[Shadowed Path 02] - Candle in the Storm (11 page)

Yim started when she heard a twig snap. She peered anxiously about, expecting Gatt to appear. Then she looked down and realized that she had snapped the twig.
 
You’re not paying attention!
 
Yim looked behind her and saw the impressions of her bare feet on the damp ground, clear evidence
 that her mind had been wandering. She wondered how many other traces had she left.
 
Did I always run where the current will wash away my prints? Was my choice of route too obvious? Can I really outwit Gatt? Honus didn’t 
.

Yim decided that flight was pointless. Gatt would find her; it was only a matter of time. Having reached that conclusion, Yim pondered what to do with what time remained.
 
I should be with Honus, not running away 
. She resolved to return to Honus’s side. Somehow, it didn’t feel like giving up.
 
It’s my fate to be with him. Wasn’t my name tattooed on his back?

Yim reversed her course. It was a relief to walk without worrying where she stepped and to be concerned only with moving quickly. Yim had but one goal—to reach Honus before he died. She knew that he’d be distraught when she returned, but she’d say that it was Karm’s will that they die together. If need be, she would lie and tell him that his runes had foretold it.

TWELVE

GETTING BACK
to Honus took longer than Yim expected. When she did, she found him lying on a mossy patch of ground, his hands clasped and resting on his chest. He was gazing at the sky, and his face was gray beneath its tattoos.

“Honus?” Even as Yim spoke, she knew he wouldn’t answer. Yim had envisioned holding Honus as he passed from life, but she had arrived too late. Nevertheless, she rushed over to cradle his body, sobbing as she did. She wept for
 Honus. She wept for herself. Yim cried until she was drained of tears, but not of sorrow.

Yim’s sole consolation was that Honus had died still hoping that she would live. “That hope died with you,” Yim said as she closed Honus’s eyes. It seemed a cruel trick that even in death he didn’t look peaceful. The marks needled on his face prevented that impression. “Where’s the implacable wrath that the Seer foresaw? You were so seldom angry.” Yim smiled sadly. “Even though I vexed you often enough.”

Yim studied Honus’s lifeless face. “The rage I see is merely artistry, a trick of line and shadow.” She wished she could wash the expression away, as she had the dark man’s magic runes. Yim recalled that night in the sorcerer’s castle. On that occasion, Honus had been equally still, for his spirit had left his body.
 
But that was due to magic, not death 
.

Death was an entirely different matter, the ultimate separation. Sitting alone with Honus’s corpse, Yim felt torn from much of her life and was surprised to realize how thoroughly Honus had become part of her existence. She had known him for only a few moons and had disliked him in the beginning. Yet she found herself incapable of imagining a future without him. Then she reminded herself that she had no future without Honus; Gatt would see to that.

At that moment, Yim had an idea born from extremity. It came in the form of a question:
 
Could I recall Honus’s spirit and restore it to his body?
 
The question was absurd, and the answer was surely no. Though she had brought forth Mirien’s and Hommy’s spirits from the Dark Path, their visits had been only temporary. Resurrecting the dead was far different; Yim had never heard of anyone doing such a thing. Certainly, the Wise Woman had never taught her the skill or even spoken of it. Yet once Yim had the notion, it gripped her imagination. Though snatching a man from death seemed impossible, desperation drove Yim to try.

Yim sat on her heels before Honus’s body and began the
 meditations for summoning a spirit. She was only partway through them when she realized that they would be insufficient. The souls she had recalled from the Dark Path always returned to it.
Hommy wasn’t restored to life after I called her forth 
, thought Yim.
 
Something more than summoning must be necessary 
.

Yim ceased meditating and pondered what that something might be. She hadn’t a clue. The more she considered the question, the more she suspected that the answer wouldn’t be found in the living world. Yim knew that the dead slowly forgot their lives.
 
That’s why Honus tranced, to experience their discarded memories 
. Yim wondered if those lost memories bound spirits to the Sunless Way.
 
But why would missing memories do that?
 
Yim would have to visit the Dark Path in hope of finding out. To do that, she needed to trance.

