The Summoner (43 page)

Vahanian, his face contorted with rage, stepped forward, sword drawn. “By the Whore!” he cried. “Let her go!”

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“What do you expect to do with that sword?” Carroway said quietly. “That’s still Carina’s body.”

Gathering all his courage, Tris moved to block the shuffling form. “By all the faces of the Lady and all the power of the Goddess,” he swore in a low, still voice. “Return her spirit and go your way.”

“Not yet,” a voice replied, emanating from Carina’s mouth though it was not the healer’s voice nor did Carina’s lips move. “Not until I have what I came for.”

“You cannot take this body,” Tris replied steadily, holding his ground. “It is not yours.”

A chilling laugh broke the moonless night. “It is mine now.”

Tris lunged forward, wrapping Carina in a tight embrace as the spirit made the healer’s form buck and struggle. On instinct, Tris held on as he called together all his strength, and breathing a prayer to the Dark Lady, closed his eyes and plunged into the darkness.

Down, down he traveled, just as once before, when Vahanian lay dying, he and Carina had taken a similar inward journey. The healer’s body convulsed in his arms, trying to tear itself from his grip as he drove resolutely onward in his mind. Just as Carina nearly wrenched herself from his grasp, Tris felt powerful arms encircle both of them.

“Whatever the hell you’re doing, we won’t let her get away,” Tris heard Vahanian swear, his voice distant, as the mercenary and Carroway tightened their grip.

With a scream of rage, Carina’s form went slack, and Tris dove downward, pursuing the spirit of his ghostly visitor. Give her back, he commanded as he hurtled through the darkness of the 364

pathworking.

Take her if you can, Lord of the Dead, the ghost taunted. She is mine now.

It seemed to Tris that he and the ghost reached the glowing life thread in the same instant, and in a sudden flash of horror, Tris realized the ghost intended not to break the fragile strand, but to stretch out her own presence along it, driving out Carina’s spirit and replacing it with her own.

Lady of Darkness, hear me! Tris cried as he made his desperate gamble. Once before, he’d borrowed from the glow of his own thread to hold Vahanian to life. Now, Tris threw himself on the blue‐white thread, overlaying it with his own life’s strand, and with all of his will, drove back the ghost in the brightness of its glow.

No! the ghost girl screamed, and Carina’s body contorted wildly. Hanging on with every bit of power he could summon, Tris held the image of the two glowing strands in his mind as he felt his friends’ arms tighten around him, holding fast as Carina convulsed and beat at them with her fists. The glow grew stronger, pushing back the darkness, and finally, as a cry tore from Carina’s throat and stabbed through Tris’s mind, he hurled the darkness from them, leaving only the glow behind.

For a heartbeat, everything was silent. Then Tris felt the glow of Carina’s life strand pulse stronger and, gently, he drew back, relieved and amazed, to see the healer’s thread glow steadily on its own. As Tris came back to himself, Carina sagged against him and would have fallen except for the support of the arms that encircled them. Tris felt his knees buckle, and it was sheer willpower that kept him on his feet as the fatigue swept over him, leaving him utterly spent.

There was only the crunch of snow behind them as a warning, and then Carroway staggered as something struck him from behind. Tris glimpsed one clawed hand over the bard’s shoulder as Vahanian released his grasp and reached for his sword.

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“Look… at… me…” Words rasped from the corpse’s mouth as it clawed at Carroway. The bard, eyes wide with terror, beat back the lurching form, tripping over himself in his haste to break free. Vahanian stepped forward, sword drawn, interposing himself between the reanimated corpse and Tris and Carina, who slumped together behind him.

“Dark Lady take my soul,” the mercenary breathed. “Get back!”

The thing lurched toward him, once again. Just as the first light of dawn broke over the horizon, Vahanian’s sword swung down with all his might, glinting in the pink glow of morning.

“No, please!” came the strangled cry from the dead girl’s unmoving mouth as the blade connected with a sickening thud, and as the sun glistened on the snow, cleaved through the corpse with a mighty blow. The body fell at Vahanian’s feet, once more silent and lifeless.

“What happened?” The voice that broke the stillness was Carina’s, and from the baffled look on the healer’s face, Tris was sure she had no idea of what transpired, nor why she found herself in his arms.

