Sword of Shadows (35 page)

Chapter Forty-Two

Akmael was borne
with reverence back to his tent, where High Mage Rezlyn and Eolyn stripped him. They removed shards of metal and grit from his wounds, and washed them with wine and water. Then they applied poultices of yarrow, vervain, tormentil, and fox’s clout.

Rezlyn’s expression was somber. Eolyn noticed a haunted look to his eyes, as if he were reliving some terrible memory.

“What is it?” she asked when they finished dressing the wounds. “What do you see?”

Rezlyn shook his head and spoke low, so that the others in the tent might not hear. “I see his father.”

Her heart contracted. With a sharp intake of breath, Eolyn turned to Rezlyn’s table of herbs and extracts. She began gathering ingredients for an infusion of ironwort and blood thistle.

“That was more complicated than this,” she said. Kedehen had died from a spear wound, a mass of splintered wood that had taken out his eye and penetrated his skull, festering for days before releasing the old King from his agony. “Nearly impossible for anyone, mage or maga, to clean and heal. There was little you could have done, save wait for the Gods to make their choice.”

Her hands shook. The vials slipped from her fingers. A violent spasm coursed through Eolyn’s womb, and she sank to the floor.

Rezlyn was at her side in an instant. “Maga Eolyn!”

Cold sweat had broken out on her skin. She struggled to speak, but each breath was cut short by a new wave of pain.

“Please,” she managed through frightened gasps, “please, Mage Rezlyn, ask them to go. Everyone.”

The mage sent away the servants, knights, guards, and nobles who had been anxiously watching their work. Then he returned to Eolyn and wrapped his cloak around her shoulders.

“You have asked too much of your magic today,” he said. “You must rest, Maga Eolyn. Allow me to care for the King. I will prepare an infusion to calm your spirit.”

“Mage Rezlyn.” Eolyn clutched at the healer’s arm and gave him a pleading look. “I am with child. The seed took root just a few weeks ago. I fear this spark of life is too new, too delicate to survive the curse I cast against Prince Mechnes.”

Rezlyn’s eyes widened. “It tries to claim the life inside of you.”  He rested a hand upon her abdomen, listening with his touch, and said, “The child’s father is a warrior.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he fights.” Rezlyn’s glance strayed toward the King. “He has sounded his battle cry through your pain. A meeker baby would slip quietly away, and you would not have known until morning, when the blood of his defeat stained your bed.”

Renewed spasms coursed through her.

“We will start with the root of winter sage to cleanse you of the curse, salvia to calm the muscles, and juniper and rosemary to protect the child.” Rezlyn helped Eolyn up and guided her toward the King’s bed.

“I am of no use to Akmael like this,” she protested. “I would rather rest elsewhere than be an invalid at his side.”

“It is his son that is in danger, is it not?”

Eolyn opened her mouth to object, then bit her lip and looked away, unable to voice the lie.

“The son’s spirit can help the father, just as the father’s spirit can help the son,” Rezlyn said. “This is powerful magic, and we cannot deny it to them.”

She met the mage’s eyes, a challenge overriding the tremor in her voice. “You must not tell anyone.”

Rezlyn responded with a gentle smile that enhanced the many lines of his face. “You need not worry, Maga Eolyn. If there is one thing I have demonstrated during my years of service to the House of Vortingen, it is my capacity for discretion.”

That night, the Lost Souls dragged Eolyn down into their midst. A thousand tentacles of their thirst penetrated her spirit, seeking the life within. Eolyn clung to the world of the living on a thin thread of winter sage, the bitter root spooned into her mouth by High Mage Rezlyn, whose face appeared distorted and blurred in the dim candlelight whenever she surfaced from her nightmares.

She took the magic he gave her and wove it around her unborn child, interlacing the ephemeral fabric with fresher aromas of rosemary and juniper, all the while beating off the Lost Souls until the protective cloak gathered strength, and the decaying spirits who sought her baby withered at its touch, at last slipping away toward eternal darkness.

At dawn, she awoke exhausted.

Every muscle in her body ached, but the spasms had passed. She could feel the child alive inside her womb. Tears of joy and relief stung her eyes.

