The very first kiss of dawn was on the sky when I awoke.
When I recall that moment, now, the first thing I remember reaching my senses was a vision of Hester’s tear-streaked face. My head was slightly elevated and he was sitting beside, hunched over me.
The second thing was the gods-awful pain.
Then the fear.
“Hester… ow. Am I…?”
“You’re alive,” he sobbed. Sobbed. “You’re alive, you’re alive.”
“Yeah,” I said weakly. “Yeah.” I tried to feel good for that; it was hard to get any gratitude to break the surface of the pain, but it felt like I owed him that.
“And you’ll stay alive,” Gena said, from somewhere else in the tent. She walked over and sat at the other side of my bed, smiling as warmly as she could manage. “Howe… now or later?”
“Might as well be now,” I mumbled. “Tell me.”
She nodded. “Your leg is broken. Part got crushed by a hoof. It will be months to heal. That’s the worst you have to worry about now.”
The fear surged. “What else?”
“Nothing permanent, thank Ae. The bleeding was very bad. You’re going to be weak for a while. We’ll need to mind the concussion as it heals. But we had help in the immediate aftermath, so everything’s gone as well as can be hoped.”
“Help… wait. Wait. What about…”
“Ormu is fine. Not a scratch. Chethe may lose the good use of his left hand but he’s well otherwise and in good spirits. Eidahn… we’re worried. He took a bad wound to the gut. We’re watching him and doing our best.”
“Ugh.”
“It may be days while we wait to see; best not to worry about it.”
“Hard not to.”
“I know. But you need rest. Think of your state like a physician would.”
“Yeah. My idiot patient can’t spend all his vigor getting worried,” I admitted. I took another look around. This was the tent, our tent, we were having tea in last night, probably just eight or so hours ago. Gena sat beside me. She fidgeted at a piece of gauze in her hands. She was trying not to show it, but she must not have slept at all. Hester sat on the other side, wearing a cloak half soaked in blood, caked with dirt. He was looking off toward the entrance, eyes still glistening. He turned back to meet my gaze. He looked so grateful.
Hester. The man who had butchered the would-be murderer last night. It had begun with the clean application of a blade technique, but it had ended with astonishing, perfect savagery. The knight’s skill and the warrior’s rage.
And here he was weeping for me at my bedside.
“What happened…” to the other attacker, I began to ask, with tense curiosity. What martial hell had he visited on her? And why? Did they know what had driven the two of them into our tent with steel bared?
“Nuh uh. You heard Gena,” he said.
“Yeah. Yeah.” I relented, and, ceasing to cling to my questions, I lay back down on bed.
A few hours later, satisfied that my concussion wasn’t so bad that I might expire at any moment, Gena left me to sleep. I was gone before she reached the tent flap.
I noticed a sensation of irresistible warmth and sweetness upon my chest, abdomen, thighs, under my fingertips and palms. I noticed that the sensation was eerily familiar.
Next I noticed I was in trouble.
I threw1 Lady Iltara off of me in a panic.
“Hey,” I snapped. “No.”
She bore a smug smile now, standing in the center of the dream-tent. She wore an elaborately pleated and wrapped gown, dyed turquoise, that wove up around her hips and over her shoulders, producing elegant shawl-like drapes over her upper arms and a low, flowing skirt.
My gaze was drawn directly to a trace of perfect bronze skin that the gown revealed from just below her belly button straight up to her neckline. As soon as I noticed, I hastily averted it. I noticed instead how complete the tent was. The tray of tea, the sat-upon beds, the stray bits of equipment—the training sword—were all just as they had been the night before.
“You are unwell,” she said. “Sleeping at odd times. We have the most vivid dreams when we are like that.”
“Right. Right. Look,” I said, still not meeting her eyes. “It’s been a tough day.”
“I can see that.”
“Can you?” I said, still letting my instincts converse for me while I shepherded my scrambling thoughts. “How?”
“Well, it’s plain to see in your expression, for one thing. Besides that, I have my ways of seeing and knowing.”
“Oh, sure. Is it… the Hyng Oracle? I know the theory but haven’t performed one. Or perhaps something from the northern tradition. I hear the emperor’s dragon-officers have a similar seeing that they do.”
“Why should it be those?” She rubbed her chin, amused. “You think I cannot simply see?”
“Well, no…” I said. Inspiration struck. “But you went through great lengths to get a hold of a spellbook. A goddess’s spellbook, sure, but her works are the foundation of our tradition anyway.”
“True.”
“The knowledge must be useful to you. Which means you must practice magic like mine. So which is it?”
The lady watched me for a second. “I do. I take part in Ae’s knowings, just as you do. But I also wield a power foreign to you. Larger. Older. And it is mine.” She paced over and sat at my bedside, where Hester had been. She sat with her back, distractingly revealed, facing me, her head turned to watch me over her shoulder. “But between you and me, when I need to see, I use the old Hyng ways.”
“Oh,” I said, completely unprepared for a straight answer. “Well. What did you see last night…? Wait. They were yours, weren’t they?” I sat up a little bit.
“Heavens, no. You’re in a dangerous place, my friend. Your corporeal body, anyway. Here is safe.”
