06 #2
“Sorry—you can’t keep that in your lungs.” She began to knit the wound itself closed but paused to examine the frayed edges.
“Mandoran—tell Bellusdeo and Teela—”
“Teela knows they’re somehow using Shadow as a form of attack. So does Bellusdeo. If I were you, I’d move toward the Norranir
before you attempt to pull Terrano to safety.”
“I can’t pull him out if I can’t excise the Shadow—but it hasn’t harmed or changed his flesh.”
“It’s tried,” Mandoran said, voice grim. He had one arm around Terrano’s shoulders as if to steady him. “Terrano’s so warped
and twisted he’s used to body parts that seem entirely at odds with what they should be. He doesn’t think Shadow would infect
you—not with the Marks of the Chosen as protection.”
Squawk.
“Yeah, yeah, you too.”
“Can he expel it?”
“That’s what he was doing.” Mandoran hesitated. “I don’t think the Shadow is sentient, for what it’s worth. It’s just another
type of poison.”
“How much are you willing to risk on that?”
“I’m here, aren’t I?”
Kaylin nodded, but not with any relief. There was something off about this Shadow, something wrong. Terrano was pale, probably
due to loss of blood—but blood loss was the one thing she couldn’t easily heal. Wounds, yes. Broken bones. Injuries caused
by rampant disease or fever. Blood loss had always been difficult.
“Can you speak safely?” she asked Terrano.
“I can, now. Thanks,” he added, the last word barely above a whisper.
“What are you doing right now?” His body was shifting, almost like a wave of flesh that was becoming undone, reasserting itself,
and falling apart again in rapid order. In any other person, this would have been a grave, grave emergency. In Terrano, it
was a weekday.
“I’m trying to make sure I’m not dangerously contaminated? I can’t cross back to our normal plane—not while trying to safely contain the Shadow. But Mandoran can pull you back once the wound is closed. It’s the wound that’s killing me.”
That hadn’t been Kaylin’s game plan. “What are you going to do?”
“If I can contain whatever this is, I intend to carry it to the Avatar of the High Halls.”
She was almost—but not quite—shocked.
“He’ll know what to do with it. And he’ll be able to see me and hear me in a way most of you can’t.”
“Not sure that’s safe,” Mandoran said.
“It’s safer than bringing it back to our reality. Shadow doesn’t have the same purchase where I usually walk—but it clearly
has some.”
Hope squawked several times before smacking Kaylin’s face with the wing he’d placed over one eye and pushing himself off her shoulder.
She almost shouted in warning: if Hope wasn’t attached to her, he might be lost in this parallel plane.
Luckily, she kept the words to herself. Hope had a bit of a temper.
The familiar inhaled.
He exhaled a cloud, which caused Terrano to shout; he’d been hit by it once, and he hadn’t particularly liked the results.
“Stop being a baby,” Mandoran snapped.
“Let him breathe on you, then!”
Hope squawked loudly. Kaylin was grateful he wasn’t sitting on her shoulder, right beside her ear. Whatever he said, the two
Barrani immediately abandoned the beginning of their sibling argument. Mandoran often spoke out loud if people who weren’t
part of the cohort were present. Terrano did it more as an aside.
They both looked toward Hope, and then toward Kaylin.
“Fine,” Terrano told the familiar, obviously pouting.
Hope exhaled. This time, his breath was almost, but not quite, invisible; Kaylin could see the sparking particles that comprised
the clouds that often came from his tiny mouth. To her surprise, the exhalation grew denser as it plumed around Terrano, who
flinched but didn’t otherwise try to break free of Kaylin’s hands.
The familiar’s breath gathered in a cloud—a miniature storm cloud that seemed almost like a crystal ball. It absorbed some
of the light of Kaylin’s Marks and all the wisps of Shadow that had escaped Terrano’s wound—a wound that was now closed.
Hope, squawking like an angry bird, came back to his favorite perch: Kaylin’s shoulder. Mandoran was the only person with
one free hand. He glanced at Hope, his expression the definition of dubious, but grimaced and used that free hand to grab
the condensed ball that now hovered in the air near Terrano. His eyes widened in surprise as he turned to look at Hope.
The familiar lifted a wing and smacked Kaylin’s face with it but kept it across her eyes.
Hope squawked.
Mandoran shook his head.
Hope then squawked up a storm.
“. . . he wants me to give this to you,” he told Kaylin. “Teela says no.”
“What does Sedarias say?”
“Yes—but she cares less about you than she does about us.”
“Then do what you normally do. Listen to Sedarias.” Kaylin released one of Terrano’s hands and reached out to Mandoran, her
hand palm up and cupped. “If Hope thinks it’s fine, it’s fine.”
