When she came out blind, I wept and cursed Lanalor. But then my child
spoke to me: ‘I am not blind, Mother. I see more than I saw before.
Things that were hidden are visible to me.’ And then did I understand the
double-edged gift Lanalor had bestowed … My daughter could not see
much that ordinary folk saw, and so did her friend Rhiad offer to protect
her and guard her, and I rejoiced, for Rhiad was courageous. I have often
wondered if Lanalor foresaw that, as well.
THE ALYDA SCROLLS
Wake Glynn …
Glynn stirred because the voice calling her had been both familiar and urgent.
‘I … I’m here,’ she whispered, and then waves of pain crashed over her and she groaned, remembering the moments leading up to the accident – the headlong dash from the citadel and then the crash. Glynn could only guess that the aspi had trodden on the dangling rein and had flipped the vehicle right at a sharp turn, so the carriage had gone sideways instead of on top of her; sheer luck that she was not dead, crushed under the weight of it. Of course there was no voice any more than there were bells, though she still seemed to hear them ringing even as she fell. What a stupid disastrous thing to have happened.
She touched her temple gingerly. It hurt and her fingers encountered a wet stickiness at the centre that she supposed must be a puddle of congealed blood. Her heart began to pound but she forced herself to examine the wound by touch, without moving more than her hands and arms. She was relieved to find that the source of the blood was a long, deepish gash at the hairline which seemed to have sealed, apart from a small part still bleeding sluggishly. She felt her whole head then, just as she would have done if she had been performing first aid. There was a bump on her forehead and one of her eyes felt swollen and sore to the touch, but otherwise there seemed to be no sponginess that might indicate serious head injuries.
The feinna link agreed that she would not die of the wounds, so Glynn sat up slowly.
Her head swam from the movement but she fought the dizziness and nausea grimly, knowing that vomiting would probably make her faint. She lay very still, trying to relax, and waited for the world to stabilise about her. Overhead were trees thick enough to hide the sky and, somewhere very near, she could hear the swift gurgle and splash of fast-running water. The colour of the light diffused through the leaves made her think it was very early morning, which meant that she had lain unconscious for most of the night. That was the sort of thing doctors from her world would find worrying. On the other hand, feeling as bad as she did, it had probably been best for her to lie still for a time.
At last, she sat up very slowly. There was no sign of the carriage, but it had to have landed nearby. She seemed to be right in the middle of a bush. Trying to get to her feet, she gasped at a stabbing pain in her hip, and prayed she had not broken anything. Fortunately it was only the broken end of a branch piercing her thigh. Shoving it aside, she clambered shakily out of the bush and winced as her feet hit solid ground. It seemed she might have wricked her ankle, but she could rip some cloth off her tunic and make a bandage that would support it. Not yet though. Limping, she pushed her way through the dense bush to the road.
There was no sign of the carriage in any direction, but the swerving tracks of the wheels and the mashed greenery told their own tale. Glynn turned slowly, looking back the way she had just come. The carriage had gone over her, therefore it must be deeper in the trees. Ignoring her aches and pains, she pushed her way back through the trees, thinking worriedly of the feinna.
Her senses told her it was unharmed and still sleeping, but she would not feel happy until she had it safe in her arms. She was also worried about its long sleep, but the feinna link informed her that it had gone more deeply into sleep to protect itself from the jolting in the carriage.
Glynn supposed bemusedly that it was the same principle that allowed paralytic drunks to survive potentially fatal car accidents without a scratch.
Now she could hear the running water more clearly, and saw a narrow gorge just ahead. From the smashed greenery, it was immediately clear that the carriage had bounced on the bank and then had fallen into the gorge. The only thing that kept her from panicking was the assurance from the feinna link that the youngling was safe.
