And the youngest, an adult of a few years, stepped forward, hands outstretched. Her voice was a shadow, a ringing sibilance of whisper.
“I understand, Erin. If no one else does, I do. I saw—I saw what you saw in him. I don’t think the price we pay is a fair one, or a just one—but I know why you asked it. I cannot forgive it, but understanding it helps.”
A ghost of a sigh echoed in Erin’s ears, the rustle of wind through leaves; Kandor’s wordless comment.
Belfas, standing slightly apart from his line-mates, looked through her—at something she couldn’t see, but could guess at. “Truly, Erin, you are of the living. The brightest of our number.”
She cringed at the phrasing he used—one of the superlatives given to the Sarillar or Sarillorn of the Line Elliath. But there was no mockery in his voice now, and only a trace of the bitterness that would never leave it.
“Can you hear it, Erin?”
She nodded; her very skin tingled with the pain of the call. “Do you know what it is?”
“Yes.” He shook his head softly before she could ask the question, and it died on her lips.
“It called us, too; called what was left of our spirit—our
blood—in the dark plane. We came, as you came, with just as little choice. We are all still slaves to the blood.”
“You never used to think of it as slavery.”
“Nor you. But you will, Erin.”
The chill bitterness of his words disturbed her, and she changed the subject. “Can you help—whatever it is?”
He laughed, and in the laughter Sara heard his anger blossom again, with its sharp, cruel edges unfurling in the darkness. But it was an echo; it lingered quietly in the air before dying away.
“No. Even if I would help it—and I would only do so if the blood gave me no choice—I can’t. Listen carefully, Erin. Listen well.”
She knew he spoke not of his own voice, and again turned her ears outward. The ground shuddered, bucking her.
“Not that way, Sarillorn. You must listen with more than a priestess’ ear. Be open, Erin. Let the sound pass through you.”
“I—”
“Don’t worry about the darkness; I don’t think it would touch you; it can’t yet, and you won’t be here for long enough to lose your protection against it.”
“But the cry-”
“It belongs here.”
And she heard again the anger and bitterness in his voice. “I brought you to this.” She said it to herself, not really caring if he heard it.
“Yes.”
“I’ll answer the call. I don’t care if it’s stupid. I don’t care if it’s dangerous.” She brought her hands to her face, but they were useless; translucent, they blocked out no darkness, no light.
He was silent a long time, his face inscrutable. And then he said, almost against his will, “Erin, you were always the strongest of our number; the brightest, even before you were made Sarillorn. I remember the day that we fought side by side in Kanara against the Malanthi border raiders. I remember the pain of the red-fire so clearly here”—he shuddered—“but now that you’re here I also remember what followed. I still see your face through the fire, Lady. I still see the pain you endured—knowing that you would have to—to bring me back whole. I see your expression, and it brings back the light.”
Erin watched in silence, remembering as he remembered. She had saved his life, bringing her lifeblood and her whitefire
to him where without he would have perished. She had become Adult on the fields, amidst the ruins of a fallen city’s walls. Because Belfas needed her.
And she had saved him for this. She wanted to run, but dared not. Prayed that he would finish speaking and leave her in the silence.
He shook himself forcefully, opened his mouth, then closed it. Opened it again and then began to speak anew. “And I still see it in you now: The power of Elliath and the power of our mortal determination. Sometimes I think I know you: I see you as the instrument of the First Servant; a tool of darkness and death. It’s easier than ... than other thoughts.
“But now that you’re here, I still see all that I always saw in you; feel all that I always felt.
“I’ve plotted against you all these years; I dreamed of what I’d do when we met in the Halls of Judgment. I’ve hated you more than I could ever hate our Enemy.”
Listening to the venom in his words, Sara found herself strangely moved. She was not afraid as she brought her hand up. He backed away before she could touch him.
“I hated you Erin. When I saw you in Rennath—do you remember the first night I came to your rooms?”
She nodded, unable to speak. She remembered it, as all else, well.
