Daughter of Ancients

Chapter 30

Paulo did the digging. He said he didn't have much to contribute to the night's activity but common labor.

Gerick had remained with the horses two hundred paces up the hill. His spirit had closed up like a slamming gate as soon as we crossed the top of the ridge and started down the track to the burial place, and I made him stop right there. I didn't want any "imaginary" Zhid poking spears into Paulo and me while we did this thing.

A slight chink interrupted the steady crunch of the shovel.

"Ouch! Demonfire!" Paulo threw down the shovel and clenched his hands to his chest. "Shovel hit metal, not rock. Cripes . . ." He bent over, his fists flying to his head and grinding into his temples.

"Time to change the guard, then," I said, jumping up from the flat rock, grabbing his elbow, and dragging him back up the trail toward Gerick and the horses. "Any damage that won't heal?"

After a moment he walked a little straighter, but clamped his fists under his arms grimacing. "I saw a man struck down by lightning once. I'm not smoking, at least. Listen—" He halted at a bend in the track where we could see the desert stretching out behind us, the ugly scars of the Lords' reign a blight on the land. "What you're doing … are you sure?"

"Not sure at all. But I've some sense. We'll start slowly and see if it's possible before he— I just don't see any other way. I'll tell you this: He has power enough."

He nodded and started walking again.

Indeed, I couldn't believe Gerick doubted himself. Even in the small workings he'd used to brighten our fire and clear our water … I'd never sensed such power, even from my father in the days before Zhev'Na. I issued a fervent prayer that the Lady Seriana was right about her son's heart.

Gerick was perched on a rock, his arms and legs drawn into a knot, when we walked into the little grotto where the horses were tethered. His head popped up. "So you found it."

"Just where I left it," I said, taking far too much time and effort to take a drink and loop my water flask's cord back on my belt so it wouldn't fall off. I didn't want to look at him, to think about him. "Let's get this done. Do I have to touch you or anything? Stand anywhere in particular? Well, I suppose not." I emitted something halfway between a laugh and a bleat. "The last time we did this, you were dangling in a corner, and I was flailing on a window ledge."

He unwound his arms and slid off the boulder onto his feet. His eyes were so dark in the failing evening.

I had to see … I stretched my hand out so my weak handlight would reach his face. "There . . . I'll stand over there," I said, offering a pitiful explanation for my waggling finger.

Ridiculous. His eyes were their natural color. And concerned. I walked over to a boulder near him and propped my backside on it, facing away so I couldn't see him anymore. "Get on with it."

"How can you do this?" he said quietly from behind me. "How can you bear asking me to come inside you after the things I've done to you? Aren't you afraid? Don't you remember?"

And I answered what I had been repeating to myself for the past two hours. "Memory has no power but what the soul chooses to make of it. I choose this. Now will you please just do it?"

His boots scuffed on the dirt. Paulo murmured something. I tried not to think of anything at all. How was I supposed to let him know where not to trespass , as Paulo put it? How was he supposed to know the part I needed him to play? Did I have to say it out loud? Yes, I can tick off steps and form complex enchantments, but a rabbit could bring them to life sooner than my stunted soul will, so you'll have to supply all the real magic .

Looking upward, to where the first sharp-edged stars poked through the deep blue, I inhaled deeply, relishing the clean, dry air and the oncoming night. No longer did an everlasting pall of smoke and dust haze hang over Ce Uroth. That happy circumstance soothed me a little. I smiled and imagined green stars in a stormy purple sky. Gods, I wanted to snatch Papa from the hospice and go home. Strange . . . "Will you just get on with it?" I said to those behind me.

"Jen." Paulo's soft call drew me to look around. He was crouched beside Gerick, who was sprawled on the ground, eyes closed, body limp as a dead man.

"He's already … ?" I suddenly felt hot all over, my face pulsing. Green stars … I should have known.

"He said he'd try to stay back as much as he could until you need him. He knows he was clumsy when he helped you before. Are you all right?"

