The Warden, page 30
Aelis was, perhaps sadly, almost ecstatic to see the newly repaired door that fit snugly against the stone frame. The hinges it opened on were neither particularly smooth nor noiseless, but the door hung true and opened to her touch.
Inside, everything was much as she left it. She swung off her pack and flung it onto a chair. She was digging in one of her chests for her lap desk, paper, and ink, when she heard the creak of her door opening.
“If that’s the goat I’m throwing you straight on the fire,” Aelis said, turning slowly around.
Before she could even focus, a blast of force hit her and knocked her backward into and then over a chair. She had the vague sense of a form advancing on her, tall, in ragged robes, with wild hair and unkempt beard.
“You’ll throw me on nothing, child,” Dalius roared, taking slow steps down her hallway.
Aelis scrambled to her feet and tore her sword free of its scabbard. Or tried; the blade only made it halfway before another blast of force hit her hand, angled so as to catch the crossguard and tear the weapon from her grasp. It went spinning away and hit the floor, and her hand was too numb to reach for it again.
“I read your little Abjurer’s book, child,” Dalius said. “I know everything you can do with that weapon, and none of it will be sufficient.” He gestured with one arm and she was flung like a rag doll, hitting the floor with a thud. Her jaw clicked, hard, and she tasted blood. The stones of the floor swam in her vision.
“So many years I have waited; for longer than you have been alive, I have prepared. Then you come along, with your parlor tricks and your minor powers, and dash them all to ruin.”
Aelis flopped over onto her back. Dalius loomed over her from the other room. He seemed in no hurry to cross the distance. Gone was the pathetic beanpole of a man she’d bested so many nights ago; he seemed taller, but more solid, more present. The gentle unfocused look he’d had was replaced with a singular intent that could only be called madness. It gleamed in his eyes, it quivered at the edge of the beard that spilled onto his chest, it trembled in his hands.
“Who is the eagle now, and who the gnat? Your words, Warden—though you are not worthy of the title—to an old and beaten man. You did not know then, who I was. I did not know who I was. But you, in your ignorance and your blundering, you helped me to remember.”
An Abjurer does not know fear. An Abjurer does not know danger. Her heart does not race. Her palms do not sweat.
Aelis’s litany was not helping her deal with the advancing wizard, though he seemed prone to continuing his speech. She propped herself up on one elbow and began to back slowly toward her worktable.
“Who are you, Dalius? What did I do that I didn’t understand?” Aelis thought it might be helpful if her voice quavered in fear. She did not need to pretend too much; the blasts he had hit her with were surprisingly powerful, well controlled, and done without apparent focus.
“I am Dalius Enthal de Morgantis un Mahlgren,” he growled, pulling himself up to his full height. He looked far less like the whining, wretched Dalius she now remembered. He walked and talked like a man accustomed to commanding everyone around him. “I was the Warden Commander of Mahlgren. And I did what I needed to do to try and save this land, to defend it from savagery and barbarism. And now it is fallen, and this gods-damned shepherds’ village is all that remains. And barely gifted children, untrained girls, are sent to do my job.”
“What do you mean? What did you do?” Aelis’s arm found the edge of her worktable and she began pulling herself up, gingerly. Her legs shook.
“I used knowledge forbidden to mewling cowards like you, like the unworthies who populate the Lyceum and call themselves Archmagisters now. In so doing I lost myself, but when I found power, I attached myself to it; the orcish demon sprouted because I gave it life. The woman, Nathalie, a reject from your own precious Colleges and gone to adventure in the wilderness until I found her. And you, who had already met the sliver of my power I left for just such as you, you conveniently found and defeated both of them. You may have destroyed the core of the army I was building, but you gave me a precious gift, Warden.”
By now Aelis had lifted herself to the edge of the table. Her hand scrambled for a weapon, for anything, closing on a tall glass flask set on a ringstand. She brought it up to swing. Dalius flicked his fingers and the glass exploded. It peppered her with shards; she felt several dig into her face, others tear through her shirt and into her arm. None hit her eyes, for which she was briefly thankful.
