The Mirror of the Moon (Revenant Wyrd Book 2) (20 page)

For days she managed to rejoin the creature, and each time it responded more and more to her wyrd. In times of worry or doubt, the thing was a comforting force, when she was happy it felt as though the great power below the earth would rejoice with her.

The only thing she was lacking now was a means to escape the hole they kept her in. She thought long and hard about this, for it seemed now the only way for her to be removed from the cavern would be to die.

It became apparent then that she would have to overpower the chaos dwarves, retrieve her weapons, and make a break from there. One of the problems in that scenario was her current malaise. Once in a while Cianna would check in on her body, and from the feel coming from her vessel the pain was still a very real thing.

It was only then, one of the last few times she looked in on her form before rejoining it, that Cianna noticed the reason for her pain. When she had been in her form before she could never see the thing, but now being of mind and spirit, no longer of physical trappings, Cianna could see energy clearer than she could have ever hoped to see with her living eyes. If this is what it was to be dead, Cianna thought she could handle it.

Waiting in the corner, darker than the rest of the chamber, was Wyrder’s Bane. She shivered as she approached it, and was surprised to see that it did not harm her even in the form she currently wore. But there the stone sat, pulsing its malignant force into the room like a vent drafting in black, sick air.

She recoiled from it and wished nothing more than its removal, and now she knew that it would have to be removed before she could escape. Not long after this thought occurred to her, the second means of her escape made itself known.

The tall dark-haired man that was dragged into the cave was dressed as Cianna had seen him almost all her life—except much dirtier than she had ever seen him before. A long plum jacket rested over trousers of the same color. Below the jacket he wore a light green tunic and bound around his throat was a white, silk ascot. A white woolen cloak fastened over all of it completed the uniform of his vocation, and in his hand he carried the only thing that could have been construed as a weapon: a long oak cane tipped in silver and bearing a plain iron handle. Cianna knew that this man, Braccus, would never strike another with that staff no matter how badly he wanted. After all, physicians were sworn to heal not harm; it was seen to when they undertook the Healer’s Trust, an oath they swore to before the Healer’s Board.

The realization that the chaos dwarves had another from the Guardian’s Keep brought her mental form crashing back to the vessel of her torment. It wasn’t long after that when she heard noises from outside the heavy door. At first the voices were indistinct, but as the door creaked open, and Cianna was forced to close her eyes against the onslaught of light, they became clearer.

Braccus’ deep voice stopped suddenly with an intake of breath. “Remove that thing at once!” he ordered, obviously having forgotten the company he kept. There was a thud and a grunt and before long he was crouching beside her, coughing up fluid that joined the pool of saliva under her cheek. “She is dying,” he said, “and that thing is killing her.”

 “Look at the swelling,” he said placing cold hands to her neck, hands that slowly lifted her arms and pressed at her underarm. The touch was worse than anything she could imagine, and a whimper issued from her cracked lips. “She is dying.”

The dwarves didn’t seem to care, for not long after his assessment and pleading they closed the door behind them with a resounding thud. Cianna did not know how long they had been left in darkness that threatened to consume her mind as quickly as the renewed pain was, but eventually they came back.

“We are not removing the stone on your orders, but instead by orders of our regent,” the dwarf said. Wyrder’s Bane was retrieved and removed from the room. As it left Cianna felt her malaise slowly reverting.

“When I escape here, you will be the first I sink my arrows into.” Cianna promised.

With a barking laugh the dwarf left them once more in blackness. It was a long time still before either of the two within the damp cell spoke to one another.

“How did you know about the stone?” That was the most important question to her now.

“There were many ways,” he answered quietly. “Besides the studying I have done through the academy? I have read of it in books. I recognized it the moment I saw it. Wyrder’s Bane was said to be the only relic to absorb everything, including darkness so completely. I knew what it could do, and I recognized the sickness within you that it caused.” He sighed then and revealed something to Cianna that she had never known. “Healers have a type of wyrd of their own, though it is not exactly like yours. We cannot manipulate space and energy as most wyrders can, but we can see things within the energy surrounding the body. Normally that is how we make a diagnosis. There will be a slight discoloration in the energy field; this miasma will vary depending on the intensity of the illness and normally in a spot that will inform us where the sickness is originating from. Your whole body was covered in black energy, like thick mud. The energy, however, did not emanate from your body; instead it came from the stone in the corner. It issued from the stone and enveloped your entire body like some parasitic hand from the Otherworld.”

“You should have let me die, Braccus,” Cianna stated bluntly. With a sigh she forced herself to roll over despite the agony it caused. She was surprised to find exactly how weak her muscles had become, and if she had any hope of escaping she would have to rebuild her strength. Maybe given some time she would force herself to walk the cell to regain her balance and strength. “But I am truly glad that you did not let them. I will forgive you on one condition.”

“I am not sure I deserve to live after what I have done,” he whispered.

“STOP!” Cianna said, her abating pain, the need to regain her strength, and plotting escape lowering her tolerance. “Your self pity is useless to me. Now listen. I have touched something very old; very powerful deep in the mountains. This would not have happened if I hadn’t been close to death. Feel heartened, Braccus, if it had not been for you we would not have found this out and would not have been able to warn the Guardians of the possible attack.”