“What do you remember?” Carroway breathed, rejoining them. His face was ashen and his eyes wide.

Carina pushed back a little from Tris, then a look of complete exhaustion crossed her face and she did not struggle to break away. “I heard someone calling me,” she said, looking at Tris searchingly. “Maybe I dreamed it, but it seemed so real. I got up and walked over to the well, but no one was there.” She shuddered, remembering. “I looked into the well and saw a face staring back at me.” She paused. “That’s all I remember,” she said, leaning hard against Tris as Carroway helped them to their feet. Reflexively, Tris put his arm around her, and patted her hair as if he were comforting a small child. A strange look crossed Vahanian’s face in the instant 366

before the fighter turned away.

“Let’s get out of here,” Vahanian said roughly.

“Tris, what happened?” Carina asked once more, stepping back and looking at him search‐ingly.

Berry ran to her and flung her arms around the healer, burying her face in Carina’s robe.

Tris glanced away, unsure how to answer. “A ghost called you,” he began, telling the tale as best he could with Berry jumping in from time to time to fill in the gaps. Vahanian and Carroway loaded up the horses as they talked, refusing resolutely to look over to where the sundered corpse lay in the morning light. A look of horror crossed Carina’s face as she looked from Tris to the body of the girl, then to the well, and for a moment, she was silent.

“But how—” she started and stopped. “How did her body come back to life?”

Tris forced himself to stare at the corpse. “I don’t know for certain,” he admitted. “When I pushed her spirit away, all I cared about was throwing it clear,” he said in a hushed voice. “They say that at dawn, the spirit world is closer to our own. Maybe it was close enough for her to try to take back her own body, and close enough for Jonmarc to be able to strike her down.”

“Thank you,” Carina managed finally, looking first to Tris and then to the others. “Thank you so much.”

“All in a day’s work,” Vahanian replied sarcastically. “Now can we get the hell out of here?”

Tris took a step toward the camp, felt his knees buckle, and stumbled. Carroway caught him as his head swam, pounding with a headache from the working.

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“What damn good is magic if you feel like shit after you’ve used it?” Tris swore under his breath, struggling to walk with Carroway’s assistance.

“If it’s any consolation, Carina doesn’t look any better. Can you ride?” Carroway asked.

“Give me a cup of kerif and a candlemark to collect my writs,” Tris asked as Carroway helped him to a seat by the fire. “And then we’ll ride, even if you have to tie me to the horse.”

Vahanian went to calm their mounts, and Carroway pressed a cup of the strong, bitter drink into Tris’s hands, then made sure Carina had a warm cloak and a cup of her own. Tris could feel the way they were staring at him, as if he had suddenly become nearly as strange and fearful a thing as the corpse in the glade behind them. Carroway went to help Vahanian, and Carina settled into a seat beside Tris, saying nothing for a while.

Mercifully, Carina did not ask the questions he knew she must be thinking. With the headache that pounded behind his eyes, Tris doubted he could supply more than one‐word answers. He had only been partly joking about the need to be lashed to his horse. While Vahanian might have had the experience of riding back from battle more dead than alive, Tris felt as spent as if he had completed an exhausting day’s labor without food or a night’s sleep.

Sweet Lady, if this is what a real working takes, then I better get it right the first time when I take on Arontala, because I’m hardly likely to survive it, Tris thought. For the first time, he considered the possibility that magic and not battle might kill him before he could take the crown. Even if I don’t live to be king, they can hardly find someone worse than Jared if I can just take down Arontala, he thought, before the pounding in his head made thinking too painful.

Though no one mentioned the incident for the rest of the morning, of one accord they rode more slowly. Tris managed to stay seated on his horse without lashing himself to the saddle, but only just, and he doubted that he could have kept his seat at a gallop. Carina was too unsteady to ride unassisted, and accepted Vahanian’s offer to share his horse without her usual barb.

They rode as hard as they dared, anxious to put as much distance between themselves and the 368

haunted well as they could.

By late morning, when Carroway’s time riding point was over, he let his horse drift back to match the stride of Tris’s mount. They rode side by side in silence for a while, until Carroway finally spoke.

“Are you all right?” he inquired awkwardly. “You look a bit worse for wear.”