Crawling towards the broken away lip of the bank, she discovered the watery noises had come from a stream running swiftly along the bottom of it, with a narrow bank either side which rose steeply to ground level. The stream was perhaps three metres below her, and although it was not terribly wide it looked swift and deep, and the course was studded with rocks that churned it to rapids. The carriage had fallen straddling the stream, the shafts and harness and the entangled aspi jammed into the bank on one side and the back wheels embedded on the other. A hasty examination of the bank in either direction told her that at certain seasons the water would rise and probably overflow the bank, although at the moment the body of the carriage was a good metre above water level.
But even as she watched, the bank crumbled away a little and the carriage shifted, sinking slightly. Horrified, she saw that, far from being wedged securely, the carriage was actually balanced, and might at any moment slide into the water. If that happened, the feinna would drown; Aluade too, Glynn realised, guessing she must be unconscious else she would have been screaming and shouting threats. Abandoning all concern for her injuries, Glynn threw her legs over the edge of the gorge and slid on her backside down the narrow bank to just above the water level. Even this caused a minor landslide and the carriage sank further. Heart thudding, Glynn made herself slow down as she edged closer to the shafts where the aspi lay very still. It had probably broken its neck in the fall. She eased past the animal and saw that the door to the carriage was slightly tilted away from the bank where she stood. The only way to look inside would be to get on top of the carriage, but there was every likelihood that her weight would push it lower. Yet there was no alternative. Taking a deep breath and expelling it, Glynn eased her body along the shafts to the carriage, and slid along it on her belly. Nothing happened and, encouraged, she went forward until she was lying full length on the carriage. Whatever she had done to her hip was aggravated by the movement, but she ignored the pain. Having come this far, she was immensely relieved to see that the body of the carriage was cracked along the side where the door was, the gap just wide enough to get both the feinna and Aluade out.
‘Aluade!’ Glynn called, thinking the woman would surely be prepared to help keep herself alive.
She was startled by the loudness of her own voice. Flyt calls, which she had not until then noticed, ceased, leaving a deep silence. But there was no answer from the carriage. Glynn made herself take three long, slow, calming breaths before closing her fingers around the split and hauling herself forward until she could see in the window. Aluade’s head lay at an impossible angle and Glynn understood at once that she was dead.
I killed her, Glynn thought, feeling sick.
Below her the water swirled and churned noisily and she might have lain there indefinitely if the aspi, which she had taken for dead, had not suddenly begun to thrash and struggle. Its movements rocked the carriage dangerously, and dragged it low enough that the water began to lap and suck at its underside. A coldness flowed through Glynn at the knowledge that she had very little time in which to save the feinna and probably herself as well.
The aspi began to whinny in fear, for the poor thing was now also sinking into the water. Glynn wanted to help it, but the feinna’s plight was more immediate. Craning her neck, she saw the wicker cage, apparently unscathed. She reached her hand through the gap and managed to hook her fingernails into the webbing and pull it up, but the basket was too wide and stiff to fit through.
There was a grinding metallic sound from somewhere, and Glynn froze for a moment, then she began to pick frantically with her spare hand at the webbing, trying to unwind it enough so that she could reach in and l
ift the little animal out. The problem was that she could not use both hands because she had to hold the wicker cage up. She worked as fast as she could, trying to think of nothing but the task at hand, but she kept breaking the webbing so that she would have to painstakingly pick another end free. Fear made her clumsy because she had the feeling that every second counted now.
The carriage creaked again and tilted so that she suddenly slithered forward. Only her feet, hooked over the edge of the carriage, prevented her sliding into the water, though her ankle protested violently. Somehow she had managed to keep hold of the cage and she continued to pick at the webbing, cursing ferociously and steadily under her breath. Again the strand broke and the hole she had made was still too small. She bit her lip and began grimly to unpick another strand when the carriage lurched.
‘Please!’ Glynn gritted, with no idea to whom she addressed her plea.
Then she spotted Aluade’s hand which had fallen towards her, the fingers still closed tightly about the draakan knife. Glynn gave a cry of joy and prised the knife from the lifeless fingers, thinking what an irony it was that this knife, designed for sacrificing lives, was to be the means of saving one instead. She slashed recklessly at the basket and reached into the gaping hole. For one awful moment she thought the feinna was not inside, but it had merely slid up to one end. When she reached deeper, her fingers brushed fur.
