Keris no
longer screamed. She stood trembling, crying, holding her hands out
at arm’s length as if to repudiate them. Davron ached to take her
in his arms, to hold her, to stroke her hair, to whisper words of
comfort in her ears…
He could do
none of it. He was untouchable.
Her hands were
dried up claws. Carasma had been unable to taint her because she
was ley-lit, unable to unmake her or kill her because she was the
Maker’s, so he had wrought as he could. He had desiccated her
hands. He had drawn all juices from her flesh below each wrist. He
had mummified part of a living body.
She could not
bend her fingers, nor move any part of her hands. Brown skin
stretched over bone, like sun-dried hide on a desert-seared
carcass. She stared at the ghastly skeletal things she now carried
and then looked at the Unmaker.
‘So that you
will never draw a trompleri map,’ he said.
~~~~~~~
The pain had
ceased even before Davron knocked away the burning ball of ley.
There had been nothing left in her fingers to give her pain, yet
she’d gone on screaming, unable to stop, unable to think, until she
was separated from the source of her maiming.
Even then
she’d stood in shock, unable to deal with the sight of her useless
hands, wanting both to hide them from Davron, and to throw herself
into his arms. She did neither. She stood and looked down at her
hands and tried to convince herself they were hers. They were
eroded dead wood at the end of her wrists, artificial things
without touch or feeling or movement. She looked up at Davron and
swallowed the last of her sobs.
And then
Carasma told her he had done it so that she would never draw a
trompleri map. And her mind started working again. She thought,
incredulous,
He doesn’t know I already how the maps are made! He
doesn’t even know the secret of their making.
Hysteria bubbled
through her. He had destroyed her hands, thinking he could stop
her, and she’d already thwarted him with the letters Gawen carried.
She wanted to laugh, but did not; the irony was too painful. She
was eternally maimed, hideously deformed, condemned now to live out
her life in the Unstable because of her maiming—and all because
Carasma thought she needed her hands to discover how to make a
trompleri map. It was her tragedy, and it was unspeakably
funny.
Lord Carasma
looked past her to Davron. ‘You have a remarkable propensity to try
my patience, Storre,’ he said.
‘It’s
mutual.’
‘You may tell
Edion that I know who he is now. And what he is doing. And I think
perhaps you know what your task will be, don’t you Master
Guide?’
Davron nodded.
‘Doubtless you will tell me the exact moment and the exact details
when the time comes, but I have always assumed that I knew what it
was to be.’ In truth, it had been Meldor’s assumption, but Davron
wanted to show Carasma strength, not uncertainty.
‘I shall
include your new lady in with the package.’
Davron’s eyes
dilated, blackness into blackness. The Unmaker laughed. ‘It will
add…spice, to the moment. For us both.’ He turned his golden eyes
back to Keris. ‘It will be his hand that snuffs out your life,
lady.’
‘I doubt you
can insist on that,’ Davron said with a careless shrug. ‘She is the
Maker’s. Besides, there is no need for her to stay by my side. And
I am contracted for but one task, remember?’
‘Ask her,
guide. Ask her where she will be when the time comes. She is no
Alyss of Tower-and-Fleury. And what has she to live for now away
from you? She will be excluded, yet has been rendered useless by
what I have wrought with her flesh. Ask her—’ He was laughing, and
laughing, he faded away.
~~~~~~~
The two of
them were left standing in the ley. It was no longer purple, but
blue, a soft pleasant blue.
He turned to
her, his voice urgent. ‘Keris, there is one chance. Just one, but
the price comes high.’
She nodded,
unnaturally calm. ‘Go on.’
‘I can teach
you to drink in the ley. You know the price, but ley does heal,
used in the right way.’
She held up
her hands. ‘These?’
He expected
bitterness; instead he saw irony mixed with the pain. He had an
unwanted vision then, of Alyss. Alyss turning, pity and horror
mingled, from a diseased beggar in the rutted streets of Edgeloss,
beckoning a servant to dispense coins.
Maker, how could I ever
have thought the gilt was gold?
‘It’s only a possibility. It
may not work. You may take on the ley and achieve nothing—’
‘You can’t—?’
she began, and stopped.
