Fey 02 - Changeling (61 page)

The other Warders made no complaint, and Touched had no one else to turn to.
 
Most of the time the other Warders acted as they did now, staring at the walls, waiting for the meeting to end.
 
They had become faces to Touched, colleagues no longer.

In the early days on the Isle, when Caseo was alive, the Warders met every day and had heated discussions.
 
Spell-making was a joint art, fraught with jealousies and insecurities, but fascinating all the same.
 
Now the Warders appeared to meditate while waiting for Rotin to excuse them.

She often forgot to excuse them when she was taking her herbs.

Touched stood.
 
The sound of his chair sliding back was the only sound in the room.

"We aren't done, Touched," Rotin said, her words slurred.

"I am," he said.
 
He couldn't sit a moment longer.
 
He threaded his way behind the other Warders and went out the door.

The grayness of Shadowlands seemed warm and familiar next to the interior of the cabin.
 
He stepped across the wooden porch, past the spot where Caseo had bled after being stabbed by the
 
crazed Red Cap, and sat on the steps.
 
Touched always avoided the spot where Caseo died.
 
The Domestics had long ago pulled the blood from the wood, but Touched still saw it, like he still saw Caseo's body there when he closed his eyes.

He certainly wouldn't have been locked in this gray windless weatherless place with these passive Warders if Caseo were still alive.
 
Caseo took the fact that he couldn't neutralize the Islander poison as a personal affront.
 
He had stayed up each and every night, striving to find the solution.

Striving to find the solution before Touched did.

Touched still worked on it, but he lacked the experience.
 
Even though he was trying to learn how to do even simple spells no one took the time to teach him.
 
Rotin had laughed at him when he asked.

Here's your chance to be the greatest Warder of all time, boy.
 
Teach yourself.

He hadn't realized until Caseo died that Rotin had hated him too.

Through the silence of Shadowlands, a door slammed.
 
The slam echoed off the invisible walls.
 
This place had the hollowness of a crevice, something Touched believed he would never get used to.
 
After a moment, he saw Rugar.
 
And the sight surprised him.

Rugar was supposed to be mourning.
 
Jewel's death affected them all except, of course, the Warders.
 
When Touched had brought up the even greater need to solve the riddle of the poison, Rotin had laughed at him.

Bit late for that now, isn't it, boy?
 
Can't make points with Rugar by saving Jewel.
 
The girl's dead. We don't dabble in revivals.

As usual she had twisted his words and then had done nothing.
 
The other Warders hadn't backed him.
 
They all hated working with the poison, believing that even touching a vial of it might kill them.
 
They would be happy to have the silent meetings about the poison and do nothing for the rest of their days.

Rugar leaned against one of the newer cabins, hand over his face, his body motionless.
 
He wasn't wearing his usual cape, and without it, his shoulders looked small and frail.
 
His boots were scuffed and his pants lacked their normal crease.
 
It was as if witnessing Jewel's death had robbed him of what little power he had left.

Rugar dropped his hand and his gaze met Touched's.
 
Touched felt his cheeks warm, but he didn't look away.
 
Rugar cocked his head as if he had gotten an idea, then walked toward Touched.
 
Rugar's movements had an intensity that Touched hadn't seen a moment earlier.

Touched didn't move as Rugar came to the Warders cabin.
 
Rugar stopped in front of him, placing a hand on the railing beside the steps.
 
His eyes, sunken into his face, looked dark and angry.

"Touched," he said.
 
"We haven't talked in a long time."

"No, sir," Touched said.
 
They had never talked.
 
The only reason Rugar knew his name was because Touched was a Warder.
 
If Touched had been Infantry, Rugar wouldn't know him at all.

"Is Rotin still running the Warders?" Rugar asked.

"I guess," Touched said.
 
He couldn't give her credit for something she wasn't really doing.

Rugar peered at him as if he hadn't quite expected that answer.
 
"And she's inside?"

"Her body is," Touched said.

Rugar's jaw worked for a moment, but he said nothing.
 
Finally he glanced away, then sighed.
 
"She's still taking herbs?"

"She never stopped," Touched said.

"How much progress has there been on the poison?"

"None," Touched said.
 
"We don't work on it."

Rugar swung his head back quickly.
 
"You don't —?"
 
He couldn't seem to finish the question.

Touched shrugged.
 
"We meet every so often and discuss it.
 
No one is working on spells."

Rugar took a step up.
 
"Why not?"

"No leadership.
 
Everyone is afraid of the stuff."

"Even you?"

Touched shook his head.
 
"I'm the youngest.
 
The inexperienced one.
 
The one who doesn't understand."

He said the last three words with great emphasis, repeating the phrase he had heard from both Rotin and Caseo.

