The Lone Warrior (54 page)

Ruthlessly, he tore apart the shields between them, exploiting her love for him, staring his own feelings in the face and using them. Not flinching, but accepting with all the grace he could muster. Even when it was hopeless, love had an amazing resilience, stronger even than death. He couldn’t gainsay that.

Walker sank into the essence of his assassin. At first, the sensation was disorientating, a long, lateral swoop. Down and down he spiraled through the interstices of a glittering maze, impossibly complex, many layers deep, eerily beautiful, a shifting architecture of energy and soul, shot through with prisms of rainbow color. Starstuff. Awed, he allowed himself to fuse, one more drifting mote in a world of warmth and moving light.

In some kernel of self that dimly recalled logic, he knew the swirling shapes and patterns were only a schema, given to him by the mercy of the Ancestors—a gift of earth Magick to keep him sane.

To feel his spirit mesh with hers was a terrifying lunacy, intoxicating, thrilling. Entranced, he drifted deeper, knowing two lives depended on his shaman’s skill. If Mehcredi should die at this moment . . .

The symbolism changed. As he hung, floating and twisting, vivid images flickered by faster than he could absorb them, like a deck of brightly colored fortune cards fanned by an expert hand.

A life, he saw a woman’s life. He was privy to the soul of another.

Deeply humbled, he watched myriad scenes flash past in a blurring instant, saw all the dreams and realities that had created the unique being that was Mehcredi of Lonefell. There she was with a cavalcade of strangers—a fat old man with a stained apron tied around his middle; a group of children laughing and pointing; a giant of a man with a Northerner’s white blond braids; a woman in a maid’s gown, her mouth pinched and angry.

Out o’ the way,
she snapped.
Ye great daft lump.

Guards, skiffmen, stable lads, tavern wenches, even the Master of the Assassins’ Guild, they accelerated past, so numerous he grew dizzy.

The impact was overwhelming, shocking him to the bones. He’d thought he’d known about her childhood, told himself he understood how Mehcredi the assassin had come to be. What arrogance, what godsbedamned folly. Unforgivable. Seeing it this way was like a length of cold steel in the vitals, a razor edge to slice him into bleeding gobbets of horror and pity and fury.

Mehcredi’s existence hadn’t been a life—except in the sense that her lungs continued to pump, her heart to beat. A bleak string of hours and days amounting to years of . . . of
nothing
. He could scarcely comprehend it, such a wasteland, people—ordinary, presumably normal human beings—looking right through her or cuffing her out of the way, telling her with every absentminded buffet that she meant less than the kitchen cat.

Fuck, how was it she was even sane?

A dark warrior strode out of Mehcredi’s memories. Walker’s blood chilled to ice. Reeling, appalled beyond measure, he stared. Leanly muscled, cold-eyed and dangerous, this man stood head and shoulders above the rest like some heroic colossus, impossibly capable, impossibly strong. Finger bones gleamed like ivory in the wealth of his black braids.

Was that how she saw him? A dark hero out of legend? A wounded soul waiting for the love of a good woman? Despite himself, his lip curled. Gods, she was such a baby. Could she have chosen someone less worthy? A man closed to all emotion save savage driving hatred, a cold-blooded executioner. No, of course not. She didn’t have the experience, the perception, to see it how pathetic he truly was—trying so desperately to atone for his failure to die with those he’d loved.

Brusquely, he turned aside, looking elsewhere. Ah, there lurked the dark side of Mehcredi, ugly smears of pride, of fear and anger. So she was human. What of it? With a wry smile, Walker withdrew his attention. He’d never thought his assassin a paragon, and he’d trespassed enough.

Brightest of all, shone the strong, glowing beacon of her soul, shot through with courage and humor and an extraordinary innocence.

His guts turned over. On some level, he thought dully, he’d always known. He loved her, this strange tactless girl with her shining honesty and generosity of spirit, so clean and bright in contrast with the dark stains on his own weary soul.

