Oathen (39 page)

“What are you doing here?” a voice hissed in
his ear. He turned to see Narjin crouching beside him, trailed by a
hovering orb of blue fire.

“Same as you, it looks like,” he replied,
“though with less expectation of success.” He waggled his
sword.

She smiled. “That’s sweet of you. You any
good?”

The cultists crashed into the camp, magics and
serrated blades whirling.

“Let’s find out.”

Together they ambushed several Enforcers,
blade and blue fire flicking out at them, and a running battle
ensued. Other Scions also tried to halt the cult’s advance, but
they were too few. The camp defenders were slowly pushed through
the tents and shelters and toward the path that led down the hill
to the village.

“It’s no good,” panted Narjin, blood trickling
onto her temple from a glancing blow to the head. She and Salvor
had taken momentary shelter behind a cluster of small firs growing
from an enormous stump. “There’s too many of them.”

Salvor peered through the trees. Snow still
fell, but it seemed to be lessening. “The camp’s a wash. We should
try to catch up with Meena.”

Narjin’s head snapped around. “What do you
mean?”

“The cult leader, Oolat, went after her a
while back,” Salvor said, tipping his head in the direction they’d
gone.

“Dragonfire,” Narjin swore. “Why didn’t you
say something?”

Salvor glared at her. “I was busy trying to
stay alive!”

She hissed through her teeth. “I need to warn
Ahm. The battle below is a distraction. He’s come for the
key!”

Folly
. “I’ll go after her, then,”
Salvor said, slipping out into the chaos. “Wisdom guard
you!”

~~~

Anjoya jumped at the soft click of the secret
door. Sitting in a padded chair beside the Magister’s bed, she
looked up from her book.

“How is he?” Imorlar asked.

“Unchanged. How is Addan?”

“His nurses are being allowed to care for him
as usual.”

“And the Dictat?”

Imorlar sighed, taking a seat in a chair
across from her. “They’re taking steps to announce the Magister’s
death later today. Once that’s been accomplished, they’ll
effectively have control of Vint. Even the Counts who aren’t in on
the empire conspiracy have to go along with the plan; it’s the law,
and they have no recourse. Not with the Magister’s son incompetent
and Geret out of the country.”

“There is no other heir, no other family
member?”

“None. Geret’s father is not of the lineage,
and the Magister has no siblings, no other children. He never
remarried after the Magistra passed.”

Anjoya looked to the comatose occupant of the
wide bed next to her. “That seems terribly short-sighted for a man
of Beret’s quality. Perhaps we should remedy that.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A Magistra could counter the Dictat’s coup,
could she not? At least until Beret wakes. That should give you
time to complete your investigation. I even happen to be distantly
descended from Hyndi nobility.”

“I, I,” Imorlar stammered.

When Count Runcan stepped in to check on
Beret’s condition, Anjoya and Imorlar consulted with him, and later
with the Vinten code of laws. Anjoya was pleasantly surprised to
learn that a Magistra possessed the full ruling power of a
Magister, unlike in Hynd, where the caliph’s wives had to occupy
themselves with the social politics of the Citizenry. The Vintens
found no rules excluding Anjoya from marrying the
Magister.

“Then I’ll do it. Temporarily, of course,” she
said. “I’m sure Beret isn’t looking for a full-time
Magistra.”

Runcan looked at her with a mixture of awe and
amusement. “You’re serious.”

“I believe I am. Now I know how Kemsil felt
after meeting Geret. He looks so charming and innocent, but the
next thing you know, you’re sailing off to save the world, or
marrying the ruler of a small country.”

~~~

Sanych awoke to pain. She squeezed her eyes
shut, trying to determine which parts of her were hurting, but she
soon gave up. Everything hurt.

Afraid of where she would find herself, she
cracked open one eyelid. Dim light filtered through the snow clouds
above. Thick, dark grey columns of rock loomed before her, striped
with ice on their outer faces. The waterfall’s thunder rolled up
from below. Gravelly dirt ground against her cheek, invading the
wound Oolat had inflicted with his claw.

