Sword of Jashan (Book 2) (38 page)

* * * * *

Ander drifted up to the surface of sleep. Something nagged at him, something he should do before he let the darkness take him.

Someone’s hand was holding his wrist. Jesel, he thought. He pulled away weakly so the touch would not distract him.

“Unknown God,” he heard someone whisper. “Be with him.”

Ander thought it was a good idea to pray to the Unknown God. Color magery belonged to Jashan, as well as fire and sword, and the arrogance of the
righ
. This was no time to pray to Jashan.

Unknown God
, he thought.
Be with me now.

He pulled again, on the thread that was now no thicker than a hair. It stretched, still full of the ancient strength.

Then it snapped.

* * * * *

King Martan flung up an arm, magery tracing it.

“Too late,” he said, showing his teeth. “Always you hold off too long, always you wait. Curse you, Callo ran Alkiran, you were the worst thing I ever made.”

He flung out a hand, fire coating it, ready to be released into Callo’s defenseless face. Behind him, Yhallin stood. Callo could hear her voice warning Kirian not to move or she would die.

Callo felt for the remains of his mage energy; it was gone, used up. He could barely stand.

Someone shouted behind him as the guardsmen, recovered from his ku’an attack, gathered their weapons.

Then the King’s eyes lost focus, his gaze traveling away from Callo’s face to stare into nothing. He shuddered as if he sustained another attack. Still, he flung color magery at Callo. It struck with a mere remnant of the power the King had once had, and seared his skin.

Callo felt the slippery hilt of the blade in his hands. He struck upward and out, as hard as he could.

Sharpeyes wavered on his feet. The hand that had held the magery went to his heart, clutching, and the mage energy flared into a burn and then vanished.

Blood flowed between the King’s ribs and over Callo’s hands. It leaked down Callo’s forearm and dripped onto the floor.

The King staggered, dropping to his knees. He looked up at Callo, but did not seem to see him at all.

“Weakling,” Sharpeyes said. “I cannot believe you have killed me after all.”

He dropped to the floor and lay in the spreading pool of his own blood, gasping for breath.

No one in the room came to his aid. Even Dionar, Lord Commander, stood watching as the fatal wound took His Majesty’s life.

When the King’s eyes finally stared sightless into eternity, Callo moved.

The guardsmen stalked up the stairs to take him.

Yhallin rushed between them, one hand gripping her bleeding shoulder.

“Do not harm him!” she shouted. “This man is now our King.”
 

Chapter Twenty-One

Kirian pulled herself to her feet and stared at Yhallin’s back, disbelieving. The woman who had tried to kill her a few moments ago now stood in front of Callo, arms spread like a shield. Yhallin’s hands shook from reaction. The stab wound on her shoulder leaked a spreading red stain that plastered Yhallin’s tunic to her chest.

The guardsmen hesitated, looking to their commander.

Dionar’s face was gray and exhausted. “Jashan’s will, this is a mess. She is right, men, especially if the young heir is dead upstairs. Take him into custody. Do not harm him.”

Yhallin smiled. It was an unpleasant smile on that bony, strained face. She turned to speak to Callo. “You will accede to his wishes after all, it seems my lord. Like it or not.”

Callo swayed and fell to his knees. His face was white, and he was breathing too fast.

Kirian tried to go to his side, but someone seized her from behind and wrapped a cord around her wrists. A hand on her shoulder guided her into the hallway, down a set of narrow stairs, and into the cells, where she sat on a wooden bench, rested her head against the wall and thought about all that had just happened.

* * * * *

After what seemed to be several candlemarks, the door to the cell swung open. A mailed guardsman waited just outside.

Kirian, still sitting on the wood bench, waited for food or water to be brought in. After a few seconds, the guard said: “Are you coming, Healer?”

Unbelieving, she jumped up. “Where am I going?”

“I have been ordered to release you. You’re to head to the
righ
quarters. There’s ones upstairs that need Healers.”

“What about the others?” she asked, as she trailed the man down the corridor to the metal doors at the end.

“They are to be released as well,” the man said. “You’ll find the mage upstairs in King Ander’s room.”

King Ander.
That obviously meant the boy still lived, but it told her nothing else. Was Callo ill too, or near to death? She remembered all the energy he had used in the battle and the final surge of power from King Martan’s dying hands into Callo’s body. Callo had fallen, just before she had been taken from the room. And what mage was the guard referring to—Callo or Yhallin?

