On Wings of Bone and Glass Page 4

  “I think you’re allowing your emotions to rule your intellect,” Eyre said. At her fulminating glare, he said, so quietly that I thought only she’d been meant to hear, “You were always afraid of being accused of too much sentimentality. But a little sentiment, Mary, is not always a bad thing.”

  “Try holding that belief while laboring as one of the sole women in your field. In any field of higher learning!”

  Poor Eyre. He so wanted to reach her, and she so wanted to be reached by him, but her wounds kept her from accepting any aid. I empathized with her dilemma. It felt as if years had passed since Eyre had admonished me to accustom myself to asking for help because the whole of human life required acknowledgment that few of us survive without it. Like her, I’d been handicapped by something I couldn’t change—my illness—and wanted to succeed despite that handicap, and to do so while being able to say I needed no one.

  I had learned better. Or at least, I hoped I was in the process of doing so.

  “Leave her be,” I said. Both of them looked up at me at that. “I want no one who does not come to us of their own free will… and pushing her into accepting the gift will do none of us any favors, sir. If she decides to trust us, then we’ll still be here.”

  Behind me, Chester said, “You’re making several assumptions, Locke. Not the least of which that we might not die in our endeavor.”

  “We might,” I said. “But by God’s grace we shan’t, and I will trust in Him.”

  “That still leaves us with the problem of dealing with her presence.” Chester came abreast of me, eyeing Carrington.

  She lifted her chin. “If you think to frighten me… I don’t fear you. I don’t fear death!”

  “You’re lying,” I said. “And I admire your bravado, but it won’t serve.” I glanced at Eyre and said, “I think we’ll have to take her along, wherever we end up going.”

  “I’m not going anywhere with you!”

  “I hear horses!” Samuel exclaimed.

  And so did I, and I felt them too. “Will they know we’re off the road?”

  “They know,” the knight said.

  I abandoned Carrington and Eyre and all my friends, caring little that I might be seen from Vigil in the weirdling light that accompanied the slow receding of night. How appropriate that he should arrive with the sun! And how long I’d waited to see him!

  The drake I saw first, by its burning ember eyes, separating from the shadows. And then the entirety of the entourage came, harnesses jingling, hooves striking their swift beats. By then, however, I saw only the man in the saddle of my beast, and I was already running for him before they halted. Reaching up, I cried, “Oh, but what has befallen you! They have hurt you! Tell me who it was and I will kill them myself!”

  “Morgan,” Amhric said, sliding into my arms. “Ah, Morgan.” And rested there, warm against me, and whole but afflicted… by what I knew not. His shining had dimmed, so that his golden skin looked more like Eyre’s or Chester’s than like an elf’s shimmering, and he looked weak and too gaunt. It hadn’t been long enough for him to look like this… had it? What new torment had Sedetnet devised for him? I cradled him close, grateful but fighting rage and guilt, and heard the horses circling us without allowing them to distract me. Or I did until one of the people astride spoke.

  “It was no one, my prince.”

  Shocked, I looked up and found my liegeman—vassal—both, either, did it matter? “Kemses! But what are you doing here?”

  Kemses it was, and holding the staff I’d sent with Last as symbol of my promise to Amhric to protect him. How appropriate that it should come back to me in his hands! “It is a long and strange story, but before we tell it, I have it from our escorts that we should not tarry?”

  “No,” I said. “No, we mustn’t.” Over my shoulder I called, “We must ride!” Leaning back to clasp Amhric’s shoulder, I added, solicitous, “Can you?”

  “I can,” he promised. “I am not so cruelly used as I look, I promise.”

  “And I must believe you. But you must tell me all when we find a safe spot.”

  “I will.” Amhric sighed. “I have missed you, Morgan!”