Mage Rezlyn brought another infusion and examined her carefully. Bruises had bloomed purple and black over her ribs.

“I must have cracked them when I fell from my horse,” Eolyn said. She had not even noticed the pain until now.

Rezlyn shook his head. “The Gods must favor you, Maga Eolyn, to have allowed you to charge into that melee, and come away with only this.”

He produced a linen bandage that he used to wrap her torso.

“Let me tend to the King,” she said.

“The child is still delicate. Too much exertion could yet do him harm.”

“No task heals us better than the task of healing others.”

Rezlyn responded to this old saying with a warm smile. “Very well. But when I order you to rest, Maga Eolyn, you must rest.”

For days, Akmael hovered between this world and the next, his skin translucent, his body cold and unresponsive. Eolyn kept a close eye on his wounds, changing the poultices and applying fresh bandages several times a day.

One morning, High Mage Rezlyn inspected the laceration left by the spear, and on finding it clean, decided to have it cauterized. Akmael’s body convulsed at the touch of the hot iron, a reaction that worried Eolyn but seemed to please the court physician. The stench of burnt flesh brought back unwanted memories of the curse of Ahmad-kupt, and when they applied the iron a second time, Eolyn turned away, unable to watch. Once they had sealed the wound, new poultices were prepared using fennel, elecampane, and Berenben cream to heal the blistering skin.

When they finished wrapping the bandages, Eolyn closed her eyes and set her hands upon Akmael, her spirit seeking out torn tissues and splintered bones, weaving what she could back together with her magic. It was exhausting work, and she could keep it up for only short periods of time before the flame of her magic wavered. Rezlyn inevitably withdrew her hands, breaking her focus and reminding her she also had a child to protect and heal.

He brought another cup of ironroot tea, and Eolyn delivered the infusion to Akmael’s cracked lips in small spoonfuls.

“He lost too much blood,” she said, “and these infusions, I fear, are not replacing it rapidly enough.”

“Healing must obey the pace of the earth,” Rezlyn replied.

Eolyn bristled. “Why, then, is the pace of the earth so slow?”

A commotion was heard outside the King’s tent. Raucous shouts and laughter filled the air, the sounds of men meeting in friendship.

Mage Corey strode in, sunlight following him in a luminous cloud. He greeted Rezlyn with a hearty embrace, and turned to Eolyn, who flew into his arms. He had washed recently and donned fresh clothes, but the smell of Moehn clung to him, of earth and crushed oak leaves, of pine and sweet herbs. It made Eolyn’s heart ache for home.

Corey’s silver-green eyes sparkled. “I never thought I’d receive such a greeting from you, Maga Eolyn.”

She flushed and withdrew. “I never thought I’d be so glad to see you, Mage Corey. You must tell me of Mariel and Borten.”

“They are alive and well, or were the last time I saw them. I have no reason to believe they have come to any harm. I suppose we shall know soon enough, with Lord Herensen on his way to chase the last of the Syrnte out of Moehn. Ah!” He proffered the staff he carried, of polished oak and water crystal. “This, I believe, is yours. It is a fine instrument, Eolyn. Thank you for entrusting it to me.”

Eolyn’s heart swelled as she accepted the staff, her magic reconnecting with the familiar resonance of the South Woods. She set it aside and turned back to the mage.

“Corey, the men who brought Rishona’s head to Akmael spoke of you. They said they met you at the head of the Pass of Aerunden, and that you had followed the Syrnte army for days.”

“It is true.” He grinned. “I have become an honest hero.”

Eolyn drew a breath, but the question faltered on her lips. “Perhaps, you have heard that I slew the general who commanded the Syrnte army.”

“Yes, of course. Very impressive, but I assure you, the San’iloman was the more prestigious kill. You haven’t bested me, Eolyn. Not yet.”

“No.” She held up her hands, trying to stay his humor. “Please, Corey. That is not what I meant. When he died, Prince Mechnes mentioned Adiana with his last breath, and I thought…I thought perhaps you had seen her. And the girls, Tasha and Catarina, were they…?”

