Voice of the Lost : Medair Part 2 (12 page)

"Open it."  Ileaha's voice cracked with horror.  Not waiting for help, she tried to wrench the lid off the box and it shifted slightly, obviously heavy.  A wave of odour escaped into the room.  More herbs, with an acrid underlay which burnt the nose.  Cor-Ibis came to Ileaha's aid and together they lifted the lid away, and lowered it to one side.  The scent immediately thickened and Medair's eyes filled with tears, as if she were cutting onions.  She tried to breathe shallowly, imagining what it must be like for Avahn, completely immersed in the noxious stuff.

"Find my brother's assistants," the Queen ordered, sending a few of her entourage scuttling.  "And fetch water."  Her nose wrinkled in distaste.  "Xarus kept a few close to help him with his experiments.  They may know how to undo this."

"This is not an enchantment," Cor-Ibis said, touching Avahn's forehead carefully.  "Some kind of drug?"

Ileaha, her face pinched, simply hauled Avahn out of the box and deposited him on one of the benches.  She began to cough, her eyes streaming, and turned away to gasp for air.  "Some kind of poison."  She was liberally smeared with the blue gel.

Against the background of Sendel's no-nonsense commands, Ileaha, Medair and Cor-Ibis rubbed Avahn clean and sluiced him off.  He did not so much as stir.  He
was
breathing, if shallowly, but his temperature was high and he quickly began to stream with sweat.  Even from her brief unshielded exposure Ileaha found that she could no longer feel her hands and felt nauseated, but she did not seem to sicken further.  Estarion's assistants could not be found.

"They will be located," Queen Sendel said, standing in the doorway as Kel ar Haedrin and one of the kaschen replaced the glass lid in the hopes of cutting down the fumes.  "Vorclase, too, will be fetched back.  Our doctors may be able to do something, if any escaped conscription.  Until then–"  She shook her head.  "I have much to do.  Accept my hospitality, Keridahl, and when there is less confusion, we will treat for Decia's future."

Cor-Ibis hesitated, and Medair guessed that he was not happy to have Islantar guesting in Decian territory, even at such a juncture.

"You doubt?" Sendel asked, not surprised.  "We have no army.  Our allies gave as many men as they could spare.  To threaten you, let alone your collection of heirs, would only invite retribution, and no kidnap plot could rescue us from that.  At this point Keridahl, to save Decia from Palladian retaliation, I would happily accept truth spell or even geas.  You will not take harm from me, and I will take every measure I can to ensure that my word is kept by those I command."

There was a short pause, then Cor-Ibis nodded.  "We will come to some arrangement," he said.

Sendel did not seem offended.  "Wise of you."

"We must discover who brought us here," Cor-Ibis continued.  "The question of what created those gates is of highest importance.  I am uneasy."

"More searching," Sendel said, not visibly impressed.  "We will turn out the caves beneath the castle, if it seems necessary.  But first, let us break bread, and gather our strength."

CHAPTER NINE

The spasms always started with a trembling in the hands, which gave them just enough warning to reach the bed before Avahn's back snapped into an arch.  His feet drummed against the bed-board, the veins stood out in his throat, and his face turned an alarming purple shade.  Then, just when it seemed as if he would vibrate off the bed despite their best efforts, he would go limp and they would anxiously check to see if he was still breathing.  It had gone on all day.

"They're getting weaker," Medair said this time, as Avahn turned from iron to jelly beneath her hands.  Ileaha didn't answer.  Exhausted, her eyes swollen pink from exhaustion and the effects of the poisons Avahn's body was trying to purge, she was focused on her task to the exclusion of all else.  Filling the basin again, she silently handed Medair a cloth and together they bathed him, washing away the oily sweat.  Then they soaped and cleaned their hands, over and over, until they no longer felt quite so numb and the acrid odour was almost gone.

They'd had no help from a Royal Physician, who had been rousted from some hidey-hole to do little more than tell them all the things he didn't know and make contradictory guesses.  Amid suggestions to keep Avahn warm and keep him cool, and cup him and dose him with purgatives, all they could do was keep him clean and pray.

