Restoration (2 page)

“I've been trying to decide how to thank you. Words seem so impossibly inadequate. You've saved my brother's reason ... and our child's and our friends' ... but at such cost to yourself ...”

My skin began to itch. I felt her eyes searching to see the demon that now lived inside me, not an inborn element of my nature as were the demon aspects of her brother Blaise and the child she fostered, but a separate conscious being with voice and emotions and ideas of his own

“I have no regrets,” I said. Just worries. Just fears. Just terrifying uncertainty about the future and my place in it.

Elinor could not know how well she repaid me for my deeds of the previous year. Even as I shifted down the row and fixed my attention on my work, hoping to escape her scrutiny, I heard the faint music of my solace from the far end of the valley—a child's laughter, giggling, bubbling, making the golden noonday magic. Before very long, footsteps came pounding across the meadow—tiny bare feet on short sturdy legs, followed by the galumphing boots of someone much taller, someone who was holding back just enough to keep up the merry chase.

“Da!” squealed the little one as he streaked across the fields toward the sod-roofed cottage tucked into the edge of the trees. In the cottage doorway stood a large, square-shouldered man—a bearlike Manganar with brown curly hair and only one leg. He set down a heavy barrel and leaned his crutch against the door frame just in time to catch the boy and rescue him from the tall, dark-haired man giving chase.

“Have you outwitted your uncle Blaise, Evan-diargh?” said the one-legged man, rumpling the boy's short dark hair. “Have you played the clever fox to his hound, then?”

“He has indeed,” said the pursuer, a spare, large-boned man of thirty. He patted the boy's back. “I've never seen a mite could run so fast. Especially after we'd been working hard all morning to catch these few paltry trout.” He pulled a canvas bag off his back. “As it is, I still need to clean them. The boy was falling asleep on the bank, so I thought I'd best get him home.”

“I'll wager he's ready for a bite to eat and a rest,” said the big man, reaching for his crutch.

“Then I'll take care of our supper and be back in a bit.” With a quick glance and a nod to my companion and me, the dark-haired man started back across the flowered meadow toward the stream that meandered through the valley.

The kindly rescuer nudged the boy, who clung to his neck. “Give a wave to your mam, child.” The boy loosed his grip just long enough to waggle a small hand at Elinor. The child's dark eyes, their blue fire hidden only by distance, sparkled happily over the man's shoulder. With one arm around the clinging child and the other expertly maneuvering his crutch, the man carried the boy inside the house. A child could have no safer haven than Gordain's arm.

I turned back to my work, swallowing the uncomfortable knot of joy and grief, gratitude and loneliness that lodged in my throat whenever I watched Elinor and Gordain and the child that fate had given into their care.

“Night's daughter.” The woman was staring at me, her hands fallen limp and lifeless on her knees, the blood drained from her strong and lovely face. “How could I have been so blind? All these months Blaise has brought you here to visit ... to help you heal, he told me. I've seen you watching Evan ... devouring him with your eyes. But I never caught the resemblance until now. He's your son, isn't he?” Her eyes darted to the shabby cottage. “Why are you here?”

I shook my head, trying to think of what to say. “Ehnor—”

“Why would you hide the truth? You and your cursed, wicked, vile Ezzarian ways ... You left him out to die, willing to murder a child because he was born different from you. Because you were afraid of him.” She wrapped her arms about herself and rose slowly to her feet, her eyes on fire. “And now you've learned that you were wrong to do it. Are you here to appease your conscience? Do you think to make it up to him that you were willing to let wolves tear him apart? Or did you plan to sneak him away? You've never even touched him. How dare you set foot within a league of him?”

“Mistress Elinor, please—” How could I explain all the reasons I dared not touch him, that it was the most difficult thing I had ever done, and that only her goodness and her husband's made it possible? “I've no intention—You and Gordain—” My blundering inability to respond quickly exhausted her willingness to listen.

“You'll never have him. Go away.” She spun on her heel and strode toward the cottage, crushing the newly set plants under her feet.