By the First Father, she deserved everything life had to give!

He threw his head back, his fists clenching.
Hear me, You Who Came Before. I am Welderyn’d’haraleen’t’Lenquisquilirian, earth shaman, last of the Shar. Give me this woman’s life and I swear by my Song, by Your Honored Bones, I will give it back to her.

He was almost certain he’d squeezed his eyes shut, but nonetheless, he stared deep into the heart of the stars, into primeval chaos and fire, the source of all life.

Starstuff sizzled over his skin, crisped his bones, moving through and over him like the
ch’qui
.

Walker gasped as it released him, sloughing off his skin. The final impression lingered, a light caress between his brows, sweet as a mother’s farewell. Gods, the thing was done.

He opened his eyes, looking straight at a rangy, straight-backed old woman with a coronet of white hair. She smiled into his eyes, her own a familiar, mesmerizing silver. Irresistibly drawn, Walker drifted closer, noticing as he did so that the image throbbed with an irregular rhythm. It took him a moment to realize the pulse of it was faltering, ebbing further with every beat.

Mehcredi and her future were dying before his eyes.

Fuck! Gasping, he flung his will after the djinn stone, tracking its hideous spoor by the ripped filaments that waved, broken and pathetic in its wake, by the echo of an agonized cry.

In all that energy and light, there was only one void, one space full of . . .
nothing
. Walker swooped, flying toward it, leaving no trace of his passing. The stone felt so utterly alien, so
wrong
, he recoiled instinctively, but to his surprise, he could sense no evil.

Gathering himself, he flung the totality of his will around the thing, squeezing, pulverizing, desperate to obliterate it. The old woman nodded and smiled. But the stone’s very otherness made it cold and slick. It slipped through his grasp as if greased and slid away.

The old woman flickered and faded.

Noooo!
Walker gave himself to the bargain he’d made, to the wisdom of his Ancestors.

Without hesitation, he hurled himself at the djinn stone and enveloped it, hanging on grimly, ignoring the bone-deep chill, the utter emptiness sucking at his soul.

After an endless time, the thing quivered and grew still. The old woman reappeared and quirked a brow, her expression one of gentle inquiry.

Walker breathed again, but each time he tried to withdraw, the djinn stone would reanimate and strain to be off like a hound on the leash. He was snared, caught forever, as if he held a hungry tygre by the tail.

If he let go, Mehcredi would die—one ugly, screaming inch at a time. But if he didn’t, what would be his fate? Would he die with her? He shivered. Perhaps not. A living death as a mindless husk, someone to wipe his ass and shove pap down his throat . . .

Think.
Think
.

Ah well. He’d calculated the cost almost as soon as he’d seen the wound. With slow deliberation, Walker delved deep in his soul for the
ch’qui
, force-feeding his Magick with the stuff until he had silky skeins of it, the same sweet healthy pink as her pretty nipples, glistening with life like the slick ruffles of her eager sex. Petal after petal he formed out of the Magick at his core—his heart, his soul, his life—placing each one with the delicate precision of a surgeon. As he did so, he chanted—snatches of the Song he’d made for her during those endless cold nights on the trail crouched over a tiny campfire, snatches of his own Song—twining them together in a tight spiral of sound and ancient Magick.

When it was done, the last notes fading away, he laid the ugly pellet in the heart of a perfect, dew-kissed desert orchid. One by one, the petals curled over, each overlapping the next, until the djinn stone was encased, its darkness eclipsed by a shell of glimmering pearlescent pink. Walker permitted himself a tired smile. No longer dull and mindlessly cruel, the djinn stone shone with the soft ineffable beauty of starstuff.

Infinitely slowly, he released his grip, a fraction at a time. The thing lay quiescent, Mehcredi shielded from its effects by his Magick—by his
love
.

All around him, like a benediction, broken filaments of light wove together in healing tangles. ’Cestors be thanked. Relief turned his bones to water. All he could manage by way of triumph was a warm glow. He was so drained, he wondered if he’d ever be able to summon the
ch’qui
again.