I stared at my hands. Breathed. Peeked into my own thoughts. And they were my own thoughts . . . but, of course, he could likely hear them if he chose. I resisted the urge to ask him, for fear I would hear that quiet voice bouncing around in my skull or coming out of my own mouth. Good Vasrin show me the Way . … "I suppose I'm all right."

"You holler if you need me. I'm going to stay here to. watch out for him. You know what needs doing."

I moved slowly down the path, assuming for some reason that I had to tiptoe. If I stumbled, jostled, or thought too hard about what I was doing, something in the world was surely going to break or explode or crash down on my head. Or perhaps inside it.

I focused on the job at hand. Indeed I knew exactly what was required to destroy an object of power. As with so many things I could never use, the steps sat right there in my mind, dusty and neglected: consider need, assert ownership, disrupt containment, trigger the destruction . . . The triggering, yes, that was where I'd need help.

The implements lay where I'd left them on the flat rock I'd used to cover the hole: the shovel, the broken sword, Paulo's hand ax. I quickly added a few items from my pocket: the sweat-crusted scarf I had tied on my head in the desert crossing, the tight-wound measuring cord I used in my work, my mother's coming-of-age ring that I always carried, my knife, and its sheath that my father had tooled for me.

The oppressive enchantment of the oculus was already deadening my limbs, making it an effort to lift the broken sword. But I carried the sword to the hole and poked about in the dirt at the bottom, probing to find the ring. A muffled clink, another stab, and I snagged it, scooping it out of the loose dirt. As I raised the broken tip, the brass oculus slid down toward the hilt and clanged into the guard.

Trying not to look at the thing, I carried it back to the flat stone and let it slide off again to lie simple, round, and perfect in its evil, gleaming in my pale hand-light. My simple invocations of protection felt quite pale as well. I could try to invoke power for strengthening them, testing this joint working, but my mind was already growing sluggish. So begin. You can do this .

Step One: Consider the object to be destroyed . . . the need . . . the use or misuse that justifies destruction . That was easy. While visions of ravening Zhid, of Gerick without eyes, and of my father's confusion of mind created a solid hateful shape in my head, I proceeded to the next step, arranging my possessions around the brass device—the knife, the sheath, the little gold finger ring, the scarf. I unwound the measuring cord and wrapped it carefully around them all, making sure it touched each of my four possessions. And then I passed my fingers around the cord, releasing just enough power to assert my ownership of this boundary and everything within it. Unless D'Sanya showed up to break my circle and thus dispute my claim, the oculus was now mine.

The brass circle pulsed and glared as if it knew what I was doing. Its physical shape did not change. My mind knew that. Yet it seemed to grow larger, occupying fully half of the world I could see. Concentrate, Jen . I forced my eyes to see the rock and the other things on it, to feel the night air and hear the distant howl of a wolf.

Next step. I considered the casting of the artifact . . . the mold fashioned with care and skill . . . the molten metal running into the mold, skinning over as it cooled … the careful burnishing and whispered enchantments that had made it. I thought of all I knew of its designers and its maker . . . envisioning them in all their horror, beauty, and betrayal, a necessary step to encompass the existence of the object. "I'm sorry," I whispered as I concentrated on the Lady. But I dared not slide over the requirements, even the ones that might be painful for either of us to dwell on.

My spirit clamored warnings, and my hand trembled as I picked up the hand ax we'd borrowed from Mistress Aimee's stable, its sharp steel blade properly venerated and cared for by Paulo on our trek across the desert. I raised the tool, and my shoulder howled in protest. Foolish … I couldn't possibly muster the physical strength to do this. The oculus had surely been cast with spells to make it impervious to casual damage. Perhaps I should call for Paulo. Confused, dispirited, I lowered the tool.

No ! I shook off the leaden sensation. Focus on the steps. Disrupt containment. What you feel is only enchantment —the object trying to preserve itself. Strike !

