Authors: Deborah Chester
“Who has set you
to do this?” he asked finally. He was shaking inside, from rage and fear both.
He wanted to throttle Agel, but he dared not move until he had answers. “Who?”
Agel would not
meet his gaze. “Our purpose is to save this man. Tell me what you can.”
“Why should I?”
Agel looked
suddenly fierce. “I have worked long and hard to secure my appointment to the
imperial court. I won’t let you jeopardize that.”
“Tirhin is a
traitor,” Caelan said in a hard voice. “You cannot coerce me into saying
otherwise. My loyalty to him has ended. Don’t serve him, Agel. He is not worth
your concern.”
“That is not for you
to say!” Agel said sharply. “You are not this man’s judge.”
Anger leaped in
Caelan, but he crossed his arms over his chest and said, “If his mind has gone,
there is no reclaiming it.”
“I did not say his
mind is gone. But he is far away, deeply
severed.”
“That is justice,”
Caelan said.
Agel’s eyes grew
even colder. “And I have said you are not his judge! This man is a prince, and
you are a slave. You are dust beneath his feet, unworthy in rank even to lick
them.”
Caelan snorted. “I
do not need a lecture about rank and standing. I have been taught my place at
the end of a whip. But I am well born, and there is nothing in my lineage to
make me ashamed. Never will I forget that.”
“If you are a
slave, it is because you threw away all the advantages you were born to. You
wasted everything. You deserve to be here, abased and wearing a chain of
possession.”
Caelan’s fists
clenched. He wanted to choked those pompous, lying words from his cousin. He
wanted to hit Agel, to hurt him. He wished with all his heart to see Agel
facing a Thyzarene attack, with the dragons screaming and belching fire, and
the laughing riders spearing their victims. Oh, to see Agel in shackles, naked
and covered with welts from a scourging, lying in filthy straw and grateful for
a crust of molded bread.
All Agel knew
about slavery was what he saw in Imperial most fashionable circles—the sleek,
pampered house slaves, the groundskeeping workers, the champion gladiators who
wore fine clothing and had servants of their own. He would never understand the
debasement and degradation. He would never know the shame or the mental
torment.
Agel already lived
in a cage, one of his own making. His bars were prejudice and narrow thinking.
How could he understand anything, much less the desperate need to be free? How
could he understand honor, when he had thrown his own away? How far had the
cruel elders at Rieschelhold twisted his thinking?
Caelan’s anger
faded to pity. His fists uncurled, and he drew in a deep, ragged breath. Agel
was not worth his hatred. Agel was not worth anything.
He turned in
silence to walk out.
“You can’t go,”
Agel said to his back.
Caelan kept
walking.
“You can’t! I will
say that you attacked the prince and injured him. I will accuse you, and you
will go to the dungeons a condemned man.”
Caelan drew in a
breath. He felt cold with contempt.
Turning around, he
sent Agel a steely glare, but it was met by the ice of Agel’s gaze.
“You don’t want to
die, do you?” Agel asked him. “You still care about your own life.”
Caelan said
nothing. His jaw was clamped too tightly.
Agel took his
silence for assent. “Now. You will answer my questions and give me the
assistance I need.”
“If you condemn
me,” Caelan said hoarsely, “will you not also condemn yourself, as my kinsman?”
“Treachery and
murderous assault are two different things,” Agel said in a calm voice. “I
cannot be blamed for the latter. You are well known to be a violent man, of
unreliable temper and savage fighting skills. And it is also known that you
expected his highness to free you for your successes in the arena. He has not
done so. Are these not sufficient provocations for a man of your ilk?”
Caelan frowned,
wondering how Agel could be so ruthless. “Why are you doing this?”
“I told you. It
was very difficult to get this appointment. Now that I have it, I intend to
keep it. How better to impress the emperor than by healing his beloved son of
these injuries? Do you think I came to Imperia merely to treat wounded
gladiators, favorite slaves, and imperial concubines? No, I came to treat the emperor
himself, and I will not let your stupidity keep me from that.”
Understanding
dawned on Caelan. “You haven’t been received yet,” he said slowly. “The emperor
has not yet permitted you to examine him.”
