Heir of Scars I: Parts 1-8 (75 page)

In fact, a top for it lay nearby, upon the marble tiles beside the steps. And yet its top was not flat, but also carved, in the shape of a robed man, the pommel of a sword held at his breast. She said, “Yes... a sarcophagus, but... not mine?”

And the woman shook her head politely, and whispered, “I don’t think you’re supposed to be here yet, no I... I’m certain of it.”

Her hand trailed in the water delicately, almost invisible beneath a rusty film that broke where her fingers played.

“Please,” Adria begged the young woman. “It’s so cold. Can you help me to climb out of here?”

“I don’t know,” the girl said, a touch nervously, withdrawing her hand to consider the stain of the water upon her skin. “I can’t seem to go that way.”

“You can,” Adria insisted, reaching out toward her. “Please... the water’s too thick and deep, and I’m so very tired...”

Still uncertain, the girl turned her head about a couple of times fearfully, though there was no one and nothing else about.
But they’re always watching…

“Please...” Adria repeated, stretching her wet and bloodied arms as far as she could. ”Please... just take my hand.”

And the girl nodded hesitantly, and stretched out her arm and fingers. She took one difficult step forward, nearly stumbling upon the first tier of the dais, and then another, this one easier, and finally a third, and the fingers of her hands interlaced with Adria’s.

“You’ve made me real...” the girl laughed, her eyes wide with wonder.

Adria nodded, and with incredible strength but great gentleness, the girl lifted Adria up and out of the water. Green-black tendrils, interwoven like vines or seaweed, clung to her limbs, wrapped about her naked hips and breasts, clutching at the open cuts upon Adria’s body. She cried aloud from the pain.

But the girl, now certain of her purpose, held Adria by her one hand, and with the other waved a lit torch about Adria’s body. Its smoke smelled of sage and pine needles, and the strands holding Adria to the water dissolved from her skin, with the faint sound of human cries and the buzzing of bees.

Adria lay huddled upon the marble floor at the base of the dais, catching her breath and shivering, and the girl wrapped her own body around her, and shared her warmth, and whispered in her ear. “Listen... music...”

They’re trying to heal me,
Adria explained.

“Is it working?”

I don’t know,
Adria thought for a moment, then nodded. 
I’m feeling a bit warmer.

She turned, and found that the young woman had grown even younger now, and was dressed in pale green and not red, her hair dark, her eyes a strange mixture of color. She watched Adria a moment, expressionless, and then leaned and placed her lips to Adria’s for a long moment.

And then she pulled away, and watched Adria’s face, and stroked her soaked and unbraided hair, and whispered. “It’s going to be better now, for awhile, Idonea. A little freedom. But… soon you will have to go home.”

And Adria considered this, then finally nodded and sighed, smiling at the girl for the first time. “Please, I think I would like to go home.”

The girl laughed and clapped her hands, as if it were the best idea she had ever heard.

“You have two hands,” Adria said, laughing as well.

And the girl rose, and she took Adria’s hands in her own then, and she asked, “Do you wish to lead me, or shall I lead you?”

“It doesn’t matter now, does it?” Adria said as she rose and found her strength renewed, the wounds on her arms — on all of her body, paled to scars.

The girl shook her head, and then turned toward a distant doorway, with its drums and voices, but then hesitated. “Wait... you’ve forgotten your apples...”

Adria looked back, where a great shadow had fallen about the dais and the center of the room, and she shook her head. “No. I don’t think those are really mine...”

She turned, and found the girl covered in bandages and robed in black, her eyes downcast. They walked, and the half light dimmed, or else Adria closed her own eyes, and the music and warmth grew closer about her, then the smell of sage, and the girl’s fingers slipped from between hers and into the secret history of dreams.

The Everlasting Lady turned away to the north, pulling its oars as its sail filled. Adria exchanged looks of relief and clasped shoulders with Hafgrim and Elias. As she turned, she met Meynard’s eyes as well, and they exchanged a nod of respect.

Emoni was gone when Adria looked to the helm, and Falburn merely returned to the business of setting The Echo to right.

The rest of the morning was for the dead and the wounded, The Echo among them. The damage to the hull was not a death sentence, but enough of a worry that Falburn changed their course to make an early port.

“Beneta,” Elias nodded. “It’s the westernmost Kelmantian port of any size. We’ll have to wait and make what repairs we can there, or else go overland to Kelmantis.”

“How much time will that cost us?” Hafgrim asked.

Elias shook his head. “Very little. Once we’re on the coast, the ocean winds will be against us. We’d do about as well to ride the distance, at least where time alone is concerned. As far as safety...”

“You don’t trust the benevolence of Kelmantium?” Adria smiled wryly.

He shrugged. “Absolutely, just as I’m assuming that your entire Sisterhood embassy tripped and fell down the stairs.”

Criseda, Tiffan, and Osenne, shadowed by Emoni, came above deck in the wake of the battle, and now proved of some worth tending to the wounded with reasonable skill.

Adria was able to use her own skills as well. She found one of the young Knights sitting alone and out of the way, his back against a barrel, seemingly relaxing except for the arrow protruding awkwardly from his hip right where his leather hauberk ended. Adria rushed to kneel beside him when she saw this, and he blinked and smiled awkwardly at her.

