Guild Mage 104

Chapter 104: The Son of Celris

As soon as she was certain the waystone was active, Liv hurried back to Steria.  Keri was holding the mare’s reins, and she set her foot in the stirrup and swung up into the saddle.

“Are you certain these people are ready?” Keri asked, leaning in and lowering his voice as the blue light built around them, brighter with every passing breath.  He held an enchanted spear in his right hand, and Liv recognized the same weapon he’d used back in Freeport, in the alley.

“I’m certain that you and I are,” she said.  “Sidonie, I want you to put barriers in front of anything that comes at us,” Liv instructed, raising her voice so that she would be heard.  “Rosamund, if anything gets past her, push it away with one of those waves of earth.  Keri and I will kill anything that gets too close.  Tephania, you don’t have magic yet, just keep your head down.  Arjun, once we’re out of the shoals I want you to check everyone for injuries.”

Liv drew her wand, keeping the reins in only her left hand, and took a deep breath to calm herself before the light reached a crescendo, obliterating the world around her.  For an eternity, she was alone in the darkness between one heartbeat and the next.  Unlike her previous journeys by waystone, however, Liv could only think of one thing: getting to her grandfather in time.  Arjun was a healer, from an entire family that specialized in healing magic.  Perhaps he could do something?  

Flickers of motion and life at the edge of her awareness might have fascinated her at any other time, but now they were only a distraction.  Like whatever mana-beasts waited outside the Tomb of Celris, they were only obstacles in her way.  Liv felt like a hunting hound restrained by a leash, pawing at the earth in an effort to be loosed.

The world crashed back in around her all at once, like an avalanche in the mountains.  Liv’s finger was on the first button of her wand, but there was no immediate attack: only the wind whipping out over the great chasm, the icy waystone beneath the horses’ hooves, and the roiling mana of the shoal, pressing at her from all sides.

“Follow me!” Liv called, kicking Steria into motion as she put half her focus on dealing with the surging mana.  She led them away from the waystone at a canter, in the direction of Kelthelis.  Her father would have scouts looking for her: all they needed to do was make contact.

The cry of a gyrfalcon split the air, and Liv shouted a warning: “Sidonie, above!”

Like an enormous winter ghost, the falcon dove out of the sky on wings as white as the snow that covered the endless plains.  There were gray-brown shadings on the tips of the feathers, and mottled across the wings themselves, but what struck Liv in the moment was just how enormous the raptor was.

Spread to their full extension, the wings were longer than a horse stretched out at full gallop, longer than three grown men set toe to head.  The bird’s claws were outstretched as it came in for Sidonie, who was riding at the back of the group, just behind Arjun and Rosamund.  The wind carried away any incantation, but looking back over her shoulder, Liv could see the outstretched hand and wand,

A great, shining pane of blue light coalesced between Sidonie and the mammoth bird, which hit with a crash, spinning off to one side out of control only to skip across the snow in a succession of impacts that sprayed powder up in every direction.  Whether stunned or dead, the gyrfalcon did not immediately move, and then it was too far behind them for Liv to get a good look.  

The chasm was nearly out of sight behind them, now, and from past experience Liv knew they must be getting close to the edge of the shoal.  She hadn’t actually cast yet, which was a problem, because she needed waste heat for the others or they would all freeze before reaching Kelthelis.

There.

A white bear, nearly as large as a cottage, barrelled toward them from the north, crystals of ice growing from its back like a porcupine’s quills.  “Celet Aiveh Ghesia!” Liv shouted, not concerned with practicing silent casting at the moment.  She passed the reins from her left hand to her right, looping them around her wrist so as to not interfere with the wand, and clenched her fist as soon as it was free.

A hand of ice erupted up out of the snow, seizing the bear and then flinging it aside, throwing it as easily as Liv might toss a pebble into a mountain lake.  Now, she had heat to spare, and she pushed it into her friends, beginning with Tephania, who was already shivering and pale.  Liv kept none for herself: her armor would keep her warm.  Instead, she saw to her friends in succession, and then finally Keri, as well.

She didn’t stop them until they’d not only left the shoal, but put some distance between themselves and the border.  Liv didn’t want to tempt any of the mana beasts to leave in pursuit of them.  Finally, she reined up and sheathed her wand. 

“Is anyone hurt?” Liv asked, spinning Steria about to get a good look.  One by one, her friends shook their heads.  “You’ve got a cut on your cheek, Teph,” she said, pointing.

Tephania raised a hand to her cheek, and it came away red.  “I didn’t even feel it,” she said.

“Let me see.”  Arjun waited while Rosamund got them close enough, then he reached a hand out for Tephania’s face.  “I think it was just a stray bit of ice or rock, from when that bird hit the ground,” he said.  After a quick healing spell, he looked to Liv and nodded.

“Follow me,” she said.  “The sooner we get to Kelthelis, the safer you all are.”