  “And I have you, like a riven piece of my heart. Up you go, back on the drake.” I helped him up, turned… and found all my friends drawn in behind me, staring. They could sense him on their skins too, from the looks on their faces, each as individual as their personalities: Chester with solemnity and Ivy with awe, Guy considering and Radburn flushed. Eyre behind them looked like a man who’d resigned himself to the teaching of history, suddenly thrust into its midst. I remembered his reaction to me when I’d first returned to Evertrue and saw the joy there again.

  Nor was I the only one, for Mary Carrington was watching him, torn between unease and pensiveness.

  “Well?” I said to them, and they scattered to break camp and load the horses.

  I rode behind Amhric, and from this position I felt all too clearly the ribs in his back and the hollow of his waist. These things I ignored, for the pace the Vessel and Kemses demanded was too grueling for words. I had thought they would guide us out of sight, but this would not suffice for either of them. The day broke over us, bringing the sun; the sun rose bright in the autumnal sky; and the sun was pressing toward the horizon when at last Rose began seeking a campsight. We were able to choose one enshrouded in trees, for they had brought us far enough from Vigil to reach them.

  “Here,” the Vessel said. So haggard was her dark countenance and so grim her voice, I wondered if she had seen any skeletal vultures on the journey to meet up with the king. “Set up the watch, and double it. I want at least one elf and one human per team. If the prince will permit.”

  “The prince does,” I said.

  Last and Samuel scattered to make good on the command. The remainder of us saw to the tents and the disposition of our one prisoner, for Carrington’s students were far too fascinated to attempt escape. Their mentor we kept under watch, but didn’t tie, and all three of them we held separate from our counsels.

  And then it was time for the explanations.

  “He let me go.”

  “He did what?” I said, startled. I had not heard correctly, surely.

  “The sorcerer released me.” Seeing my expression, Amhric said, quiet, “He didn’t harm me, save to scratch my cheek once.”

  “For the blood,” I guessed grimly.

  “He found it illuminating. Of what, he declined to divulge. But he didn’t harm me, and indeed, he let me go not long after you left.”

  “I had men at the sorcerer’s tower,” Kemses said. “I was suspicious, for I thought him too involved with warmongering, and with Amoret in particular, who betrayed the king, and I had promised you I would find some way to hold a beachhead for your return. But one day Sedetnet made his tower whole, emerged from its base, and left. My outriders brought me word, and I came swiftly, for it is not common to hear of the sorcerer using magic anymore.”

  “I had found my cell open,” Amhric murmured, “And I followed in Sedetnet’s wake, and found Kemses there.”

  “Just like that,” I murmured.

  “Just like.” Kemses said. “If ‘just like’ can encompass my surprise at finding the king in Serala rather than on a ship bound for Troth. But that is neither here nor there. We trailed him, Morgan. He went to the coast and made a Door.”

  A singing pause, as if they expected me to understand why this was significant. Since I didn’t, I said, “And a Door leads someplace, I presume.”

  “Doors need magic such as has not been seen since the betrayal,” Kemses said. “I had assumed there was not power to make a Door in the world anymore.” He glanced at Amhric, and his jaw hardened. “I fear what it means, if demons await only power to arrive to the world.”

  “A Door,” Amhric said to me, “allows a person to move from one place to the other without spending the time in traveling.”

  “Oh my,” Ivy whispered beside me.

  “Your who
le shipping business would collapse,” Guy said to Chester.

  “Or become imperishably wealthy,” Chester said, absently. “Where did this Door go, sire?”

  “Here,” Amhric said, quiet. “It leads here, north and west of where we are.”

  “So Sedetnet came here.” I frowned. “Why? He had cause, I’m sure.”

  “And no doubt he wishes to tell it to you,” Amhric agreed. “For he left you a letter, sitting outside my cell door. Propped up against the wall, as if in expectation of my escape.”

  “A letter!”

  “None of us can open it,” Kemses agreed, and withdrew it from his bag to hand it to me. As I puzzled at the pale envelope, he continued, “We came through the Door in the sorcerer’s wake, and we were seen doing it on the Archipelago side. There are those who very much wish to do away with the king. Your reinforcements—” He nodded toward Rose, “—were very helpful in that regard, for we had already had several clashes with them and they pressed us hard.”

