“Are you all right?” Livak moved to look at me, face concerned, and as she did so her foot knocked against a dagger on the floor. I recognized it as hers and reached down to pick it up.
“Careful with that,” Livak took it from me hastily and plunged the blade repeatedly into a patch of damp earth until the blade gleamed, cleaned of the oily salve it had carried.
“What were you planning to do with that?” I stared at her, startled.
“His lordship over there was none too keen on giving up your warm body to return to that cold one yonder.” Livak glowered at Temar’s unconscious form. “I was just about ready to make his decision for him, when he yielded. Let him argue the fall of the runes with a dose of tahn in his blood.”
I hugged Livak to me. “Thanks for the thought, but don’t blame the lad too much.” I closed my eyes on a brief memory of that appalling sensation of being locked away in endless darkness, cut off from all sensation. “After a taste of what he’s been going through, I can’t say I would have done any different.” Seeing the world through Temar’s eyes had been a salutory reminder of the power of the emotions of youth, the mixture of fear and impetuousness that had driven me in my turn first to the excesses of thassin and then to service with Messire.
Livak snorted and muttered something under her breath as Shiv and the others approached cautiously, the mercenaries in particular looking extremely unsettled. “What do we do now?” Tavie demanded truculently, folding muscular arms over his rounded gut, a scowl lifting his lip to show teeth like a row of burned-out houses. “We came to find this cave and now we’ve done it. What next?”
I looked at Shiv and Usara who turned to Parrail. “Well, I have as many of the small items as we thought promising with me,” he offered. “Shall we see who we can revive?” He looked questioningly at Guinalle, whose head had turned at his words.
“Let me see,” she held out her hands and Parrail gave her the casket with alacrity, kneeling beside her to open it. As Guinalle examined the rings and trinkets with tentative hands, she looked up at us, eyes wide. “How long have we slept?”
I exchanged an uncertain glance with Shiv and Usara. but Parrail spoke up eagerly. “Close on twenty-four generations, as far as we can tell.”
Guinalle’s jaw dropped and she gaped at the lad. “What? How? I mean…” The multitude of questions defeated her and she buried her face in her hands, Parrail putting a helpless arm around her in a futile attempt at comfort.
“We have come to find you, to seek your assistance against that same enemy that destroyed your colony here.” Usara knelt before Guinalle and took her hands in his, holding her tearful gaze. “There will be answers to all your questions in time, but just at present we need your aid. Your Artifice has long been lost to our people and the Elietimm, the men who attacked you, they are using it against us. Will you help us?”
Guinalle struggled for an answer. “I…”
“Leave the rest of it for another time, just consider that one thing,” Usara’s voice was calm and soothing but I could hear the urgency behind his words. “We need your help, otherwise more people will die at the hands of these invaders.”
Guinalle blinked and rubbed away her tears with a trembling hand. “Whatever I can do, I will,” she faltered.
“Should we be doing this?” Parrail looked around the great cavern, uncertainty wrinkling his brow. “I mean, the theory sounded all very well, but—”
“What else are we going to do, now we’ve come this far?” Shiv took a parchment from Parrail’s book. “I hardly think we can leave Guinalle all alone? Now, is this a list of the people you think owned these artifacts?”
Parrail scrambled to his feet hastily. “It’s what we compiled from the dreams, the most common images that were seen. You see, that one there, the chatelaine, all the evidence suggests it belongs to a mature woman with rather noticeable pock marks and—”
Shiv thrust the list at the scholar. “You read it out. Tavie and Buril, come with me and see if you can find anyone matching his descriptions.”
The mercenaries shared an uncertain look before joining Shiv and then Usara in slowly quartering the cave as Parrail read out brief and often unflattering descriptions of the people they sought.
“Oh dear.” Guinalle stifled a hesitant smile. “Mistress Cullam always preferred to be called robust or sturdy rather than fat.”
“Are you up to doing this?” Livak was looking at Guinalle with open skepticism.
The slender woman lifted her chin and a spark of determination lit her eye. “I am, but first we should revive as many Adepts in artifice as we may. They will be able to support me in restoring the others.”
“Can you identify them for us?” I took a step toward the others.
“In a moment.” Guinalle turned to Temar’s motionless form. “I cannot leave him in the darkness any longer.”