‘We both know
what happens when I touch you,’ he said gently. ‘I could not heal
anyone. And I doubt that even Meldor could do much with something
so…severe. But
you
might, from within. If you tackle it now,
before the change hardens with time.’ He looked down at her hands
without flinching, and then raised dark eyes to her face. ‘What you
decide, you must decide for yourself. I love you, Keris. And I will
love you no matter what your hands look like.’
He saw the
ache, the longing, in her eyes, and knew they were a reflection of
his own. It tore at him, this inability to hold her. To touch her
skin. Gently he reached out and pulled her into his arms,
careful—so very careful—not to touch her with his bare body,
careful not to hold her too tightly because his hands would sear
her through her clothing. Gently he allowed his lips to graze her
hair. ‘I love you,’ he repeated, ‘but I can offer you nothing. Not
home, nor wealth, nor safety, nor a future that has anything in it
but death and pain. I can’t even offer you myself. All I can say is
that I don’t care an urchin’s curse what your hands look like. I
only care that you do what is best for yourself.’
Carefully, she
drew away from him. ‘One question first, before I decide. Who does
Meldor serve?’
He hesitated
slightly before answering. ‘His dream,’ he said. ‘He serves first
and foremost his dream. He believes his dream to be
Maker-inspired.’
He expected
her to ask what the dream was; instead, she asked, ‘Do you believe
it is?’
‘I don’t know.
But I think his dream is better than Chantry’s reality. Or this,’
he added waving a hand at their surroundings.
‘Then show
me,’ she said. ‘Show me how to take in the ley.’
And so he
showed her. He showed her how to tease out the gentle blue, to
spiral it upwards out of the body of the ley, using just the power
of her mind to call it. ‘Want it,’ he said, ‘just want it. Bring it
to you, like a tendril of smoke drawn into your lungs when you
breathe…’
He showed her
how to absorb power as a lizard soaks up the warmth of sunlight; he
showed her how to drink in ley and fill her body spaces with its
pulsing strength; he showed her how to bring it into herself with
every breath. ‘Feel it,’ he said, ‘feel it entering you…’
And slowly,
slowly, she pulled the power into herself, into her body. Slowly
she absorbed it. ‘Think of yourself as a sponge,’ he said, ‘full of
empty spaces. Think of being able to fill those spaces with ley.
Breathe it in, Keris. Absorb it through the skin. Soak it up.
Inhale it. Assimilate it. Feel it run in your veins, in your blood.
Feel it course through your body…’
She pulled the
power into herself, and sent it through her body to her hands.
Slowly, gradually, her right hand filled out. The fingers swelled
and straightened, and responded…
It took time,
and concentration, and she had to do it alone.
I can’t even
touch her,
he thought, as he watched the agonising process that
was giving her back her dexterity. Giving her back her touch and
sensitivity… As the nerves lived again the pain was renewed. She
paled, shook, bit through her lip trying to contain the agony
within, hugging it to her, turning it deep, but there was still
nothing he could do.
And there was
nothing he could do when she collapsed, exhausted. Too much time
had passed and she was too weak. He cradled her, carefully, and
wept for her courage, and for what she had lost. Her left hand was
still an ugly colour; it was wrinkled, gnarled—the hand of an old
arthritic woman. The fingers were unnaturally thin, almost
claw-like, the knuckles were deformed, the hand curled at rest like
an eagle’s foot—but at least it lived. It was usable. The right
hand she had worked at more: it was warm and soft and supple.
Normal.
Damn you,
Carasma
, he thought.
You don’t have it all your own way.
There are some things we can win.
~~~~~~~
Should we say
obey, and expect obedience, if we cannot also give hope? Perhaps we
have cast too many shadows in the path of the faithful, and framed
too few doorways of light.
—From the early
writings of Kt Edion
When Meldor
rode into the camp three days after the fall of the bridge, he drew
up his horse alongside Keris, singling her out with unerring
accuracy. For a moment he sat absolutely still, not speaking, then
he slid from his horse and said with a disbelieving murmur. ‘Ley,
Keris?’ And smiled.
She knew why
he smiled. He thought ley would help her to find the secret of
trompleri. Bitterness bubbled up.