  “You were chased by your enemies?” Eyre asked, his attention suddenly very sharp. “How did they find you? Did you kill them all?”

  “They are dead and burned,” Kemses said. “But that hardly signifies. The Door remains open, and there is no guarantee it will not attract more travelers.”

  “Still open!” Ivy exclaimed. “But for how long? I have to imagine such an enchantment requires a terrifying amount of power!”

  “The power is in the opening and closing,” Amhric told her. “It remains as it is until commanded.”

  “And none of us have the power to command its closure,” Eyre guessed. “Which means—”

  “That the elves can return after their long exile,” Guy said. “I don’t relish the meeting given Morgan’s report of them.”

  I passed my thumb over the smooth paper, wondering what Sedetnet had written me, and why. But one matter needed attention first. “And you,” I said to my brother. “Why do you look so attenuated?”

  “Because this continent is starved for magic,” Amhric said. “There is nothing but longing in it, a parched need. And I am the king.”

  And the king reflects the land. But where had all the magic gone? I had noted its absence myself on reaching the continent, but I couldn’t conceive of a reasonable explanation for the lack.

  “We have some small amount,” Chester said, quiet. “If it would help…?”

  “You have a generous heart.” Amhric reached out, rested a thin hand on Chester’s knee. “But what afflicts me cannot be healed until the land is healed.”

  “And for that we have to know what’s hurting it,” Ivy said. “Except… what could that be?”

  As they spoke, I pressed my thumb beneath the blood-red wafer sealing the envelope closed, and touching it I knew it was not that color solely for dramatic purpose. Something stung my skin as it crumbled, pricking forth small beads of blood. He had enchanted it to open only to my fingers. Why? Why me? I did not flatter myself to think he’d found our one tryst so affecting that he held some lasting affection for me. Something else bound us. Was it that he found me unexpected in a life that had become tedious and empty?

  The words were written in Lit, not the Gift, and with a casual hand that made the letters feel as if they’d been thrown away.

  * * *

  O Would-Be Prince,

  * * *

  I am here on my own errands, which involve summoning demons. Yes, I think that’ll do, don’t you think? It’s past time. But by the time you read this, Suleris’s new blood-flag head will have discovered the Door, and so will his enemies. Knowing that an entire continent full of unsuspecting human fodder lies on the other side, I expect them to have some quarrel about who will feed first. It may take a day or two for them to settle their differences. If you’re fortunate, it will take longer. But I give them less than a week before they head south. I shudder to think what they’ll do with an entire new population to enslave. It should be fairly easy for them to do so, given how difficult it is for them to die.

  You have a choice now. Stop the demons and save the elves. Stop the elves and save the humans. I look forward to seeing what you decide. Strangely, as I have good reason to hate choices.

  If you choose the former, I suspect you already know how to find me.

  My, how interesting things have become, in the end! But end they shall, and I will see you ere it finishes.

  Enjoy!

  —S

  * * *

  “My God!” I whispered. “He is mad!” I imagined the cruelty done to me by Thameis inflicted on my parents, the families of my friends, my countrymen. I wouldn’t wish the horror the elves would visit on them on even the worst of criminals: a judicially-mandated death was a cleaner end. My nausea redoubled. Save the elves or save humanity! It beggared belief that anyone could be so amoral as to set up such a choice. But could I have expected anything else of one who rolled dice to guide his decisions? Nothing was of consequence to the sorcerer; life or game, it was all the same to him.

  “Morgan?” Ivy asked, distressed. “Your hands. They’re shaking.”

  “What does it say?” Eyre added.

  “He means to unleash the demons,” I said. “And to distract me from stopping him, he has set the elven populace on the Door and told them where to find a new source of slaves.” I looked toward Kemses. “He says there is some slight chance they will quarrel amongst themselves for primacy before heading south.”

