Days Of Light And Shadow (62 page)

Yet it looked like a normal fire. The flames leapt into the air just as they always did. The smoke rose as it should. The logs burnt merrily away as always. It looked perfectly normal. But it wasn’t. He stared at it and stared at it, and tried to understand what was wrong with it. But he couldn’t. There was nothing different about it, yet there was also everything different about it.

Maybe he had gone moon mad. The maiden had finally stolen his thoughts. It was all he could think. Yet he didn’t feel mad. Did crazy people know that they were crazed? Did they stare into the flames of their fire and wonder if they were as they should be? He had no answers. And yet he knew they existed, somewhere in the flames. Though he might well be crazed, he kept staring.

“Finy.” He heard his name called. Heard his sister call him as clearly as a bell tolled, just as she had when they were children. But his ears heard nothing at all. There was no sound, yet she had called him. And she was dead!

“Elwene?” He called her name knowing that it was madness. But he couldn’t help himself. He had heard her and he would have given anything to hear her again. He would have given everything.

Then he heard her laugh. A light carefree almost musical sound that stole his heart as always. He was sure she’d practiced that laugh every day of her life. No one could laugh so joyfully naturally. He heard her as clearly as he had ever heard anything in his life. And yet it still wasn’t his ears that heard her. They heard nothing but the crackling of the fire and the gentle whistle of the wind outside. And she was still dead. He’d lit the funeral pyre himself.

“Please!” He begged and he didn’t know who he begged or even what for. Did he want the voice to stop? Or did he want more? Did he want to be crazed? Or did he want to be alone in the cold silence of reason?

“Why so frightened Finy?” It was her. He knew it was. He had heard her say the same thing to him so many times before. And it couldn’t be.

“You’re dead.” And he was talking to a ghost. The truth of that wasn’t lost on him. Nor the madness. His grandfather had gone mad. He’d lost his reason as he slowly lost the ability to tell what was real from what wasn’t. After the healers had given up they’d locked him away, trying to keep him safe. He’d spent the final decades of his life locked in a tower, his screams echoing across the city. Now it seemed he had picked up the same curse.

“So.” She laughed merrily and his heart soared with joy even as it shrivelled with fear.

“Look at me.” He desperately wanted to tell her that there was nothing to look at. He wanted to tell her that she was just a memory. A trick of his anguish. And yet instinctively he turned back to the fire, knowing that that was where she was. And she was.

He could see her in the flames. Her face, her smile. And yet they were just flames. It was just an ordinary fire. There was nothing there. Not that his eyes could see. But she was still there. Still smiling at him. Still his beloved sister. He closed his eyes, rubbed at them, but when he opened them she was there.

“By the Mother!”

“What! So now you finally believe.” She laughed at him gently, mocking him just a tiny bit as he surely deserved. Just as she would have if she was alive. Just as he would have loved her to.

“I don’t understand.”

“Ahh, wisdom. At last.” Her smile grew broader, for a moment. Then she suddenly became serious. “Give me your words little brother, and I will carry them to those who need to hear.”

Finell sat there staring into the fire, wondering what to say. What to do. How did you tell a hallucination that what she was saying was madness? How did you tell her anything? But strangely she had an answer for him even before he’d asked the question.

“What have you got to lose Finy?”

She was right. He knew it. He could do nothing until the morning anyway. And he was already hearing and seeing her. It wasn’t as if he could lose any more of his reason. His madness was actually being logical.

Reluctantly he began telling her exactly what the rulers of the lands needed to be told, hoping against all reason that somehow she could do what she said. And when he’d finished she vanished, leaving him with nothing but questions and the sound of the fire crackling away.

And maybe, just maybe, a shred of hope.

Chapter Ninety Nine.

The castle had fallen quiet with the fall of night. Outside a few dogs barked and an owl hooted, the occasional foot falls of a sentry on his rounds could be heard, but for the most part there was only silence.