Another controlled blast hit her and she was flattened against her table. More of her instruments and implements went flying or were crushed beneath her.
“You … you performed a Sundering,” Aelis guessed, though she knew immediately it was the right guess. She didn’t know what a Sundering entailed, exactly, only that it was forbidden.
“Yes, yes, I did. I thought by stretching myself across the earldom I could save it all.” He sneered down at her, his eyes glinting with madness and the spark of something inhuman. Aelis was suddenly reminded of the way Nathalie’s eyes had looked as she died. “I was wrong then, but I have learned much.”
Aelis flailed for something, anything. Dalius seemed unconcerned. Her fingers brushed against something large and heavy, something that had been pushed but had not fallen from the table.
“You … when you do that to yourself, you do not come back to yourself alone, Dalius. Things come with you. Spirits. Powers we don’t understand.” Aelis’s mind was working fast now, throwing out purely theoretical guesses, but the madness burning in Dalius’s eyes didn’t seem natural.
“Knowledge came with me, child. Power came with me. And now you will become my next vessel, for this one grows old and too feeble to continue. I have not known Necromancy for some time. It will be enlightening.” Dalius bent and picked up a shard of glass, a fragment of one of Aelis’s shattered vessels.
Then he plunged it toward her stomach.
Aelis twisted away; her fingers closed around the cold, heavy base of her orrery.
The glass cut across her stomach, a line of fire and pain. Dalius, with a strength and speed no one his age should’ve possessed, twisted his wrist and slipped it between her ribs.
Aelis wrapped her hand around the wrist that pressed the shard of glass into her. She tasted blood.
Power flowed from her orrery back into her. Every Necromantic Order she had placed into it—and all that it had absorbed from the waxing of Onoma’s moon—suddenly rushed into her limbs.
Her right hand, wrapped about Dalius’s wrist, became a skeletal claw so dark it drank in the sunlight that streamed into the tower from above.
Dalius withered before her eyes, his cheeks puckering inward, his eyes rolling up, as Aelis poured forth dark, harsh syllables and her hand sucked the very life from him. His body vibrated as it disintegrated, his mouth opening first in a grimace, then in a soundless scream as he tried to pull away. But the void that was Aelis’s hand would not be denied.
Ephraze’s Withering. A Fifth Order Necromantic spell, and utterly forbidden to use against the sentient, upon pain of death.
But if Dalius was possessed, had unnaturally extended his life through Sundering, had brought something other back into himself, then he was no longer truly human.
Aelis maintained the spell until the only thing holding Dalius up was her darkly glittering grasp. His bones, she knew, were withering too, ground to powder by the rippling, insatiable force of her spell. Sweat broke out on her face. Her heart pounded in her ears. The Anatomist in her told her that this was doubly bad—a quickened heart rate would pump blood through her wound faster than she wanted. But she held on as her vision dimmed.
She let him go. He collapsed to the floor and practically shattered.
Aelis released the Withering and immediately pressed her hands to her ribs to inspect her wound. The glass was deep. It had missed her vitals, but she was pumping blood, had lost some already from the side of her face and her arm.
She stumbled over to her pack, with the medical kit inside it. Her right arm was numb and cold; a side effect of most of Ephraze’s more powerful incantations. Her left was slick with blood. She fumbled to open her pack. Her feet seemed far away. Her hand closed on the kit and pulled it free. She slipped as she turned away, fell hard to the floor, drove the glass deeper into her side.
The stones of the floor were too cool and too soft. Aelis’s vision swam down into darkness.
She thought she heard a voice calling out to her; a child’s voice, distant and frightened, but she dismissed it, and the sound of feet running away, as just a vision. She wished she knew what it meant.
Then she wished for nothing, and knew less.
25
THE REMAINS
“Fuck me.” Aelis was so surprised to wake up that the hoarsely mumbled curse was all she could manage.