The carriage began to shudder and she realised that it was beginning to break up under the punishing force of the water. She lifted the feinna out gently, too frightened even to breathe, and careful not to hold it too tightly. Then, resisting the urge to hurry, Glynn wriggled backwards with the feinna in one arm and the knife in the other, stabbing it into the wood to give herself purchase.
Dimly she heard the bubbling scream of the aspi which began to kick and shudder again as its head was pushed under the water. The carriage tilted back and suddenly Glynn was sliding feet first towards the water. She stabbed the knife into the wood and desperately tried to reach out with her mind to soothe the terrified aspi.
‘One second more and I will come to you. Just keep still,’ she crooned, feeling for the bank with her feet. At the same time, she continued projecting reassurance and comfort and, though she could not tell if the beast understood, or received what she sent, it was still. Glynn gave a sob of relief as her feet felt the bank at last. Heart in her mouth, she eased herself off the carriage. She was trembling from head to food with tension and muscle strain, but she turned and thrust the feinna up onto a ledge and, ignoring the burning pain in her abdomen, she floundered to the aspi and dragged its wedge-shaped head out of the water and onto her lap. It gave a few shuddering gasps of breath, and looked into her eyes. For a moment, Glynn was frozen by the connection she felt with the animal. Then the carriage lurched and began to slide into the water. Cursing and clinging to the harnessing, digging into the bank with her feet, she slashed frantically at the straps.
‘One second, my beauty. One more second.’
She cut through the final strap holding it to the carriage and the aspi almost trampled her as it lurched free and fought its way clear of mud and water to leap up onto the bank and thunder away.
‘No need for thanks,’ Glynn gasped, too weak with shock and strain even to get up. She sank back onto her haunches and began to laugh weakly and, at the same time, hot tears began to spill down her cheeks. She wept a short tempest of tears that drained the tension from her, and then, incredibly, she slept a little, propped up against the filthy bank. When she woke, she felt very calm, though it seemed that every bone in her body ached and there was an ominous grinding pain in her abdomen and her ankle felt stiff and swollen. The blood had also begun to flow from her head wound again. Lifting her hands to wipe her eyes, Glynn realised that they were black with mud. She crawled forward and washed her hands in the icy water, then she cupped some up and drank thirstily. As she rose unsteadily to her feet, gasping at the various pains she felt, what remained of the carriage finally gave in to the current with a splintering crash. As it swirled free of the bank it rolled in the water and Glynn was chilled to glimpse the limp salute of a pale hand. Aluade.
She watched until the carriage was gone, shaken, though she could not feel guilty. She had not wielded a knife to take the woman’s life. Aluade had made the choices that brought her to such an end by becoming part of the mechanism that threatened the feinna.
‘I was trying to save the feinna,’ she murmured, and she scooped the little animal into her arms and cuddled it gently. Once more she felt the golden flow of warmth pass between them, backwards and forwards, for in this moment, they were both needing and comforting.
Then she heard its stomach rumble. When it woke next, the feinna link confirmed urgently, the youngling must eat well.
It may not eat as well as it should, Glynn thought, but it will wake free.
Climbing back out of the gorge, she thought that she hadn’t wanted Aluade to die, but she was pragmatic enough to know that her death simplified things. No one would be able to go back and report what had truly happened in the carriage. She doubted the carriage driver would know what had hit him, and the two men who had watched her in the nightshelter would not have much to tell. Of course the Draaka would be furious to find they had lost their trakkerbeast, but initially at least any search would begin in the citadel, and it would be severely hampered by the fact that they had lost their two most useful messengers. Even if someone should eventually come out along the road and even look into the gorge, there was no sign on the bank that the carriage had ever been there other than a few cut pieces of strapping and a lot of hoof prints and gouges which the water would soon smooth away. Because the carriage had flipped from the road, there were not even any visible broken trees to reveal where it had gone off. All she need do was scuff away the road markings.