Although Yim had witnessed Honus trancing countless times, she had never done it herself. It wasn’t a skill that the Wise Woman had taught her, and she had no idea how to go about it.
 
It can’t be too hard 
, she thought,
 
Honus learned it as a child 
. Yet Yim knew that arts like trancing involved more than techniques that could be learned. At their core, they were gifts bestowed by Karm. Regardless, Yim imitated Honus and assumed a cross-legged position. Then she closed her eyes and searched for the Dark Path.

Nothing happened, for the living world distracted Yim. She smelled the mossy earth, heard the rustle of leaves, and felt the breeze that moved them. When she tried to make her mind blank, thoughts of Gatt intruded. Concentration became impossible. Yim saw her failure as evidence that her goal was presumption at best and more likely an affront to the goddess.
 
Karm has always cupped me in her hands. I should submit to her will 
. Yim resolved to accept her fate and stopped trying to trance.

Resigned to die, Yim remained motionless in the clearing, with her eyes closed. The world grew quiet. Then, with the suddenness of a fall, it transformed. Yim saw the change
 through closed eyes. The landscape about her was silent and bereft of life, its empty hills stripped of vegetation and even soil. All that remained was the earth’s rocky skeleton. The stone landscape was wrapped in twilight and fog, although there was no sun to set and the frigid air was bone dry. The only thing that moved was mist. Wisps of it slowly flowed over the rocks, alternately hiding and revealing them. Despite the swirling fog, Yim felt no wind. In fact, she felt nothing other than numbing cold.

Without moving her head, Yim gazed down at her body. She was nude and slightly transparent. Her bones were visible as faint shadows beneath her pale skin. She glimpsed her organs also and noted that her heart wasn’t beating. For a panicked moment, she thought that she was dead, perhaps decapitated by Gatt in a sudden attack. Then she became aware that her body was sitting upright in the clearing, alive but disconnected from her.

In the dimly lit mist, Honus was hard to spot. When Yim finally saw him, his nude form seemed composed of fog. He stood alone and motionless on a barren hillside. Yim cried Honus’s name, but it was only a soundless thought. Honus looked in her direction, but didn’t seem to see her. Nevertheless, she suddenly felt his longing.

Yim also sensed Honus right before her. It wasn’t his entire being, only a part of it.
 
A memory 
, she thought,
 
one he’s already discarded 
. Yim didn’t move, but she felt that she was reaching toward the memory. In the realm of the dead, the thought of movement was its equivalent. Yim touched the memory, and it became hers. It was the pulse of a heart. Yim touched another and possessed it. It was the urge to breathe.
 
Could the first things a soul forgets concern how to live?
 
With the certainty of insight, Yim knew it was true. Then she proceeded carefully, aware that every memory was vital to Honus. She found the pangs of hunger. The scent of grass. The warmth of sunlight. The tickle of an impending sneeze.

As Yim followed the trail of memories, the closer she drew to Honus, the more complex and vivid they became. Honus seemed oblivious of her, while he became her entire focus. Their spirits touched, and in that instant, Yim was tugged into Honus by the pull of his remembrances. The distinction between them dissolved, so that Yim was both herself and Honus, and she relived his life. She was in Karm’s temple, a lonely little boy who was yearning for his mother. He gazed up at the mosaic depicting the goddess, which seemed immense to his young eyes.
 
My mommy’s gone 
, he thought.
 
Only you love me now 
.

Memory followed memory, each as real as the actual moment until Yim gazed at herself through Honus’s eyes. She was sitting outside Hamin’s wagon, warming herself by a campfire as she brushed dried mud from her feet. Then she was seized by an emotion that she had never experienced before—a feeling beyond her imagination. It felt like joy, but it was far more than that. Its power and depth were overwhelming. It was tender yet forceful, sublime yet primal, reverent yet giddy all at once. Until that instant, love had only been a word. Suddenly it was a reality, and Yim experienced its fullness.

