Authors: Deborah Chester
Anya
nodded and wiped her eyes again. She left to return to her work, but Beva
lingered to gaze down at Caelan.
Caelan
saw worry show plainly in his father’s eyes, as though to refute everything he
had just said.
Caelan
let his gaze wander away. He did not speak.
Sunshine
awakened him, bright and warm on his face. He stirred and opened his eyes, only
to squint against a blinding beam of light. Shifting on his pillow, Caelan
looked around.
The
man with the broken leg was gone. Old Farns slept, his chest rising and falling
beneath the blanket.
The
inner shutters on the ward windows had been folded back. Sunshine was coming in
around the edges of the outer shutters. Everything seemed quiet and peaceful.
Caelan
flung off his covers and climbed out of bed. His legs felt strange and shaky,
but he managed to stagger over to the window. Unbolting the shutters, he pushed
them open and looked out across the courtyard.
The
snow was dazzling in the sunshine. Great drifts of the white stuff filled the
corners of the courtyard. Lea, bundled up in a scarlet wool cloak, scampered
about. She was rolling up huge balls of snow almost as big as herself. Caelan
smiled to himself at the sight of her.
Across
the way, a neat path had been shoveled to the stables. He saw Raul breaking ice
on the watering trough and lifting out the chunks. They shattered and skidded
across the cobblestones.
“Oh!”
said a voice behind Caelan. “You’re up.”
Caelan
turned around and saw Gunder standing in the doorway like a startled hare.
Always ill at ease, Gunder turned beet red and hastened forward.
“Your
eyes look back to normal,” Gunder said. “Are you feeling better?”
“I’m
starving,” Caelan answered. His throat felt dry and sore. His voice sounded
like a rusty croak. “Is Anya still in the kitchen?”
As
he spoke, he walked back toward his cot. One moment he felt fine; the next, his
knees buckled.
Gunder
caught him before he fell and made him sit on the bed. “Slowly,” he said. His
long fingers gripped Caelan’s shoulder to steady him while he peered into
Caelan’s eyes. “Hmm.”
“What
is this?” Beva said sharply, entering the ward
without warning. “Why is the
window open? Cold air is pouring in.”
Gunder
stepped back from Caelan hastily and tucked his hands into his sleeves. He
stared at the floor. “I think he may be better, Master Beva,” he said
diffidently. “He spoke.”
“Ah.”
Beva shut the window with a bang. Dusting off his hands, he tilted up Caelan’s
chin to look at him.
Caelan
pulled back. “I’m tired of being poked. I want to eat.”
A
rare smile lit Beva’s face for an instant; then he glanced over his shoulder. “Thank
you, Gunder. Go and tell the Neika he must not walk so much on his leg yet.”
Gunder
hastened out, mumbling something too low to hear.
Beva
turned back to Caelan. “Your
severance
is ended. I am glad to see you so much better.”
Confusion
filled Caelan. He rarely saw tenderness in his father. He didn’t know how to
react.
“I’m
hungry,” he said again.
Beva
smiled and nodded. “Very well. Growing boys think only of their stomachs, but
you haven’t eaten in three days. Let me cover you with the blanket, and Anya
will come soon with a tray.”
Caelan
frowned and took a wobbly step away from the bed. “Why can’t I go to the
kitchen? I’m fine.”
He
tried to walk, but gave out by the time he reached the end of his bed. Beva
steadied him, and Caelan found himself glad of his father’s help. Beva made him
sit on the bed.
“You
must not tire yourself,” Beva said sternly. “You are not yet ready for
activity. Take things slowly.”
While
his father walked away to call for the house keeper, Caelan looked over at Old
Farns. The man’s face was sunken and gray on the pillow. His breathing came in
quick, shallow rasps.
“What
happened to Old Farns? Is he ill too?”
Beva
returned, his eyes watchful and curiously eager. “Don’t you remember?”
“Remember
what? He looks bad. He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?”
“Perhaps,”
Beva said, still watching him closely. “Winter is a hard time for old men. He
was caught outside in a snowstorm, trying to cut peat for our supplies. Foolish
and stubborn, our Farns.”
Caelan
rubbed back a yawn, then stared at the bandage on his hand. “What happened? Did
I cut myself?”
“Frostbite,”
Beva said. He reached out and smoothed Caelan’s hair. “Your hand will heal
quickly.”
Caelan
picked at the bandage, trying to see beneath it. “It hurts when I flex my hand.”
He
flexed it again as he spoke. Something about the resultant pain stirred his
thoughts. The snowstorm ... yes, he remembered being outside at night, trying
to get back to the house. Farns had been with
him ....
“Caelan!”
his father said sharply.
He
looked up with a blink.
“I
think you should lie down and rest now.”
Beva
pushed at Caelan’s shoulder, but restlessly Caelan shrugged him off.
“I’m
not tired. I’m not sick, either. Am I?”
“You
have been. You should rest. I will make a potion that will help you sleep.”
“No!”
Caelan said. “I don’t want it. I’m fine.”
But
he felt strange—hollow and somehow emptied inside, as though an important part
of him was missing. What had he and Farns been doing cutting peat at night in a
snowstorm? Had they been caught unexpectedly by the weather?