Vaguely, he considered the implications of giving a part of his soul into another’s keeping. He gave a harsh soundless laugh. Now there was the ultimate intimacy for you. So much for keeping the world at arm’s length. Would he wither and die when he sent her away? Perhaps he’d have to follow her at a discreet distance for the rest of his life. Exhaustion made it hard to care.

The old woman held out her arms, tears streaking her cheeks. When Walker stroked her white hair, she laid her head thankfully on his shoulder. The beat of her heart grew stronger and stronger, a mighty gong that shook the world, until Walker’s own pulse could no longer exist independent of it and they were one.

Closing his eyes, he let the reverberations pull him under.

A huge rock was crushing her chest. No, not a rock, a bloody mountain. Mehcredi breathed carefully through her nose. Mustn’t annoy the mountain.

“Mehcredi? C’mon, I brought Scrounge. If Prue catches me . . .”

Odd that a mountain should have a boy’s voice. Something like a warm wet flannel swiped over her cheek. A doggy tongue. Blech. She levered an eye open.

They looked healthy enough, both of them. Good.

Gods, she was tired. She let the eye flutter shut.

Too late. The darkness wasn’t comfortable anymore. Mehcredi groped for sense, for memory, but all that came to her was Walker’s face, set with concentration, his body moving in a lithe, savage dance and djinns exploding in showers of evil-smelling sparks all around him.

She gripped Florien’s skinny wrist, not noticing him flinch. “He’s all right?” She dragged in a rasping breath. “Not—?”

“Walker?” Huffing with displeasure, the boy peeled her fingers away, one by one. “Nah, too fookin’ tough.”

She could barely croak. “Where—?”

“Talkin’ t’ Deiter. An’ guess what?” He leaned forward, his eyes sparkling. “There’s Technomages comin’. A flitter came wit’ a message for t’ baron.”

“Huh.” Mehcredi fell back toward sleep, not caring. The dog jumped onto the bed, turned three circles and settled down with his head draped across her shins. People spoke nearby, a door slammed. She smelled the familiar odors of old stone and tapestries and ashes. She was still at Lonefell then.

And Walker? As she relaxed, a slow certainty swam into her soul. She didn’t know how she knew or why, only that she did.

“You’re wrong.” She spoke without opening her eyes. “Not talking, he’s sleeping. So . . . tired . . .” Then she settled back into the darkness as though it were a fine feather bed and slept without dreams.

When she woke again, there was no sign of the dog. Prue McGuire sat in a window seat frowning down at a portable writing desk. One forefinger was stained with ink, a smear of it on her determined little chin.

Mehcredi cleared her throat. Prue set the writing desk aside with a muffled exclamation and bounced to her feet. Merciful Sister, was that a
smile
?

“Here.” The other woman offered a cup with a straw. The water slid down Mehcredi’s throat, cool and welcome.

Surely she should be dead? Mehcredi struggled to sit up, Prue’s arm sliding behind her, helping. So should Walker. Her brow furrowed. In fact, she could swear she could feel his body warmth, sense his masculine vitality. Which was comforting and profoundly unsettling, all at once.

“What . . . happened?”

“In brief?” Prue raised a brow. “Let’s see. The idiot dog got trapped outside. The idiot boy went after the dog. You went after the boy and Walker went after you. Which makes you all idiots.”

“Know . . . that. Then?”

“Gray and Shad hid the boy and the dog in the shadows, while Walker fought off the djinns.” Prue frowned. “But you were hit.” She laid a cool hand against Mehcredi’s forehead, took her pulse in a businesslike kind of way. “How do you feel?”

“Tired.” Mehcredi took stock. “Bruised. Hungry
. Alive.
” She stared at Prue, shocked. “I don’t understand.”

The other woman shrugged. “No one does. Walker did some kind of Magick to save you, but he won’t talk about it.” She hesitated. “He’s spent hours sitting with you. Did you know?”