Once A Hero (54 page)

"She told you this?"

Gena frowned sharply. "No. She did not like talking about Neal's death, but I was able to coax things out of her, and that is the impression she gave me. She would speak of him and his deeds, but never about the feelings they shared. Even so, I know she loved him deeply." She looked down at the stone tomb so far below. "Once a month she would enter the tomb and she would look at him. I think she wanted to take the chance to bring him back, but she dared not be selfish."

Shrugging, she continued. "I am willing to take the chance, because, if I do not, your family will die and Rik's death will go unavenged."

They crossed the branch bridge in silence; then Gena stopped when she saw her grandfather standing alone in the middle of the Consilliarii chamber. On his right arm he wore his insigne nuptialis—the one Rik had recovered—and she knew he put it on only at times of importance and ceremony. "Grandfather? Are you going to try to stop me?"

The one-eyed Elf looked from her to Berengar and back again. "If I did, you would ignore me."

"I would listen."

"I know you would, Genevera." He watched her closely. "Are you prepared for this? It will not be easy."

"I know. I have studied Larissa's notes and I have rested. I can and will succeed, grandfather."

"I am certain you will. Please, indulge me in one thing; remember that for all the stories and legends, Neal is just a Man. And he was once my friend." Aarundel folded his arms, and Gena thought he meant his speech for Berengar and not for her. "If he cannot solve your problem, it is not his fault, but if he can, do not be amazed. I have learned there was not much he considered impossible."

Berengar narrowed his eyes. "You approve of what we are doing?"

"I will not gainsay you." Aarundel stepped aside, then followed them as they passed through the chamber and onto the staircase spiraling around the trunk of the tree.

Walking down to the tomb, Gena remembered all the previous pilgrimages to that site she had made with Larissa—only realizing this time that she actually did consider them pilgrimages. Her grandaunt had not spoken much during the visits, yet afterward they would sit in the shadow of the tomb, and she would entertain Gena's questions about Neal and his life.

It occurred to her that she had not visited the tomb since the last time she and Larissa had done so together. After that last trip Larissa had given her the bracelet and told her that she was going beyond. When I asked why she was going away, she just told me her work was done. Gena felt a shiver run down her spine. She went beyond and I left Cygestolia.

Each step down took her back in time to the previous visits. She wore the same sort of white cotton gown Larissa had demanded she wear on their visits, and she had gathered her hair back into a thick braid as her grandaunt had done. She imagined herself now taking her grandaunt's place, and that idea both chilled and pleased her. Larissa had always seemed more responsible than Gena had, so accepting that responsibility made her happy, yet it also inspired fear in her.

She rubbed at the bracelet and felt the Man-runes slide beneath her fingers. She knew they defined Neal and that it had been created by him, but its association with her grandaunt made it so much more to her. The bracelet was a piece of history, frozen in time, just as was the man who had pounded it out of shapeless metal.

The small stone building loomed larger as she walked across the grassy sward toward it. The grass felt cold on her bare feet, and the earth vaguely moist. Everything smelled very much alive around the stone monument to death. The sunlight poured down upon her, yet its warmth failed to reach her. A chill of doubt came to her as she reached the stone-blocked doorway.

Will Neal want this? That question had not occurred to her before, and it made her hesitate. Just as quickly as it had come, an answer followed, and she smiled. Larissa's tales had all stressed Neal's devotion to Mankind and to protecting it. If he had been able to foresee the trouble his actions long ago would have wrought, he would have refrained from taking them. And if he was forced to act to repair the damage, he would. Of this she had no doubt, and she took the Aurdonian ghost stories as confirmation of Neal's desires.

She turned from the rough-hewn, blocky granite building and faced the two males behind her. "Only I may enter the tomb. Larissa cast spells in there that protect Neal, and without this bracelet you could be hurt. You may watch from the doorway—I always did—but be quiet. I am not certain what I am going to find, and I will need to concentrate."

Aarundel nodded and stepped back a couple of paces. "Count Berengar and I will wait here."