She knelt to lay her hands on Temar’s own, where they clasped the hilts of the sword. I gripped Livak’s fingers so hard that she flinched. Again I felt that shadowy touch, like a breath of cold air, but it passed and I felt a curious sense of release as Temar drew a first, long shuddering breath. As he opened his eyes Guinalle drew him close to her and, by unspoken agreement, Livak and I turned to leave the pair of them alone.
“How are you getting on?”
Shiv looked up from a child’s tiny form at my question, an enameled silver flower on a bracelet in his hand. “Pretty well, but we’ve artifacts for fewer than a third all told, even with those still back in Hadrumal.” He shook his head. “We’d better be careful whom we chose to revive. I hope Guinalle can identify people for us; I don’t fancy finding I’ve woken a child whose mother is still no better than dead.”
I looked back over my shoulder to Guinalle and Temar, still clinging to whatever reassurance they could give each other.
“She says we should try and revive any Adept in Artifice,” I commented.
“Can you,” Shiv hesitated. “I mean, do you think—”
“I can still remember the dreams, if that’s what you’re trying to ask,” I managed a weak grin, but in fact when I looked through my memories the dread that had colored the images for so long was absent. I could still remember, but now it was like recalling a story, a tale I’d heard, something that had happened to someone else, if it had ever happened at all. I walked a little way and pointed to a long-boned woman with a smear of old blood dark against the white of her frozen hands. “This is Avila; I’m pretty sure she chose a brooch, set with rubies and little pinkish diamonds.”
“It’s a cloak pin and has an inscription on the underside,” said Guinalle, coming toward us, hugging herself and shivering slightly. “It was from her betrothed, an Esquire For Sylarre.”
“You remember that kind of detail?” Parrail wrapped his cloak around Guinalle’s shoulders and she thanked him absently. “Of course,” she replied with a faint smile. “It was only yesterday, after all.”
I felt a presence at my shoulder and turned to see Temar waiting. Livak stirred under my arm and I held her close to silence her.
“I must apologize for my conduct,” the young man began stiffly; I sympathized with his struggle between pride and embarrassment, but I shook my head.
“No, you weren’t to know,” I said firmly. “I bear you no ill will.” I was relieved to find I meant it, too, if a little surprised at myself. Having had the smallest taste of imprisonment within my own head, I found I simply could not blame the boy.
“I should make some recompense,” Temar’s jaw jutted obstinately. “You should keep the sword, it is the only thing of value I possess.” His eyes looked lost, clinging to this hollow notion of honor.
I shook my head in absolute refusal. “No, I’m sorry but I cannot accept it.” A tremor in my voice showed me I was not yet so secure as I thought.
“I insist—” Temar tried to lay the scabbard in my hands, so I put them behind my back.
“It was never mine,” I told him firmly this time. “I don’t want it!”
Something in my voice must have convinced him; he colored and belted the weapon on without another word. I watched him look around for Guinalle and hurry toward her, now on the far side of the cavern, Parrail attentive at her side.
“Your Messire gave you that sword,” commented Livak, her hard eyes still following Temar.
“He did and look where it got me,” I said grimly. A gasping cry echoed round the vast expanse of the cavern and we saw Guinalle embracing Avila, the older woman rubbing at her eyes with one trembling hand, the other clasping her brooch as if it were the only constant thing in her world.
Shiv joined them, concern plain in his stance, while Parrail hovered, uncertain and unsure in the face of some abrupt challenge from Temar. Avila struggled to her feet, still shaking, and, thrusting aside Shiv’s offer of support, made her way to a woman lying next to three children swaddled together under a rough blanket. Her words were lost at this distance but I watched with growing dismay as Shiv shook his head, pointing first to one of the children, then to another, something bright glinting between his fingers. Parrail stepped forward and rummaged in his coffer, finally shook his head in a helpless gesture over the tiny middle figure and the woman.
Blood drummed in my ears as I remembered the belt buckle that Kramisak had used to weave his snares around Kaeska. I’d had no notion of its significance—how could I have?— but now guilt seared me. If only I had retrieved it. When would this little family be reunited once more in the sunlight, not left still and cold in their rocky tomb? Avila’s sudden sobs shattered the silence until she stifled them in her hands as Guinalle desperately sought to comfort her, tears now streaming down her own cheeks.
“I want no more of this!” I turned blindly to escape the gloom of the cavern.