She was lying in her bed. Candles lit on her worktables provided flickering illumination and her eyes wouldn’t focus. Blinking was like dragging broken glass across her eyes, so she settled for letting them close again. She could hear feet scraping around the stone floor of the tower. “Who’s there?” she ventured weakly.
“Emilie.”
“Well. That’s not the name I expected.”
“Phillipa came for me. She insisted on bringing you dinner from the inn. She found you wounded and ran back to the village as fast as she could, then dragged me here on horseback.”
“I’m glad there was someone else around with physic training.”
“I’ve poulticed your wounds. I’ve got maggots in case they fester. I’ve also brought some silver salts.” Aelis listened close for any sense of smugness, but thought the other woman only sounded professional. She couldn’t decide whether to be disappointed or impressed.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Aelis said, not entirely sure if she had managed to keep the disgust out of her voice, and in too much pain to care. “The body. What did you do with Dalius’s body?”
“Dalius? Was that the name of the man who looked like he’d been drunk dry by a blood-lance the size of a dog?”
“Yes. His corpse. What did you do with it?”
“Gathered his bones up in his robes and hauled them to the forest after making sure you weren’t going to die. The wolves and the ravens’ll do for him.”
Oh, Onoma’s frigid milk, no. “I’m going to have to get that body back, Emilie. I need to study it, to make sure—”
“It’ll be gone by the time you can walk to it.”
“I’m not that weak,” Aelis said. She tried to swing her legs off the bed and succeeded only in falling over onto her elbow.
“Warden, I’ve seen stronger die from less than the wounds you took. Wasn’t much I could do but close them and hope for the best. Too much blood was gone to risk letting any to balance the humors.”
“My humors are fine. I promise.” Now is not the time to lecture her, Aelis told herself. She probably saved my life, even if she doesn’t quite know as much as I do. “How bad was it, then?”
“Lots of blood gone. Wounds in your ribs, your arm, your face and neck. I got the glass out.”
“Thank you, Emilie. Did you say there was food?”
“Cold now, but yes.”
“Please, for the love of the Worldsoul, bring it to me.”
Emilie retreated from the bedside. Aelis forced her eyes open and saw the platter set down. The stew was cold and congealed, the bread bowl soaked with the gravy, but she wolfed it all down regardless. The first few bites she found hard to chew, her throat and the muscles of her neck moving oddly. Emilie’s poultices were sticking to her skin. They began to itch as she ate.
“Don’t crack those off now…”
Aelis paused and held up a hand. “Emilie. I thank you more than I can say for coming and helping me. No doubt you saved my life. You did not seem fond of me before I left, so I want to ask: Why help me?”
“I may not be fond of you, Warden, but you were dying. I’m no villain.”
“You must’ve run to get here. You were motivated. Why?”
“You helped us,” Emilie said. Aelis carefully tilted her head so as not to disturb the drying poultice and eyed the tall blonde. “You drove off that bear. You are trying to give Phillipa valuable learning. And…” She sighed. “I thought Otto was dead. I never saw a man in my days in Ystain’s army who took a blade like that into his guts recover the way he has. If I had been left to treat him alone, he’d be dead. And then you brought back his brother alive and whole and well. Maybe you saved them both. It was more than anyone could have hoped. I noticed. We all noticed.”
“Well.” Aelis might have felt proud had she not been concentrating on eating and generally feeling miserable. “Good. It’s my job, after all.”
“Well. I’m glad you’re doing it. You’re tougher than I would’ve guessed. Heavier, too. But you’re not soft like I imagine wizards to be.”
“Not all wizards are wardens, Emilie.” Aelis felt herself growing tired as she finished the last of her cold food. “Do me one more favor before you go to your home. Bring me my orrery, please.” Aelis pointed vaguely in the direction of one of her worktables. “The metal contraption with all the moons.”
Emilie brought it to her, cradling it carefully in both arms. It stood stock-still, Aelis having drained every bit of its stored magic in her blow against Dalius. Knowing it was going to be off by a few degrees, if not more, she wrapped her hand around it and put a First Order Anatomist’s Diagnostic into it anyway, which drove twin spikes of pain into her head.