“I don’t… I’ll be honest with you; I don’t trust you.”
“I know. Can’t we fix that?” She rested a hand, gently, on my mangled left leg.
“You know that Gena wants me to treat with you, I presume.”
“She is a smart woman.”
“She’s impressive. I guess I’ll take her advice. What do you want?”
“I want to give you what you want, of course.” She stood, offering me her hand. “Haven’t you been listening?”
I accepted her gesture and stood. That’s when I looked down at my feet and realized that one of them should have been… well, I hadn’t actually looked under the dressings at it, but the word crushed had been used. I nearly fell over, but Lady Iltara caught me with an arm under my left shoulder. With her other hand, she used a fingertip to lift my chin to face her.
“Come now. Stand. It’s a dream, Horwendell.”
I locked eyes with her and put my weight back on the leg. It held. I chose to believe, for now.
“Good,” she said. “Now. The veld is a hard, dangerous place. The assassins were from a different band of Yariagar, who call themselves the Morul-Om. They came for your knight, believing that they could kill two birds with one stone. Weaken the House Eastmost by disposing of its finest heir, and drive a wedge between the Windvalley Riders and Anteianum by embarrassing Chethe. Killing a man under his protection, you see.”
I nodded, remembering how the woman had seemed to have been searching the tent for something. Of course: she had been looking for Hester, who hadn’t arrived until after she beat her retreat. As I replayed the encounter and worked through the logic, I forgot my leg.
“Both are dead,” Iltara continued. “Your knight is simply too valiant and too deadly. Your hosts will soon discover, if they haven’t already, that one of their outriders was killed last night. The assassins overtook him before he could give the cry; that’s how they got into camp.”
“I… see. Why are you telling me this?”
She smiled. She was still holding my hand, I noticed, and now she twined her fingers with mine. “Well. I want the best for you. And I want you to trust me. I have told you some truths; when you awake you may go see them for yourself, and indeed, make use of them. Go tell your companions about the Morul-Om. They will be glad to know.”
“Okay. And the other reason?”
“I have been building to the point. The veld is a dangerous place. Dangerous mortals, dangerous beasts, dangerous lands. And the east is no more placid. Your leg…”
I thought about it, which was a mistake. I fell. She caught me, holding me in a dancer’s dip. Showoff.
“Oh, so sorry. Your leg, as I was saying, makes you quite vulnerable, now. I want to help.”
“And how do you plan on that?”
“You are an arcanist. You know how meaning and mind conquer the material world. Dreams can be much more than dreams.”
I caught on. “You’re saying that your power here…”
She began to lower me gently onto my bed. “Go on.”
“… can have effects out there. Probably… ah. My body. You are proposing to heal my leg.”
“Yes, but more than that. I am proposing to allow you to heal your leg. It is the power of your own dreams over yourself. I can give it to you. It is a power within all of us, and I am the one who can see it. Unleash it.”
“But you’ll want something in return.”
“Enter my service.”
“What?”
“You heard me.” She smiled. She was sitting bedside with her back to me again.
“I… can’t do that.”
“And why not?”
“We’re… on our way to recover the Doctrina Tempestas. From you. I don’t suppose I can do both. And besides, I… have other things to do,” I finished at a lame mumble.
“I’m sure if those things are so important, you could tell me all about them.”
I opened my mouth to try to say something, but she put a fingertip to my upper lip. “Oh, but not yet. You need to give this some thought. If your ‘things to do’ turn out to be petty excuses, won’t you feel silly losing the argument? Think, my friend.” She leaned in a little closer. “Think about what you want. What you have, and what you, truly, must give up. Think of the inner power you could have. Think of a life with it.”
She removed her finger, put her lips to mine, and the dream faded.
It was night in the tent. I lay, heart drumming, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the surroundings. These surroundings—the beds, the furs and seating pads, the boxes of tools and utensils—that felt like home. These surroundings I was beginning to fear I could never leave, not even in my sleep.
Gena and Eidahn were asleep beside me. I rolled over to nudge Gena awake, and then gasped in agony. I had forgotten about my leg. A testament more to the power of the dream, or to its limits?
The pained noise I made did have the effect of waking Gena up, so that was something.
“Howe. Are you okay?” she asked, above a hush but below the threshold for rudeness at this time of night.
“I was better a second ago,” I managed through gritted teeth. “For that matter, this afternoon.”
“What is it? Swelling? Shooting pains?”
“No, sorry, I shouldn’t scare you like that. Leg’s… not fine, but not… you know. Anyway, I can’t sleep. She’s back.”
“Oh. I take it you still don’t much enjoy her company.”
“No!” I said just a bit too loudly. “I mean…” I sighed. “Look. You asked me to speak with her. I did. But I can’t just… take what she’s offering. It doesn’t feel right.”
“Did you learn anything?”
I hauled my sleepy upper body up to a seated position and took a glance about the dark little abode. Everyone else was asleep… or pretending to be so. It didn’t matter either way, I supposed; they all knew. So I recounted the encounter to Gena.
“Damnit,” Gena said. “She’s good.”
