Bacorium Legacy (79 page)

Luca stared at the man in front of him for a moment more, considering all the awful things he had done. Then, he stepped back, pulling the sword from Serpos' chest, then he spun around and sliced the head from his shoulders.

The headless body fell to its knees, and the head flew in an arc through the air, before landing somewhere. A second later, both disappeared.

“What did he say?”

Luca turned around. Brand was back up on his feet, and he had followed Luca. Wiosna and Gordon stood behind him.

“He said - that Emila is at the capital.”

Brand and Wiosna exchanged glances. “Well, I guess that's where we're going,” Brand said.

“Are you sure?” Luca said. “You know who's waiting there - and we don't have that Rixeor Fragment.”

“I told you before, didn't I?” Brand said. “I'm with you until the end.”

Luca couldn't help but grin.

“Why is Emila at the capital?” Wiosna asked.

“To try to convince Zinoro to show mercy,” Luca muttered, his grin fading as he was reminded of the situation. “After all that talk about how dangerous he was, why would she think she could possibly talk him out of it?”

“But she had to have been there before Serpos left, right?” Brand said. “So Zinoro hasn't killed her, for whatever reason.”

“Indeed, but there's no guarantee it'll stay that way.” Luca turned and looked to the town gate. “We have to set off as soon as possible. Brand, can you walk?”

“Well enough.”

“Then let's go.”

“Are you really in such a hurry to rush off to your death?” Gordon said, stepping up next to Luca. “Without a Rixeor Fragment, what can you do? I've told you this a thousand times, but Zinoro simply cannot be matched in normal combat. The reason he likely hasn't killed that girl is because he knows she's gone there to save you, and intends to use her to lure you into a trap.”

Luca frowned. “If that's the case, then so be it. But I will not abandon her. What would you suggest?”

“We should at least attempt to recover the Rixeor Fragment.”

“There's nothing that can be done,” Luca said. “It fell into the chasm where that lake used to be. I cannot see the bottom, so I cannot warp there. And the ledge is too steep to climb down, even with rope. We might be able to reach the bottom by climbing at another spot, but we would have to travel a long while to reach the other side, and searching the whole pit for one single blade could take weeks. Even if Emila's life wasn't at stake, we don't have enough supplies for that.”

Gordon frowned, narrowing his eyes. Perhaps he was trying to find some other way to reach the sword - some angle that Luca had missed. But he was silent.

“Curse it,” he muttered. “We were so close. It's so frustrating. If there were gods, I would think they were mocking us.”

“Perhaps we could sneak into the palace and save Emila without Zinoro even knowing we were there?” Brand suggested.

“It's worth a shot,” Luca said. “But if Zinoro knows who she is, he'll be expecting me.”

They fell silent, each knowing what was at stake, and knowing that there was no going back now. Luca was going to Acarienthia, one way or another, and they each had sworn to go with him. It was likely a trip to their deaths, and that did not escape any of them, but nobody brought it up again.

They quickly gathered up what supplies they could from the fallen Acarians, and then they set out, through the massive wooden doors and back into the Grey Wasteland. The mood was sombre, and they made little conversation - the greyness of the plains reflecting their moods.

In the sky, the clouds had grown darker than usual. A storm would come that night.

Chapter XXVI

Mother

“Em? Em, what are you doing?”

She sighed, and turned around to find her little sister staring at her with wide and curious eyes. Eva was a girl of only thirteen, while she herself was already sixteen. A difference of only three years, yet the distance in their maturity could not be measured. Eva was a troublemaker, always disobeying their parents' orders and getting into mischief. It was therefore Emila's responsibility to be the mature sibling and take care of her while their parents weren't around.

Luckily, that wasn't very often. While their father was often busy doing his work as the local healer, their mother was always at home, cleaning up the house and cooking delicious meals for them.

Today, however, Emila was busy and could not be taking care of her little sister.

“Em, what are you doing?” Eva asked again.

“I'm practising my magick,” she told her sister impatiently. “I have to master healing – I've even put my archery lessons on hold. One day, when I'm good enough, I'll start working with Father at the sanctum.”

