CHAPTER 14
Rieuk never remembered how he found his way to Fenez-Tyr or the ship bound for Enhirre. In the aftermath of the Guerrier’s attack, he moved like a sleepwalker, mind and body drained by the Angelstone’s power.
Two days out of port, fever claimed him. He drifted in and out of consciousness, too weak to leave his bunk, lying in his own sweat and filth.
In his delirium, Rieuk wandered across a hot, dusty plain where the sands had been burned the color of blood by a pitiless sun. Where was Ormas? Had the hawk been fatally injured by the angelic power of the stone? He could only sense the faintest hint of the hawk’s presence.
Lost, with no sense of which way to go, he trudged doggedly on, forcing his aching body to move until, exhausted, he dropped to his knees and crawled. His mouth was parched chokingly dry by the baking sun, and the coarse granules of red sand grazed his hands and knees till they were raw, yet still he went onward.
“Ormas…where are you?” he cried, even though his throat felt as if it were raked by thorns every time he tried to speak.
Suddenly a dazzling figure blocked his way. Blinded by the light, Rieuk flung his forearm to protect his face, glimpsing only the faintest outline of great snow-white wings, half-furled, and eyes that seared to the very core of his being.
Rieuk became aware that someone was wiping clean his burning skin with a cool, wet cloth. The cold shock of the water against the heat of his body made him shudder and cry out.
“Your fever is too high. This is the only way to bring it down,” said a voice in his native Francian, a voice that though firm was also young and persuasive. Through the heat haze, Rieuk glimpsed his savior bending over him, pausing to push back a lock of hair. The image hovered in and out of focus: long hair, like silvered gold, and pale eyes so translucently blue they were the color of daybreak.
“Who…are you? Are you…an angel?” he said out of his delirium, still unsure what was real and what was conjured from the heat of his fevered brain.
The apparition laughed. “I’ve been called many things but never angel before. I guess I should be flattered.”
Rieuk felt a wash of shame. “That was…a stupid thing to say…”
“It was the fever talking, nothing more. I’ve heard far worse, believe me. Now drink this draft. It will help bring your fever down.” He raised Rieuk’s head and held a little bowl to his dry lips. Rieuk swallowed, gagging at the bitter flavor.
“Vile…”
“I never said it would taste good.” The kindly stranger’s face swam in and out of Rieuk’s vision, as if steam rising from his burning body were drifting across his sight, until he lapsed back into confused dreams.
“The fever’s responding at last.”
Rieuk opened his eyes at the touch of a cool hand on his forehead.
“I thought I’d lost you there a couple of times,” said his savior cheerfully.
“You cleaned me up?” Rieuk felt deeply ashamed that this stranger had washed the encrusted filth from his body; he had only vague memories of the last days but he remembered the young man’s voice and the feel of hands, firm yet careful.
“Well, you were stinking up the lower deck; I wasn’t acting entirely selflessly!”
Rieuk could not remember a time since he had been with Imri when anyone had taken care of him. He felt humbled by the young man’s ministrations. “But…why? Are you a doctor?”
“No exactly. The name’s Blaize. Père Blaize.”
“A priest?”
Blaize laughed in that charming, self-deprecating way that Rieuk had first heard as he surfaced from the incoherence of his fever dreams. “I promised myself that I would come on pilgrimage to Azilia’s Shrine to test the strength of my faith.”
This young man could not be that much older than Emilion at Saint Argantel’s Seminary.
“Why did you save me? You must know what I am. Why didn’t you just walk away?”
“To me you were suffering and in desperate need. I wasn’t prepared to abandon you just because you happen to be a magus.” The amused look faded, replaced by a regard so keen and incisive that Rieuk knew Blaize was no naïve, inexperienced student.
“But you—your order—you’re sworn to destroy us.” Rieuk struggled to sit up.
“I’d never seen one of your kind before. Your eyes are quite…remarkable.” Blaize caught hold of him and eased him back down. “Easy, there. You’re in no state to go anywhere yet.”
“My spectacles…”
“So that’s how you go unnoticed among us?” Blaize was examining the thick lenses thoughtfully. He glanced up. “Don’t worry,” he said, grinning. “Your secret is safe with me.”
Rieuk had used up what little strength he had; he felt his eyelids closing in spite of his will to stay awake. As he lapsed back into sleep, he found himself wondering how far he could trust the young priest. Or did Père Blaize plan to hand him over to the Commanderie when they reached the next port?
“This hawk tattoo on your breast. It’s so realistic. Such artistry.” Blaize wiped the wet cloth gently over the inked feathers. “What does it signify?”
Rieuk gazed up at Blaize. “If I were to tell you, you’d never believe me,” he said without blinking.
Blaize looked a little hurt for a moment. Then he laughed and shrugged the rejection away. “As you wish.”
Violent summer storms off Smarna blew the ship off course and the ship’s master was obliged to put into harbor at Vermeille until the bad weather passed.
Too weak to leave his bunk to go ashore, Rieuk found himself looking forward to his visits from Blaize, who brought back fresh fruit for his patient: luscious black Smarnan grapes and white-fleshed peaches. And, little by little, he learned more about the young man who had saved his life.
