The Fall of Waterstone

Seeing, Understanding

Three things make analkuine: fire from air, water from stone… and light from darkness.

—Faeron One-hand, My Father’s Words

Sol?” A small quiet voice, from very far away. It passed through a vast muffling silence, and I blinked, wondering why the sky was so strange—though not lightless, for a soft glow lined dark creases and drapes. “Solveig?”

Tent. I’m in a tent.The realization swam heavily to the surface of the soup serving as my thoughts; I blinked again, realizing I did indeed have eyelids. Which meant I had eyes.

Did I?

The rest of me came slowly back, subtle selves jostle-crowding into the container I was born with. Fingers slack and useless. Toes in soft Elder slippers, askew. Wrists where thin lines of fire danced, their needle-burn receding as I became aware of it. My legs were insensate clay, my arms numb wood. My chest ached fiercely, and a cramp sank into my ribs as lungs sought to draw in air I still, after all, needed.

Vision warped; my eyes were full. Hot tears trickled down my temples, for I was on my back, flat upon cold earth. Felled in one blow like a sapling, I thought, and it struck me as funny.

Or at least, it might have if I could breathe. My mouth worked like a landed fish’s, and I might have drowned in clear air had Arneior not, in a move born of desperation, struck me across the face with no little force.

Normally one who is working seidhr must not be touched, but she had seen Idra wallop me upon the back a few times when my subtle selves refused to seat themselves properly and I choked upon nothing. The shock rammed me home and I coughed, turning onto my side, curling like certain armored insects found when one lifts a damp woodland rock. Arn hovered uncertainly, but at least I was breathing, each inhale a tortured gasp and its twinned exhale a scraping almost-retch.

More voices filtered through my ringing ears, the Old Tongue sharp and worried. Bit by bit the fit eased, and finally I lay limp, blessed cool air pouring down my throat and passing back out with little difficulty. My cheek throbbed, and the iron-hard dirt under me was at least wonderfully supportive, if not comfortable. I saw the legs of a small Elder table and a blue glow from one of their cold-burning lanterns.

Memory returned—fire, battle, terror in the snow. Everything in me cringed away from the last few minutes, or had it been hours? From touching the loosened top of an iron casket to the impact of Arn’s callus-hardened palm across my face was a confused jumble of impressions, receding like a particular tree upon the bank while the river carries a boat swiftly past, and I was glad to have it so.

I did not wish to think upon what had just happened ever again. It had to do with the burning in my chest, buried between my lungs. It was within me, nestling like a mockbird’s get among sparrow’s young, and though it did not seem likely to kill me just yet I still heartily disliked the intrusion.

It pressed against my heart, and it burned.

“Stay back,” my shieldmaid said, sharply. “I struck you once, Elder; I will do so again. She is not to be touched by your kind.”

A tense, stinging silence. Running footsteps, a tearing of cloth. “What happened?” The Old Tongue, though in a mortal mouth—Eol.

I did not like the idea of him—or anyone else—seeing me thus, even my Arn. My fingers flexed, I shuddered, and I managed a weak embarrassing sound, like a baby’s mewling.

“What did you do?” Eol barked. “By the Blessed, what did you do to her now?”

“Peace, my friend.”Naciel, soft and soothing. “What happened was of her own will. Such things cannot be forced.”

“I can help her.” Aeredh was much closer. “As I did before, shieldmaid. But should you strike me for it, I may move less swiftly tomorrow when the Enemy’s thralls are upon our trail.”

I found my voice. “Stop,” I husked. “Talking.”

They did. Arneior knelt at my side—I saw her mailed knees through the blurring of tears. I found I could move my arm, so I did—weak and uncoordinated, a foal’s first staggering steps.

But as always, she was there. Her hand closed around mine, and the shock of another breathing, thinking life poured through me. It was a second blow, one I welcomed even as my head snapped aside for it returned me fully, though each idea passing through my skull was far slower than it should have been.

With her help I curled half-upright, and though she was upon her knees she still gripped her spear, its blunt end sliding to one side of the table. By then, I suspect, no one in the small fabric-walled space thought her unready even in that position, her cradled charge shuddering with the aftereffects of a massive, wrecking seidhr.

Her legs dug into my side, but that ached less than the burden in my chest. I rested against her and found I could yet breathe, which was a relief. “Hurts,” I whispered, and disliked the tentative child’s whine in the word.

“Tell me what to do.” She did not look at me, though, gazing upward as if in challenge, and the light in her hazel eyes was that of a shieldmaid ready to kill.

“Drink.” I could speak further, I found, though reedy-piping as a chick. “Is there? Something?”

