The Curse in the Gift (The Last Whisper of the Gods Book 2) (40 page)

But her reactions were quick and she compensated before alighting. As she was righting herself, Sorial caused the earth that was now a mere two feet beneath her feet to explode upward in a torrent of dirt and rocks. So powerful was the blast that it obscured her in a cloud of dust and debris. When it cleared, Ariel remained. Her robe was tattered, indicating that she hadn’t fended off everything, but she appeared largely unharmed and had recalibrated her height above the surface to its previous level.

Sorial was out of ideas. In desperation, he tried what he had done with Maraman, thinking something small and almost undetectable might succeed where the ostentatious display had failed. But Ariel easily flicked away the small stone aimed at her head. Sorial called out to his rock wyrm but, even though it was close to the surface awaiting his summons, it couldn’t emerge instantaneously and, even if it had been able to, he was unsure what it could accomplish in these circumstances. She would fend off its attacks as easily as she had his. Now it was her turn.

“Is that it?” she asked. “In two seasons, have you mastered only those few basics? Just surface magic? Nothing deeper? Justin was foolish to be so concerned about you.”

Sorial braced for his sister’s counter-strike even though he had no conception of the form it would take. The air around him remained calm. The sky didn’t cloud with thunderheads. Twenty feet ahead and ten feet up, an unperturbed Ariel floated.

The attack commenced before Sorial realized it was underway. It was simple but effective, a masterful way of using only a little magic to accomplish a great thing. Suddenly, Sorial couldn’t breathe. He gasped but there was no air to inhale. Too late, he realized that, as Alicia could manipulate the water in a man’s body to achieve a desired result, Ariel could steal away a person’s very breath. It was, after all, air. Without spectacle or massive devastation, she had beaten him decisively by the most basic of means: suffocation.

CHAPTER THIRTY: ANOTHER KIND OF HEALING

Sorial felt like a fish, his mouth opening and closing convulsively but unable to suck in air. He had fallen to his hands and knees, although he didn’t recall having done so. His mind was focused but he knew his thinking would deteriorate rapidly if the air deprivation continued. His vision was already starting to blur. The biggest challenge was to stave off panic. That accomplished, it took only a moment to divine a possible means of escape. If he executed a deep underground plunge, he might survive. When he traveled through the earth, he didn’t breathe in the same way he did while on the surface. Therein lay the key, a possible means of escape. Trying it was better than meekly accepting the finality of his loss and hoping the expected intervention came before he died.

But that intervention arrived, rendering an escape plan unnecessary. Just as Sorial was about to sink into the rock and dirt beneath him, he caught sight of a comet of water streaking toward Ariel from behind, riding low and gathering speed with its approach. Alicia had timed her attack well - early enough to save Sorial but late enough to ensure that Ariel was distracted. Had she been aware of her peril, his sister would have been able to block or avoid it. But, with the entirety of her attention focused on her brother’s demise, she was defenseless.

Even at the last, she was oblivious. Alicia’s projectile struck her in the back and exploded on impact, spraying seawater across a wide area, drenching Sorial and everything within fifty feet. Ariel was slammed to the ground with a force roughly equal to what she had unleashed on Warburm. The moment she was down, air rushed back into Sorial’s lungs. He sputtered and choked then started breathing normally again. Alicia was nowhere in sight, but he knew she was out there, as she had been throughout the entire journey - the surprise weapon, waiting to be unbridled as the predator savaged the bait.

Sorial didn’t delay. Ariel looked insensible, but he didn’t take any chances and used the earth beneath her as a means of immobilization. Shrouded in a thin, unbreakable cocoon he wove around the entirety of her body, she would be unable to move, see, hear, or feel once she regained consciousness.  Unfortunately, he knew of no way to block her powers short of killing her and that wasn’t something he intended to do, at least not for the moment. It was an act of the last resort and he hadn’t yet reached that juncture.

As Sorial was completing his sister’s mobile prison, the rock wyrm split the surface with its usual rain of debris. Sorial issued a quick series of mental commands that sent it scuttling off toward the cliff’s edge. It disappeared over the lip only to return moments later with a naked, glistening Alicia on its back. Instead of looking bedraggled after a half-week spent in the ocean, she was radiant. After giving the mighty lizard an incongruous pat on the side, much as she might do with a pony, she dismounted and hurried over to join her husband.

“Is she…?” began Alicia.

“Dead? No. Unconscious and trapped. But I worry that when she wakes up, she’ll be able to tear apart this earthen skin. It’s strong but I doubt it’ll stand up to the efforts of a wizard to remove it.”