When had she, a child from the streets of Sugetre, become so involved with the affairs of mages and kingdoms? All she really cared about was one troublesome, amber-eyed color mage, and whatever would make him finally comfortable with his lot in a life that had been manipulated since even before his birth.

The guard released her hands and opened the outer doors for her. The iron doors groaned shut behind her. She slipped down the hallway, unsure exactly where she was in this maze of a place. She turned a corner and saw a set of stairs leading upward, and Chiss waiting for her.

“Thank you for waiting, Chiss. I have no idea what is going on. What has happened, do you know?”

“All I know is there is a need for Healers,” Chiss said. “No one was sent to escort us, so it appears we are free.”

“Let’s go faster.” Kirian waved Chiss ahead.

“Indeed.” He led her up the deserted stone steps to ground level, where they walked across the hallways to the servants’ stairs. A maidservant and two men passed them on the stairs. Neither spared a word for Kirian and Chiss.

Two guardsmen opened the door for them on the level where the King’s family had their living quarters. Their faces were grim. She recognized one of them as the man who had guarded the door in the chamber downstairs.

“You are needed inside,” one of them said to Kirian, and waved her into Ander’s familiar room.

Ander lay on the bed, pale as the bed linen. His eyes were half-open and glazed. Beside him, Jesel added some potion to two fingers of water in a green glass; Kirian saw the black drops spread into the water and dissolve.

“Good!” Jesel said as he saw her. He glanced at her and then away, his tone clipped and urgent. “Next to him, Kirian; if he does not take this well, I will need you to help me.”

“He is in shock, then?” she asked, looking at the boy’s hands trembling on the coverlet.

“Gods know,” Jesel said. “He was poisoned through magery, I have been told. Now he barely breathes.”

“So you give the heartsblood.” Heartsblood was a mixture of three herbs, including the sart leaf she had used in Ha’las. It was used in the direst of cases. Kirian knew it would either stimulate the boy’s heart and lungs, or kill him.

“Do not gainsay me, Hon Kirian,” Jesel said. “It is my decision.”

“I do not gainsay you. Look, hurry. His breathing slows further, and his heart.”

Jesel slid his arm under Ander’s shoulders and lifted him. The boy’s vacant stare did not even flicker as the healer began to dribble the water with the heartsblood into his mouth. Kirian was relieved to see Ander’s throat move as he swallowed some of the potion.

Chiss said in a low voice: “I will try to find out what has happened to my lord.” He slid away from her and out the door.

As he left, Balan entered the room, once again wearing his own distinctive mail and with his sword sheathed at his side. Lady Dria Mar, dressed as if she had been expecting a call to court, followed him in. Through her worry, Kirian was glad to see they were all being released from their captivity. With the King dead and Ander ill, she wondered who had taken it on himself to order their release.

“What is going on here?” Dria Mar demanded.

“This medicine may save Lord Ander’s life,,” Jesel said. “But it is risky.”

“King Ander,” corrected Balan.

A swirl of robes announced a third visitor. Yhallin’s shoulder had been wrapped in a bulky bandage that was already stained red. Sweat glistened on her forehead, but her voice was as commanding as ever. Balan blocked her way.

“Let me in,” she said. “Healers! Back off. This boy’s fate hangs on the fingertips of Jashan, and there will be no meddling.”

“You are one to speak of meddling, you cursed witch!” Dria Mar said.

Yhallin made a menacing noise deep in her throat. Red sparks of color magery glittered in her eyes. Behind her, one of the guards moved a hand towards his sword and then stopped; the other man stood unmoving, both apparently uncertain of whom to defend.

On the bed, Ander tried to move away from the liquid still being dripped into his mouth. Kirian went to help hold the boy’s head. There were still a few drops of medicine in the glass, and Ander must take it all.

Balan looked at the guards before moving further into the room. “Make sure this mage does not interfere,” he ordered.

“Do not come near me,” Yhallin shrieked.

Jesel held up the glass; it was empty. He smiled and set it to the side, and began murmuring soft words of encouragement to Ander, ignoring the drama around him. Ander lay white and unmoving on the bed. His eyes closed, and his chest rose and fell very slowly.