It was Agel’s turn
to stand silent and tight-lipped.
“You are here on a
trial basis. You can be dismissed if you fail to please.”
Agel’s chin
lifted. “Already I have been called on by the empress. That was a great step
forward, at least until you broke in and interrupted the consultation.”
Caelan shook his
head. “She wasn’t the empress, you fool. Her Imperial Majesty wouldn’t come to
your shabby infirmary in person.”
“But she did.”
“I have been here
longer than you,” Caelan said scornfully. “I know palace protocol. The empress
would send for you, by messenger and escort.”
“But the guard
said she was ... she herself said she was—”
Agel’s confusion
made Caelan laugh. “People lie,” he said. “Especially do aristocrats lie to
their servants and inferiors.”
A tide of red
crept up Agel’s throat into his face.
“She was
not
the empress,” Caelan said emphatically. “Perhaps she came to you on her Majesty’s
behalf, to observe you and your methods, to see how clean you are, to see
whether you are suitable. That’s all.”
“But... but still,
the empress has expressed interest,” Agel said finally, trying to rally. “It
changes little. As regards you, it changes nothing.”
Caelan’s amusement
died. He looked at Agel stonily.
“Now, back to the
matter at hand,” Agel said, gesturing at the unconscious prince. “Does he know
anything about
severance
? Can he return by himself? Has he had any
training?”
“No.”
“Of course.
Severance
is not practiced here.” Agel compressed his lips and stared at
Caelan very hard. “You were on the Forbidden Mountain. You encountered wind
spirits—”
“No,
shyrieas.”
Agel waited, but
when Caelan said nothing further he walked to the far side of the room and
motioned for Caelan to follow him. “Am I to wrest every word from you like
drawing teeth?” he asked angrily. “Must I threaten you again to elicit your
cooperation?”
“No, I think you
have threatened me sufficiently,” Caelan said.
“Then answer my
questions, that I may do my work.”
It occurred to
Caelan that if he was to accuse the prince with any hope of being believed,
then Tirhin should be conscious. It was possible that Tirhin might confess or
reveal his guilt in some way if questioned. Unconscious and half-dead, he would
have the benefit of his father’s sympathy, and only Agel’s lies would be
believed.
Sighing, Caelan
nodded. “Very well.”
He went back to
Tirhin’s bedside with Agel and stood there looking down at the man he had once
respected.
“You know what
shyrieas
are,” Caelan said before Agel could prompt him. “Demons of this
land. I cannot describe their appearance. They—they feed on a man’s thoughts,
his fears. All that is dark inside you draws them like honey. All your sins,
all your evil intentions are food for them. They come at you half seen, like
wind spirits. They scream until you go mad, and then they are upon you ... in
you.”
His voice grew
ragged, and he fell quiet. His memories were unwelcome, bringing back the
horror of that attack. They had fed on him as well, and he still felt shaken
and not quite whole. He wondered if he ever would. Worse, he kept thinking back
to the night he had been attacked by the wind spirits at E’nonhold. Old Farns
had tried to save him, and had died for the effort. The memory of the old man’s
dear face, so drawn and still on the pillow, came back vividly. Prince Tirhin’s
face had a similar look. Caelan could feel himself knotting even tighter
inside. The prince was not likely to recover. And if he did not, Caelan’s
warning would never be heard.
He needed Tirhin
on his feet and sane, to betray guilt when questioned so that the council would
believe Caelan’s accusations.
“If the demons
have indeed taken his reason,” Agel said in his somber way, “then I cannot
restore it.”
Caelan drew in a
sharp breath but did not speak.
“If he is simply
hiding deep within himself from shock, then he has a chance to eventual recovery,”
Agel said. “But it will be slow and difficult.”
Caelan looked at
him. “Can you determine which it is?”
“I will try.”
Agel leaned over
Tirhin and placed his palms on the prince’s face. Uttering the
severance
mantra under his breath, Agel closed his eyes. After a moment his own
expression grew still, then went slack. He began to sway rhythmically at first,
then more jerkily, then convulsively as though he were trying to hurl himself
back but could not break the contact.