“Then we have to make sure she’s not in a position to try.”

“I ain’t gonna kill her. We agreed to that.” They had discussed that subject at great length when formulating the plan.

“I know, but we may not have a choice. If we keep her alive, we’re going to have to drug her and find a way to force-feed her. I may be able to do something to dull her senses, but tampering with her brain isn’t like knitting damaged tissue or purifying blood.”

Sorial rose from his kneeling position and strode briskly to where Warburm lay crumpled on the ground. His chest was rising and falling, but there was blood trickling from his nose and his body was twisted at an unpromising angle. Alicia knelt beside him and put a hand on either side of the innkeeper’s face. She closed her eyes and was quiet for a long moment. When she was done, she stood to face Sorial with a grave expression.

“He has a lot of bruises and some minor damage to his left lung that I can fix or that will heal on its own given time. But his back is broken and there’s nothing I can do for that. Bone is more solid material than water and I can’t repair it. He’ll never walk again.”

“There must be something…”

“Why don’t you try? Sorial, you have a better chance of healing him than I do. Bone is closer to earth than water. I can fix the damage around the break but I can’t reform the bone. The only reason I can ‘see’ it is because it’s surrounded by so much fluid.”

Sorial considered her words. She was right - bone was comprised of many of the constituent elements found in earth. Much of what he had done with Ferguson involved fusing rock with bone - was knitting the latter so different? Experimentation on a broken back wasn’t the best way to make a first attempt but he didn’t have the luxury of other injuries to practice on.

“How do I do it?”

“I wish I could explain. I just touch the person and... it
happens
. It’s like telling how I see or hear or move my fingers.”

Sorial nodded. Maybe one of the differences between being an expert wizard and a novice was the ability to understand the mechanics of how magic worked. If he could deconstruct the process by which he traveled through rock, he was certain he could bring items, and perhaps other people, with him. In formulating a plan of escape from Ariel’s attack, had he begun to understand more about what it truly meant to be The Lord of Earth?

He placed his hand on the back of Warburm’s neck and willed his mind to enter the innkeeper’s body in much the same way he ‘looked’ into rock. It was similar to how he had worked on Ferguson. For a long moment, there was nothing - only a murky, impenetrable blackness. He was lost, floating, disoriented. Then his magical vision latched onto a bone and he saw it as clearly as if he was using his eyes. It took him a moment to recognize it as one of Warburm’s upper arms.

It was a painstaking process to locate the break, primarily because the human skeleton was a mystery to Sorial. He knew horses better than men. Eventually, however, he found the damage - a crack in the lower spine just above the pelvis. As he prepared to work, he realized he wasn’t alone. Alicia had also delved into Warburm and was waiting for Sorial, doing what she could to heal the flesh and muscle around the break. He couldn’t communicate by conventional means but he knew she was there. Her warm and gentle presence was reassuring.

The work was surprisingly easy once he started and, as Alicia had said, it was intuitive - a natural application of his magical abilities. It was a delicate process but not nearly as taxing as moving boulders or building a mountain. Fortunately, the injury was a clean break. Sorial mated the pieces of bone and fused them much like he had attached the prelate’s rock footwear, albeit with infinite delicacy. Bone was more difficult to work with than rock because of its brittleness. He had to be careful not to cause a new fracture when repairing the old one.

The task done to the best of his abilities, he withdrew from Warburm’s body. Alicia was sitting next to him, regarding him with wonder. “That was beautifully done,” she said. “Far better than I can do with flesh and blood. Together, you and I can do some amazing things”

“Now all we can do is wait for Warburm to wake up and see if he can walk. Healing the break doesn’t necessarily mean restoring the use of his lower body. Once he’s ready to travel, the rock wyrm can take us home.”

* * *

“Lad, do you expect me to climb on that thing’s back? That be the same damn beastie that kilt Lamanar!”

Warburm had awakened with a sore head and sore back but no apparent permanent ill effects from being tossed through the air by Ariel’s magic. When informed that the means of their return journey would be the rock wyrm, he balked. His reluctance stiffened after seeing the scarring on the beast’s left eye where he had wounded it during the earlier encounter. The rock wyrm remembered Warburm as well; Sorial’s tight control was the only thing preventing the creature from attacking the only man ever to have hurt it.

“You can walk if you want. Alicia and I are taking the fast way. And, unless you’re going to carry Ariel, we got to find a way to get her to Vantok.”