Mage energy began to coalesce around Yhallin’s hands. It was weak, almost sputtering like a candle burning too close to the wax. Kirian was surprised the mage healer had any energy left at all, after the profligate use of magery in the King’s court downstairs.

“Step away from him,” Yhallin said. “There will be no more attempts to save him.”

“Unknown God, why?” Jesel said. “He is our King!”

“My King is the one who lies dead downstairs,” Yhallin said. “I owed him everything.”

“You owed him your position and your status and coin to live on, I believe,” Balan said. “Nothing more. This boy is the legitimate heir. You conspired to slay him. That is treason.”

“But the King said—”

“He is dead,” Dria Mar said. She approached Yhallin, heedless of the burning color washing up Yhallin’s skin and casting her hollowed eyes further into shadow. “So his wishes have no more legitimacy. My son is your new King, under every law and custom of this land.”

“Get away from him!” screamed Yhallin. She wavered on her feet, but the color magery intensified. “Lord Callo is our new King. It is what His Majesty wanted, and I will make sure his wishes are fulfilled.”

Jesel stared at her, and stepped back. Kirian began to rise from her position at Ander’s side. Then she stopped and shook her head.

“No, I will not leave him,” she said.

Yhallin put out her right hand, ready to attack. “I will not stop for you,” Yhallin warned. “You are nothing. You—” she spat at Dria Mar—“are even worse.” A weak spray of energy curled from Yhallin’s hands and arced towards Dria Mar. It struck Dria Mar in the chest. Ander’s mother cried out and fell, but still looked up at Yhallin, fully conscious.

Then Yhallin turned towards the bed where Ander lay unaware.

Kirian froze. Perhaps this was it, after all the pyrotechnics in the room downstairs, and Kirian was about to die. She met Yhallin’s eyes. Yhallin looked half insane with grief, tears glistening in her dark eyes as she used her last reserves of strength to try to kill Ander.

Then there was a commotion at the door. Yhallin half turned to see what the noise was about. Balan rushed her, his knife in his outstretched hand. Before he could get within an arm’s length of Yhallin, her eyes rolled up in her head and the mage energy snapped into nothingness. Yhallin dropped to her knees.

Hira Noh stood behind the mage healer, holding a dagger in her hand. The blade was red to the hilt.

Yhallin slumped to the floor. Blood soaked the back of her tunic. Her head was turned, and her eyes stared at Kirian.

“Oh gods, she is still alive,” Kirian said. Her voice shook. She scrambled to Yhallin’s side and dropped to her knees. She put one hand to Yhallin’s neck, trying to feel the heartbeat, but her hand shook and she could feel nothing. Yhallin’s dark eyes stared into hers. Then a shudder took her body, and Kirian heard the rattling sound of Yhallin’s last breath.

The consciousness drained from the mage’s eyes, leaving them empty.

Kirian knelt on the floor next to Yhallin’s body. The pain of her knees on the hard floor was a distant annoyance. There was pressure in her head, as if a scream was trapped and was trying to get out. There was blood all over the floor. People gaped at the dead mage. Kirian had seen too much violence, too much death in the last day. The Castle seemed full of blood—the King’s, Oron’s, now Yhallin’s.

Yhallin had been a street child like Kirian, but her inherited power made her the puppet of Kings and mages. Now she lay dead, a victim of her own loyalty. Kirian was sorry for her death. Not sorry at all to have seen the end of a dangerous adversary who had been half insane with grief and love.

It all struck a little too close to home. Kirian heard herself sob, and was appalled.

Above her head, people were talking. She heard Balan thanking Hira Noh. She heard Dria Mar, voice dripping with suspicion, demanding to know where was the rest of the Sword of Jashan. One of the guards came to cover the dead mage and called for help to take the body away.

A familiar hand was on her shoulder. Chiss was there, back from wherever he had gone. He said, “Come now, Hon Kirian. It is all over.” He bent to help her get to her feet and move to a chair by Ander’s bed. His hand was strong, a comfort to her as she went where he led, unquestioning. He helped her sit in the chair and brought her a cloth—something from Ander’s sideboard, that had no business being used for such a task—to clean the blood from her hands.

Beside her, Ander shifted on the bed. Jesel leaned away from him, smiling. There had been no seizures; the heartsblood had drawn the boy away from death gently.