  My liegeman’s face was masklike. “It’s possible.”

  “How long did it take you to ride here?” I asked.

  “Two weeks, about,” Kemses said. “So I judge.”

  “Can we step backward a moment?” Radburn interrupted. “Are you telling me that an elven army is coming here? To conquer us?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Well, we can’t have that,” Guy drawled.

  “They must be warned,” Chester said.

  Yes, they must be. Unless... I looked at Eyre. “Doctor Carrington. Bring her here.”

  Unlike her students, Carrington hadn’t been interested in eavesdropping on our conference, and had kept her back stubbornly turned to us for its duration. She came with obvious reluctance, arms tightly folded over her chest, and spared only a glance for Amhric and the other elves before facing me. “Yes?”

  “Three riders left Vigil not long before you did,” I said. “Where were they going?”

  She eyed our company mutinously and said nothing. Frustrated, Eyre said, “Mary, please.”

  “I’ll save you some work,” I said. “They were riding south, to warn someone. Evertrue, I presume. But perhaps the countries neighboring Troth as well.”

  “You’ll never catch them,” she declared.

  “I have no desire to,” I said grimly. “I hope to God they arrive, and whatever evidence they’ve brought to prove their case is sufficient to excite the alarm of whatever official entertains them.”

  Shocked, she blurted, “You can’t be serious!”

  “I fear I am. Your colleagues’ fears will shortly be realized, and it may be that they are the only ones who can marshal humanity to its own defense, because I—” I met Amhric’s eyes and exhaled, calming myself. “I need to go after Sedetnet. Don’t I.”

  My brother held out his hand. I gave him the message, and after he’d read it, he passed it to Kemses.

  “I’m right,” I said softly. “It’s a false choice. Humanity can survive what the elves will do to them, for the like of Thameis and Amoret will not be inclined to kill the cattle supplying them with their magical needs. But if the demons are freed, we are all imperiled, and the dead will walk, and with the elves yet bound the cost in blood to stop them will be immeasurable.”

  Said Amhric, only, “Yes.”

  “What are you talking about?” Carrington demanded. When no one immediately replied, she said to Eyre, “Are they seriously discussing an elven host bent on conquest? It’s real?”

  Eyre glanced at me and I nodded. He said
, “I fear so.”

  “And you’re not going to stop them?” Carrington faced me now. “You said you grew up human. You would abandon us now?”

  “He has no choice,” Chester said. “If the sorcerer brings down the demons, the elves won’t be equal to their task of fighting them off. We will all die.”

  “If only we’d finished our work!” Ivy exclaimed. “But the library is barred to us!”

  “Is it?” Guy asked. When he found everyone’s attention on him, he lifted his brows. “I count some fifty elves here. Maybe. And the Vessel has twenty-five knights. Surely fifty deathless warriors can mop up three times their number in poorly armed students. We might not be able to do the job but they can.”

  “He has a point,” Kelu said, speaking for the first time. I had not expected the other genets to opine, but Kelu’s quiet had been unwonted. “You could send them to take the library. Or at least convince the people holding it that they can’t keep it, if you’re going to be squeamish about killing them.”

  “If the sorcerer is already on his way north, we cannot afford to linger, my prince,” Kemses said. “Not even to resume the quest to unravel the enchantment.”

  “There’s more than enough of us for both tasks,” Radburn pointed out. “Some of us could stay and keep reading while the rest of you go corral the sorcerer.”

  “But for that to work,” Ivy said, “We’ll have to leave everyone who can fight behind—” She glanced at Carrington, then finished, “Since I doubt they’re going to be convinced by anything less than overwhelming force.”

  “I don’t want to kill anyone more than necessary,” I said. Sighing, I finished, “Indeed, I would rather not kill anyone at all.”

  “Morgan,” Rose said, quiet. “Don’t ask me to stay behind. We were trained for this moment—”