I jumped up to follow her and cursed the catch in my side that stopped my breath for a moment, as if Ysanne's knife were still buried in my flesh. The sun glare dazzled my eyes, making my head throb as I limped across the rista field. Sweat dripped beneath my coarse linen shirt, and clouds began to gather on the horizons of my mind. Creeping darkness ... With growing misgiving, I halted at the fenced corner of the goat pen next the house, not daring to go closer. Gordain stood in the cottage doorway, his face fierce, determined. Pitiful ... as if a mortal human could block my way if I chose to summon power. I gritted my teeth, banishing these hateful feelings that were not mine, though they seethed inside my head like boiling tar. I forced my tongue to obey my own will, stammering as I searched for the right words. “Forgive my secrecy. I never intended—I could never—”

But before I could get out the explanation, the storm of rage exploded in my mind, thundering fury that threatened to split my skull. My hands flexed, demanding to grasp Gordain's thick neck and twist it, to hear him scream and choke until the muscles snapped and the bones cracked. My feet were ready to kick the cripple's leg out from under him, my hands to snatch the ax on his wall, and my eyes to watch his face pale as I hacked off his remaining limb.

My hands were shaking as they gripped the fence post, my knees trembling. “Please, get Blaise. Hurry. I'm so sorry ... so sorry ...” Only a moment's hesitation and a blur of green and brown streaked past me. Shouts faded into the pandemonium of fury and raging death.

Running feet. Anxious voices. “Get in the house, Linnie. Bar the door! I'll explain later.”

Rumbling ... growling ... erupting in a roar of madness ... The fence post dissolved in fire, and a cloud of blackness obscured my sight. I was lost ...

 

“... Listen to me, my friend. Hold on to my voice. I'll not leave you. We're going to bring you back, Seyonne, and get you away from here safely. I know you don't want to hurt anyone. Remember who you are: good friend and teacher, guardian of a prince, most honorable of warriors, loving father. This sickness is not you.”

Determined hands gripped my shoulders, and I wanted to rip them from their puny arms. I bit my lip and tasted blood, and it gave me strength. I would kill him for keeping me captive. Only his voice—this vile bondage of calm words and reason—held me in check. As soon as he stopped speaking, I would strangle him. Snap his neck. Pluck his eyes. Eat his heart.

“Did you see him running? He runs like you, easy and light and very fast. He spent the morning digging in the sand by the stream and scooping water in his hand to fill up the holes he made. So patient—No, listen to me, Seyonne, my friend. You are not going to hurt me or anyone. Every time the boy scooped water in his hand, he spilled most of it before he got it to his little holes. But he would squat down beside the hole and pour his tiny bit of water in and watch it disappear into the sand. Then he would sigh and go back to the stream to try again. You see? He is patient like you. How often have you tried to teach me to cast a vermin barrier? Am I the stupidest Ezzarian ever born? Yet without reproach, you try again and again to teach me these simplest of skills. You, who can see the patterns in the world, who can unravel mysteries that no one else can begin to understand. I've never known anyone who sees so clearly ...

The man was a fool. I couldn't see. Everywhere I turned was darkness. Terror lapped at the fires of my blood thirst and soon became a flood. At any moment I would take that dreadful step where there would be nothing under my foot, and I would plunge into the abyss. I would become the one I feared ... the one who held sway over my dreams and visions.

But the strong hands did not let go, and the calm voice did not stop. Before long the tide of fear began to ebb, and I allowed the strong hands and the calm voice to guide me back into the light. “... Apologize. I thought you were ready for a longer stay. You seemed so much better.”

The world began to come back into focus ... a dappled woodland, a dusting of new green on the bare branches. The smell of damp earth and new growth. A steep angle to the sunlight. A stream mumbling beside the path, half hidden behind a tangle of willows.

“Here. Let's stop and have a drink. We could both use it, I would guess. Are you ready?”