“Good... morning, Ma’am,” he said, as if drunkenly passing a stranger on the street.

“...good morning, soldier,” Adria said, reflexively unsheathing her skinning knife. “Can you tell me where you are from?”

“I am... I am from Heiland, Ma’am...”

“And what is your name, if I may ask?”

He nodded, slowly, then seemed to remember the question after a moment. “It is Edward, Ma’am... if it pleases you.”

Already confused...

As she cut the linen of his breeches, Adria was relieved to find only a long cut along the side of his thigh. 
Not even going to need a suture...

“You’ve served well today, Edward...”

“Thank you... Ma’am.”

As Adria reached into her pack for clean cloth and the Aesidhe ointment for burns and wounds, she noticed that Emoni had wandered over to watch.

“You’ve learned from the Wilding,” Emoni said without inflection, as Adria cleaned the excess blood and carefully spread the salve upon the wound.

“The Mechushegiya of the Aesidhe have much to teach,” Adria responded.

Emoni nodded very slowly, her eyes now unfocused, turned to look upon the sea or beyond. “The voice of many in one...” she whispered, and Adria nearly stopped in her ministrations. Emoni sighed, and smiled slightly, then looked over Adria’s work, the Knight, and turned half away.

“A pity this one will die anyway,” she sighed, distractedly.

The young Knight tensed, though he otherwise kept his composure, and Adria raised her voice, only slightly. “Walk away, child.”

Emoni curtsied, without turning back. “As you say, Your Highness,” she breathed, and wandered off to other curiosities. “Once more for the crows…”

She saw moments of light, then faces she tried to name. They sang for her, and called her names, and then she awoke upright into darkness, covered in the water of her own sweat.

“
You were lost for some time,
Mélitali,” Shísha said as Adria came to awareness. “
Scattered to the winds. It was not easy to pull back all the strands. They tangled. They stuck to places and things I could not see, and even after much effort, I thought that we would unravel the last of you, and you would join your ancestors. But then, you were at last led home.
”

Adria nodded, dazed. “
Yes... I was led,
Imatéli.
Did you see her?
”

Shísha nodded and smiled. “
I did see,
Pukshonisla,
and I was not the only one. You have been well named.
”

Adria shook her head, confused, even as her own memory faded from the waking and the dreaming. And then she remembered something of what had happened. Arrows, fire, a bridge over water, and her uncle’s hand.

“Atuteko...?” she asked then, as the Holy Woman helped her to sit up, and then held a heady broth to her lips.

“Ch,” Shísha said, an odd Aesidhe expression, somewhere between 
shush
 and 
oh
 which one only used with close friends or family. “
Your Chosen Father is making wrong things right, as best he can.
”

Adria nodded, unsure of her meaning but not her tone. “I don’t remember everything that happened. I remember nothing after the fire... after the bridge.”

“Drink, silly girl,” Shísha chided in Aeman. “What is passed can wait. It is not a simple task to come back from such a death.”

Adria did as asked, and in the coming days her strength and pieces of the rest of her story came in fragments. The first and easiest came with some humor. As she recovered, others joked that she had stood alone against an army of Aesidhe Hunters and won.

Out of respect, her uncle’s part was not directly mentioned — they knew, as Adria did, that his reconciliation would have to wait — his reconciliation with her, with the Runners… with the People.

Maybe this time, time will heal his wounds,
Adria hoped.

Imani was somewhat more revelatory, though the details and scope of the events were a bit beyond her knowledge or understanding. “
You nearly drowned, they say... if
Watelomoksho
had not been there to save you from the river, you would not be here now. Still, you took fever, and they carried you back on a litter, all the way from the Others’ lands. They had you in the lodge for almost two days…. It took
Shísha
and all our
Mechushegiya
to bring you back, and more. You should have heard how
Náme
and I prayed for your safe return, how all the women wept and the men made offerings to All Our Ancestors.
”

Náme embraced Adria almost shyly, as she always did, seemingly oblivious to matters of life and death, regardless of her own experience. Still, just this once, she did not seem to be expecting a present.

Mateko arrived with the first of the Runners, fresh with stores from distant caches, readying the tribes for winter. When they met, each of them seemed a little wary of the other.

“
You saved the camp?
” she said, after they had exchanged a smile and a nod.

“
We did, only barely so.
”

They were silent for a moment, as Adria and others helped him unload the pallet he dragged behind him. Finally, she asked, hesitantly, “
Did you lead them along the foothills?
”

He looked up at her and smiled again. “
Did you lead your uncle’s army to the fort?
”

She shook her head.
Of course, he knows what happened.

He shrugged and nodded. “
It was a good thing you disobeyed, for so did we.
”

They smiled at each other again and finished their task. They would say nothing more, for they both knew that what had to be said had to be said by Preinon.

Finally, several moons after she had awoken, even as the first snows fell, Adria learned that her uncle had returned to camp, alone, and Mateko brought her the news.

“
He did a wise thing,
” Mateko said. “
He said he wanted a judgment, a punishment, but that we have no such thing. And so he returned all of his Hunters to the tribes they had come from, and he told them the story of what had happened, and humbled himself before their elders in shame, and prayed to their Ancestors for forgiveness. By now, every tribe must know the story of the Hunters of Men, and the one who turned them away from tragedy.
”