“I ain’t riding that thing,” repeated Warburm. “As for her, why not kill her here? What good’ll come of bringing her back to Vantok?” Any sympathy he might have harbored for Ariel had vanished when she tossed him into the air like a doll.

“Let him walk,” said Alicia. “There are villages to the east. He can buy a horse and ride the rest of the way home. We have to get going. I have no idea how effective what I did to your sister is and we don’t want her waking up until we have the drugs prepared to keep her under.”

Alicia had probed Ariel’s mind and made a few “adjustments,” but she was unsure whether they would have the desired effect of deepening and prolonging the air-wizard’s unconsciousness. She wasn’t willing to attempt anything more aggressive for fear of doing permanent damage. Sorial wondered if that was a reasonable concern considering Ariel’s grim future but he didn’t push his wife. He knew that, if they could get Ariel to talk, she might be a font of useful information about The Lord of Fire’s plans.

Tying Ariel so she wouldn’t fall off the rock wyrm was more difficult than Sorial anticipated, especially considering Warburm’s reluctance to come within twenty feet of the creature to provide help. The limited flexibility of the stone skin made it problematic to position the unconscious woman.

Although she was naked, the stone skin was as effective as her robes at concealing her form and features. Sorial still had not seen her face. Once they reached Vantok and Ariel was placed in suitable confinement, the stone skin would be removed. Then he would see the ravages of a decade-and-a-half’s usage of magic. A peek into his future, if he was fortunate to live that long. Considering his lackluster performance in today’s duel, that seemed an unlikely eventuality.

“If’n you get a chance, lad, stop by The Wayfarer’s Comfort and let my wife know I be on my way back using the slow route.”

“I’ll see she’s told,” said Alicia, rightly suspecting her husband might be disinclined to make a special trip to the inn for that purpose.

“So you were out there the whole time, watching?” Warburm still hadn’t gotten over his surprise that Alicia had been shadowing them.

Alicia’s answer was a winsome smile. She could still turn on the little girl charm when it suited her.

“Now that the secret’s out, she can be publically acknowledged as a wizard,” said Sorial. “And, as long as Ariel survives, The Lord of Fire can’t replace her. That puts him at a disadvantage. Two to one.” He wondered if that was enough.
Two untried novices against a man who’s been practicing his craft for more than two decades.

“Lad, I wish you’d told me a few of these things before the battle. Here I were thinking it were you’n me out ta kill her, and it all along it were you and yer missus out ta trap her. Coulda saved myself a few bruises if I’d known. Runnin’ an inn ain’t an easy thing ta do with a bad back.”

Sorial shrugged, but the nonchalance was feigned. “I told you to stay out of it. Even if Alicia hadn’t been here, there was nothing you could have done. Wizards can laugh at swords and axes.”
But not always arrows
.

“See you in Vantok, Warburm.”

“Aye, lad, that you will. This time, though, you’ll be gettin’ there afore me.”

Sorial considered mentioning Gorton’s agents, who were probably close by and might be willing to offer assistance, but he decided against it. Warburm was more than capable of finding his way back to Vantok on his own.

* * *

That night, after an arduous day, Sorial and Alicia lay together on a pile of furs in their cellar. Ariel’s capture would eventually break the heat bubble but it would take time. This night was as hot as its immediate predecessors and, having spent several days in cooler locales, the wizards found the heat more oppressive than if they had stayed home. Even in the cellar, they were perspiring.

The trip home had been uneventful. Sorial had brought the rock wyrm closer to city than he had previously dared, then sent Alicia ahead to fetch horses and a litter while he stood guard over Ariel. Her custody had been consigned to Azarak in the early afternoon, whereupon a dose of a potent sleep draught was orally administered and she was placed in a barren cell under round-the-clock guard. He and the king had jointly decided to keep the stone skin in place for a short time as a precaution. After providing a full account of events, Sorial and Alicia had been given leave to go home.

“What’s wrong, stableboy?” asked Alicia. “We won. You’re acting like something went wrong. In the end, none of us was even seriously injured, and you discovered an important new use of your abilities.”

“If you hadn’t attacked, I wouldn’t have been able to beat her.”

“The plan was never for
you
to beat her, it was for you to distract her so
I
could beat her. And that’s exactly what happened. Remember: you were the bait and I was the hammer. Be happy - your strategy worked.”

“I feel like shit for doing that to her. I used Kara’s death as a weapon. She didn’t know about what happened at Ibitsal. I know she was trying to kill me, but she deserved better. She’s as much Ferguson’s victim as Annie. I
despise
that man.”