Inside, in their bedchamber Iros and Sophelia sat quietly in front of the fire, sometimes speaking quietly, but mostly staring in to the flames, lost in their thoughts. Sophelia was knitting, a craft she’d thrown herself into whole heartedly when she’d finally realised that she was with child. A baby needed warm clothes and thick blankets, especially with winter on its way. Her mother and sisters were doing the same and every day the women formed a knitting circle in the balcony garden.

Iros was supposedly reading, studying the ancient records of the last war against the Reaver, but he had long since given up, his thoughts wandering in strange directions. There was only so much reading he could do in a day. Only so many decisions he could make. And he had read the tomes many times before. He almost knew them by heart. Besides, he didn’t want to think about death and war when he had a pregnant wife beside him. He didn’t want to think on the terrible news that had come out of Leafshade only the previous night. The city had been destroyed, overrun by the abominations, a month or more back. The word had come from the refugees and traders, many with wagons carrying the injured that were slowly making their way north. Proof that the Reaver was finally stretching forth his hands once more, and that war was coming. Iros wanted to think about happier things, like the birth of their first child.

“Did you hear that?” Iros looked up, startled, as his wife interrupted his musings.

“Sophelia?”

“A woman, calling.” Her blue eyes were strangely wide, her eyebrows pinched with questions. Maybe she had heard a woman, but there was something more to it than that. Something that confused her.

“A woman?”

“I know her!” She turned to face him and he could see the bewilderment marking her face. More than bewilderment, alarm. But Iros couldn’t hear anything at all. And what did it matter if she knew who called her?

“You know her?”

“Yes. But it can’t be.

“Why not?”

“Because it’s Elwene and she’s dead.”

“Elwene?” He spoke her name as gently as he could, suddenly worried for Sophelia. Worried that she was hearing things. Worried that her pregnancy might be playing tricks on her mind. And worried too that if she realised he didn’t believe her she might become upset. But he still had to ask.

“Surely you can’t hear her can you?” Iros shook his head, not sure what to say. What to even think.

“I can.” She seemed so certain as she stared at him. Disbelieving that she was being called in sooth, but never doubting who called her.

“Should I be sending for the physicians?”

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m not ill. But I can hear her as clearly as if she was in this room. As if she was in the fire.”

“In the fire?” But she wasn’t listening to him. She was staring into the flames with the awe of an artist before a masterwork. Somehow things seemed to be getting worse. She was listening to a ghost in the fire? He knew that could not be good. “I’m sending for the physicians.”

“No.” She didn’t look at him, just kept concentrating on the fire. “Send for the elders.”

Maybe that made sense, Iros couldn’t be sure. But as he rushed for the door and bellowed out to the servants to bring them he remembered that they were also gifted healers. They might know what to do. Or at least know what was wrong.

After that he returned to her, knowing that the servants would do as he asked. He even draped a shawl over her shoulders though it wasn’t cold, knowing that they would soon have company, and that she would want to be properly attired.

It was probably only a few minutes before he heard the knock at the door and Elder Yossirion’s voice outside, but it seemed like an eternity. Especially after Sophelia stopped talking to him. All she wanted to do it seemed, was to stare into the flames. So maybe there was a reason that he almost bellowed at the poor man to enter, and then started speaking almost faster than his mouth could allow as he tried to explain what was happening.

Before he’d finished there was another knock at the door, and Trekor entered the bedchamber with her two cats, and he had to start all over again. And by the time he’d finished Sophelia’s family had arrived and the bedchamber was crowded with worried people. All except for Sophelia who was completely calm, and the two elders, who only seemed to want to know what the ghost was saying. It almost seemed that they believed her.

And they did believe her. He realised that as their questions continued. They believed that somehow his wife was speaking to the ghost of her dead cousin.

Iros didn’t understand that, but he did understand that what she was saying, what she thought she was being told, could be important. It was important, if it was real. The location of the dark temple. The source from which the abominations were streaming forth. Where they were drawing their victims from. Their numbers. The layout of the temple complex. If there was any truth in what she was hearing, that could be vital. It could be the key to destroying the Reaver’s armies. To levelling his temple. And ending the war before it began properly.