Tris managed a haggard smile. “I’ll get over it.”

Carroway looked as if he were about to say something, thought better of it, and began again.

“Tris,” he started, “before your grandmother died… did she ever tell you that you were—”

“Her mage heir?” Tris supplied with a hint of bitterness in his voice. “No. But then again there are things I see in dreams, workings that I did with her that I didn’t remember at all.” He paused, staring at his hands.

“Are mages born or made?” he continued. “You know, I’ve been able to see the ghosts at the palace, talk with them—not just on Haunts, but all year— ever since I can remember. But this…”

his voice drifted off, lacking the words to continue.

“Your grandmother was the greatest summon‐er of the age,” Carroway replied thoughtfully. “I often wondered why no one in her line seemed to have her talent. I guess we have our answer.”

Tris’s head still ached, but he could sense that Carroway needed to understand. “When I was little, grandmother let me tag along, watch her do her workings. When I got older, she let me help—simple things like calling a flame to light a candle or the fireplace, small workings. There were some that she let you help with, too,” he said, and Carroway nodded.

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“I always thought it was her way of giving me something special, since I was the second son.”

Tris gave a lopsided smile. “We all know second sons are only spare parts,” he added. “When she swore us to secrecy, I figured that was because Jared would pitch a fit if I got to do something and he didn’t.”

Tris paused, waiting out a stab of pain from his throbbing head. “Then right before I went for fostering, she brought you in on more workings, and we did some complicated magic. When I came back from fostering, grandmother was ill.” He looked off at the horizon, remembering.

“Don’t you remember? She asked that I be the one to serve her. I guess they didn’t have any better use for me, so they let me. I was with her when she died.”

“Did anything… unusual… happen?” Carroway pressed gently.

Tris looked at him, frowning against the headache, and against the blank in his memories. “I don’t remember. That’s the problem. I never noticed before, but there seem to be whole stretches with her that I don’t remember. Goddess, I’ve tried! But I can’t.” He looked down at the reins in his hands. “Back with the caravan, Carina and Alyzza helped me with some basic things. Grandmother came to me in a dream, told me that I would remember the training she made me forget—for my own safety—until it was needed.” He gave a sharp, mirthless laugh.

“Well, I can’t think of needing it more than now, but so far, I still can’t remember.”

Carroway listened in silence, as if he were carefully weighing what Tris was saying. “Perhaps,” he said finally, “things will seem more clear when we reach the Library.”

“I hope you’re right,” Tris said fervently, closing his eyes as his head throbbed again, “because there’s far too much at stake to try to make this up as I go.”

Breakfast was eaten cold as they rode, and they would have done the same for lunch had Carina not begged them to stop. For once, she and Vahanian did not spar the entire morning. The morning’s battle had cast a cloud over all of them, Tris thought as he sat by the small fire. He 370

was thankful when the evening came with no further surprises awaiting them, and they made a cold camp that night, just a few days’ journey from where the river set the boundary between Dhasson and Principality.

CHAPTER TWENTY‐FOUR

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Tris and the group rode in silence as the road wound toward Westmarch. A cold rain fell. It was Tris’s turn to ride point, and he found himself jumpy and irritable. Neither Carina nor Carroway were talkative, and twice, Vahanian waved the group ahead while he waited, sword ready, sensing something that did not materialize. At least, Tris thought moodily, he was not the only one with a feeling of foreboding.

Westmarch was near the borders of three kingdoms—Principality, Margolan and Dhasson.

Mindful of Gabriel’s warning about the magicked beasts, the group chose a more northerly route, one which took them further from the Dhasson border. Unfortunately, Gabriel’s warning did not indicate just how far Arontala’s border spell extended. Though it was still daylight, each of them rode with a torch. A bucket of pitch hung from each saddle. Carroway carried two quivers of arrows with burlap‐covered, pitch‐soaked points. Carina wrapped the tip of her stave in burlap and pitch, and Tris counted on his ability to conjure fire. Berry, riding close to Carina, had her own weapon. She had tinkered with the bard’s recipe for the pellets he contrived for smoke and colors to accompany his tales. A slight adjustment to the proportions yielded small balls that burst into flame on impact. Armed with a slingshot, Berry had a surprisingly accurate aim.