I raised the hand ax high, strength surging into my limbs like a river pushing into the sea. The blow landed square on the oculus and hard enough to mar the perfection of its gleaming surface with a small dent. I had never struck such a blow. So hard. So accurate. Blood rushed to my skin again. I was not alone. . . .

Unsettled, I threw down the hand ax as if it were the evil instrument. Mistress Aimee's blade would need some tender care; shards of rock had flown everywhere when it struck.

The unity of physical form and enchantment that made up the oculus, the containment of the spells within the physical object, should have been disrupted by the blow. Only a small breach was needed, a flaw in its construction that I could exploit to break it. And so I proceeded through the mental exercises of desire and transformation, shaping them with the simple sorcery nature had left to me.

Once those were completed, assuming I'd done all correctly, only one step remained. The most difficult. The least certain. Hold the desire in the mind, incorporating every sense, and feed it power enough to accomplish the breaking spell. Closing my eyes, I felt the solidity of the enchantment I had constructed, envisioned its accomplishment, hearing, tasting, smelling, feeling the shattering I desired. And then I reached deep into that most intimate place of a Dar'Nethi's soul, and in that reservoir where my Way had left only dust and rubble, I found magic.

My eyes flew open, and every object in my sight—sky, stars, rocks, desert—became more comprehensible, more real, its color richer, its texture, shape, and solidity, even its flaws, delights to the eye and the mind. The bluster of the wind and the screech of a hunting raptor sang with tones and harmonies that extended far beyond those of ordinary hearing, and with such clarity that I could understand the slightest nuances of wild nature bound up in them. For one instant I was admitted to the heart of the universe, its intricacies and truth laid bare for my soul to devour.

Always I had read of the exhilaration of Dar'Nethi enchantment, and how the intensity of the experience grew in proportion to the power of the enchanter. Now I knew that all I'd read was true. Gerick's power left me breathless, speechless.

But before I could even encompass the wonder, the oculus pulsed and shot off beams of light, blinding me, choking me, devouring the bright moment and spewing out horror that overwhelmed every sense—tortured screams, billowing darkness, the reeking smoke of burning corpses. The brass ring gleamed through the murk.

I fed power into the enchantment I had built, more and more, until I feared that even this ocean of magic inside me must be drained dry. And always the circle of brass stayed whole. I knew only one way to divert more power into my enchantment—make the link with its object more direct. Furious at a creation that could convert such beauty into horror, terrified that we would fail, I could not consider the danger. And so I stretched out my hand and touched the oculus itself.

First my hand, and then my arm, shoulder, and neck felt as if I had submerged them in burning oil. But I held on, binding my enchantment ever more closely to the physical object, even as dread and cold darkness crept through my inner vision. I cried out shamelessly, determined that neither pain nor this insidious despair would force me to release the spell. I would not fail. I would not … I would not. . . .

Let go. It's all right . It wasn't so much words that penetrated the pain and darkness, but rather an overwhelming, insistent assurance. The world was unbroken. I was unbroken. My injured shoulder had gone into spasms because my fist was clenched so tightly, causing this pain in back and chest. And of course it was dark, because my face was pressed into the dirt and my eyes were closed. This knowledge flooded into me before I could assess these things for myself. And then the tide went out, leaving me sprawled, aching but content, on the shore of life.

Eventually I moved. I tried for a while to loosen my fist, but nothing in my right arm wanted to obey me. Then I lifted my head and opened my eyes only to find that it was still dark. Night. Quiet, except for pelting, skidding footsteps on the dirt behind me, and the anxious call, "Jen, are you all right?"

Impossible to answer yet, of course. Supporting my right arm with my left, I scrambled to my knees, trying to persuade my eyes to focus. No chance of a handlight. Even the thought made my head ache, like trying to vomit when you've nothing left inside. But I patted my left hand on the dark shapes scattered on the surface of the rock. My knife, the sheath, the now-tangled measuring cord, and a few shards of metal, cool and inert. I peeled open my recalcitrant fist and found more of the same.