Was there any hope that it was true? He didn’t know. But he did know as he studied his wife closely, that she believed it was true. More than true, she believed it was wonderful. And he knew that she would expect him to believe her. And to act on what she was told.

That he did not want to do. He did not want to send a message to King Herrick advising that his wife was hearing voices. That she had been told the enemy’s location by her dead cousin. Or especially that her other cousin Finell was the one who had asked his dead sister to carry the words.

The voices of the dead speaking across fireplaces. The words of Irothia’s most hated enemy giving them to the dead. He could barely begin to imagine what the king would say. What he would think of him.

Still as he sat there listening, he knew he was going to send that message anyway. Sometimes life just wasn’t fair.

Chapter One Hundred.

“Are you ready to hear me Finy?” Elwene’s voice was strong these days. So very strong. And it was becoming harder and harder to pretend that he couldn’t hear her. Finell heard her perfectly, as if she was standing right beside him.

It was madness. The moon mist filled his lungs. It was the cold and hunger playing tricks on his mind as he spent day after day trapped in his cave, surrounded by the ravenous abominations. It was guilt and shame. And yet it was one thing more than that. It was everything he wanted.

Especially when he was trapped and waiting to die. Finell had tried to escape his cave and make it to the nearest town. He had tried repeatedly. But everywhere he turned, the abominations were there ahead of him, and he found himself fleeing for his life. He was surrounded. He was doomed.

“You’re dead.” It was only a whisper that escaped his mouth. He’d spoken those two terrible words too many times before.

“You keep saying that.” She laughed a little, as if it was funny somehow. But it wasn’t. It was terrible. “As if it should matter.”

“But it does.” How many times could he keep saying the same things? The dead should stay dead. The dead did stay dead. It was all in his mind. If only she didn’t sound so real. If only she would stop speaking to him. But he didn’t want that.

“No sweet Finy. It doesn’t. My body is returned to the soil. My spirit is returned to the Mother. She lets me speak with you.”

“The mist is what lets me hear you. I have grandfather’s madness. His curse.” He knew that, and he also knew how his grandfather had spent his last years, beset by voices. So many, all the time that he couldn’t sleep. That he couldn’t eat. That he didn’t know who was real and who wasn’t. Death when it had finally claimed him, had been a mercy.

“You have his gift Finy. His gift! It is not a curse.”

“You know how he ended his days. You know that was no gift.” By the Mother! Now he was actually arguing with his dead sister. The mist was gathering in his lungs.

“The curse was that he could not accept his gift. Only that.”

“No.” But she wasn’t listening to him. She never had. She knew what was right. She always had. And now it seemed that even as a voice in his head she still did.

“You are younger than him to start hearing. Your gift is stronger. You hear more clearly. And you have already taken the first step in accepting the truth. You have given your words to me and I have given them to Sophelia. In time the armies will ride down the southern roads because of that and you will know.”

“But we do not have time. Before they travel down the copper trail, you will have to be ready for them. It is time for you to take another step.” Finell groaned, realising that he was being asked to do something else a man should never do. To breath a little more deeply of the mist.

“No.”

“Yes!” She sounded so certain. So real. And he had never been able to deny her anything when she’d been alive. Before Y’aris had started filling his head with lies. Speaking poison into his ears. Before he’d started listening. By the Mother he hated himself for that. For all the terrible things he’d done because he had listened. All the crimes he would never be able to atone for.

For the longest time Finell sat there, tears running down his cheeks, trying not to hear Elwene, and yet wishing with all his heart that she was actually there to speak with him. It was a battle raging inside him. The desperate need not to give in to his madness against the absolute longing to have her back with him again. It was a war that had been raging for days. And then suddenly she said the one thing that made sense through all the lunacy.