The whole of Honus’s being washed over and through Yim as she learned his deepest secrets. She felt his longing, his doubt, his pain, and his loneliness as if they were her own. She held his wife as she died in his arms. She endured the horror of battle. She yearned for Honus’s absent parents. She adored Theodus and mourned him. She raged. She wept. She made love. She slew.

The final memory was the most powerful. Honus was in the moonlit garden of the ruined temple. Yim viewed her face as Honus had seen it when she let down her guard and unveiled her inner self to him. As Honus probed her, he was torn between longing for her and his duty to the goddess. Then gazing into her eyes, the two reconciled, and he felt washed in holiness. That moment defined Honus. And permeating
 it, like the clear note of a distant song, was love. Love for her.

Then, embracing the entirety of Honus’s soul, Yim returned to the living world. It nearly spent all her strength just to open her eyelids. She stared with astonishment at the clearing, for it seemed too bright and green. Then she forced herself to breathe. The air, rich with the scent of life, felt like thick broth and was as difficult to inhale. Yim smelled dirt, herbs, sweat, and myriad other essences, some fragrant, some pungent.

Then Yim regarded Honus. He remained gray and still, but intuition told her what to do. She pressed her lips against Honus’s cold mouth and breathed out. As Yim exhaled, she felt warmth return to him as it departed from her. Life drained from her body, until every part was icy cold. Yim didn’t care, even as the world turned black before her open eyes.

Gatt was unsure how long the poison on his blade would take to kill a man. All he knew was that it took a while and he had no wish to fight Honus again. On their first combat, he had possessed the advantage, for Honus had seen the venom painted on Gatt’s blade. That caused him to adopt conservative tactics. Nevertheless, Honus had successfully shielded Yim, and she had escaped Karm’s justice.

On their second encounter, Honus had fought more aggressively, and Gatt had received several wounds. Although he was loath to admit it even to himself, only Rangar’s poison had saved him.
 
Honus knew he was doomed when I cut his hand 
, thought Gatt.
 
That’s why he broke off the fight—to run to his whore 
. Gatt shook his head sadly.
 
Even as he was dying, he remained Yim’s slave 
. It seemed an ignoble end for a once-worthy man.

Gatt genuinely regretted slaying Honus. Yim would be another matter. As Gatt dressed his wounds, he blamed Yim for them, not Honus. None of his hurts were mortal, though the
 gash on his left shoulder required stitches, which Gatt sewed stoically. The cut on his nose was the most minor, but also the most irritating, for it wouldn’t stop bleeding. As Gatt continued to wipe blood away, he imagined hacking off Yim’s nose. That led to thoughts of inflicting slow death by many small slices.
 
She deserves nothing less 
. But after Gatt meditated, he was calm and decided it was Karm’s role to punish Yim. He was merely a Sarf. His sole duty was to send Yim to judgment. He resolved to do it mercifully and soon.

When the sun was low, Gatt judged sufficient time had passed, and he began to look for Honus’s trail. It was easy to find and easy to follow; so easy that he was able to jog along it. He expected that Yim would have long deserted Honus, but his body would be the starting point for tracking her. With good fortune, he would find the sorceress before nightfall. If not, he doubted it would take more than a day.

After running a while, Gatt was surprised to hear sobbing in the woods. He halted and listened. The sound was deep and low, making him think that Yim had cried herself hoarse. It had never occurred to him that the slut might have feelings for Honus. Then he reconsidered the notion.
 
She’s weeping because she knows she’s doomed 
.

Gatt hurried onward, determined to finish it. He burst into a clearing and found two blue-clad figures there, one prone and the other slumped and weeping. The sight confounded him, for the ashen-faced figure on the ground was Yim, not Honus. Then Honus looked up and leapt to his feet. His sword was out even before he was erect. The blade flashed about him, a haze of lethal metal, and his face was terrible to behold.

THIRTEEN

FLOATING ALONE
in frigid darkness, Yim felt warm raindrops on her face. The sensation of them striking her cheeks and flowing over her skin drew Yim toward their source, the living world. She opened her eyes and saw Honus bent over her. His face was lit by firelight and the warm rain was his falling tears.