It was Eol who approached the table, poured a healthy measure of the remaining springwine, and dropped to one knee before us, disregarding her spear. “Here.” His skin rippled, the wolf inside turning restlessly; he was pale as milk under a mess of dark hair, traces of ash still clinging to the strands. His swordhilt bobbed at his shoulder. Arn braced me, he held the wooden goblet, and the liquid filled my mouth.

I choked, managed a swallow. Then another. My hand rose, closed over his fingers—fever-hot, another swamping sense of hot mortal life exploding through both physical and subtle selves—and I finally drank in long, endless swallows. Not only the draught but the vitality burning in him helped; I did not let go when the cup was empty.

My head fell back, against Arn’s armored chest. I stared at Eol, and found I could clearly see the beast sharing his flesh. Long and lean was he, broad in the coal-furred shoulder, and deep in his gaze was a stillness—a moonsilvered glade full of bleached bonelight, silent as a barrow on a long winter’s night.

Oh. Why did I not notice it before? Very odd.But, as Idra said, everything is there for those who know. ’Tis not the seeing that is the difficulty, but understanding what is already and ever before one’s senses.

Had she known she was training me for this?

Eol’s motionlessness was that of an animal. He barely breathed, and I could not name his expression, then or now. “More?” His eyebrows raised slightly, his lips shaped the word, but the rest of him did not move so much as a muscle.

I shook my head. My fingers loosened, slid to his wrist, grabbed as tightly as I could manage. The weight in my chest was awful, but I could gain enough air if I were careful. “Up,” I said, and they both understood.

He glanced at Arn, a flicker of coordination, and they surged upright as one, bearing me along and setting me upon numb feet. I staggered but was steadied, and earth under my slipper-soles provided its own aid.

“Blessèd,” Naciel breathed. A soft blue glow about her shaded into clear shining at the fringes; deep in the bowl of her belly a tiny flame flickered. “It… she is bearing it. Inside.”

“I see it, yes.”Aeredh stood beside her, the burning of an Elder limning him as well. “I hoped… I did not think…”

Behind them, Tjorin lifted the tent’s flap and gazed outside, his head cocked, listening intently. At least he looked blessedly mortal, the heat-haze of a living thing clear and rippling as the distant shimmer over summer fields—though I could see the shadow of some great ill-will upon him, held in abeyance for now.

That’s seidhr. And powerful; someone hates him enough to leave a mark… ah. The Enemy. Another violent cramp seized my chest. I doubled over, cough-choked, and the thing inhabiting my ribs turned as well, settling like a tired hound. The clear waterburn of springwine fought with coppery blood at the back of my throat; I coughed again, rackingly, and the worst of the hurt eased all at once. It felt like the woozy relief after a great bout of vomiting, when the body is wrung dry and knows there will be more pain, but not yet, not yet.

“By the Blessed,” Eol said raggedly. “It is killing her. What did you do?”

But I could straighten, so I did. Both Aeredh and Naciel shifted slightly, their eyelids lowering as if they gazed into bright sunlight.

“I am not dead yet.”It was easier to speak the Old Tongue; the thing nesting inside me had, after all, been born amid its cadence. “And you are not cursed, heir of Naras.”

“Naciel?” Tjorin looked over his shoulder. “The sun is above the horizon. They await you; we should strike camp soon.”

“I…”For once, the princess sounded neither amused nor at ease. “Aeredh, are you certain?”

“A small group, light and swift—we escaped the Enemy’s creatures thus before. And if we do not, we shall draw some of the pursuers after us and lessen your danger as well. It is a good plan. Even Daerith agrees.”

Eol’s gaze dropped. He freed the goblet—and his own hand—from mine, with exquisite care. Then he stepped away, busying himself at the table.

Arneior moved to my side, and I found I could stand. I thought I could even walk, though the heaviness did not abate. Nor did the discomfort; it had merely become bearable. My body was a tired horse, and I the rider forcing it a few more leagues.

“Solveig?” Naciel approached, her hands folded before her as if she asked the gods for some favor, and her eyes shone. “It is true. The Blessed sent you to us.”

I doubt that, princess.I was too occupied with balancing my suddenly tricksome flesh; would I have to learn to walk anew, child-staggering through the wilderness toward some new Elder city-trap? “I am not traveling with you?” I sounded weary, and any benefit gained from a night’s sleep was gone. “That is what you are saying.”

“Slower, and harder to hide.”She reached out as if to touch me, but I shied away, leaning into Arn. Naciel’s hand fell to her side. “Forgive me. We shall hopefully draw them after us; Aeredh and his companions will go with you as they did before. May the Blessed guard you, my friend.”

Of course there would be no rest, of course I would not be allowed a moment to digest this turn of events. Perhaps I should have said something comforting, but I could not. I simply nodded, and the princess of Laeliquaende followed Tjorin from the tent.