“I’m going to sleep now,” she mumbled. “Please put it back.”
Whatever else Aelis tried to say was lost as she sagged against her pillows.
* * *
Aelis woke from a dreamless sleep, and truly didn’t want to face the sunlight streaming down through the broken roof of her tower, but then there was hot breath on her face and a rasp against her cheek.
The goat stood atop the bed, patiently licking at one of the poultices on the side of her face. With a cry, Aelis shoved it from the bed, more gently than she’d wanted to, but only because her arm didn’t cooperate. The goat gave a plaintive bleat and clattered away.
Aelis tottered out of bed, picking up the blanket as she stood. The door was off its hinges again.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” she half yelled. Then, calmer after a deep breath, she said, “If there were any justice in this benighted world, I would spend the day in bed with wine and cheese and perhaps not alone.”
Too often, Bardun Jacques had once told the warden cadets, the only justice in this benighted world is that which wardens are willing to make. And if you can’t move forward when you’re hurt, or tired, or hungover, or all three and worse, then the warden’s life is not for you.
Aelis dug out a robe and as soon as she was dressed, got out her case of instruments, astringent, and a mirror. Then she set to work scraping off the poultices, which the goat had gotten a good start on, and inspected the damage. The deepest wound was in her ribs; no shame there. In fact, the scar it would leave would be rather a mark of pride. For the sake of practice, she laid the mirror on a table and cleaned, debrided, and sewed that one first.
She got out a bottle of wine before she decided to attempt the wounds on her face and neck. She was rather less hopeful of proud scars there.
* * *
With her face tight with tiny stitches and her skin tingling from the tinctures she’d rubbed on it, Aelis set out after Dalius’s bones. The nearest treeline from the tower was to the north, so that’s where she headed, leaning rather heavily on the walking stick Tun had given her.
She thrashed about in the undergrowth for several moments before she heard a heavy footfall behind her. Sparing a moment to curse herself for leaving her swordbelt in the tower, she whirled with the staff in hand anyway, to find Tun standing stock-still, just out of her swinging arc.
“How,” Aelis squawked, “does someone your size move that quietly?”
“I choose my steps carefully.”
She set the tip of the staff down and leaned heavily on it. “What are you doing out here?”
“Looking for you. I went into the village this morning after having a good sleep. Rus and Martin told me what had happened, so I spoke to Emilie, then came straight this way.”
“How’d you know I’d be out here instead of finding me in the tower?”
“Emilie mentioned that you were worried about the corpse of your assailant, so I found the sign of her dragging it out here. Thought I would look for it for you.”
“Where is it?”
Tun took a deep breath. “It is not here.”
“That can’t be.”
“If it were, I would have found it, Warden. This is not pride. This is the truth.”
“Tell me that wolves ate it. Or ravens. Meat-eating squirrels. Anything.”
“I am afraid that there is no sign of such a thing. I found the place where she left it. And it is gone.”
“Onoma,” Aelis barely spoke the word. “I needed to know what he was.”
“Not simply an old madman?”
“So much more than that,” Aelis said. “He told me—he was a talker, a gloater—that he had empowered Nath. That he had given life to the Demon Tree. I think he meant the one we fought. And that as we destroyed them, he…” She stopped. “Let me start over. He was a Warden, I think. And a powerful one. During the war. And he did something forbidden. A Sundering. Split pieces of himself, of his soul, off. They would’ve had to find new bodies or objects to inhabit, but the thinking behind such a process has always been to increase the area a wizard can influence. If the wizard is strong enough, they can practically put two or three of themselves—all weaker than the first, but only in a way that another strong wizard could exploit—out into the world so long as all the pieces remain within a certain range. The problem is, the longer you do it, the more unstable all the pieces are. And it was forbidden during the war anyway. Certainly before he did it. It was made a hanging offense. And yet he did it.”