Berengar's expression told her that he did not like that idea, but he withdrew to Aarundel's side. "Good luck."

She nodded and faced the tomb once again. The arched doorway had been filled with a single slab of stone polished until the surface reflected her face back at her. She forced a smile, but butterflies flitted through her stomach. She felt sweat rising on her upper lip, so she let her body shudder once to burn off nervous energy; then she set herself for the task at hand.

Gena looked up at the golden script carved into the stone above the arch. "Neal Roclawzi/Custos Sylvanii. A great hero and greater friend." As she spoke the words, she felt the thrill of hearing stories from Larissa and her grandfather race through her again. With what I am going to do, I will add to the legend and become part of it.

She raised her right arm and pressed the bracelet against the keystone of the arched doorway. The stone blocking the door went from grey with flecks of black to a milky white. It then faded through translucency to transparency before evaporating altogether. She caught a musty, dry scent from the tomb as warm air drifted out from the stone enclosure.

She lingered a moment in the doorway, seeing Neal again as she had seen him so many times before. Lying there on a stone slab, his feet toward her and his head on a stone pillow at the far end, he appeared to be sleeping, not dead. She knew the clothes he wore had been enchanted so the yellow silk tunic and green silk breeches would not age and decay, and she guessed that Larissa herself had sewn them together.

Gena stepped across the threshold with the reverence appropriate for entering into the presence of someone sacred. As she walked around his feet to his left side—exactly where Larissa had always stood—Neal's physical size impressed her. Not only had he been tall, but very robust as well. Scars crisscrossed the hands folded on his chest, with the burn scar on the back of his left hand being predominant among them. His sharp cheekbones, straight nose, and strong jaw gave him a look so vital, it mocked death.

She realized, as she looked down at him, that his chin and his cheekbones reminded her of Rik. His hands, though larger than Rik's were, had the same proportions. His hair, though a shade lighter than Durriken's had been, featured the same sort of ragtag utilitarian cut and length favored by Men who were more worried about being able to see than about being seen. Because of the resemblance she found herself liking the Man lying there in front of her even before life had returned to him.

Then she caught herself. Do I see Rik in him, or did I see him in Rik? That question shook her to her core. Gena wondered if, when Larissa went beyond, she had decided her grandaunt had abandoned Neal. Had that prompted her to go out into the world of Men to find her own Neal, and had she done that in Rik? She recalled measuring Berengar by her image of Neal, and she feared she had used the same yardstick to measure Durriken.

She shivered. Enough time for that later. I need to figure out the spells here. With her entry into the room, she knew she faced multiple sets of spells. The first came from the clothes on Neal and, she suspected, a glamour that kept the roses in his cheeks and the color in his hair. Larissa had warned her about protective spells, and she could pick some of them out from the background, but she could not identify all of them clearly. She felt she would have had more success trying to pick out individual instruments in an orchestral recital in Jarudin than she would isolating and identifying each spell.

That difficulty did not worry her because she knew the bracelet she wore functioned as a key to all those spells. Larissa had woven her magick strong to protect Neal, but in giving Gena the bracelet she had transferred mastery of those spells over to her. Gena knew she would be operating in a safe environment. She had reread all of her grandaunt's notes on what she had hoped would be a way to save Neal from his death, and she felt certain she could command all the spells she needed to do the job. Care and caution would allow her to take things one step at a time so she could do it right.

Gena rubbed her hands together and rolled her head around to loosen her neck. She ignored the sweat dribbling down from her temples and started to control her breathing. "Right. First thing is to remove this glamour. Once I see what I'm working with, I'll know which spell goes when."

Magery had any number of ways to counteract spells. Other spells could crush, dissolve, or slice through magicks, but each of them required an expenditure of energy greater than that used to cast the original spell. Gena chose to unweave the spell, and toward that end she used a small diagnostic spell that helped define the nature of the glamour. Once she had done that, she had an idea how the spell had been begun and completed, so she focused her attention on the end point. By simply manipulating time and chance, she unmade the end point; then the whole spell began to unravel.

