The God-Stone War

Chapter 32

I woke gradually, feeling a pleasant tension forming in my shoulders until eventually I was forced to stretch, arching my back. I felt uncommonly good, which was unusual, particularly because it was not an adjective I usually associated with waking up or morning. My body seemed rested and healthy. My memory was a little fuzzy though, and for some reason I thought that perhaps that should not have been the case.

Something told me that I should feel bad, but I wasn’t really sure why. The door opened at that point and Penny walked in, her eyes immediately taking in my wakeful state. “You’re awake!” she almost shouted.

“So are you!” I shouted back, thinking she deserved the same encouragement.

Then she started crying.

Damnitt! I chided myself inwardly. I always manage to say the wrong thing, even when I don’t know what might be wrong… or right, for that matter. Seriously, it was a gift. I was the idiot savant of making women cry. You’d think that given complete ignorance of the situation, I’d at least have a fifty-fifty chance of saying something that would make her laugh, but it never seemed to work out that way.

I managed to untangle myself from the sheets quickly enough to catch her before she threw herself into the bed with me. Standing, I caught her in my arms as she ran toward me. It wasn’t long before I realized her tears were of the ‘happy’ sort, which all things considered, is a bit better than the other kind. I considered myself a bit of an expert in diagnosing the different sorts of crying, since I had witnessed plenty of it first-hand.

I spoke soft, comforting words of no particular meaning, while I stroked her hair and held her close, giving her time to wind down. Over the course of my marriage I had learned that frequently tears were a type of stress relief for Penny. Me, I preferred to just go break something or simply ignore my feelings, they usually went away on their own after a while anyway. One of the many differences between us, I supposed.

At some point she gathered her wits together enough to begin a proper conversation, “I don’t know whether to be mad at you for taking such risks or glad that you made it back.”

I buried my nose in her hair, inhaling the soft fragrance of the woman I loved. “You’re such a crybaby,” I said affectionately. “I’m not even sure what happened,” I added.

She growled into my shoulder, but I held her tight so she couldn’t get enough space to take a swing at me. Well, I tried to hold her tight… the earth-bond had given her physical strength far beyond what I could handle. Our embrace turned into a one sided wrestling match, with me laughing as I lost. In the end I wound up flat on my back, in the bed, with her looking down on me. She had my arms crossed and pinned. Tears ran down her nose to land on my chest. I hoped they were tears anyway, the proper definition probably depended upon whether they had exited her eyes and run down the outside… or the inside, of her nose first. I suppressed that squeamish thought quickly.

“You are never to do that again! For anyone, do you hear me? Except for the children maybe, but not even for me!” she declared.

“Do what?” I asked.

“You don’t even remember?!” she said, exasperated. “Typical. Elaine was hurt, do you remember that?”

Memories came flooding back then, the assault on the castle, my poisoning, Lady Thornbear’s harrowing treatments… and Elaine’s terrible wound. I remembered trying to heal her, up to a point, but then my recollection ended in a blank wall. “I don’t know what happened,” I said uncertainly. “It’s all foggy. I started and then, somewhere in the middle I must’ve passed out.”

“Well she certainly remembers enough for both of you!” announced my irritated spouse. “She said you surrendered your life to heal her.”

“What?!” I asked, startled.

“You heard me. I didn’t really understand it, but from how she described it, you somehow ‘became’ her, as in… you ceased to be you. She was able to use your gift to restore her body and yours, but she wasn’t sure whether you would ever wake up. That was the part that really upset me,” said Penny.

As she spoke I noticed that my magesight was back to what I considered its normal acuity, and the voices of the earth and the wind were back to their normal volumes. Whatever had happened, I seemed to be fully recovered. “That does seem foolish of me,” I told Penny.

“You’re damn right it was! And even worse, after it was all over, she apologized to me,” added Penny.

Uh oh, I thought. “Apologized?”

“Yes. She told me she loved me, and that she understood your perspective better now,” explained Penny. “I don’t suppose you would mind telling me what the hell that was all about?”

That led to an awkward explanation, but after I had finished Penny seemed to accept it. She even let me have my arms back.

“Next time you need to tell me these things from the beginning,” she admonished me before relaxing and snuggling up close against me. “Were you tempted?” she asked then.

A lot, said my inner voice. My inner voice can be pretty stupid sometimes. “I was… a bit,” I confessed.

She growled, “I think you need a reminder.”

And remind me she did. It was fortunate that I was fully restored beforehand, or I might not have survived.

Later that day I finally got around to looking at the message box that Dorian had kindly brought for me. I had actually intended to look at it, and send a message, but at the time I had merely sought to distract him long enough to escape my room.