Glynn stopped in the act of binding her ankle, suddenly realising that Aluade’s death meant that the dreadful vision of the draakan ceremony and Solen’s sacrifice was false! Relief was so great that she had to force herself not to sit down and start crying again. Brushing a branch over the road to smooth the dust, she knew she must put some distance between them and the crash site, just the same. She looked around. The blunt tip of Skyreach Bluff was visible through a gap in the trees above the road. She would make that her destination. She would gather food for the feinna on the way, and find water to tend her wounds and, tonight, she would climb the bluff.
It struck her that she could try to contact Solen again from the heights. Callstones worked better from heights, so why not her sort of mental reaching out as well? They might be too far apart, of course, but if not, she could let Solen know what was happening and he would be able to send someone.
Cheered, she set off without further ado along the road, keeping to the verge. It would be safer going overland, but the road seemed to make a direct path for the bluff, and it would be quicker. She was careful to stay close to the tree line and was confident that, if someone approached from either direction, her feinna senses would alert her well before she became visible to them.
She had been walking for perhaps two hours when it became clear to her that she had vastly overestimated her endurance and underestimated the effects of the crash. She was limping badly now, and there was an intermittent pain in her abdomen sharp enough to make her gasp. She would be lucky if she made it to the Bluff by dark, let alone managed to scale it. When the road began to curve decisively away from Skyreach Bluff, she was forced to leave the path, and in a very short time, she realised that she could not go on any longer. It was just past midday when she gave up and sank down to sleep in a mossy depression under an overhanging branch. She had not managed to forage for a single thing, and now she curled herself around the feinna and told herself that she would only sleep for an hour or so, then she would hunt for some food for the feinna. There must be something, or what did flyts and the small creatures she heard racing about in the undergrowth eat? Unless they were all carnivo
rous.
She was just beginning to doze when she heard Solen’s voice and felt the awkward but tender groping of his mind for hers.
‘Solen?’ She sat up, ignoring the concert of aches this set off. His reaching spar was weak and tenuous, but it was definitely him.
Glynna-vyre! Where are you?
Glynn summoned up what energy she could and sent her mind spar out to mesh with his link. Solen! I am outside the walls of the city not far from Skyreach Bluff. I was in a carriage that crashed and …
By the Horn! Then it did happen? I saw it! But I thought it had happened within the citadel, and no one knew of any crash.
You saw it? She did not understand why there were only words now, and no pictures, but she was too relieved to question it.
Dreamed it. Felt it … Glynna, for some time now, I seem to have lived two lives, one as a man seeking to avert the destruction of all he cares about, and another as a man who walks in dreams where square towers rise into the clouds and carriages fly through the sky and songmaking flows from strange devices … Then I felt I heard you in my mind. I thought I was going mad from longing and despair. There were so many times I thought I felt you near me. Once I almost put an axe through my foot. Then there was the night I lay in my bath. After that I knew that the feinna birthing had made it possible for our minds to reach one another. I decided that the next time I felt you, instead of acting like a stunned aspi, I would try to reach back. I managed it the last time, but it was too brief.
Solen, I couldn’t get back to you straight away. I don’t know if it is the same for you but each time it takes me a while to recover enough to do it again. Then I forgot … Oh god, there are so many things to tell you. I should have told you sooner. Such stupid reasons kept me silent. Solen, I am a stranger on Keltor and those towers and devices you have dreamed are from my world, I think.
A stranger? he sounded dazed.
Remember the day you pulled me from the water onto the Waverider? I had just crossed to Keltor. I pretended to have lost my memory to cover the fact that I didn’t know where I was or what was happening. She could feel him wondering anxiously if she had concussion and rushed on. Solen, remember how you couldn’t figure out my sept from the way I spoke? I went to work in the minescrape simply because you told me that no one would ask questions there. By then I knew how dangerous it was to be a stranger.