Her voice trailed off at the change in his expression. She had never seen Corey like that, without even a hint of levity in his eyes.

“The girls are dead, Eolyn,” he said. “I am sorry.”

Eolyn beat back the rush of pain unleashed by these words, clinging to the one name that still held hope. “And Adiana?”

“For the moment, Adiana is beyond our reach.”

“Then she is still a prisoner of the Syrnte? Perhaps we can send word to Lord Herensen, and he could—”

“No.” He waved her words away. “No, Eolyn. She is not with the Syrnte. She is safe, but her situation is…complicated. I think it best that we do not speak of it now.”

“But I must know whether—”

“Eolyn.” He took her chin in his hand. “Look at yourself. How long have you have been carrying the weight of this kingdom on your shoulders? Your magic is spent and your aura faded. You must recuperate your strength, and bring the King back to our people. When these tasks are finished we will speak at length, and you will know the fates of all your sisters.”

The maga drew a breath to protest.

“That is my final word,” Corey said.

Eolyn understood there would be no more argument. Reluctantly, she returned to Akmael’s side, troubled by Corey’s unyielding silence, by the mystery behind his words.

In the days that followed, Akmael’s hands grew warmer, but still he did not respond to her touch. Eolyn took to sleeping in his bed. No one questioned her decision to do so. Time and again, she searched for Akmael in her dreams, but he eluded her like a shadow on the edge of awareness.

At last one night, she found him. Not Akmael the man, but a boy lost in the black forest, crouched beside a gnarled old tree, peering anxiously into the endless gloom.

I must find my mother,
he said.
She left long ago and never returned.

A woman’s voice floated from deep inside the formless woods. Akmael sprang to his feet and ran toward it.

Eolyn cried out and caught his hand, pulling him back from the darkness, but the boy wrenched free of her hold.

I must find my father
, he insisted.
He waits in the halls of my ancestors and has prepared a place for me.

Many voices were calling now, woven together in a single tapestry of song that settled in the high branches and glowed like an ivory moon. Akmael began to scale one of the giant trees.

There is light in the South Woods,
Eolyn said, following him in desperation. The shadowy branches slipped from her grasp and she lost her footing on ephemeral holds.
Light and magic
.
A river with sparkling fish and trees that reach toward the sun.

I have no need of such things. Truth waits for me, there.
Akmael nodded toward the luminous orb.
Truth and peace. The spirits of all those who have gone before. I will not delay any longer.

Eolyn grasped Akmael’s ankle, finding it surprisingly solid to the touch. The tree hissed and shivered, attempting to throw her from its nebulous trunk.
There is a child whom we have not yet met. He waits on the riverbank.

Akmael paused in his ascent.
What child?

Can you not hear his voice?

The trees wavered in a breeze that could not be felt.

A child’s laughter slipped through the darkness, soft and high-pitched.

Uncertainty clouded Akmael’s expression.

Come with me,
Eolyn said.

He watched the orb above them, longing in his stance.

Your ancestors will wait
.

Reluctantly he set his gaze upon her, ebony eyes in a pale face.

I do not remember the way,
he said.

I will show you.

Light began to filter through the forest as they walked hand in hand. The herbs at their feet drew color from the earth, sprouting flowers of ruby and amethyst. The trees solidified into twisting branches and crusty bark, adorned with emerald leaves and opal blossoms.

The river murmured their names, and they paused on its banks, watching the flow of the water rise until it caressed their bare feet, cool and soothing, ever full of life. On the other side floated a silver star, formless and vibrant, like the lanterns of the Guendes that once guided her home…

Eolyn awoke.

Daylight filtered into the tent.

Akmael sat in the bed next to her, idly stroking her hair. His convalescence had left him pale and gaunt, but he was alive.

Alive.

“High Mage Rezlyn has told me of all you did on the day of the battle,” he said. “How your courage inspired my men.”

Struck with wonder, she sat up and touched his face.

Akmael pressed his dry lips to her palm.

“Foolish woman,” he murmured, but his tone was one of gentle admonishment, and there were tears in his eyes. “Never disobey me again.”