The jewel on top of the box was gently flashing, an indicator that it held an unread message.

Mordecai,

Forgive me for the lack of correspondence. Since the move to Agraden, I’ve been pre-occupied with setting up our new home. Marissa seems to enjoy being close to her family once again, though time and distance has made her a bit of a stranger to them.

I wasted no time looking for the ancestral home of the Gaelyn family, even though as you know that was only my secondary goal. The search was a little anti-climactic in fact, because as soon as I got around to asking questions, I found that its location was common knowledge here. The natives here call the area Drakon Perket, which I have learned means dragon’s rest, or dragon’s roost.

Given what we already know about Gareth Gaelyn, it seems obvious (at least to me) that he must have spent considerable time here after his transformation, which probably gave rise to the name. There are numerous stories here of people claiming to have seen a large beast. Until recently, they were largely regarded as stories produced by the overactive imaginations of children or unbalanced individuals, but a number of years ago quite a few people claimed to see the creature, rising from the earth. They don’t laugh about it anymore.

I would like to make a trip there. It is only a matter of a few miles from here, but my health has begun deteriorating, creating difficulties. If things aren’t too busy, you should consider coming to take a look. I know how engrossed you often are with you projects, but I really think that you might find some important bits of information here, and who knows what the Gaelyn family left behind? Apparently the locals here never go there, and those that try invariably wind up wandering without ever getting to the heart of the area. Sounds familiar doesn’t it? …Makes me think of your forgetful day in my father’s library.

If you do manage to make the trip, perhaps we could go together… one more adventure, eh? I wouldn’t be much use of course, and in my current state you’d probably have to practically carry me, but I’m still good for witty banter. I’d really like to see what’s there.

I will close this letter for now. Marissa sends her love, as do I. Kiss the twins for me.

Marcus

Refolding the paper, I felt a familiar twinge of guilt, the guilt of a man who is too busy to keep up with his friends. I hadn’t even gotten around to reading the book he had found regarding the Gaelyn family. He had left it for me at the house in Albamarl.

His remarks about his health were particularly troubling, because I knew he would have understated the problem, which meant he was very likely to be much worse. Yet I couldn’t afford to leave now. My castle had been invaded. My people were returned, but many things remained to be fixed, and I could hardly leave them defenseless.

I shut my eyes and tried to relax. It was something I had gotten rather good at over the years. Much of my magic required a calm mind, lest my emotions affect my control. My breathing slowed and I began enumerating my problems. One, the two remaining human gods were my enemies, but they might be too afraid to face me directly. Two, the remnants of the shiggreth were still loose in the world, though I couldn’t be certain of their numbers or whereabouts. Three, my castle was damaged and my people were fearful, having just survived an assault. Four, Lyralliantha was still locked away, and I couldn’t decide whether I dared to release her.

Wait! What did I just list there? I ran the words over again in my mind. I knew they were strange, but frighteningly, they didn’t seem so. The name was familiar. Lyralliantha, I thought, and an image presented itself within my mind, a young woman with soft silvery hair and vivid blue eyes staring intently at me. She was slender and something in her features made her seem ageless, and then I noticed her ears. They tapered to gentle points, making them slightly longer than would be normal for a human.

The sunlight set her hair to shimmering in the bright summer afternoon. The trees around us were immense, and yet they were spaced far enough apart to create islands of light amidst their shadows. She turned to me and I heard her voice, “Whatever made you think I was human?”

I bolted upright from my chair. Was I sleeping? Letting my eyes rove the room my heart began to slow to its normal pace. No, I was awake. How could I forget? Lyralliantha was one of the She’Har. The thought seemed normal, but I knew it was not. The door in my mind was open and things were spilling through, memories of times and places so far removed they could have no possible bearing on the present, not anymore.

I tried to focus my thoughts on Marc again, but the first thought that came to mind was the day he had handed me a certain wooden box, a box that had held the accord between humankind and the She’Har. They broke it, it has no meaning anymore. It wasn’t my fault.

“I am losing my damned mind,” I said aloud, hoping the sound of my own voice would help to ground me again. “The first thing I need to do is reassure the people. They will want to see that I am alive and still protecting them. Until I do that, I can do nothing else.”

Clenching my jaw I shuttered away the unwelcome thoughts and penned a short letter to Marc. I kept it brief, congratulating him on his find and promising that I would try to find the time to visit soon. I deliberately left out the most recent events. It would have taken too long to write them out. That could wait for another day.

After I had finished, I rose and left. It was time and past for me to return to Castle Cameron. The people were back and they needed my reassurance. Taking a deep breath, I kept my steps firm as I walked down the hall. Confidence was the key.