A moment
later, though, the smile disappeared. ‘But there’s something else,
isn’t there? I smell…the Unmaker’s touch.’
Wordlessly she
held out her left hand to him. He took it in his, felt its harsh
irregularities, its knobbed crenellations, then dropped it as if it
burned him. He made an imperious gesture towards her right hand, so
she gave him that as well. His smile returned. ‘Ah. Thank the Maker
for that at least.’
The bitterness
spilled over. All that ever mattered to him was how effectively
those around him could serve his plans. He was glad her right hand
was still usable so that she could draw her maps, probably even
inwardly pleased that her left was deformed and ugly because that
was doubtless enough to make her one of the excluded, ensuring she
would have nowhere else to go.
‘You and I
need to talk,’ she snapped.
He nodded, as
calm as ever. As in control. ‘I agree.’ He continued to smile. ‘But
let me settle in first, eh?’ He sniffed the air around him and
sensed Davron’s presence. ‘Davron? Everything all right?’
‘Yes. We made
do. We moved south to the nearest water. This is Garret’s
Lake.’
‘Yes,
Heldiss’s men said we’d find you here.’ He turned back to Keris. ‘I
brought another tent for you, and a packhorse. You can ride Tousson
from now on.’
‘What made you
think I’d be in any condition to need a mount, or indeed, be
alive?’
‘I didn’t know
for sure. But the Unmaker was in the ley line and where Carasma is,
the unexpected tends to happen.’
Her anger at
his casualness saturated her, but then he swept it all away with
his next words, uttered with a gentle, sincere conviction in that
beautiful voice of his. ‘And you: you are a brightly burning star,
Keris Kaylen. Your light enters my darkness. You are strong and not
easily killed. No, I did not expect you to die when you fell.’ He
turned smoothly away to greet the others. To Davron he said, ‘It
was bravely done. But foolish. You never learn, my friend.’ Then,
for Scow, ‘And it was you who finally got them both out of the
Deep, I suppose. We all have to rely on you for the practical
details.’
She could not
help her smile. It was true. It had been Scow who had brought first
her, then Davron, up the cliff face. He had salvaged sufficient
rope from the downed bridge to reach the bottom of the canyon, and
had rigged up a winch at the top so they could be safely hauled up.
She’d been puzzled by the wary way that the two men had greeted one
another at the top. Davron, looking sheepishly embarrassed, had
flushed and then mumbled an apology. Scow had been no less
discomforted, remarking that there were times when he was delighted
to have made a prime ass of himself and this was one of them. Then
he too had grinned, rubbed his jaw, and said meaningfully, ‘But one
of these days, my friend, when you are not looking—’
‘What’s all
that about then?’ she’d asked, but she’d received no satisfactory
reply.
The three days
that followed, while they’d been waiting for Meldor and the pack
animals, were both difficult and joyous for her and Davron. Their
desire for one another was a throbbing, desperate yearning that
they could not satisfy. Normal passion, normal needs had to be
denied, buried, ignored. Yet the deeper they hid what they felt,
the greater the tension that bound them. Sometimes she felt she
wanted to lash out, scream at the world, cry her defiance. She was
caught in torment, and there was no solution. There never would be
a solution.
During those
three days, Portron spent most of the time glowering at them, and
would have interrupted their time together if they’d tolerated
interruption. Davron thought he was jealous, but Keris knew it was
not that. The chantor just thought to protect her; why was not so
clear.
Far more
unsettling than the chantor’s fussing was the land’s upheaval.
Numerous whirlwinds danced across the earth, sucking up the loose
soil and dust and anything else in their path. They scribbled dust
patterns in the sky, darkened the light with their brown clouds of
debris, spun part of the world into the oblivion of space. They
left denuded swathes slashed across the ground wherever they’d
been, they scoured the land clean or furrowed it deep as they
erased the world.
‘Chaos
hell-winds, in truth,’ Portron muttered, and shook his head in
sorrow.
The
disintegration of the land around them frightened Keris, and the
constant proximity of Davron made her feel like a street urchin
with her nose pressed against the baker’s shop window, seeing the
wares displayed, but never having enough money to partake of more
than a visual feast. She was not sorry when Meldor arrived to put
an end to their waiting.