"Jen?" The voice was closer. Kind. Worried. Paulo.

"I'm all right," I called over my shoulder, as I jingled the bits of metal in my left hand and threw them gleefully onto the rock. "I think we did it!"

Paulo arrived and crouched on the gravel beside me. "I heard you cry out. And then nothing."

I looked up at him and grinned. "A little yelling never hurt anyone."

"It wasn't yelling so much as screaming. I thought you needed help, though I wasn't sure it was even you!"

"Well, I suppose it wasn't all me." I swallowed hard and squirmed a bit, trying to gather in my thoughts and feelings that seemed scattered over the landscape like my other possessions.

Paulo grinned and jerked his head back up the path. "He's back there where he belongs. Takes him a bit to get sorted out. And after something like this . . ."

"I probably need sorting out, as well," I said, feeling an uncomfortable moment of mingled relief and regret. But as soon as I remembered the magic, relief, regret, pain, and despair were all forgotten. I could have run, leaping and dancing, all the way back to Avonar. I grinned back at Paulo. "Let's get out of here."

While Paulo picked up the shovel and the broken sword, I gathered my belongings, fixing my knife sheath to my belt, winding up my measuring cord, and patting my hand on the ground in a moment's panic until I found my mother's ring. The scarf was nowhere in sight, but it was the least valuable by far and I left it go. I gathered the shards of the oculus and considered what to do with them. I needed no power to tell me their bitter enchantment was broken.

"You don't think your friend would want these?" I said. "A memento?"

Paulo nodded toward the hole. "Throw them in there and I'll bury 'em. No one needs a piece of that thing."

He had it done faster than I could take stock of all my limbs and other parts and decide that I was in one piece. We started up the track together. "It was all right then," he said, flicking his eyes to the top of the ridge. "With him?"

"He's done it with you?" I said.

"I was his first. Before he even knew he could do it. Felt like a wildcat had gotten into my skin with me. But he saved my life that day, and the lives of a whole world full of people. We did it again later when he was hiding from his da. At least that time he'd learned to keep quieter, and he wasn't trying to kill anybody."

I flexed the fingers of my right hand. As we walked, sensation was returning. "You're a good witness, Paulo. The way you trust him. I might never have gone through with it otherwise."

"But I was his friend already. Don't know as I would have had the nerve to do it, feeling as you do about him. You ever need a witness that you're the damndest woman this side of the Lady Seri, I'll stand up for you."

I laughed, and we climbed up the hill to find Gerick.

We slept under the rocks again that night. The knowledge that we were only a portal away from real food, real beds, and a bath was a fine torment, but the first sight of Gerick at the top of the track had told me we were going nowhere until we'd had some rest. He'd been sitting with his head on his knees, unable to speak, utterly and completely drained. His breathing was erratic, his limbs and shoulders twitching every once in a while as he inhaled with a great whoop. Making portals would require learning and practice, even if he had power left after what we'd just done. We would have to wait until morning.

Paulo boosted him onto his horse, and we rode back to the riverbed and our shelter. Our little fire was still burning, and I used the rest of our water and all the good herbs we had left to make tea. We drank some ourselves and forced the rest down Gerick until he just shook his head and rolled over on his blankets. He hadn't said a word, and I wasn't about to broach the subject of the oculus or our strange partnership. I supposed he knew that we'd been successful.

That night I dreamed of wildcats tearing their way out of my skin.

My eyes fluttered open to see Nim and Rab squatting quietly in the narrow band of shade and staring at me. The sun angle claimed it was almost midday.

"Spits," said Nim, incomprehensibly, as she laid a handful of hard green fruits about the size of plums on a rock. "Clean the nose and throat."

It took me a moment to realize that spits referred to the fruit. "Oh. Thank you," I said.

