Second Sight: Second Tale of the Lifesong Read online

  She began again. Her ring warmed, and her eyesight sharpened. Clear essence danced through the air all around her. Despite her use of it, there always seemed to be more clear essence, as if it was intrinsic to everything. The clear essence shimmered as she sang. Swirls of rainbow colours hinted at where her voice touched.

  She considered the wounded man. The two arrows had brought infection along the length of their shafts. They would complicate the healing.

  “Bastion!” she called out, keeping the melody of the Lifesong thrumming through her lyre. “Bastion! I need the arrows removed, both of them.”

  The tallest of her wardens came to her side. His loden cloak hung almost to the floor, the cowl hiding his face completely. He would not emerge from that cowl in public. The crowds had to believe he was a warden, one of many healed men who strived to repay the wizard through devoted service.

  Bastion squatted down. He set the stump of his left wrist against the dying man’s chest, and gripped the arrow shaft in his right.

  “Ready?” he asked.

  Tabitha gathered the clear essence, and nodded. As Bastion tore the shaft from the man’s chest, she guided her essence into the fresh wound. Thankfully, the arrow had a slender, armour-piercing head, not the broad-heads some of the men had taken, which opened them terribly. A bloom of blood spilled across his breastplate nonetheless, and the man gaped with the pain. He croaked as Bastion pulled the second arrow free.

  Tabitha had to be quick. She had learnt it was crucial to be focused with the first stanza. One stray thought and the clear essence would turn into whatever she fantasised about. She had to imagine all the flesh that would be replacing the injury; she had to envisage all the organs in their perfect state. There were so many delicate complexities in the human body.

  As she visualised the healing, she sang with all her heart.

  Five small birds arrived, as many had of late, to frolic in the air above her head. They added to the Lifesong with their short trills and warbles, as if they were part of the performance. Tabitha welcomed their joyous calls, but did not let them distract her from the task.

  There were splinters in both wounds. She envisaged flesh sealing the splinters, harder flesh, to protect the rest from damage. She saw the dark poisoned areas within the man, and saw them as healed. She visualised the man as whole and complete in the place where he had been wounded. The power of the Lifesong flooded through her. She touched the place of silent thunder, where a hundred voices joined in song, beyond the clamour of the crowd. She became a channel for the return of life to a place that was dead.

  Then the song was done.

  An awed murmur passed through the crowd. The small birds swirled one last time over Tabitha then flitted through the hall’s open doors. The man on the floor sank back against her knees and breathed a shuddering sigh. His blue eyes were clear of pain. She stroked his forehead.

  “Thank you, your Holiness,” he said. “Thank you.”

  Holiness? She shook her head. I’ve been called Seraph, Saviour, Glory and Enchantress, but never yet Holiness.

  “Rest a while,” she answered. “You need to recover, so eat at our kitchens tonight—eat well. By the morning you should be strong enough to leave, but I urge you to stay and help, if you can. I need strong wardens and I would be honoured to have you helping.”

  The man grinned and nodded.

  A slim youth reached through one of the warden’s legs, and laid his hand on the healed man’s foot, before he was pulled away. The needy palms turned to Tabitha again. Poor folk of Levin, scared folk of Stormhaven, wounded Swords, people of all age and condition. They pressed close; the pleas for favour soon became a clamour, then a roar.

  “My head, my head, touch my head, wizard,” urged a man close to the front of the press. He had dirty bandage wrapped under his chin and over the crown of his head. She recognised him. He came regularly, in various guises, just to be touched.

  “Sing to me, sing to me,” cried a woman as she pushed the bandaged man aside. “I am dying from the sickness, wizard. Look!” she cried, and shamelessly lifted her shift to reveal her scabrous skin and swollen breasts. “Heal me.”

  The woman would not die. Tabitha had to conserve her strength for the serious ailments. She tried to turn away from the pleading masses, but they were all around her.

  “Touch me!”

  “Heal me!”

  “Save me!”

  “Make me beautiful.”

  “Riches! Wizard, I offer you gold! Make me young again!”

  Tabitha covered her ears with her hands.