As the glamour began to evaporate, Gena saw the true Neal Roclawzi, and she recoiled from him. Blood covered his pale, grey face—old, dried blood that had broken into tiny chips like a sun-dried mudflat. The silk clothes turned into soiled rags stiff with blood and dirt that covered his loins and little else. Open, ulcerated wounds formed a cross on his chest running from throat to navel, flank to flank. Multiple bruises covered him in purple, swollen bumps, and she saw an odd lump where at least one rib appeared to have been broken. His left ankle had swollen up to the size of a small melon, and his left foot canted in at an unnatural angle.

Her mind began to reel as she saw Neal's battered and abused body. She felt as if she could not breathe, and she knew she was beginning to panic. She fought to regain control of herself, but something in the tomb prevented her from doing that. Struggle as she might against it, she could not focus, yet through the fog in her mind she realized she had triggered a massive magickal trap and she had no way of counteracting it!

The spells that had lurked in the background swelled as they drew energy from her panic. They used the bracelet as their conduit. A red haze expanded from the corner of the tomb and washed over the body like a dust-cloud. Where it penetrated Neal's flesh, it liquefied the blood on him and sucked it back down through his pores. Flesh that had appeared bruised drained of color, and a pinkish flush colored his skin.

Silvery daggers of microlightning descended from a black cloud that coalesced from the tomb's shadows. Flicking down and back like the feathery kisses of a serpent's tongue, the lightning played over Neal's body. It lingered over open wounds and centered itself on his chest. The little forks all retreated into the cloud; then with a thunderous humming a single solid argent spear stabbed down into the cruciform wound at his navel. With the patience of a caterpillar inching along a branch, the incandescent light-bar worked its way up toward Neal's head. Flesh sizzled in its wake, the greasy vapor rising up into the cloud, but the flesh appeared seamless and unmarked as the smoke rose from it.

The beam lingered over the cross's center point, filling the room with a gout of sickly sweet smoke that made Gena want to vomit. She coughed and the beam flickered for a moment, then continued as she straightened up. It split into three pieces, two running across the wound and the last one up toward Neal's throat. The two flank beams vanished as the third jumped from his throat up to his nostrils. When it plunged in there, she saw light play beneath Neal's closed eyelids and shine out dimly through his ear; then the cloud imploded and the light vanished, leaving her momentarily blinded.

A wave of exhaustion rode over her, and a moment of mental clarity followed in the trough. She knew she was not as tired as she had been when she hastily cast the spell in the Haladin camp, but the two spells that had used her had drained her significantly. Moreover, they drew sustenance from her panic and fear in violation of the Elven dictum to keep emotion out of spells. The emotions made the spells incredibly powerful, but also unpredictable, and that frightened Gena horribly.

She tried to stop a third spell from vampirizing her, but that took more of an effort than she could muster. Gena did tenaciously cling to a small portion of vitality, bolstered in her efforts by knowing that if she lost it, the magicks could wring her free of life and discard her like a dry husk.

A blue-gray light bled up through the stone bier upon which Neal lay and became so bright that all she could see was his skeleton in silhouette. The light pulsed once, then dimmed, and it appeared as if Neal's flesh had become steel. The spot over his broken ribs suddenly glowed red, and sparks shot from it as a metallic hammering echoed in the tomb and shuddered through her. Likewise his left ankle glowed and sparked; then the light flared again and Neal returned to normal, save his ankle and rib no longer showed signs of injury.

Dizziness swept over Gena as the fourth spell started to draw on her for power. Somehow she knew this was the final spell, the one that would complete the task she had come to perform. She had wanted to be the master of the spelt, directing it and using it, but she found herself just a component in it. Larissa had betrayed her, and the last spell sucked up her outrage like a sponge.

Heat flashed over her body and she thought she might faint. She fought the weakness, and the spell skimmed her defiance off to feed itself. Gena knew she was being manipulated, but every emotional response was anticipated and harvested.