Before Emila, on a wooden board, was a dead fish and a knife. Emila was busy making cuts in the fish and using her magick to close them. So far, there were several cuts, a few of which had been closed, which could be seen by thin scars in the dead fish's tissue.

Eva, naturally, looked over her shoulder at her handiwork. “Hmm... Father says that you can only be a healer when you can close up wounds without leaving any scars.”

“Of course,” Emila said, gently pushing her away. “That's why I'm practising. I'll never get any better unless I work at it, right?”

Eva looked at her with wide, pleading eyes. “Can I try?”

“Why don't you go bother Mother?” Emila asked her.

“Mother and Father are busy,” Eva pouted. “All the grownups are having a big meeting in the town hall about those soldiers from Ak-er-a.”

“Ak-er-a?”

“Yeah, that's where Father said they were from.”

“You mean Acaria.”

“That's what I said.”

“No, that's not. C'mon, you're thirteen years old already. You should be able to pronounce the name of our neighbouring kingdom.” Emila focused her magick on the dead fish once more. It glowed faint blue for a second, and several of the cuts pulled together and closed up. Not all however - some of the larger ones remained open. And even the ones that had closed were still visible as thin white lines. Emila almost swore.

“What's wrong, Em?”

“What's wrong is that I need to learn this, and I'm never going to if you keep pestering me.”

Emila regretted her words, however, when she saw the hurt in her little sister's eyes. Before she could apologise, Eva turned and ran off. Emila sighed.

“I'll say I'm sorry at dinnertime,” she told herself. “It was mean, but I really do need to learn this.”

She knew that if she wanted to be of any value to the town, she would have to take her father's place as the local healer. No man in the town would want to marry a girl like her - and she could never be a hunter if she had to ask someone else just to kill a fish for her. So the only way she could contribute was to master healing magick. Otherwise...

Well, if someone wasn't able to contribute to the town, they were banished.

She wanted to stay in Sulin with her family, so she was determined to work as hard as she could. She would be as great a healer as her father was. Even if she could never have a husband or children, she would still take care of people in her own way.

Emila returned her attention to the task at hand, using the knife to make a few fresh cuts in the fish, and summoning up her mana and doing what she could to repair them. This continued for a few minutes, until she found that she had company again.

“Em, look!” Eva said, opening up her hands. There was a moth in her palm, twitching and looking around, confused. A second later, it flew up out of Eva's hand and disappeared somewhere.

“Aw...” Eva muttered, sad to see her friend gone.

“Eva, you shouldn't play with bugs,” Emila chastised her.

“I wasn't playing!” Eva insisted. “I found him by my window. He wasn't moving. So I used healing magick to make him better, just like you and Father! See, I can do it, too!”

“You...” Emila trailed off, realising what her sister had just said. No, that couldn't be right. That was impossible. But still... “Eva - what you did on that moth, can you do the same thing to this fish here?”

“Why?”

“Because I want to see it,” Emila told her. “If your healing magick is good, you can practise with Father and I. But first, I have to see you do it.”

“Oh, okay.” Eva moved past her and placed her hands on the dead fish. The little girl swelled up with mana, and it flowed into the fish. Emila then watched, in awe, as the fish was healed. Not only did the fresh cuts she'd made close up completely, but even the scars from Emila's own botched attempts disappeared.

And then, the fish gasped and started to thrash around.

“Wow!” Eva gasped. “I think the fishy needs to get in water or he might suffocate. Emila, let's get him back to the river. Emila?”

Eva turned around to find her sister agape at what had just happened.

<> <> <>

“I've never seen anything like this,” Miniu, Sulin's local healer, and the father of both Emila and Eva, said as he stared into the bucket where the reanimated fish was swimming. “This is incredible. Impossible, really, according to everything we've been taught.”

The bearded man rose and turned to his youngest daughter. He beamed, and affectionately ruffled up her hair. “Very good, Eva. You've got an incredible gift.”

Eva beamed. “Does this mean I'm going to learn healing with you?”

“Absolutely,” Miniu said, adjusting his glasses. “It would be a tragedy to let your talent go to waste.”