  “Bastion, get me out of here!”

  He dropped to one knee before her and turned so that she could mount his shoulders. He took her weight, and rose. She was lifted above the sea of heads and palms.

  “Make way!” he commanded. “Make way! Wardens, an escort!”

  The wardens fought through the press of humanity. The people didn’t part easily. Hands reached up to touch Tabitha’s legs, her boots and her robe. She clutched onto her lyre, so it would not be pulled from her. The crowd followed them, like a school of hungry fish feeding on a lump of raw meat.

  They took too much, always too much.

  She could sing no more.

  _____

  Tabitha collapsed onto the bed.

  The door was closed, bolted and barred against the flood of followers outside. Their room was cool and almost quiet. Bastion sat beside her and just held her for a time. She hoped it wasn’t his desire to touch the magic of the wizard that made him do it. Then she recognised her own callousness born of fatigue and she returned Bastion’s embrace. He was strong and he smelled of healing oils and wool.

  She must not forget who he was.

  It was better that the crowds did not know the truth about him. Garyll Glavenor had wanted to leave Levin altogether, because some regarded him a traitor. His word had led them into the false battlefront. His command had opened the gates to the Shadowcasters. Such critics ignored that it was his blade that had slain the Darkmaster and without him there might have been no survivors at all. Still, he had made a deal that troubled Tabitha. How could he have traded the defence of Stormhaven just to keep her safe?

  He was no longer respected, as he had once been. He had set the title of Swordmaster aside. He stayed in Levin because she needed him, to keep her safe among so many people.

  “Will they ever leave me be?” she asked.

  “If you stop performing for them, perhaps.”

  Tabitha reached for Garyll’s cowl. He stayed her hands, an automatic reaction, but then he accepted her gentle touch. Tabitha looked into his eyes—so dark, so deep, those complex currents which hid the hurt.

  “How can I stop, when they are in such need?”

  “Aye, I understand that you cannot stop. But rest, regain your strength. You wither before my eyes.”

  “People are dying while I sleep, Garyll. People are suffering and crying.”

  “You cannot change all the world, my love. You have done more than anyone to bring life to Eyri. Rest now. You really need to sleep.” Garyll kissed her gently on the forehead then rose and went to the hearth.

  Tabitha smiled. Her skin tingled where he had kissed her. There was a warm place in her heart, and the warmth softened her body’s brittleness. Garyll had his own kind of magic, though he was not aware of it. She wished he had kissed her lips.

  He began to lay a fire. It was not really cold, but Tabitha understood his habit. It would be a companion, to hold back the night. He didn’t like it being completely dark, anymore. Garyll struck a spark off his flint and blew on the kindling.

  Their cottage was small, by Levin standards, but it was perfect. Tabitha hadn’t intended to stay for long, but the healing work demanded that she be near the hall. It was still difficult to accept the way the occupants of the cottage had so suddenly offered her the place to stay, for as long as she wished, for free. Her fame had strange consequences, honours and noble preferences that reste
d uncomfortably on her shoulders. But, sometimes, such privileges could be useful. They had the cottage to themselves.

  “That’ll catch ablaze in a moment,” said Garyll, straightening from his task. “I’ll leave you, then, your Grace.”

  “Garyll! Please don’t call me that again. It might serve Bastion in the hall, but I’m Tabitha when we’re here together, not Grace or Eminence or anything like that.”

  “You are too humble of your abilities.”

  “What I do should not come between us.”

  “How can it not? You gift life! I have only ever captured, punished, or killed. Sometimes I feel very small, beside you.” He made for the door to the next room.

  Small? Tabitha thought. Garyll Glavenor was a towering icon of justice in Eyri. Or so he had been. The Darkmaster had taken much from him.

  “Garyll, wait,” she said. “Don’t go.”

  He paused. “It would be best for you to get some rest now,” he said gruffly.

  “Stay with me tonight.”

  He turned slowly, but shook his head. “And repeat that night in Stormhaven?” He didn’t need to explain. The heartache she had caused by trying to seduce him was still fresh in her memory.