☙

They found her family’s riders not half a bell later, riding a patrol between the rift and Kelthelis.  Liv saw her friends slump in relief, but she couldn’t relax yet.

“My grandfather?” she asked, once all the horses had come to a halt, and been moved close enough for conversation.  A part of Liv noticed how easily she slipped into the dialect of the Vakansa now, after six years of visiting and practice with her father.

“Resting,” the lead warrior told her, a woman with hair more gray than white.  “You brought humans?”

“My friends,” Liv told her.  “One of them is a healer from Lendh ka Dakruim.”

“You will all be made welcome at Kelthelis,” the woman said, speaking in accented Lucanian.  “Follow.”

The ride passed quickly, though not fast enough for Liv.  She couldn’t escape the nagging fear that they would arrive too late, though for what exactly, Liv wasn’t quite ready to find words.  For Arjun to help?  For her to talk to her grandfather one last time, before he... 

Her wand sheathed at her hip, Liv held out her right hand and sculpted a rose, like she had in the gardens of the palace in Freeport.  It gave her enough waste heat to work with that she could warm her friends for a little longer, protecting them from the cruel winds of the north.

On any other visit, the sight of the graceful curves and elongated spires of Kelthelis, rising from the northern plains like shards of broken glass, would have brought a smile to Liv’s lips.  Spotting the walls would have meant she would soon be inside, next to a fire in the hearth, swaddled in soft furs, sharing something sweet with her grandmother.

Now, the sight only caused her to kick Steria into a full gallop, pulling out ahead of the others and racing through the gates.  The hood of her cloak had fallen back behind her, and the wind had torn her hair out of her braids, whipping it back behind her like a white banner. 

Steria skidded to a halt in the courtyard, flanks heaving, and Liv slipped down out of the saddle, practically threw the reins at a stableboy, and rushed inside without bothering to wait for anyone else.

“Father!” She shouted, as soon as she’d reached the great hall.  “Grandmother!”  Liv turned about, her cloak whirling behind her, and then headed for the stairs.  She’d only just started up when her father came rushing down, and when they met halfway, he caught her in his arms.

“Livara,” Valtteri said, holding her tightly for a long moment.  “I knew you would come right away.  Come along, my father is upstairs.”

“I brought friends,” Liv said, stepping away from him.  “One of them, Arjun, is from a family of healers in Lendh ka Dakruim.  He might be able to help.”

“I’ll bring him up, and see the rest of them settled,” her father told her.  “Go up, now.  Your grandmother is waiting for you.”  Valtteri hurried past her down the stairs, leaving Liv alone again.  She knew where her grandparents’ rooms were, of course: down the hallway past her own and her father’s.  For a moment, she considered opening the door to her own chambers and pulling off her cloak, but any delay at all seemed unbearable.  Instead, she charged ahead.

The door was ajar, but Liv called in anyway.  “Grandmother?”

“Come in, Livara.”

Liv passed through the sitting room, where a fire blazed in the hearth, and from there into the bedchamber.  Her grandfather lay swaddled in blankets and furs, his hair spread out around his head on the pillows like gossamer webs.  

Her grandmother, Eila, sat in a chair at the old man’s side, holding one of his hands in her lap.  Her midnight-blue hair hung loose, giving the impression she had more important things to do than to worry about it, and Liv could feel the buzz of mana in the room, making her own hair stand on end where it met her scalp.

“How is he?” Liv asked, her voice little more than a whisper.

“I am keeping him alive,” Eila said.  “Come closer, dear.  Take your father’s seat.”

Liv unclasped her cloak, finally, and threw it aside.  She collapsed into the empty chair next to her grandmother.  “He looks like he’s sleeping,” she said.  Now that she was close enough, however, she could see that his skin was slicked with sweat.

“Wyrm venom,” her grandmother explained.  “The Iravata coated their arrows in it.  I’m doing everything I can to slow the spread, but I can only delay things.”

“So what do we do?” Liv asked, leaning forward in her chair.  “What’s the antidote?  Do we have to go get it from somewhere, cook it up, enchant something?”

“The Lady of Wyrms designed her creations to kill,” Eila said.  “She gave them scales strong enough to turn a sword aside, and the most deadly venom in all the world.  If I knew a way of helping him, Liv, I would be doing it.”  The older woman’s voice broke on her words, and Liv saw that her eyes were wet.

There was movement at the door, and then Liv’s father led Arjun in.  “Good,” Liv said, rising from her chair.  “This is Arjun, he’s a friend, and a healer.  Can he take a look?”

“I don’t see any harm in it,” Eila said.  “But be gentle, please.”

“Of course.”  Any nerves Arjun might have had did not show in his face: he crossed the room and approached the other side of the bed, where he carefully pulled back the furs and blankets, exposing linen bandages beneath.  The smell of pus and blood billowed up like a cloud, and Liv flinched back from it.