“Finy, do you truly want to die in this cave, alone?” And she was right. He knew it. Whether she was real or not, he was trapped in this cold underworld. He was going to die. Whether by starvation, cold or being caught by the abominations, he was going to die here. And he didn’t want to die alone.

“What do I have to do?” She laughed then, a happy musical sound that had always filled him with joy. Real or not, it did it again.

“Good. Today I need you to learn how to pray.”

“Pray?” It wasn’t what he’d expected. Though he hadn’t known what to expect to begin with. And what good was it anyway? Even if the Mother existed, she would not listen to him. She had not. “I’ve prayed many times.”

“No you haven’t little Finy. You’ve said the words, and you’ve begged. But prayer is about neither of those things. It’s about belief. It’s about offering yourself. You’ve never believed. And you’ve always asked for things instead of asking what you can give. How you can serve.”

“I have nothing left to give. I have nothing at all.”

“You have your heart and your soul. You can give the gift of your service. That is everything.”

Suddenly she became stern with him. Telling him off as she had when he was a small child. “You have done a great many terrible things. You have believed the most foul of lies. Trusted the most foul of people. And now you dwell in darkness.”

“But the darkness will not be yours alone. The people will suffer and die in their millions. All the people. Young and old. Men and women. Humans and elves. And much of that will be your fault.”

“Do you deny me?”

“No.” She knew he didn’t. He couldn’t. Every word was true.

“Then will you please stop wallowing in self-pity like a sick boar and take the first step in trying to remedy this terrible disease you have helped to unleash.”

“But how -?”

“Do not ask how little brother. That is for later. For now ask only if you can give yourself, everything you have and are, to the one who you know to be true. Let the Mother decide how she may use you. Decide only to let her.” Finell stared into the flames, torn. He had never had time for the Grove. He had never known any desire to serve the Mother. He had never truly believed. That was Elwene’s heart. But still it was Elwene speaking, and he could never deny her. Especially not now when she had been taken from him.

“I …” His voice trailed off as he discovered he didn’t know what to say.

“Your choice is stark Finy. You can ask, or you can sit here in your cave waiting to die, and every day watch as the Reaver grows in strength and more innocents suffer for your failures. Knowing always that every one of those who is brought to this dark place to die, you could have saved.”

In that moment Finell broke. With those few words she had destroyed him. And she had done it with nothing more than the truth. This was his fault. Every day more were brought before the demon, and all of them there because of him. All that shame and guilt, all the weeping of innocent families torn apart. All the blood. All the victims crying out. All because of him.

He couldn’t stand it. It was a weight on him, crushing him into the rock. And he simply could not withstand it any longer. No one could.

Bitter tears flowing freely, he went down on his knees before the fire, unable to stand any longer.

“I give everything I have.”

It was enough. He didn’t understand how it could be. Not for such a wretch as he. But he felt the Mother for the first time and knew she had accepted his prayer. It was like being welcomed home after a long trip, being brought back into the warmth and love of family. It was the opening of his eyes to greet a perfect sunny morning. It was the finding of his place within the world, and the discovery that he actually had a place. And it was so much more. So much that he couldn’t even understand it, much less put it into words.

And with her presence came knowledge. As her presence filled him, a glorious explosion of life that could know no end, he understood that she meant to use him. She had plans to take him, to use all his failures and make them strengths. To shape him into a weapon. To save her children, all of them. And that was his wish too. He could have no desire save hers.

As he knelt there, overwhelmed by her, Finell knew a sense of peace for the first time in so very long. The hatred was gone. The Mother had no use for it. So too was the terrible laughter finally silenced. None of her creatures should know the desire to torture themselves. The shame and guilt were there, they would always be and that was as it should be. But they could be fought. Fought with service to his victims. To the Mother’s children. And that too was as it should be. Redemption was probably never possible for him, but it didn’t matter. It was a journey as well as a destination, and the journey would become his life. He could ask for no greater reward than the chance to make that journey. And he knew he had to start immediately.

“How may I serve?”