“Let’s get out of here,” agreed Livak abruptly. “We should let them know on the ship what’s going on, and get some food organized for when they start waking these people up.”
“I hadn’t thought of that,” I confessed.
“Halice did,” grinned Livak, the fear and strain finally leaving her eyes soft as new leaves in the sun. I followed her readily back up toward the fresh daylight and out into the warmth of the living sun. I had done my duty by my patron, the wizards and the lost colonists of Kel Ar’Ayen, I decided. Someone else could answer the questions, make the decisions and deal with the problems, for a while at least. Livak and I got the mercenaries who had remained on board ship busy gathering firewood, flushing game from the surrounding woods and preparing to feed whoever emerged from the cavern. We left them to it and found our own secluded glade, where I proved to Livak that she now had my undivided attention any time she wanted it.
I woke the next morning feeling more fully rested than I could remember in seasons. Leaving Livak curled in the nest of blanket we had shared, I went down to the riverside to wash the sleep from my face and found Shiv frowning over a cup of water.
“Caught a worm or something?” I asked with a grin.
“Morning, Rysh.” Shiv looked up. “How are you feeling, in yourself?”
He winced as he heard his own words and I laughed. “Pretty much my old self. It’s nice not having a lodger inside my skull. So, what are you doing?”
“Trying to scry the settlement.” Shiv shook his head. “Only Kalion’s put up such a strong barrier that I can’t hold the focus together. Oh well, I’m sure they’d summon us fast enough if there was trouble.”
I nodded. “How many have you revived all together?”
“Close on five hundred, as you would know if you hadn’t managed to lose yourself so thoroughly last night,” replied Shiv with a strained smile. “It was no Festival Fair, I can tell you, trying to explain what had happened to them all, in terms that would make even the slightest sense.”
I looked at the ship, straining at its moorings in the current. “You’re going to have to make several trips and you’ll still be packing them in like salted herring,” I commented.
“Most will be staying here—they’re too confused to do anything else at present.” Shiv emptied his cup into the river. “Some of the mercenaries too, to defend the cavern if need be, while we take some of the Artificers down river to meet Planir and help decide what to do next.”
“Shivvalan!” We both looked around to see Guinalle hurrying toward us.
“Is there a problem?”
“What were you doing, just then?” Guinalle looked startled, flushed with haste.
Shiv looked down at his cup. “It’s called scrying. I believe you can work something you call a far-seeing? It’s similar but I believe we reach rather further—”
“You also lay your minds open to any attack an adept might care to make!” Guinalle shook her head. “I was weaving my own spell, making sure no invaders were anywhere near and I found you at once, defenseless as a newborn babe.”
Shiv grimaced. “That’s how they got to Viltred then.”
“Who? Never mind.” Guinalle frowned, irritated. “The thing is, I can sense a considerable working of Artifice along the coast. I can’t tell its purpose, not yet, but it has to be the invaders, from what Parrail was telling me last night.”
“We’d better get back to the settlement as fast as we can.” I stood up; my respite clearly over for the moment. “Make sure there are enough here to defend the cavern, but we’ll need all the troops and magic we can spare if Planir’s facing trouble.”
Shiv nodded. “ ’Sar and I were talking about this yesterday evening, looking at routes here if the Elietimm have somehow got wind of what we’ve done. That other river’s the only fast way in, so we started work early to block it a good way downstream.”
“How did you do that?” inquired Guinalle.
“ ’Sar did the rocks, I did the water,” Shiv grinned, “you see—”
“You can tell her when we’re on the boat.” I paused, disconcerted to realize I had no sword at my hip. “We need to get things moving—and I need a new sword.”
“Take my spare.” Tavie handed me a serviceable sword, a little heavy for my taste and marred with a couple of deep notches. “It’s nowhere near the quality of that Empire blade, though,” he added dubiously.
“Trust me, that’s not a problem,” I assured him. The weapon was probably worth about a handful of copper and I accepted it with pleasure. Now that Shiv had the current working with him, our progress down the river was rapid enough to make the newly revived colonists gasp. I noticed that Guinalle spent the trip deep in conversation with Usara, doubtless swapping theories on magic, with Parrail hovering attentively at her elbow while Temar looked on with no small measure of annoyance. I moved to join him at the far rail, finding myself drawn by a sympathy I didn’t fully understand.