“I was so happy to see you alive! I could have revealed our presence there just shouting for joy!”
The anger and pain that lashed out at her were too much to contain in the stillness; she darted forward before he could step away and caught him in the cool green power of her embrace.
Belfas, Belfas,
she mouthed, half cradling him as her power flowed outward; she had no strength left for voice.
“And then—in the hall—when we’d paid so high a price for our attempt—when we’d spilled our own blood ...” He tried to pull away, but halfheartedly.
“I didn’t know.” She forced the words out, knowing them for truth, knowing that it didn’t matter. “I didn’t know that he’d break—”
“How could he do anything else? Erin, dammit, he’s the
First
Servant
!” But he stilled in her arms as she rocked him.
After a while she said, “Do the others feel the same way?”
And Teya’s youthful voice filled the air around her.
“Yes, Sarillom.”
Erin cringed at the accusation that Teya’s tone made of the honorific—an honorific that she had ceased to deserve centuries past. “Please, don’t call me that. Please.”
Teya smiled softly; the expression was not gentle. “We have all felt what Belfas feels, Carla, Rein, and I. But not as strongly. We had our lives to lose; we had our trust to lose. But we never lost our—”
“Erin.”
She knew what he was going to say. She placed her hands against his lips to still the words; her eyes opened and misted in a plea that had only one expression. “Belfas.”
He had no mercy; she deserved none. “I never loved anyone as much as I loved you.” And his insubstantial arms wrapped themselves around her insubstantial form, and she wept, wishing for the first time that Belfas could offer her a lie that she could believe; his truth was too devastating. Her power flowed outward to him, and he drank it in until they looked, to the eyes of their watchers, like one light searing itself into the blackness all around them. She would not call the Light back, and it wrapped itself around her former comrade, as gentle and all-encompassing as a shroud over a loved one.
And as she opened herself up, fully, to the mirror of Belfas’ pain, she felt another pain shoot
through
her. It was wordless, silent, and strong; it was stronger than the cry that had first drawn her to this place. It was too deep for tears, too wide for mortal expression to contain. Against her will, she found her grip on Belfas weakening; try as she might, her insubstantial fingers lingered only moments longer before pulling away. The call was stronger than any she had ever felt.
Years of practice fell away, absorbed by darkness and the spirits who bore witness to her silent struggle. She began to step forward as the plane shifted.
No
.
“Erin,” Belfas said, his voice a whisper in her ear.
She turned to see his pale face and shadowed eyes.
“It’s the answer to all your questions. You have to go. And I can’t go with you.” But he reached out anyway; ghostly fingers passed through ghostly hair.
She didn’t want to leave him; even in darkness, he was all that remained of her home. But she walked anyway.
“It’s the blood,” he whispered, resignation in his voice. “Will you come back?”
She looked back; she saw the edges of his face as they wavered between anger, fear, and pain. “Yes.” But before the single word died out, he was gone—as were the rest of his companions, her dead line-mates.
She stood completely alone. Fear touched her then, but it was not by fear that the Lernari were ruled.
Very well
.
Whoever you are, you’ve called me
.
I’ll answer as I can
.
Controlling the urge to look backward, she took a firm step forward, and then another, the large walls that loomed suddenly high serving as blinders to the darkness. She felt the thing that had summoned her. Clear, raw, almost overwhelming in its intensity. It surrounded her like a halo, twisting her mind until she stumbled from the contact. She looked around, and could see, faint and glimmering, beads of fine, red mist. They were gone as soon as her naked eye touched them, but memory held the image.
“Where are you?”
No answer. It didn’t matter; she hadn’t really expected one. She continued to walk, with no idea of how much distance she had covered; she had little choice.
The walls began to change. The oily slickness of their surface, pockmarked by a grotesque parody of color, began to harden. Erin didn’t notice this at first; the change was too subtle, too slow. But the air around her grew chill until she trembled with the cold. She wrapped her arms around her shoulders, bent her head, and continued forward.