Squawk.
“He says that’s not what he said.”
“What exactly did he say?”
“It’s safest—not safe—if you take it.”
“Fine. Hand it over.”
Hope squawked. Mandoran shrugged. He dropped the condensed ball into Kaylin’s palm. To her surprise, it was cold. Cold as ice, but softer, as if it were already melting. She gritted her teeth.
If whatever this amalgam of familiar’s breath and Shadow was could be taken to the High Halls, it could be contained in Helen.
But she had to get there, and a small war was occurring just beyond her reach.
Mandoran put an arm around Kaylin’s shoulders. “Ready?” he asked.
“No, wait—if Terrano wouldn’t move because of . . . whatever this is, maybe we shouldn’t, either.”
“Hope breathed on it. Whatever it was isn’t what it is now.” Mandoran exhaled. “You have a better idea? Terrano can navigate
this plane; he knows how to avoid things that don’t belong where we normally live. He can get where he needs to go without
attracting attention, or worse, getting lost.”
“But he was injured here.”
Mandoran nodded. “Annarion’s crossed over.”
Kaylin wanted to shriek in frustration.
“I didn’t say Annarion was coming here—he isn’t leaving his brother’s side. But he’s prepared for possible attacks.”
“So is Helen.”
“I didn’t say it was smart. But to be frank, we could use him. I suck at fighting in places like this. So does Terrano—but
Terrano’s way better at running away.” He looked to Hope. “Can we leave?”
Hope squawked.
“Terrano? Sedarias wants you at home. Now.”
Terrano nodded.
“Are you sure he’s healed?” Mandoran asked—of Kaylin. Asking Terrano wouldn’t give him any reliable information.
“He lost blood. He needs to drink, and he needs to sleep. Or whatever Barrani do to rest. I can’t do more than that. He can
step back into reality now.”
“Terrano—was the Shadow preventing your return, or did you decide you wouldn’t while you were somehow containing it?”
“A bit of both. I could force myself free—but it would follow. There’s too much going on here for that to be safe—and if Bellusdeo
could sense it at all, I figured I’d be ash.”
“Good. Go home now. We’ll follow.”
He hesitated. “I don’t want Bellusdeo turning you to ash.”
Hope squawked.
“You have no idea how she reacts to even the mention of Shadow if you think that,” the Barrani cohort member snapped. He then winced; clearly his cohort had opinions.
“I lived with her, too. I know. Terrano—can you see where the Norranir are?” Kaylin’s hand wasn’t getting any warmer.
“You can’t?”
“No. I can see you and Mandoran and not much else. I can’t hear the drumming here. I can’t hear the fighting, if fighting is happening.”
“Not much of it anymore—Bellusdeo literally brought down the house. Or whatever it was.”
“Great. Just . . . take us to the Norranir drummers. We’ll take it from there.”
Terrano led. Mandoran followed, dragging Kaylin with him. She could still see Terrano, but he was becoming murkier as he walked.
She no longer held on to him, and Mandoran didn’t either. Terrano had been told to find his way back to Helen. She hoped he
did but knew no one could tell Terrano what to do and actually expect obedience.
“You might want to close your eyes,” Mandoran said, voice very close to her ear.
She shook her head. She wanted to see what happened here. Shifting planes wasn’t something she could do—but Mandoran had once
told her she did it subconsciously and naturally when she used, or reached for, the power of her Marks. The cohort wasn’t
using that power. But every child that had been exposed to the regalia in the distant green could, with effort and will, do what Terrano did. It didn’t come easily or naturally to most of them;
it did to Mandoran. And, sadly, Annarion.
She watched as the darkness began to shatter, cracks appearing in its surface—in its many surfaces, as if those surfaces were
the facets of an enormous, and brittle, gem.
Light peered in through those cracks—and as each pane fell away, she could see a dizzying array of vistas beyond those surfaces.
“I am not going to forgive you if you throw up on my boots.”
“She probably won’t,” a blessedly familiar voice replied.
Severn was here. He hadn’t spoken at all while she was standing in the plane where Terrano had gotten stuck—but he had been aware of where she was, of what she was doing.
Aware as well that worry or argument wouldn’t help her get anything done.
He was the first thing she saw as she emerged, the first thing that became solid as the world cohered. Sadly, he wasn’t the
only thing, and the coherence of the world wasn’t as simple as it should have been.
The separate glimpses of light and scene and landscape began to move, to swirl, to blend together; she heard the buzzing of
loud insects, the crash of falling trees, the hints of discordant song, saw the blend of colors she had no words for as they
began to fly past her field of view.
She should have listened to Mandoran. “Does it always look this way to you?” Severn’s arm was around her waist to steady her.