No
...
he
remembered darkness and the walls of the courtyard. They had been trying to
hurry. They had been afraid.
Caelan
caught his breath sharply and looked at Old Farns with fear. “Wind spirits,” he
whispered.
“No!”
Beva said forcefully. He shook his head with peculiar urgency. “No, Caelan. You
are mistaken. There were no wind spirits.”
Caelan
stared at his bandaged hand. The pain called to him.
“Listen
to me,” Beva said harshly. His tone was like a net, surrounding Caelan and
drawing him in. “You have frostbite in your hand. You forgot your gloves and
stayed outside too long. We feared lung sickness for you, but you are better.
That is all. There is nothing else to remember.”
Beva
went on talking, but Caelan felt as though he were floating on the words.
Strange, compelling words. The ward shrank around him, becoming distant and
small. He could feel the cold rush of
severance,
cutting him off from everything except his father’s
voice.
Caelan
thrust out his hand and knocked it accidentally against the bedpost.
Agony
flared from his palm, and with a jolt he remembered holding the warding key.
Wind shrieked around him, sounding almost alive.
It
was
alive. And the key was
burning his hand, burn ing the life from him . . .
No!”
he shouted, jerking from his father’s hold. Terror seized him, breaking a cold
sweat across his skin. His heart thudded, and he found himself on his feet,
his clenched fists held up as though to ward off an attack. “No! Get it away!
Get it away!”
“Caelan!”
His father caught him and shook him hard “You’re safe. Stay within
severance
and be safe. Hear my words,
Caelan. Stay within
severance.”
Caelan
closed his eyes, feeling the terror fade by degrees. His father was taking away
the fear, taking away the memories one by one.
From
a long distance, he heard Master Umal’s dry, boring voice delivering a lecture
within the hall of Rieschelhold: “Relinquish memories one by one. When they are
gone, then knowledge will go, piece by piece, until there is nothing left. Only
an emptied vessel, purified and wailing to be filled.”
Caelan
blinked and struggled to focus. He felt as though he were spinning on a string,
suspended within his father’s voice. And he was shrinking with every word Beva
uttered, losing all that he knew. Losing all that he remembered.
“No,”
he said in a whimper, trying to draw back. “I don’t—”
“Trust
me,” Beva said. He held Caelan’s face between both hands. His eyes pinned
Caelan’s, digging deep. “Follow me into the
severance,
and I will make you worthy—”
“No!”
Caelan
jerked back, breaking his father’s hold. Gasping and shuddering, he dodged when
Beva reached for him again and lurched across the ward on unsteady legs,
staggering from bed to bed in an effort to reach the door.
Beva
came after him. “Stop! You are not strong enough to—”
Caelan
turned to him. “No!” he cried. “You are taking my strength. Get away from me.”
Beva
stopped, his face white. They glared at each other.
Caelan
pulled his sore hand into a fist and began smacking it into his left palm,
striking again and again, using the pain to break the awful webs of coldness
his father had spun around him.
“I
held the warding key,” he whispered, struggling to regain his memory. “The wind
spirit had me. Another spirit
had Farns. I took the key from my pocket, and it came
alive.”
He
could feel a flash of heat inside him. His hand began to ache in earnest,
throbbing. “I used it to drive the spirits away,” Caelan said.
Long
shudders ran through him, and suddenly his mind felt sharp and clear. The
hollowness inside him vanished, and he was whole again.
Gasping
and blinking, drenched with sweat, he slowly lifted his gaze to his father’s.
Horrified certainty spread through him. “You tried to purify me,” he whispered.
“When I was hurt and couldn’t defend myself, you tried to
sever
me and make me into a—a—”
He choked, unable to say it.
Beva
stepped back and drew himself up, very erect and austere in his white robes.
His eyes might as well have been chips of stone. “I was wrong to try this
alone,” he said with plain disappointment. “You are stronger than I suspected.”
Caelan’s
disappointment was crushing. Beva hadn’t even bothered to deny it. “Why do you
hate me so much?” he asked.
“Hate
you?” Beva said with a blink. “I do not hate.”
“You
want to destroy me.”
“If
you are not turned from the path you walk, you will become something
reprehensible. I am trying to save you, boy. Let me.”
Caelan’s
eyes widened. He thought of how he had handled the warding key, and remembered
he had somehow brought it back to life. Despite its awesome power, he had used
it, directed it.
He
started to shake again. “People die when they hold warding keys. What
am
I?”
Beva
looked at him coldly, offering no comfort or sympathy. “It is said that in the
west there are men who walk both worlds, using
severance
or
sevaisin
as they will without regard
for the patterns of harmony they destroy. It is also said they are not truly
men, that demon blood must run in their veins for them to have such unholy
powers. They are welcomed in the west, put to use in the evil worked by the
emperor and his court of blasphemers. Many join the order of Vindicants and
perfect their mastery of the shadow arts.”
Caelan
listened to this with growing dismay. He did not want to believe what his
father was saying. “But I’m not like that.”
“Perhaps
you are. Or will become so.” Beva’s harsh tone was like a slap.
Caelan
frowned, wanting to deny it, wanting his father to deny it. “But I am your son.
I have your blood. I’m no demon! Just because I won’t obey you—”