“Lady LaFaye, I am not sure I understand. What is it that you touched?”

“I have never felt a presence like that which dwells below the earth, nor have I heard of one like it.” Cianna sighed and rubbed her eyes in frustration. “It is ancient, though. I figure it died long before Aaridnay settled the Great Realms. I am certain that we can use it to escape.”

Cianna hated the thought of using such a wyrd creature for her own ends. No matter how she tried she couldn’t make herself believe that she was doing it also for the creature. Cianna could not lie to herself, and whatever pleasure and satisfaction the creature might get from what she planned it didn’t help her escape the truth that she would be manipulating something that had trusted her, been compelled by her so completely as it was. “It responded to my wyrd,” she finished quietly, guiltily.

“That is not hard to believe, after all you are a necromancer and this being is dead I presume?”

If she had felt alone with the dwarves, then the creature must have felt worse. Not only was it not acknowledged by the dwarves, but it was dead and forced to sit by as their darkness seeped into its one-time home like a plague to the legacy that it had once dwelled in the Barrier Mountains … for legacy it must have been if it were so powerful a force.

“But if it is so powerful, will you be able to control it?” Braccus questioned.

“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “I want to say yes but the truth is I just don’t know. It is a force that exists after its physical death. Independent of itself, therefore it is bound to no one, least of all me.” Cianna looked to where his voice came from. “Honestly though—who cares? I don’t think it would harm us because it didn’t react badly to my energy.” She felt a pang of betrayal. “It came to treat me as a friend.”

“You must have spent a lot of time with it. Was this out of body experience because of the pain you were in?” he asked, physician once more.

“Yes, and through those visits I came to learn that it was not at all happy with the intruders to its home.”

“The chaos dwarves?”

“Yes. I know that you cannot help me kill them because you took Healer’s Trust, and I am not asking that of you.”

“You do not need to ask. I will do it willingly. Devotion to Realm and Guardians runs deeper than Healer’s Trust.”

“Then why did you tell the rock was killing me?” Cianna wondered aloud, almost critically.

“Because,” Braccus responded after some time, “you are my only hope of escaping.”

It appeared that both of their futures resided in the other, for without Braccus escape would be impossible for Cianna. She spoke softly, hoping to alleviate some of Braccus’ grief. “You did not tell them what they wanted to know; you only told them that I was dying. At first I didn’t think they really cared, but now I see they do, which begs the question of what exactly do they have planned for me? They already knew what the stone did. I am sure they didn’t know how it worked, or what long exposure would do to a human body, but they knew it inhibited wyrd. They do plan on using it on the Realm Guardians to take back the Barrier Mountains, and now they know a little better what the stone does, and what it is capable of, but they would have figured that out without your aid. What you did was what any human would do in a situation like this—you made it possible for your survival by clinging to the one thing and protecting the one thing that could help you survive. I do not blame you.”

“If it is all the same, Cianna, I would like to hold onto my grief a little more. As a healer I am not supposed to put the needs of myself above those of others. In this situation, being a good citizen meant I should have given my life to protect others. I should have let them kill me.” His voice dwindled in the chill of the musty air, suffocating his words.

“Well, whatever makes you feel happy. But Braccus, remember this: what measures the worth of a soul? Think about that for a time. You did not kill anyone. True, you gave information that may help to harm others, but at the same time you are doing more that will in the long run rid the land of this pestilence, of this illness. Isn’t that what a healer does—rid the world of disease?”

He was silent for a moment before his response came. “Yes.”

“You can make yourself feel better by knowing that you did everything in your power to save me from the malaise that gripped my body, Braccus. You not only did your job as a healer but as a good citizen too; you protected the daughter of Pharoh LaFaye, and you helped learn the means of their attack on your Realm.”

Silence proceeded. When it became apparent that no matter what Cianna said she would not comfort Braccus, she began to think he was the type of person that was just not comfortable with himself and created every excuse to think himself unworthy.

“What I want to know is how the stone was able to affect you?” Braccus asked. “You are a full angel right? Arael and Pharoh were your parents.”

This was something Cianna had not thought about yet. She was stumped. In everything she had read angels were not linked to wyrd the same way humans were.

“Maybe that is what they were testing,” Cianna said. “The affects Wyrder’s Bane would have on angels. I am unsure, maybe the necromantic wyrd within me is a human wyrd, something that is corruptible through the stone.” There was one other thought Cianna didn’t like but felt compelled to voice. “Or maybe the stone is stronger than anyone ever thought possible, and it can work on more races than humans.”

They thought for a time on that, and finding there was no resolution Cianna moved the topic back to escape.

“What would you ask of me then?” Braccus asked.

“Not to kill. I need you for other things.” In the next hour Cianna told him exactly what those other things were. By the time she was done detailing to him the ruse of their escape, a malicious smile peeled his lips like never before, a smile more satisfying than all its predecessors.

I
n the interim between plan and action Cianna prepared herself and Braccus for what was to come. After the pain finally left her body, she walked the cell daily and ate all the food that was given her. She didn’t bother to worry about what the chaos dwarves would think of her food being gone, for the rats had cleaned it up well enough before, so when she feigned illness as they came to inspect, there was no proof to the contrary.