Were weaker seizures a good or bad sign?  Medair tried to decide, anxiously watching Ileaha watching Avahn.  It was easier to see her
as
Ileaha now that the change in colouring was not so new.  She had almost the same face, even if the height was all wrong, and that hair.  Her attention never drifted for an instant, as if she were intent on capturing every moment of Avahn's ordeal.  Every moment of–

That train of thought was interrupted by the door opening, and Cor-Ibis, followed by Kel ar Haedrin, entered.  He crossed to Avahn who, after only a few decems, seemed to have already lost weight.  Cor-Ibis' face became particularly blank as he studied his heir, whose colour was a sickly greenish-white shade that made him look like he was decaying inside his own skin.

"Kel ar Haedrin will watch over Avahn now."

Despite Ileaha's obvious reluctance, he led them to a room where the rest of the Palladians waited to sit down to a meal delivered by Decian servants who made little effort to conceal stony animosity.

"Hold," he said when they were alone, and quietly cast.  Poison detect, which made every sort of sense.  Queen Sendel might have declared them guests, but no Queen had the power to order her people to forgive and forget a field of blood.  He followed it with a second casting, one which brought a hush which reminded Medair of the muffling effect of the mist.  Something to prevent eavesdropping.

"Queen Sendel has accepted a geas," he said, nodding to give them permission to eat.  "That in no way binds the rest of Decia, so we will continue to take as many precautions as is feasible.  I have recovered the rahlstone which was in Avahn's custody, and tomorrow morning when we are both rested, the Kierash and I will attempt to construct a gate to Athere.  All will return but Kel ar Haedrin and myself."  He added a glance at Islantar which was an order, absolute no matter what their ranks.  "I cannot move from Falcon Black until we are certain that the device used to create the gates – for Queen Sendel has confirmed the existence of a device – is not here, and that any information King Xarus may have collected regarding the summoning of wild magic is destroyed."

"A wend-whisper from my – the Kier – reached me during the afternoon," the Kierash put in.  "Sent shortly after our disappearance.  Others may arrive with further information, particularly if the gate-caster was discovered outside Athere's walls."

"We will use the rooms alongside Avahn's," Cor-Ibis continued.  "The entrance to that corridor can be effectively guarded, and the kaschens and Kel ar Haedrin will mark shifts overnight."

"I can help with that," the Mersian Herald offered.  "My skill with the sword is only moderate, but I will at least serve as a second pair of eyes."

Medair ate with a sense of unreality, listening to Cor-Ibis answering a handful of questions from Islantar regarding the search of the castle.  She could not argue with the basic sense of his plan, but wanted to.  To leave him here!  But he was right, absolutely right, that the gate device needed to be found.  Not only so it could not again be used against Athere, but because the question of how it had been created needed to be settled.  And Medair had to go, for though they had taken some small precautions against making clear her identity to the majority of Falcon Black's occupants, she knew it would be as great an act of stupidity for her to stay as it would be for Islantar.

When the meal was over, Ileaha joined Kel ar Haedrin caring for Avahn.  The doors of all the rooms along the corridor were standing open and, aware that Cor-Ibis was dividing his attention between her and Islantar, Medair walked randomly through one and closed it behind her, to sit blankly and try to force herself to think.

Her role had run its course.  She no longer had the Horn.  She no longer had the secret of her past, and no-one would think of rallying around her name.  Herald no longer.  But she did not want to die.  So it became a matter of choosing how to live.

Outside, doors closed.  After a long pause she could hear Cor-Ibis talking to the Mersian Herald and the first of the kaschen who was to guard the corridor leading to their rooms.  A long night for them on top of a tense day, but there was no-one else to trust.  Medair listened to one last door close, and then she stood by her window remembering a soft voice say: "Please, Medair."

He had made his position very clear.  And she could hardly deny that she wanted to be with him.  She was past any self-delusion on that front.  But wanting him and making a life with him did not follow in easy progression and she was not cruel enough to go to him now unless she had conquered these interminable doubts.  He didn't deserve to have her taking temporary solace from him.