His mouth opened,
and he made wordless, gasping sounds.
Alarmed, Caelan
reached out, then stopped himself at the last moment from touching his cousin.
Even without actual physical contact,
sevaisin
was stirring in him. He
could feel a force of evil reaching forth, something that sent chills racing
through him. The evil was centered in Tirhin’s body, but now it was twisting
and entwining through Agel as though the healer’s touch had brought it forth.
As Caelan stood beside his cousin, he sensed this evil wanted him too.
Repulsion filled
him, but Caelan had no time to delay if he was to destroy this thing.
Sweat was pouring
off Agel. Still standing there with his eyes closed and his mouth screaming
silently, he went on twisting from side to side, unable to break free.
Pressing his
fingertips together, Caelan closed his own eyes and plunged deep into
severance.
At once its icy walls closed around him, buffering him from the
black, writhing, indescribable thing that coiled and twisted around Tirhin and
Agel. It turned its wedge-shaped head and opened its mouth to display dripping
fangs. Hissing, it struck at Caelan, but
severance
shielded him. He
forced himself to look on this evil, to look into it. He saw its threads of
life and where they stretched back to the source that governed it.
Caelan
severed
the threads. The creature screamed with a shriek so piercing it brought Caelan
pain. Both Tirhin and Agel screamed too.
In that one brief
second of contact, Caelan felt a flood of black hatred and viciousness flow
over him. He felt one touch from what lay beyond the creature, and it was
clammy and rotted and utterly horrifying.
Then he was free,
and the link was broken. The creature faded from black to gray, then to nothing
at all. It was gone, as though it had never existed.
Breathing hard,
Caelan released himself from
severance
and stood blinking and shivering
in a room that was suddenly too cold for comfort. Even now he could still feel
a lingering foulness that made him shudder. But whatever had been planted
inside Tirhin was gone.
Leaning over,
Caelan rubbed his eyes with the backs of his hands and gulped in more air. He
felt spent and winded, as though he’d run miles.
Then he pulled
himself together and straightened. Almost afraid to know, he turned to the
others. Tirhin looked gray-faced and dead. Agel lay slumped over him.
Anxiously Caelan
pulled his cousin upright and gripped him by both arms to shake him.
Agel flopped in
his grasp, semiconscious, knees buckling.
Caelan sank with
him to the floor. “Agel! Agel, wake up!” he said urgently. “Come on. Wake up.
You must wake up.”
Agel moaned and
opened his eyes. His face was still beaded with sweat. He looked as though he
had been dragged through a place no man should ever have to enter.
Caelan patted his
cheek, still talking to him, urging him.
Finally Agel
grabbed his hand and pulled it down. He blinked in an effort to focus, and
scowled at Caelan. “I
am
awake,” he said acidly. “Stop trying to revive
me.”
Relief swept
Caelan. He grinned and almost laughed as he helped Agel sit up. “Thank Gault,”
he said. “I thought you were lost to us.”
Agel leaned over
again, bracing his hands on the floor as though he was going to be sick. But he
was not. After a moment, he pushed himself to his feet and stood swaying
unsteadily.
His eyes met
Caelan’s and held them. “What, in the name of all purity, have you brought here
with you?” he asked.
Caelan sobered
instantly. “I don’t know. It’s gone.”
Agel closed his
eyes a moment, then opened them to glare at Caelan. “How do you know?”
“I sent it away.”
“You have
authority over it?”
Caelan heard
accusation in his voice. He could see fear in Agel’s eyes, along with a dawning
look of horror.
“You can make it
come, and go, at your bidding?” the healer asked, his voice rising. “What
are
you?”
“You
misunderstand!” Caelan said sharply. “I do not govern it. Murdeth and Fury, why
must you always leap to the wrong conclusions? Anyone else would be relieved
that I was able to destroy it.”
“Only evil can
destroy evil,” Agel said, his eyes still wide with shock. “Only evil knows the
secrets within itself.”
“All I did was
sever
it from its source,” Caelan said impatiently.
Agel flinched away
from him, bumping into Tirhin’s bed as he did so. “
Severance
cannot be
used that way. It is not possible.”