Chapter 17 ILSEVEL
ILSEVEL
I float in a space close to cognizance but unable to achieve it. Every time I seek to wake, to face the realities of my existence, I meet with a green, shimmering barrier, which sparks against my struggling soul and sends me tumbling back into shadowed realms of unconsciousness.
There is no comfort to be had in that darkness, no escape from the pain. Why have they let me return to this agony? Why will no one grant me the relief of death?
Then it comes to me—I need not wait for others to give me permission to die. This magicked barrier may prevent my waking, but it does not control the boundaries of my soul. I can slip from this mortal coil if I so dare, and then I will be free. It is only a matter of will.
No one has ever accused me of lacking will.
I approach the green barrier again. This time, rather than attempt to cross it, I simply sidle along to the very edge. Though it feels like ages, eventually I come to the end of it and feel the vastness of eternity blowing like a wind across my soul. I breathe deep and begin to slip out into it.
Voices sing from far away, distant but full of power—voices which shape worlds and hold the bounds of time within their palms. That song calls to me, calls to the gift indwelling me. I will join that chorus and sing forever with the entities of glory, a song of unending worship.
Even as I spread wide my being and begin to float out into that greatness, something tugs at my heart. A stubborn cord, multi-stranded. Shining and golden.
I haven’t any face or features anymore, not as a spirit-being; if I had, I would scowl. What is this nonsense, snaring me to the world of matter and mortality?
My perception follows the line of that cord, back down, down, into the shadowed realm, seeking the place of anchor so I might uproot it.
To my surprise, I seem to be floating above a stone floor in a damp, cavernous space that feels strangely familiar.
For a moment I cannot place it, but then .
. . ah! It is the grotto Lyria and I discovered all those years ago.
Moonlight illuminates the faces of the gods.
In that moment it seems to me as though the distant voices I heard reverberate from those stone mouths.
But that is not what arrests my attention.
Taar.
His name shoots through me like a bolt of lightning, glowing along the winding strands of that golden cord.
Taar. My husband. The man who claimed my heart and then stabbed me through the gut . . . though, if I’m honest with myself, that might be an oversimplification of events.
He seems to be holding my mortal body, cradled gently with my head against his shoulder.
The image is almost comical, with all those mounds of skirts looped over his arms so that he will not trip.
So it’s he who traps me in this world, binding me with that cord which I had thought broken long ago.
Why does he do it? Why does he persist in loving me, despite everything?
And why do I still feel such a profound draw to him?
Another figure moves, arresting my attention.
Lyria! What is she doing here? After abandoning me to my wedding and marriage feast, she’s got a lot of gall showing up now.
She seems to be speaking to Taar, but I’m too far away to hear their words clearly, not with the songs of distant deities still filling my spirit.
She hands him a satchel, looping it over his shoulder as he cannot take it himself with his arms so full.
Then, after another short exchange, she sends him on his way.
Down one of those black tunnels, tugging my resistant soul along with him.
He stumbles along, each footstep cautiously taken. Is he blind? Strange, for I can perceive the passage clearly enough. Of course, I am almost entirely non-corporeal and, therefore, do not suffer the limitations of mere sight.
At first I coil with impatience at the far end of our tether, unwilling to draw nearer.
Then, with a little shiver of existence, I drift in closer, place an ethereal hand on his shoulder, and push him forward.
He shudders at my touch—does he feel my presence?
Does he know my ghost self hovers so near?
Regardless, he walks on, his stride more confident than it was moments ago.
So we continue for what feels like a very long while.
I shouldn’t be concerned with time, disembodied as I am, but that damned tether makes me aware of each passing moment.
I try to distract myself by taking in our surroundings.
For the most part, it looks like stone, but now and then, I catch glimpses of huge expanses—skies full of stars or broad swells of mist extending to far horizons.
Now and then I even perceive forests. Endless tall trees towering over us, sheltering us in their green canopy, only to vanish once more, replaced by cold stone.
I wonder if this tunnel is somehow like the paths of Wanfriel forest, moving between realities.
There is a history here, a story to be told, though I doubt I will ever learn it.
We come at last to the end of the path. I feel before us the same rippling-energy strangeness of a Between Gate. Though in my mortal form I recoiled from passing through these veils, I find myself eager to be getting on with things.
Taar, however, hesitates. He looks down at my body in his arms, his expression filled with concern.
Then he inclines his neck and plants a kiss on the top of my head.
To my surprise, I feel it. Feel the pressure of his lips followed by the warmth of his breath as he murmurs a string of words I cannot comprehend.
Then he strides forward, through the gate.
The experience is not all that different from what I felt as an embodied soul. There’s still that same bizarre sense of stretching and contracting, only it’s easier without a mortal frame to contend with. I could almost laugh at the simplicity of it all, only—
No. What is this?
As we move through realities back into the mortal realm, that gold tether suddenly tightens, dragging me down with irresistible force. I feel the yawning prison of my mortality, seeking to close me in once more. I struggle, soul flailing against that hold, but it is useless.
With a little gasp and a last longing look out to the distant heavens where the voices of the divine still ring, I sink down into bones and muscle and sinew and the pulse of pain rolling through my body to explode in my brain again and again and again.
The green barrier of magic is still there, but weaker than before, and I am very close to consciousness now.