“I’m going to unwrap the wound,” Arjun explained, as he set to work.  Liv’s father came up behind her, and set a hand atop her shoulder.  She watched as the bandages came off, revealing a portion of skin that had turned utterly black, like a hole straight through her grandfather’s body into the night sky.  Arjun held his hand over the wound, muttering beneath his breath.

“The poison attacks his muscles, his lungs, even his mind,” Arjun said.  Liv was amazed at how calm and even his voice was.  “I can ease some of the damage, I think.  It might be enough to allow him to wake, for a little while.”

“You can save him, then?” Liv asked, unable to keep the desperation from her voice.

“He used a lot of magic, didn’t he?” Arjun asked, looking between Liv’s father and grandfather.

“More than I’ve ever seen him use before,” Valtteri said.  “For a moment, he stopped everything.  Froze hundreds of arrows in the sky, and collapsed them into nothing but powder and dust.”

“If he was younger,” Arjun said.  “Or not so exhausted by what he had done - maybe.  I’m not certain even then, Liv,” he admitted.  “I’m sorry.  It will be all I can do to take some of the pain away, and help him wake a bit before the end.”

Liv struggled to keep her face from crumpling, her mouth working against her will, and she blinked away tears.  “He just needs more mana then, right?  To circulate?” she scrambled at her arm, pulling off her rings and the bracelet they were attached to.  “I haven’t used any of this, he can have it.”

“There are some things that can’t be healed,” Arjun said.  “Should I wake him?”

“Please,” Liv’s grandmother said.  “We would be very grateful for that, young man.”

Liv had felt Arjun’s healing before: she could imagine the soothing warmth that poured through her grandfather’s body as the boy from the east worked.  The old man drew in a deep breath, and opened his eyes.  For a moment, he stared around the room as if uncertain where he was, and then Auris found his wife - Kwenim, Liv remembered, was the Elden word - and smiled.  “Eila,” he said.  “Did I save them?”

“You saved a great many people, my love,” his wife said, leaning forward and pressing her lips to the hand she held.  “Your son is here, and your granddaughter.”

“Valtteri,” Auris said, his voice half a sigh.  “Livara.  Good.  You’re all safe - as safe as anyone can be, now.  Eila, you will lead the family’s council of elders in my place,” he continued.

Liv saw Arjun frown; she would explain it all to him later.  It was the least she owed him.

“My son, you must be our war-leader now,” the dying man said.  “A council can lead in times of peace, but against an enemy like this there must be a single commander.  I wish I could take the burden from your shoulders, but I cannot.”

“I’ll go to Varuna myself and hunt them all down,” Valtteri promised.  “Everyone who had a part in this.”  At his words, Liv saw that endless expanse of green forest again, and felt that horrible, crushing pressure. 

“I’ll go with you,” Liv broke in.

“Livara.”  Her grandfather lifted his hand away from his wife, and extended it to her.  Liv reached out and caught it in her own: the skin of his fingers felt paper thin.  “I want you to promise me something, Livara.”

“What?” she asked.  Vengeance?  She was more than ready to promise that.

“You aren’t ready for this, yet,” Auris said.  “You have no idea how powerful the old gods were, but you need to learn.  I see so much potential in you, and we are going to need that.  But if you go west now -” he was interrupted by a fit of coughing “- you may be killed before you’re able to grow strong enough.  Promise me you will finish your training at the Lucanian school.  Your father won’t have the time to teach you, now, and I’ll be gone soon.”

“I’m not weak,” Liv told him, pressing his hand to her cheek.  “I can fight.”

“Of course you aren’t,” he told her, with a gentle smile.  “I never said you were.  But indulge me.  Learn everything you can before leaving that place, and then come north.  There’s something you need to get from the tomb of my father.”

“Auris, no,” Eila broke in.

“I thought we had won this battle, so that our children could be spared it,” the old man said.  “But I was wrong.  Evil does not die - it only sleeps for a while, to one day come back.  Do what I ask, Livara.  It will help me to go on my way.  Promise me.”

“I promise,” Liv said, and then she couldn’t hold it in any more.  Her lip trembled, tears flooded her eyes, and she felt her face twisting no matter how much she tried to keep it under control.  “I only just found you,” she cried out.  “I thought we were going to have years together!”

“Come here, sweet girl,” her grandfather said.  He was too weak to pull Liv into his arms, but she leaned over the bed, resting her head on his chest.  His arm settled around her shoulders, and she felt the touch of her grandmother and her father both, warm and alive.

Liv couldn’t say how long they remained like that, huddled together at the side of the bed.  She squeezed her eyes closed and let the tears come, and listened to her grandfather’s breathing.  Each inhalation was a struggle, and each exhalation seemed like it might be the last.  Finally, the old man’s chest moved no more.

After more than a thousand years, Auris Ka Syvä, son of Celris, was still.