She stopped as her eyes caught sight of her legs. They were solid. They were pale, shining with a hint of the green light that heralded her kinship with the lines, but undeniably solid. She untwined her arms and looked at her hands; these, too, looked somehow more solid. More mortal.
Then she turned, slowly, actual hair rising along the white of her neck, to look at the tunnel that contained her. It was black-true black, with flecks of gray. It looked like rock on a blasted, barren landscape.
Some battle must have been fought here,
she thought, remembering the sites of some of the greatest Malanthi-Lernari clashes.
They had a similar look—were it not for the sky, she might have guessed that she was on the plain of Merthor.
The rock opened up as the tunnel neared its end. Sara took firm, solid steps, feet brushing dry ground with a dull thud. She stopped at the pass’ mouth, hands slightly curved, body tensed with readiness to make a dive should it prove necessary.
Here,
she thought.
You couldn’t
have made yourself more clear. Come.
I’m
ready.
And she gave herself over to the needs of the blood. Pain filled her; raw and alien. Almost unaware of her surroundings, she came forward, hands outstretched, green eyes glazed and immobile. It didn’t matter that the pain was something strange and incomprehensible; it was there, and she was a healer born to be its salve.
Her fingers brushed against something. It was cold, hard, but smooth as steel—and it burned like red-fire. She cried out once, and stumbled backward, hands dancing to no effect in the red of the sky. She had an instant to cradle her hand before the call surged through her open mind, jerking her unsteadily to her feet.
She walked forward again, thinking of fire, knowing what it would be like to walk into a pain that strong; she had done so for Belfas. And she knew, as she had known then, that she would not choose otherwise. She conjured up images of Elliath, images of the Grandfather of her line, images of battle, sound, and smell, to steady her in her task.
Her hand crept slowly forward. Contact. Her nerves screamed out, and she bit her lip, pushing her hand forward to pass beyond whatever barrier had been erected against her coming.
Something shot up to grip her hand, crushing her fingers inward. Her eyes snapped open to an inky, dense mist. A tendril of it lay curled like a bracelet around her knuckles.
She started to pull away and felt it: the pain that had drawn her emanated from this—whatever it was. The cold ice that shot through her veins came from here as well.
She did what she could to pull free, but it held her tightly. She could not move forward; she could not move back. Closing her eyes, she did the only thing that she could: She sent her power outward, twisting her fingers around so that she could touch the tendril.
Green flared in the blackness; green, healing power—not the white purity of Elliath wrath. She had enough self-control to
choose. It left in a rush, blood from a wound that no eyes could see, and none not healer-born could understand. Her free hand came up and she gripped the tendril more firmly. Power flared in the clearing; the rocks at her feet began to melt into a slimy ooze.
“Damn it, I’m trying to help you!” Slowly, the rocks reformed, swallowing the chaos with a strong, steady shape.
And then it hit her. Loss. A loss so strong that even the image of Belfas, weeping in her arms, faded into nothing. Wordless, she reached out, trying to gather the mist into her arms, to meld with it—her comfort, her peace, for its pain. Her power fled outward, strongly and steadily, more quickly than it had ever gone. Her knees gave beneath her; she was made dimly aware of this fact when something cut into the flesh of her leg as she fell.
Too soon, she had nothing left to give. The taste of pain left her with the last of her blood’s power, and she opened her eyes once more.
Cradled in her arms lay the form of a silent, sleeping man. His hair, matted and dark, concealed his features; Sara could see a pale glint of white, but no more. She moved gingerly into a sitting position, trying not to jostle him. But the movement itself caused him to stir. His arms, supple and quick, wrapped themselves around her waist.
“Shhhh. It’s all right.” She began to brush his hair back, gently and slowly. Her hands trembled with even this effort, but although stripped of her power, she still had much to give. She had been the Sarillorn of Elliath. He stirred again as her fingers made contact with his cheek.
Beneath her fingers, the corners of his mouth curved into the semblance of a smile. A rigid smile, cold and controlled—so subtle that Sara might have missed it. It reminded her of—