Emila frowned as she watched this. What she has witnessed her sister doing was something that, for hundreds of years, had been believed to be impossible. Eva had used healing magick so powerful that it had actually brought something back to life. Eva was a spirit-form magus, which meant that she was naturally inclined towards healing, but even the greatest of spirit-form magi had never been able to do what she had done.

She hadn't believed it at first. The moth might have been a fluke, she figured, but one couldn't deny the fish that was currently swimming around in that barrel like it had never been dead. Emila had been using that fish to practise her own healing magick for over an hour before Eva had touched it. One of the local fishermen in the city had given it to her, and when she had been unable to do so herself, he had dashed its head against the dock until it stopped moving.

Even bringing something back after a few minutes of death was considered almost impossible. There had been stories, of course, but even a few minutes of death were usually enough. An hour was unthinkable - nothing could be brought back from that.

And yet her sister had just done so.

If restoring animals from death was something she was able to do at entry-level, once Eva had her training she would likely be a greater healer than anyone else in Bacoria. People would call her a miracle worker, and come from far and wide to have their injuries treated by her.

Restoring a human being from death however, was impossible no matter how talented Eva was. People disappeared when they died, leaving only behind blood and the occasional severed limb. No magick could prevent or reverse that, but Eva's healing would be so powerful that preventing death would be easier for her than anyone else.

This was great news. Emila was very happy for her. However...

It wasn't good news for her.

<> <> <>

That night, Miniu told their mother the news about Eva. She was overjoyed to hear it, and they celebrated by making Eva's favourite sweets. The fish Eva had restored was now in their house, swimming around in a large bowl on the living room table.

Emila ate her meal quietly, and was hardly spoken to the entire time.

After dinner, they discussed how this would change things. For the time being, Miniu told them not to tell anybody. Some soldiers from the kingdom of Acaria would be coming to Sulin to meet with the village elder, and they were told to avoid these men. Until the soldiers were done with their business, and they had gone back to Acaria, they were to just keep their heads down and not tell anyone about Eva's gift. Emila understood, and agreed, but it took some extra stern convincing before Eva promised not to tell any of her friends.

Eva, tired from her exciting day, then retired to bed. Emila was not tired at all, so she went outside and sat on the porch, looking up at the moon.

Her mother, Melissa, joined her a few minutes later.

“You seem rather upset, dear,” she said, taking a seat next to her daughter. “What's the matter?”

“Nothing is wrong, Mother,” she insisted unconvincingly.

“I understand that Eva's getting a lot of attention right now,” Melissa said. “This is a very big deal. You know the implications of this, right? Nobody has done what Eva has done in a very, very long time. She'd going to be very famous for this. But this doesn't mean that we've forgotten about you.”

“That's not it,” Emila told her. “I'm not jealous of Eva. I'm very happy for her. It's just - well, I was practising healing of my own when this happened. I was supposed to start working at the sanctum under Father. I was supposed to take his place on day as Sulin's healer. That's not going to happen now.”

“There's no reason why your father can't teach you as well.”

“Sulin doesn't need two healers,” Emila said morosely. “Especially not when they're going to have someone like Eva, the greatest healer to come along in the past thousand years. They won't need me... Nobody in this entire town is going to need me...” She was doing her best to hold back sobs.

“Emila...” her mother began, her voice soft and consoling.

“No man will ever w-want to m-marry someone like m-me,” Emila sobbed. “I-I-I can't...”

“Things aren't that way anymore,” Melissa said to her, placing her hand on Emila's shoulder. “Times have changed. People are more open-minded. They won't-”

“I-I've overheard the conversations you and Father have had,” Emila said. “D-don't pretend this isn't a problem. Being the healer was my last option to contribute to Sulin. T-they'll banish me now once I'm of age...”

Melissa couldn't answer. She'd been talked into a corner. But her daughter was upset, and she was determined to cheer her up. “Emila, we won't let them just kick you out of the city. If they try - we'll they'll just have to kick us out as well. And once your sister's abilities are known, they won't be so eager to get rid of her. Even if there was nothing you could do to help - which isn't true at all - they would still be willing to deal with you in exchange for Eva. Do you understand, dear? We're not going anywhere, and neither are you.”