Six Celestial Swords (42 page)

Xu Liang gasped and lifted his other hand to support his grip on
Pearl Moon
, his soft features tense and straining.

The giant wouldn’t give up.

Tristus wanted to help, but he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know
Dawnfire’s
power, just that it was magic. He started to rise, his thoughts and his blood rushing. There had to be something he could do!

Suddenly, the giant lifted its foot. It bellowed something incoherent. Tristus only knew that it was loud, thunder magnified a hundred times. The giant struck the dome once more with its bone club, forcing a strangled noise from the mystic’s throat.

The dome shuddered, but it remained, and finally, grudgingly, the giant turned away and stomped toward the mountains south, resigned to loss and boredom.

Tristus hovered in mid-motion, unable to breathe at first as the terrible thrill of the moment passed. When he did manage to move, his gaze was drawn to the others, who were running toward the dome as it dissipated. Relieved, Tristus waved to let them know they were still alive, then turned to Xu Liang to congratulate an astounding effort.

He found the mystic on the ground, motionless.

Terror gripped him. Already on his knees, Tristus crawled to Xu Liang’s side and laid his hand on his back. When the mystic failed to respond, he edged closer and carefully turned him over, dreading what he might find out. “Please, no. Please...God...”

Tristus looked at the mystic with tears filling his eyes, spilling onto his cheeks before he realized he’d broken his vow never to cry again. His hand shook as he touched Xu Liang’s face, stroking blood away from the man’s mouth. And it was then that the awful reality struck him a blow harsher than any the giant could have delivered. He immediately took the mystic into his arms and held him close, shuddering with fear and denial as Xu Liang remained limp...lifeless.

PAIN WRACKED HER body for an instant almost too short to be felt. The hurt didn’t really exist in her body, it was deeper, separate but still connected. It was as if a piece of her soul had split apart from the rest, leaving a great, gaping void that slowly closed in on itself, making the world suddenly seem small and lonely, and dangerous.

She tried to hold her concentration, remembering everything he’d taught her and all that he had said concerning her importance not only to the Imperial City, but to all of Sheng Fan. She tried, but it did no good. Her eyes flitted open, a sharp breath caught in her throat, and suddenly, Song Da-Xiao began to weep.

“HEAL HIM!” FU RAN demanded. He was stomping and throwing his arms about, doing anything he could to keep from hurting someone and to keep attention away from the tears streaking his features. “Dammit! Don’t just sit there! Heal him!”

“I can’t!” Tristus shouted back. His arms were still locked around the mystic. No one dared unlock them, for fear that the fragile man they embraced was still alive and that the sudden movement would only hasten the fate they were hoping had not already befallen him. It hadn’t. Xu Liang’s shallow breath fluttered against Tristus’ neck, the life drawing out of the mystic one sigh at a time.

Taya was on her knees nearby, sobbing fearfully while Tarfan stood alone in the near distance. The guards sat still and somber around Tristus and Xu Liang, though one had shouted Fanese words at the sky when he arrived and realized his failure.

It wasn’t his failure. It wasn’t anyone’s failure, but still they each looked like they only waited for confirmation of the mystic’s last breath, which would then free them to commit ritual suicide at the scene of their master’s death. The elves had yet to return and were, for the moment, written off as being either dead themselves or too wrapped up in trying to kill each other to be of any use to anyone.

Tristus’ arms were beginning to ache, but he wouldn’t let go of Xu Liang. It would take an act of God.

“Why won’t you heal him?” Fu Ran growled, sounding more dangerous by the second.

“I would, but I can’t!” Tristus answered tearfully. “I don’t know how!” He allowed one gloved hand to stray from Xu Liang just long enough to show Fu Ran the blood he’d wiped from the mystic’s lips. “The wound is inside! I don’t know where! I can’t mend a wound like that!”

“That’s absurd! How can the wound be inside of him! How can he be wounded at all? He wasn’t even struck!”

Tristus blurted the first possibility that came to mind. “Pressure! It was the awful pressure the giant was putting on that dome. It had to be! You saw how weak he was. He tried too hard to hold the magic...and the pressure...that has to be it!” It didn’t have to be it, but it was all Tristus could think of.

Fu Ran dropped to his knees wearily, brokenly. Tristus took genuine pity on the large man when his shoulders slumped, and he began to weep.

Look at us
, Tristus thought.
We are all lost without you, Xu Liang. Where will we go from here if you leave us?

The reality of that thought, that the mystic would indeed die here, inspired fresh tears. In the glaring daylight they burned and blurred his vision. Tristus squeezed his eyes closed and buried his face in the mystic’s soft hair. In the darkness Xu Liang’s closeness wrapped around him. He became acutely aware of each fragile breath. He could hear them as well as feel them. He could hear the fading heartbeat also, and he knew that when he opened his eyes the mystic would not simply be gone as the angel was. A body would remain in his arms, cold and dead, its resplendence lost forever.