She opened both eyes and looked around,
finding herself in a tiny valley among the basalt hoodoos that
lined the rim of the canyon like so many rotting teeth in a giant’s
lower jaw. Unsure how she had managed to survive such a drop, she
began to sit up. Sudden agony shot through her right shoulder; her
arm lay uselessly against the rock beneath her. Biting back a cry,
Sanych cradled her arm against her chest and gingerly rolled onto
her back. Beneath her head, the rough stone sloped upward. Looking
up at the angled cliff behind her, she concluded that she must have
slid down rather than crashed.

Her body throbbed. “Meena,” she whispered, “I
could really use you dropping in with a witty comment right about
now.”

But Oolat had tossed Meena into the river.
Sanych knew the Shanallar would be in a deathlike state until she
warmed up, and only then would her wound heal. There would be no
help from that quarter. She had only herself to rely on. Herself,
and her newfound magic. Though she’d been doing amazingly well,
according to Curzon, Sanych held herself to a standard of
perfection, and her failure to cause even the slightest harm to
Oolat grated on her.

She focused on problem-solving to distract her
from her injuries as she struggled to find the least painful way to
stand up.

First: a way out of here. Geret’s
hurt…or worse…and I have to find Meena. Again.

She looked up, seeing only a slender gap of
sky between the nearest stone pillar and the main cliff. Mere
inches separated them in spots. Sparking her magic to life in her
palm, she limped her way up the gravelly ground to the tiny ridge
between the hoodoo and the cliff.

Molten rock soon melted down the cliff face as
Sanych curved her glowing hand into the basalt, using a simple heat
barrier to keep herself cool. Withdrawing it a moment later, she
examined her handiwork: a wide rung of cool stone remained, while
the rock that had recently occupied space behind it cooled in
crackling streams down the face of the cliff. She nodded,
satisfied.

Sanych began climbing, bracing one leg against
the hoodoo as she created her next rung. The work was tedious, the
climbing exhausting, but her mind kept up a constant stream of
questions about how she could improve against Oolat next time.
She’d figured out his mirroring and absorbing—the cult lord was
manipulating shadow, using it to diffuse and deflect her light—but
his instantaneous transport still puzzled her.

Then she had it.
In all light but the
brightest, there is some shadow. He’s riding the shadows between
the light!

One rung higher, another epiphany halted her.
If nearly all light contains some shadow, then in nearly all
shadow, there must be some light!