"My daughter just died from that poison."

"I know," Touched said.
 
"We stay in here because of that poison.
 
We lost the war because of that poison.
 
But it's safe here.
 
And Rotin likes to be safe."

"What of the others?"

Touched studied Rugar.
 
He truly appeared not to know.
 
Ah, well.
 
Touched had nothing to lose.
 
He had never gained anything in the first place.
 

"The others?" Touched said.
 
"Your father gave you Caseo for reasons I don't understand, but I understand why he gave you the others."

"Caseo was my personal Warder," Rugar said.
 
"But my father chose the others."

Touched shook his head.
 
"If Caseo chose the others, he wouldn't have chosen me.
 
He hated me.
 
Thought I was talented, but hated me nonetheless.
 
Upstart, he said.
 
Inexperienced.
 
And I was.
 
I am."

Rugar frowned, as if trying to assimilate this news.
 
"But the others?"

"Are no better than Rotin.
 
Your father had to have had a hand in this.
 
He sent the worst of the Warders with you.
 
Me, the youngest ever; Rotin, so addicted to herbs she doesn't care if she sticks her whole hand in a vat of poison; Ceel, who has never been able to do more than Domestic spells — I could go on if you want."

Rugar shook his head.
 
"I think you're exaggerating."

"If I were exaggerating, we would not be sitting in Shadowlands," Touched said.

Rugar walked up the stairs.
 
His weight bent the wood.
 
He rapped on the door, and then opened it.
 

Touched didn't move.
 
He didn't even turn around.
 
He knew what Rugar would find, and he knew that it would make him angry.
 
The door snicked closed, and inside he heard voices.
 

The air was chill.
 
Shadowlands always made Touched think of a deep fog bank, so deep that a man inside it couldn't see the house on the next rise.
 
The analogy wasn't quite apt — he could see everything in Shadowlands — but it looked as if it grew out of fog.
 
No trees, no ground, no wildlife.
 
Only houses, and Fey, and grayness.

Rugar's voice sounded loud but his words were impossible to make out.
 
Then Rotin answered him, her voice fainter than his.
 
Rugar responded again and this time Touched heard a word that made a shiver run down his back.

Enchanter.

He had felt an Enchanter years ago, had actually developed a spell for one before Caseo laughed at him and told him the spell was worthless.
 
No Enchanter had come on the ships to Blue Isle.
 
No Enchanter, but the troop did have a second rate Shaman, and a Visionary who was Blind.
 
Even a Blind Visionary should have been able to see that such a journey was doomed.

Rugar hadn't seen at all.

Touched had been too young to understand the ramifications, the others too uninformed.
 
Caseo had known, but Caseo, like Rugar, had believed that the Fey were strong enough to beat any odds.

The conversation rose to shouts, then the door opened and Rugar came out.
 
He slammed the door behind him and whirled, a movement that would have been dramatic had he worn a cape.
 
As it was, the movement made him look even smaller than he had a moment ago.

"Four years of nothing?" he said to Touched, voice still raised.
 
"
Nothing?!
"

Touched shrugged.
 
"Some of us tried.
 
But none of us were capable alone."

"We stayed here because of four years of nothing."
 
Rugar was speaking softly, almost to himself.
 
"Nothing."
 
Then he looked up.
 
"Do you think you can come up with an antidote to their poison?"

Touched felt the back of his throat go dry.
 
He had once thought he had a solution, only as Caseo reminded him, there was no one to perform it.
 
"I think so," he said.
 
"If you introduce me to that Enchanter you mentioned."

Rugar put his hands on his hips.
 
"Were you listening in?"

Touched shook his head.
 
"It shouldn't matter.
 
I should have been in there in the first place."

A small smile played at Rugar's lips.
 
"Yes," he said.
 
"You should have."
 
The smile disappeared.
 
"I don't know if we have an Enchanter.
 
If we do, it's in an unlikely source."

Unlikely source, and one that did not come across the Infrin Sea.
 
Gift?
 
There seemed to be no one else.
 
"I can conduct tests if you like."

Rugar tilted his head.
 
"I should have the Shaman do that."

"The Shaman won't conduct the kind of tests we need.
 
We need to know if we have an Enchanter and if the Enchanter is powerful.
 
The Shaman will simply Look and give us a vague pronouncement based on a future she doesn't want to reveal."
 
Touched's heart was pounding.
 
He hadn't moved, but he felt as if he were showing too much eagerness.
 
He had grown up with an Enchanter, and had been there when the Shaman came in and tested him, then when the Warders had.
 
Nothing would erase the moment from his mind when Warders looked at his friend with shock mixed with awe.