  “Will you ever forgive me?” she asked.

  “You? It was never you who needed forgiveness.”

  “Garyll, I—”

  But he was gone, in a swirl of his green cloak. Silence, as he stood waiting, or thinking. Then the bed creaked in the room next door, and his boots thumped to the floor, one after the other.

  I forgive you, damn it! Tabitha thought, but she had told him that before, and telling him had changed nothing. The only way for Garyll to find peace was for him to forgive himself. The more she came to know his discipline, the more unlikely that seemed. She wished he wasn’t so severe with himself.

  But then he wouldn’t be Garyll. He set his standards so high, that he was made taller just by reaching for them. Any other man would have given up trying to be Garyll Glavenor long ago. She wanted to be close to him so badly, but there was a chasm between them—a divide scribed in darkness.

  She considered demanding he return and lie beside her; compelling him. Then she knuckled her eyes. She was too tired to think straight. It was a stupid idea—she didn’t want to use her power to manipulate. That was how the trouble had begun in the first place, in his quarters in the Swordhouse in Stormhaven.

  Tabitha’s thoughts turned over and over; despite her exhaustion, she couldn’t sleep. She stared at the flames as they rose higher through the wood Garyll had left in the hearth. There had to be a way to heal the man she loved.

  A small sound came from the kitchen. Tabitha couldn’t see past the reed screen. The glow of the fire was suddenly too dull. Her hearing sharpened as her need activated the Ring and brought a rush of clarity.

  Breathing. There was somebody in the kitchen, someone who shouldn’t be there.

  Something skittered on the kitchen floor, and the intruder cursed under his breath. Tabitha backed to the fireplace. Her hands found the fire-iron.

  Garyll came through his door in a blur. There was a surprised yelp from the kitchen, scuffling then angry whispers. Tabitha tiptoed to the edge of the screen.

  Garyll held a waif by the back of his collar. “Please, Bastion-sir,” he croaked, “I just wanted a see the wizard, I not be stealing anything, please mister-warden-sir.” The boy’s face was pale in the moonlight and he shivered with fright.

  “Garyll, it’s alright,” Tabitha assured him. “I—”

  “No,” he hissed. “Treat with this urchin now, and tomorrow there’ll be another fifty trying to get in this window if he tells of his success. I’ll not have it! He’s not even injured. Out you go, rubbish!” Garyll lips were firmly set.

  “You’re not Bastion, you’re the Swordmaster!” crowed the boy.

  In his haste, Garyll had forgotten to raise his cowl. It was dark in the kitchen, but evidently not dark enough to hide his characteristic square jaw and sleek black hair from the urchin’s sharp eyes, and she had named him Garyll.

  “Out!”

  “No, Master Glavenor, no, I must see the wizard, I must, I’m dying, I’m sick, very very sick.” The urchin coughed, and clutched at his chest. “All I want is a healing, a touch from the wizard.”

  Suddenly there was another figure in the window, and a third person muttered urgently from outside.

  “No, out!” commanded Garyll, and head-butted the urchin hard, releasing him to stagger back toward the window. The muscles in Glavenor’s neck were corded; his jaw caught the light from the lamps like a hard fist.

  “Garyll!” Tabitha called out in fright.

  A mug fell from the intruder’s pocket and shattered upon the tiles.

  “Stealing as well?” Garyll gripped the boy again.

  The boy began to cry. “It’s a thing what the wizard used, it’s a blessed thing, it’s a holy thing—anything what is near the wizard is.” He squirmed in Garyll’s grip, trying to reach the nearest piece of the broken mug, but Garyll jerked him upright and lifted him clear of the floor.

  “You’ll take nothing with you—you’re hoping to sell it, this talisman. Begone! The wizard deserves peace!” He thrust the boy roughly through the open window, flailing legs and all.

  “And don’t you come back, or I’ll break your bones, all of you!” he shouted into the night after the sound of hastening footsteps. He closed the shutters and bolted them before closing the windows again. “There’s always a hole the wardens can’t close,” he muttered as he crossed the kitchen to where Tabitha still hid. “You alright?”