And she was undoubtedly the coward Ieskar had named her, because what held her back now was not any belief that she was still bound by vows to the past, but what others would think of her.  Awful as using the Horn had been, she still did not see how she could have done anything except support Palladium over Decia.  But though she did not believe that decision was pinned to her feelings for one particular Palladian, there would be all too many who would never accept any other explanation.

Her old pride hated the idea.  Medair an Rynstar turning her back on the true Corminevar bloodline because she wanted to spread her legs for a White Snake.  Seduced by the enemy.  She was already so detested, so loathed, and doubted she was equal to standing before people like Thessan Estarion as they embroidered their hatred for her with such an ugly embellishment.  There was no way to make them see that what she felt for Cor-Ibis truly was separate from her decision about the Horn of Farak.

And some part of her must believe it to be true, for she was still so frantically trying to draw back from him that she continued to think of him as 'Cor-Ibis'.  He was Illukar.  He had held out his hand and she longed to take it and did not.  What reason was there?  Only this need to wallow in guilt, and cling to an image of honour unsullied by failure.  Not wanting to die, but not able to move beyond the past.  Caring what people like Thessan Estarion would think was pointless and craven and she could not help it.  Proud little Herald, putting on a show for the crowd.  Former Herald, false hero, counterfeit legend.

Nor could Medair deny that, quite aside from anyone else's opinion, it still mattered to her that he was Ibisian.  He was a White Snake.

Deep down, she knew his greatest fault was that he was too like Ieskar for her to ever be quite comfortable wanting him.  "You do not like to face certain truths," Ieskar had said, standing dead in the Hall of Mourning.  He'd made her take his hand, and told her she had no reason to hate the people of this time, and it was a thing she knew in her head was true and in her heart was at least mostly true.  The war was long over and Ibisians weren't the enemy any more.  She closed her eyes and pictured her hand against Ieskar's, and his eternally calm voice telling her that what she felt was hate.

It was a line of thought she simply could not pursue, and she consoled herself with the fact that Ieskar had never smiled as Illukar did.  And she was still standing here by the window.

Had
she let desire influence her decisions?  Would she have given the Horn of Farak to Ibisians if Illukar las Cor-Ibis had been something other than everything she admired?  Because if it was true, then she already had cause to be ashamed and it did not matter if no other person ever knew that she loved a White Snake, for she knew herself.  And if her decision to give up the Horn was not tainted, because the Palladian Ibisians were not accountable for the past, then how could loving a Palladian Ibisian be any less free from taint?

And could she go round the circle of doubt yet again?  What was a little extra scorn to add to the loathing she had already earned?  The Medarists, the Hand, the Decians.  Did she imagine that anything she did could actually make them hate her more?  The only question was what she wanted to be, for what remained of her life.  Did she want to be so small as to turn away from what Illukar las Cor-Ibis offered her, just because half the world might disapprove?  Just because it was easier not to try and stop hating herself?

This was enough to get her into the hall, walking quietly so as not to give the two on guard reason to turn.  But she paused at his door, trying to face the enormity of this decision.  This wasn't just for the night.  Did she want to be known as Cor-Ibis' leman?  Or was it to be a marriage, full formality, everything?  Did she actually contemplate having his children?

The memory of Cor-Ibis' marriage, and the fact that it was widely believed he could not father a viable child, quite disrupted her ambiguous feelings.  There was considerably more disappointment than relief tangled in that morass, and she thought that maybe it was simpler to accept that she wanted to spend her life with him and save the details for less uncertain times.

The door handle turned silently and she moved forward to see him standing candle-lit at his window.  He was combing his hair: a mundane, everyday act made magical as much by his innate poise as the glow which had lit him since he shielded Athere.  Medair stood motionless, watching the elegant tilt of his head, those long fingers holding the comb, and his cool, delicate profile.  The painful scratch across his cheek was no longer so livid and did not stop him from being utterly beautiful.

The latch clicked as she closed the door and he turned and looked at her, his expression not changing one iota.  But he held himself so very still.  Naturally, she couldn't begin to think of what to say next and deflected the subject of the future with questions about now.