I feel the weight of my own eyelids, but cannot raise them.
Not that it would do any good. The air tastes of mortality.
Death coats my tongue in a bitter taste, but still it will not claim me.
I try to speak, to scream. I breathe in a gasp of air and release it again in a small moan.
“Ilsevel?” Taar’s voice speaks close to my ear. “Ilsevel, can you hear me?”
I couldn’t answer if I wanted to. Not with this pain closing up my throat. He lays me down on the grass, trying to be gentle, I think. Each movement sends a jolt of agony radiating from my gut. I try again to cry out, only to choke on the sound.
His big hands cup my face. “I’m here, zylnala,” he says, his voice tight with tension. “I’m going to help you.” Then, throwing back his head, he bellows: “Elydark!”
The sound booms and echoes away across open countryside.
At first there is no answer. Then, like a pinprick of light through shrouding darkness, I hear the clear, unmistakable note of licorneir song.
I turn toward it, unable to open my eyes.
But that doesn’t matter—my heart sees the brilliant gleam of approaching soulfire and leaps with joy.
Diira? I try to call out. But that soul-thread is torn. Broken. Diira is lost to me. My voice can no longer reach her, wherever she has gone.
I wish to turn away then. I don’t want to see the light of another licorneir. I want to be in pain. I want to suffer. The loss of Diira was too much for me before; why should I feel any different now?
But Elydark draws nearer. I hear weakness in his song, a sense of fading, possibly due to the mortal air he’s been breathing. It strengthens, however, the nearer he draws to Taar. The two of them send song back and forth to each other, and the light of the licorneir soulfire intensifies.
Taar bends over me once more. “We’re going to heal you, Ilsevel,” he says, as though trying to convince himself. “Hold on just a little longer. For me.”
Then he rips the bodice of my gown open.
The sudden motion rocks my body, and I try to scream again at the pain.
“I’m sorry,” Taar murmurs. “I don’t want to hurt you. But I don’t know what else to do.” His hands move across my body, breaking the bones of my corset and pulling it aside, lifting the delicate fabric of my chemise to expose my abdomen to cold air. I writhe. “Lie still,” Taar says sharply.
It’s almost a relief to obey.
He places both hands atop my wound, bows his head, and begins to sing.
I do not understand the words. I don’t have to.
What matters is not what is spoken, but the harmony—the joining of his voice with the voice of the licorneir, that ongoing song which never ceases, even when mortal ears fail to hear it.
The blending of those two dissimilar voices—the voice of an embodied star with that of a half-mortal man—creates a strangeness of symphonic beauty found nowhere else in the universe.
But something is wrong. I feel it, even as the beauty overwhelms me.
There’s power in this song, power in the joining of those two voices, but .
. . not enough. They are both too strained by the air of this world, too desperate with fear.
As a result, the faintest dissonance enters into the harmonies, imperceptibly throwing off the balance.
My gods-gifted ear detects it; and I know if it is not corrected, I will die.
Maybe I should die.
Maybe that would be best.
I am so tired. I have lived so much in recent days, suffered losses my former, spoiled, sheltered self never could have imagined.
It would be cowardly to give up now, but I don’t claim to be brave.
Headstrong and willful, but a coward at my core.
It would be easier to stop struggling, to let this song fail, to finally drift away.
But no. I must live. Not for my own sake.
Taar.
I cannot give up on Taar. I cannot let him suffer more than he already has.
For the gods-only-know what reason, he has chosen to love me, and I will honor his choice.
I will fight for this life with him, whatever else may come.
Reaching out with my gods-gift, I begin to sing. My lips and tongue will not obey, but my soul knows the song, knows the harmony needed to correct that slight dissonance I hear, to bring it back into melodic unity.
Elydark hears me first. His majestic presence, aware of me in a way Taar cannot be, turns and looks at me with eyes of starfire. Vellar’s beloved, he says as though in greeting, his song thrilling through my heart.
Dearest heart of my husband, I reply, stretching out my own song to him in response.
We meet, our souls touching, as though my hand rested on his forehead, fingers splayed, his horn protruding from the space between index finger and thumb.
My song rises with his, becoming a rushing wind with force enough to carry us across worlds.
It surrounds the three of us—me, my husband, and his heartbound licorneir—in a maelstrom of fierce and fiery power.
Taar gasps. He cannot hear the full extent of the song, not with his ears. But he perceives the magic taking place. Renewing pressure on my abdomen, he bows over me and continues to sing, blending his voice with Elydark’s and, though he does not know it, with mine.
The power channels through Taar’s palms and seems to fill up my gut with light, with fire.
It hurts—Oh, gods above, it hurts! But there’s a goodness in this pain.
The fire burns away all that does not belong so that what is left may be made whole.
I feel the necessity of each agonized pulse, feel the wrongness inside me being slowly, meticulously made right once more.
The song reaches a crescendo, a great crash of sound that seems to rock the very stones beneath me and causes the trees to shake their branches.
Then, slowly, it trails off into lilting, gentle notes, like a stream running over stones and dispersing into a green-grown field.
Softly, gently, my tumultuous soul comes to rest within my body.
A body which still aches, but which is no longer ripped apart. I breathe out a sigh.
Finally . . . I open my eyes.