Gerick lay on his side, still sleeping. It looked as if he hadn't moved the entire night or morning. Paulo lay flat on his back under the deepest part of the overhang, snoring peacefully. He had packed up all our gear the previous night, except for our blankets and a few things I'd set aside.

I divided the last of our cheese into five chunks and offered a portion to the two scavengers. It was so dry and hard that droplets of grease ran off it as the morning warmed. Nim kept gesturing me to take one of the green fruits, though I noted that she ate only her portion of cheese. I picked up one and sniffed it. It just smelled green.

"We're leaving today, and, as we can't carry everything, we thought perhaps you'd want some of our supplies." I pointed to the stack of pots, cups, and spoons. "You've been very kind to us."

While the two of them knelt in the sand, patting and stroking each piece, Nim sighing with pleasure, I bit into the little green fruit. "Vasrin's hand!"

Rab grinned, showing his few brown teeth, and in sheer excitement started banging a spoon in one of the pots.

Gerick shot up to sitting. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong." My assertion came out as a whimper. My nose was running, my eyes watering, and my lips puckered. Now I knew why they called these things spits. "It's just time for you to wake up. We're going back to Avonar today."

He ruffled his hair tiredly and looked around at Paulo's packing job and Rab carrying our scorched pots off to the cache across the gully. "Earth and sky. You two have a lot of confidence in me. I feel like an empty barrel."

"You must be blind." I swallowed the sour fruit and smiled—or grimaced—at Nim, who had appeared a bit worried at my outburst. As soon as she went back to her admiration of our spare water flasks, I lowered my voice and continued. "At the least, your perception of your own gifts is a bit skewed. As long as you make a habit of what you've learned these past weeks, use the technique to replenish your power, you can do anything you wish. Eat something, consider the universe for a while, and then we'll start your portal-making lessons. And be polite, but don't eat those green things unless you enjoy having your tongue curled."

After a brief trip out of sight, he took a long pull from a water flask, ate his square of cheese, and pocketed two spits with admirable diplomacy, indicating he planned to hoard them for his journey home. Nim and Rab bobbed their heads, but didn't look at him. They had called him "the sleeping demon" and had never addressed a word to him for the entire week. As soon as he turned away, they whispered to me that they urgently needed to go hunting.

While I saw Nim and Rab on their way, promising to leave everything we didn't need tucked into their cache in the rocks, Gerick rolled Paulo onto his side. The sleeping fellow didn't wake, but he did stop snoring.

I sat with my back to the most comfortable rock in the grotto. "Ready for your lesson?"

Gerick stood with his arms folded, looking at nothing. His face, shadowed with several days' growth of reddish hair, was sober and worried, older somehow, and the cast of his skin—a natural red-gold—was deeper than usual. "Before we begin . . ."

I had the sinking premonition that he was going to apologize for something. "Portals are complicated," I said, pointing to the sand in front of me. "We need to get busy if we're going to get out of here today."

"Not until I've— After last night—" He blew softly, rubbed the back of his neck, and then clasped his hands tightly behind his back. "I'm not good with words. You've seen that. All these months I've tried to think what to say to you, and I've come up with nothing but sentiments you would rightly scorn. But I just— Everything you've done, especially last night— You've made me think differently about Dar'Nethi. I have to tell you that. I know it changes nothing about the past. Not many people would even understand what it means, but I think you do."

"Well . . ." Moments passed as I tried to come up with something to say that did not expose the absolutely disproportionate happiness I felt. I had to be quick. Gerick looked as if a knife were slowly sliding across his throat. ". . . that's good then. I'm glad. Though, as a compliment, it's not quite up to the one I got last night when you were falling out of your saddle. I was told that I was 'the damnedest woman this side of the Lady Seri.' "

He laughed then. Deep. Heartfelt. Resonant with health and good humor and hope as only the laughter of those who know the truth of pain and grief can be. I laughed, too, and for once tried not to analyze or question, but just to enjoy a moment of quiet grace.