Tristus buried his face deeper, wishing that he could fall into the mystic and die with him. There’d been so little time, and now there was none. He’d spent all of that time in awe, too fascinated to speak, too afraid to even think what his heart was feeling. He didn’t realize where his thoughts were carrying him as they bled out of his aching soul, until his lips touched Xu Liang’s neck. The warmth that still existed beneath the soft skin stirred his blood, and broke his heart. How could such grace be allowed to pass from this world? Why did Heaven bestow such grace upon mortals, only to take it away?

Forgetting himself, knowing only the will of his soaring, shattering heart, Tristus kissed the warm skin again, deliberately, and whispered words none of the others could have heard. He scarcely heard them himself. They were for Xu Liang and for no one else.

Tristus had just begun to cry again, softly, when a hand touched his shoulder. He lifted his face to look at Shirisae, whose features painted a portrait of serene compassion. Tristus resented that expression at first, ready to reject her suggestion that he let go, that Xu Liang had passed or that he should be allowed to do so.

However, the flame-haired lady elf said something else entirely, something that filled Tristus with hope. She said, “You must bring him to Vilciel.”

T
HE LANDSCAPE WAS rising as the sun set. A pall of red light fell over the Flatlands, casting long shadows. Alere could almost hear them creeping over the snow in the dreary silence. The company moved like a procession for the dead, and perhaps they were. The mystic had less color to him than before, and he had been pale to start, a tone that Alere had not come to identify with one of health among humans. He’d coughed just once when Fu Ran lifted him up to Tristus, who once again sat in Blue Crane’s saddle. The sound startled everyone into thinking that he was coming around, but he remained unconscious, and the blood on the knight’s arm told the tale all too well to any who wanted to hear it. Of course they wouldn’t listen. Humans were creatures of control and denial, denying what they could not control. Dwarves had always been far too stubborn. It made Alere despise the Phoenix Elves worse that they would charm these people with hope only to lead them to belated mourning for what was already lost.

Xu Liang could not be saved. Not only was he physically depleted and getting worse by the hour, his spirit, too, was fading. He’d expended himself to the very last of his strength in any form and there was no foundation for recovery. His heart would beat until it was finished—if it wasn’t already done—and that would be the end of it.

That wasn’t what Alere wanted. He would beg Ysis for a chance to take back the harsh words he’d delivered the night before, if he thought it would be granted to him. He knew better, though. He knew far better than to expect anything from the gods. They had reasons for everything they did and rarely found it necessary to explain their reasoning to mortals, if ever.

For just a moment, when he’d heard the retelling of the events following the giant’s failed interest in three mounted elves riding faster than it cared to chase—considering none of them had the spear it truly wanted—Alere almost believed the mystic had again gone out of his way only to recover one of the weapons he sought for his cause. When he listened again, and saw what Tristus believed and the moving devotion in the knight’s eyes, he realized the error of his thinking. Xu Liang was the same selfless man he’d come upon in the Hollowen Forest. Alere’s own shortcomings had gradually rejected his original perception of the mystic, his elven heritage refusing to accept that a human could possess such qualities. He wanted to believe he was following
Aerkiren’s
will. From the start he’d been following Xu Liang, a gifted human indeed, to have won an elf lord’s trust and respect so quickly.

I would count you a friend, Xu Liang
, Alere thought.
And I would take back my words that were spoken in haste and perhaps with some jealousy. I will play for you tonight, mystic of Sheng Fan, when your heart has drummed its last.

FU RAN HAD never known a brother besides Xu Liang. He’d been raised with the person he would one day be expected to protect with his own life. Unlike his father, who’d managed to always separate duty from family, Fu Ran developed a close bond with the pampered student. So close that when the class separation started becoming more apparent between scholar and bodyguard—master and servant—he became angry and hurt.

The Emperor and Prince both considered Fu Ran insolent, and even rebellious, and Xu Liang constantly sided with them. Of course, what else could a fledgling official have done? Fu Ran eventually swallowed his pride—that Xu Liang had actually told him was misplaced in one well-remembered instance—and accepted his humiliating lot for the sake of his friend. He would have taken almost any abuse, except Song Lu. The overbearing prince had taken to calling Xu Liang his friend as well, but unlike Fu Ran, who had no other choice, Song Lu was not willing to share. He made life miserable for Fu Ran, and Xu Liang—blinded by his budding career and ‘the glory of Sheng Fan’—did little to amend the rapidly devolving situation. Fu Ran left and, as fate continually brought them together, he knew, in spite of Xu Liang’s evolved wisdom and maturity, that the mystic had never forgiven him. To explore outside of Sheng Fan was one thing. To leave it altogether was unthinkable.