“Um,” I said, failing to see past the obvious but obviously incorrect interpretation. “How do you mean?”
“She manipulated the conversation well. She was able to bully you into talking what she wanted to talk about.”
“Oh,” I said. I felt heat building in my cheeks and jaw tightening with frustration.
“Notice what she wants to avoid conversation about—the tome. She’d rather talk about you. Your allegiance. What she can offer you. She came back there every time, and you let her.”
I said nothing.
“She’s not manipulating you the way you think she is. She might just be trying to unbalance you with the unwanted intimacy. Have you fixate on that. Then…”
“Gena… come on.”
“… What?”
“Do you think I’m not trying? I’m half delirious with exhaustion and getting ambushed by a practiced manipulator during my only time of rest. What the Hell do you want from me?”
There was silence. I couldn’t make out Gena’s face very well in the darkness. But I could clearly imagine her sharp, thin brows at an angle, her eagle eyes watching, her mind perceiving.
“Maybe you’d like to do it yourself,” I said. “Break a leg.”
“What if I did?” she said. But then I was completely caught off-guard: there was not a hint of sarcastic or defensive bite to her tone.
“Wait. You mean that?”
“Not about breaking a leg, no. But there’s one person in your dream. Why couldn’t there be two? It would put her off her guard.”
“She’s an experienced spellcaster. You’re not. You’ve never studied any of this.”
“You have. Can you teach me to enter your dream?”
“No. It’s clearly possible, but it could be months of study to discover and master things like this. And that’s with a good library and the ability to write my peers for ideas.”
“Then… teach me lucid dreaming and tell her to talk to me. No guarantee she will. But it’s worth a shot.”
“I can’t imagine Hester would approve.”
“He thinks she has the upper hand when we do this. But I think we’re giving her opportunities to reveal her hand.”
Or other things, I thought, unbidden.
I sighed. “Maybe. It’ll take time.”
“We have time. Please. I want to start as soon as you think is appropriate. Provided you’re feeling well enough to.”
“Do we have time? Gena, the band has to ride at some point. And then…”
I trailed off. And then where would I be? There was silence again.
“We have time,” Gena said, finally. “One week at a time. Nomads take injured and sick on their wagons all the time. And you may be well enough to ride soon.”
“And when we reach their summer pasture?” The words dripped out, acid with fear and frustration.
“One week at a time. Howe, we’re in this together, aren’t we?”
That caught me by surprise. “I don’t know how to answer that. Are we? I don’t know.”
“I…” Gena paused. There was, again, nearly perfect silence. The low, faint rush of wind over the grass and camp only seemed to give the silence a body.
When Gena spoke again, it was quiet and steady. “I’m sorry, Howe. I’m asking a lot of you. And in some ways I’m not giving you much in return.”
I waited to hear her out.
“I’m relying on you. Your expertise. Your good will and your determination. And you’re right, I’m asking it of you in the most difficult times. But I haven’t given you much of a chance to rely on me, have I?”
I took a deep breath. “Well, I gather you’ve been caring for me since the fight the other night. Took part in saving my life, if the damage is as bad as you’ve said.”
“But you don’t know if you can rely on me to see this through… to not to leave you with your broken leg at some shelter while Hester and I forge on. You all but said it just now.”
“… Yeah.”
“I’m here for the truth. Hester is on his holy crusade. I think it’s just as important as he thinks, but it’s not all as it seems. Not to us, and especially not to him.” She glanced over. Was she confident he was asleep? Was she willing for him to have heard that? “I need your help. I need someone to see this with me, so I can know. Truly know.”
“You can’t do that yourself?”
“I’m not used to being a heretic,” she said quietly. “And for another thing…” she continued. “Howe, you’re… I think of you as a friend. I know it’s been a short time and I’ve been unkind at times.”
“Gena, thanks, but you don’t need to…”
“No, I ought to say this,” she said, waving me off. “The Word is clear that we protect and uphold those close to us. And beyond that… it would be personally… repulsive to me. To simply leave you behind.”
I did feel better, but also a bit anxious that I didn’t know how to respond. “I, uh… thanks.”
Then I filled the silence with, “I’ll… we’ll figure it out. I’ll see what I can teach you about dreaming.”
Suddenly I was afraid that the offer that was supposed to emphasize our reconciliation may have come off instead as… transactional. A cookie for an apology. But if Gena heard it that way, she didn’t show it. “I look forward to making introductions with the lady.” Was she smiling?
“Ugh. I don’t get how you can be so cavalier about her.”
“Sorry. I can’t help it. It’s a dream, isn’t it?”
“Sure, but we know she’s a dangerous… whatever kind of person she is. Ruler, sorcerer, magi, what have you. And I can’t help but feeling…”
I could see Gena open her mouth to tease me. “Intimidated?” she might have said, or perhaps “all hot and bothered.” But she caught a glimpse of something in my face and bit it back, allowing me to continue.
“… you know what she said about the power of dreams?” I said. “She made it as a promise. But I think it was a threat.”
To whatever extent the idea of “throwing” makes any sense in a realm whose physical actions, movement, and distance were all of dubious coherence. ↩