued to the hospital bedside of anyone he loved?
They were there now, as they had been for days. Jahir was sitting beside the bed, arm folded on the halo-arch and his head pillowed on it; his free hand rested on Sediryl’s arm. Vasiht’h was sitting near Sediryl’s feet… scooted against the wall, though, so that the HEAs could get past him to use the arch or examine the read-outs during their rounds.
Lisinthir was across from them, occupying one of the chairs for guests. Now that Sediryl was out of imminent physical danger, she no longer merited the sterile field. He made unexpectedly good company, especially since Jahir was unavailable, still tranced, still reaching. Waiting, now, and in some ways that was worse than what they’d had before because at least before they could do something. Now… now all they could do was see if Sediryl was willing to meet them. It hurt Vasiht’h’s heart to watch his partner straining for any sign of her. Lisinthir was a welcome distraction, even when they weren’t talking, because Lisinthir filled a room with his presence whether he was talking or not.
It struck Vasiht’h as… weird… to be honest… that he could find that restful, and yet he did. But he no longer thought of Lisinthir as some threatening and baffling outsider, but instead like… like someone who’d been through things. Things that Vasiht’h had now been through, and that he couldn’t really talk to other people about who hadn’t also been through them. Who could he talk to about having been processed as a slave? About his rage, and his impotence, and his need to do something? Who could he talk to about fleeing pirates? Grappling with an insane D-per? Wondering if he would die far from home on an alien planet?