“Yes!
” The Archivist’s grin was
incandescent.

~~~

Salvor’s horse pounded through the snow. His
and his mount’s breaths formed clouds of steam among the falling
snow He rode to the top of a long ridge, then paused as the sound
of a massive waterfall assaulted his ears, overwhelming any
prospect of hearing friend or foe. He scanned the dim, snowy forest
for movement or tracks.

Instead, he saw Geret, face-down in the snow.
Throwing his leg across his mount’s neck, Salvor leaped from the
saddle and bolted to his prince’s side. He knelt in the thickening
snow and felt for Geret’s pulse, relieved beyond words to find it
steady. He closed his eyes, sighing in relief. “Thank you, Wisdom.
I’m sorry I thought you hated me.”

The snow on Geret’s cloak indicated he’d been
lying there for a short while. Salvor saw no one else in the area,
and foreboding twisted his belly.

“Geret,” he whispered, shaking his
shoulder.

No response.

“Folly curse your name, you myopic fool,” he
hissed. “Get up!”

“Arrogant bastard,” Geret mumbled into the
snow. “Can’t you see I’m napping?” He propped himself up on one
forearm with a grunt.

“You going to live?” Salvor asked.

“It’s unclear,” Geret replied, squinting at
Salvor. “You’re pretty blurry, too. Is it night
already?”

“No,” Salvor replied, frowning. “It’s still
afternoon. What happened out here? Do you know where Meena
is?”

Geret bolted up onto his hands and knees and
looked behind him, down the hill. Salvor followed his gaze, seeing
the darkness of blood against the snow near the cliff
rim.

“What do you see?” Geret asked, squinting down
the hill.

Salvor looked closely at Geret’s eyes; the
prince’s pupils were pinpricks. “Stay here.”

“What? No!”

“I said,” Salvor repeated, putting a hand on
Geret’s chest and shoving him onto his bottom in the snow, “stay
here. You can’t see worth Folly and I don’t want you falling off
the cliff.”

He stood and examined the snow near him,
seeing where Geret’s horse had stood, before it wandered away,
where…two sets of tracks had dismounted.

He whirled to Geret. “You brought Sanych out
here? Where is she?”

Geret shook his head, holding snow against his
eyes. “I don’t know.”

Salvor drew his sword; his eyes read the snow.
He saw Sanych’s feet turn and flee, yet not be pursued. He tracked
her as she encountered another pair of prints, appearing out of
thin air.

She fell here
. He traced the edges of
her body print with his fingers, finding crystallized drops of
blood under the fresh snow. He saw where she’d stumbled away, and
his eyes widened.

“Sanych!” He got to his feet, hurrying toward
the cliff’s edge.

A blazing beam of light radiated up from
below.

“I’m right here, Salvor,” Sanych panted, her
voice faint. “You don’t have to shout.”

Salvor looked down in amazement, seeing Sanych
clinging to a rung of stone a short distance below his boots. Her
other arm dangled uselessly. One of her feet rested on a lower
rung, while the other was braced against the top few inches of a
great column of stone.

“It was about to get a lot harder,” she said,
nodding toward the hoodoo’s rough point, which didn’t rise quite as
high as the cliff face. “I hadn’t quite worked up the courage to
try my latest theory. Can you help me up?” She wiped her grimy,
bloody brow against her forearm.

“Can you hold on a moment longer? I’ve got
Geret and my horse; we’ll figure something out.”

“Geret? He’s all right?” Sanych asked, hope
lighting her words.

“He’s half-blind, but his arms work fine.
Don’t move; I’ll be right back.”

~~~

Sanych heard Salvor lead Geret and the horse
to the edge of the cliff, explaining to Geret what needed to be
done.

“You do realize I can barely see, right?”
Geret said.

“Don’t need you to see her, just grab her. The
horse will pull you up.”

“And why am I risking my neck—no offense,
Sanych—when you have a perfectly good pair of eyes?”

“You got knocked on the head pretty hard,
didn’t you? I have to see when and where to lead the horse. I don’t
care to let you lead him off the cliff.”

“Anytime,” Sanych said, her voice faint with
exhaustion.

“Sorry. Coming down now,” Geret said. He clung
to the rope, his foot in a loop, and Salvor backed the horse up
until the prince was even with Sanych.

“Folly,” Geret muttered. “Sanych, I can’t see
much; you’ll have to guide me.”

She saw he was squinting, and a pang of guilt
shot through her. “Reach out to the wall with your right hand,” she
instructed. Geret blindly pawed at the stone. “Here,” she added,
illuminating the stone rung with a brilliant glow.

“Ah, thanks. That, I can see.” Geret reached
out and hung on. Sanych lowered her leg from the hoodoo rung and
reached her toe out toward the loop of rope, standing on Geret’s
foot.

“I can’t reach out to you,” she said, gritting
her teeth against the throb in her shoulder. “My right shoulder’s
out of its socket.”

“Just jump toward me; I’ll catch
you.”

“You’re sure? You can barely see me!” Her
voice trembled, and she glanced down at the long drop beneath them.
If she fell from this height, she’d probably tumble all the way
down the cliff and land in the river below.

Geret smiled. “I’d never let you fall,
Sanych.”

Too late
, she thought. Though she had
blinded him, he was still willing to risk himself to save her.
Does that count for anything? I want it to.