  “He was just a boy, Garyll. Just a boy.”

  He didn’t meet Tabitha’s eyes. “He was making bad choices.”

  Garyll left. There was a long moment before his bed creaked in his room.

  _____

  Later, when the fire had burnt so low the coals only peeped from their covering of ash like rubies in old snow, Tabitha reached for her lyre. Garyll slept at last. She could hear the steady rhythm of his breathing in the next room. She drew her nightgown close, and tiptoed through the silent cottage.

  He was stretched upon his bed, still fully clothed except for his boots.

  Oh Garyll, the battle is over, she thought. We have won. His foe was still with him.

  His brow was furrowed. His cheeks were still hollow, though he had regained some of the weight that the tortures at Ravenscroft had stolen from him. His scarred eyelids flickered as his eyes danced in the clutch of a vivid dream.

  Suddenly he arched his back then reached out his hand as if to grasp something in the air. “No!” he cried out. “You said their lives would be spared!” He curled inward upon the bed. “What girl?” he cried. “Cabal! She must not come here!”

  Tabitha recognised the nightmare. In the depth of his tortures, so he had told her, he had made a pact with the Darkmaster, to save Tabitha from harm. But the Darkmaster had compelled him thereafter, to return to Stormhaven and betray the city’s defence. He saw it as the moment when he had become a traitor.

  “So dark, so cold,” Garyll murmured. He gripped the fabric at his throat. She knew he held an imaginary Darkstone in his clenched fist. She had released his orb, but in his dreams he remembered what it had been. For a terrible time, he had been a Shadowcaster, bonded to Cabal’s will.

  “Forgive yourself, Garyll, the darkness within you has gone,” she whispered.

  Garyll kicked out at the air and writhed on his blankets. A new scene was playing its torture across his mind, another betrayal from which he would find no release. “I shall hold the Gate!” he cried. “I shall hold it. I shall hold it.” Garyll rocked from side to side.

  Tabitha brushed the lyre with her fingertips, just a tracing of music, like a breath of air through a willow tree. Garyll’s fists slowly unclenched. Tabitha had to resist the urge to reach out and touch him where he lay. If he awoke she would lose her chance, for he would not accept healing from her when he knew ho
w fatigued she was. Her legs shook they were so weak.

  She hummed the familiar melody of the Lifesong but didn’t sing, for there was little wrong with Garyll’s body. She had healed the battle injuries long ago, and he would not allow her to work on his severed hand. She needed something else besides her first stanza. The second was too deadly to even consider. She closed her eyes. There was more to the Lifesong than the words. By opening herself to the power as she hummed, she could reach an awareness beyond language. She followed the delicate currents of sound with her mind to their source. Somewhere, beyond the seen world, was the Goddess Ethea—that presence she had touched before, that potent soul who sang with many voices, who filled her with inspiration. Tabitha suspected that if she could reach out to the Goddess, she might receive an answer to her need, if she was sincere. Maybe she could learn a song that would bring strength to Garyll’s wounded spirit. She sharpened her senses to hear beyond the lyre’s accompaniment. She spread her feeling as she moved along the thread of the Lifesong, upward, tracing the vein of power back to the heart, through faint patterns and symbols, through music, through vastness…

  Quite suddenly she was wrenched away, pulled downward by an overwhelming force. A wailing cry grew in her ears as she spiralled down and down. Tabitha was scared, but she held onto her purpose, because she could feel the Goddess drawing close. She tried to reason her fear away. She told herself the sensations of falling and danger came from her unfamiliarity with the dimension she was in, but her heart beat faster and faster. There was something pulling at her, something awful that had interfered, something that gripped her and the delicate threads of the Lifesong with steel talons. She fell down and down, into a mounting pressure. The wailing cry grew intense. Blaring horns crashed against her. The Goddess was there, in the midst of the chaos. In an instant she saw a great feathered form, iridescent wings splayed wide against a grey stone wall, a high-cheeked beautiful face raised towards her, lips parted in that cry. Tabitha was flattened by a wave of anguish. Ethea, trapped in that place of heaviness and heat.