Numb, unspeaking, I dropped to my knees where he pointed. The rippling water was cold on my scarred and bony hand, still soiled from Elinor and Gordain's garden. I scooped out a handful of the clear, cold water and scrubbed at my hands, letting the muddy dregs drain into the new-sprung grass. Splashed another handful on my face, and then another on my neck, cleaning off the sweat of sun and madness. I looked at the water in my cupped hand and imagined a tiny bronze fist carrying water so carefully across the sand to a childish enterprise. Evan-diargh-son of fire. Smiling, I drank down my own treasure and three more besides, and then sat back, leaning my head wearily against a tree.

“You're getting very good at this,” I said to the dark-haired man who sat cross-legged beside me, having drunk his own fill of the sweet water. “How long until you tire of preventing mad Wardens from destroying the world?”

Blaise smiled his crooked smile. “I will do whatever is necessary. So my mentor has taught me.”

“I can't go back there again.”

“You'll go back. He'll not grow up without knowing you. I've promised you that already. We'll just have to work some more before you do. What set it off this time? Have you had more dreams?”

I ran my fingers through my damp hair and pondered the question. “The same dreams come every night. Nothing new.” Dreams of an enchanted fortress and a mystery that terrified me. “Elinor and I were talking about farming. About my father. About Ezzaria. And then you and Evan came ...”

“We were running. Were you afraid for him? Was that it?”

“No. Just the opposite. I was so grateful for your sister and Gordain. I couldn't ask for a better home for him. No. It must have been something else ...” I hated that I could never remember exactly what set off these attacks—the storms of violence that had riven my soul ten times in the past eight months since the first one in Vayapol, when three beggars had tried to rob Blaise's foster brother Farrol. I had come near killing them all, friends and robbers alike, as if they somehow deserved it by their very act of breathing.

My demon was the cause, I believed. Angry. Resentful. Trapped behind the barriers I had built in some vain belief that I could control my own soul long enough to understand my dreams and face their consequences. I was sure this waking madness was my demon's raging.

But as I searched my memory for the key, I ran across something more immediately distressing. “Oh, Verdonne's child! Elinor guessed that I'm Evan's father. She thinks I'm planning to take him away. Blaise, you've got to go back. I was trying to reassure them, and then I go mad in front of their door. They must be terrified.”

“Stubborn Ezzarian—seems like I advised you to tell them everything.” Blaise jumped to his feet and offered me his hand. “As soon as you're safely asleep, I'll go back.” We started walking briskly down the trail, Blaise working the enchantments that took us farther than the number of our steps and true geography would admit, the sorcery that kept my son's location hidden from me. Much as I longed to be a father to Evan-diargh, I could not trust myself with the most precious thing on earth. And even if I were cruel enough to uproot him from the only home he had ever known, I had no place to take him.

My life as a Warden of Ezzaria, a sorcerer-warrior in my people's thousand-year battle to save the human world from the ravages of demons, had almost ended before it had begun, when I was enslaved by the Derzhi. But after sixteen years of bondage, the Prince of the Derzhi had returned my freedom and my homeland, and I had taken up my Warden's calling once again, only to discover that the secret war we Ezzarians had fought with such diligence for ten centuries was a war against ourselves. The rai-kirah—the demons—were not wicked beings bent on destruction of human reason, but fragments of our own souls, ripped away by an ancient enchantment and banished to a frozen, bitter land called Kir‘Vagonoth. The birth of my son and my meeting with Blaise had convinced me that whatever the reasons for this ancient sundering, it must be undone.

My child had been born joined to a rai-kirah. Possessed. As it was impossible to remove a demon from an infant, Ezzarian law demanded that such children be killed. But before I even knew of his birth, my wife had sent our son away until he was old enough for us to heal. My search for the child led me to Blaise, an Ezzarian also born demon-joined, a young outlaw of generous heart and inner peace—a wholeness, a completion, that led me to understand our nature and the terrible split that had occurred so many centuries before. Blaise taught me what my race and the demons were meant to be, and so I set out to free the rai-kirah from their exile by unlocking the way to our ancient homeland called Kir‘Navarrin. To accomplish this task, I was forced to put my new beliefs to the test and join myself with a powerful demon named Denas.