“After Enhirre, I’m on my way to Serindher, to join the missionary fathers.”
Rieuk closed his eyes. “To convert the ignorant natives?” he said, unable to keep the cynicism from his voice.
“To care for the poor and the sick.”
Rieuk opened one eye. “Why would you want to do that, Father Blaize? Aren’t you as like to get sick yourself in all that heat and humidity?”
Blaize paused a moment. Then he said, with a glimmer of a mischievous smile, “If I were to tell you, you’d never believe me.”
Rieuk smiled back. “Touché.”
“Master…”
Rieuk heard Ormas’s voice calling to him through the confusion of his lightning-riven dreams. He woke, heart pounding, as thunder crashed overhead, setting the ship timbers trembling. A second later, the sound of torrential rain drummed on the deck above.
“Ormas?” Rieuk sat up too fast in his eagerness. The cabin spun and he pressed one hand to his forehead, as the blood rushed away from his temples. Lightning flashed again, silver-bright against the Smarnan night. And in the lightning’s brilliance, Rieuk saw a hawk-winged shadow silhouetted against the cabin porthole. A fierce joy surged through him. Fighting the dizziness, he swung his legs off the bunk as the thunder rolled deafeningly again around the bay.
“Where have you been?” he cried out over the thunder. “I thought I’d lost you for good!”
“I went to the Rift to be healed. I’m sorry, Master, that I abandoned you.” Ormas sounded contrite. “Can you forgive me?”
“Welcome back,” Rieuk said softly, opening his arms to his Emissary. Another silver flicker lit the humid night as Ormas lifted from the porthole. The cabin door opened. Blaize came in just as Ormas flew to Rieuk, melting into his tattooed breast.
Thunder rumbled as both men stared tensely at one another. And then Blaize began to laugh. “Amazing the tricks that lightning can play on the eyes! I could have sworn that I saw a hawk in here…but such a thing is impossible. Isn’t it?”
When the storms died down and the ship set off again for Enhirre, Rieuk had regained enough strength to leave his cabin. Standing on the deck with Blaize beside him, he watched the sun setting, bleeding scarlet light into the deep blue of the waves, and relished the fresh tang of the wind on his face and hair. Once he and Imri had stood together like this and…For a moment, the fiery light blurred and dimmed as tears stung his eyes. He hastily blinked them away, not wanting Blaize to see.
“So what are you going to do when we reach Enhirre?” he said. “Hand me over to your superiors?”
“And why would I do that?”
“I’m your enemy. The Enemy.” Rieuk had come to feel so much at ease in the young priest’s company that he took pleasure in teasing him. He was still too weak to do anything else.
“Well, you thought I was an angel,” Blaize said after a pause. “So, perhaps I was mistaken too.”
As the ship sailed into the bustling harbor, making its way between the hundreds of little fishing boats bobbing about in its wake, Rieuk knew with a terrible certainty that he wanted the voyage to continue forever. He would rather have sailed over the rim of the world than return to his cruel and exacting master, the Arkhan. The very smell of Enhirre—dusty, hot spices mingled with excrement and rotting fruit—produced a feeling of profound loathing.
“So this is where our ways part,” said Blaize. In the intense sunlight, Rieuk saw how young and vulnerable he looked in his white priest’s robes. He feared for him.
“I don’t know how to thank you—” he began lamely, when to his surprise Blaize flung his arms around him and gave him a swift, hard hug.
“Take care, Magus.” Then, without another word, he strode swiftly down the gangplank and disappeared into the crowds of merchants and sailors thronging the quay.
Rieuk stood staring after him, feeling as if he had just lost something more valuable than he had realized.
“A Guerrier attacked you with the last Angelstone and you survived?” Arkhan Sardion’s blue eyes widened with astonishment. At his side, Alarion, Sardion’s eldest son, stared challengingly at Rieuk with eyes as startlingly blue as his father’s.
“This streak of white in my hair is where the stone’s power caught me.” Rieuk pointed to the snowy lock that stood out amid the rich brown above the silvered angel-scar on his left temple.
“You’re either lying, Emissary Mordiern,” said Prince Alarion, “or you crystal mages are made of stronger stuff than your peers.”
Rieuk held out the few fragments of shattered Angelstone that he had retrieved before the Guerrier had attacked him. “This is all that remains of the Angelstones in Kemper. But there was something different about the stone the Guerrier used.” He was still weak from the aftereffects of the duel in the chapel but he didn’t want to admit that to the Arkhan, or his fierce-eyed son.
Sardion took the shards of crystal and held them up to the daylight. “It’s difficult to believe that these dull chips of stone were once touched by an angel. By my reckoning, all seven stones have been used up and the Commanderie have nothing left to use against us.”
“Now we can win Ondhessar back,” said Alarion, his eyes alight. “Without the Angelstones, the Francians are vulnerable. Let me lead a raid against them, Father!”
“Fifteen is too young to fight,” said Sardion sternly.
“But Eugene of Tielen fought alongside his father when he was only fifteen,” protested the boy.
“Prince Eugene was born a military tactician. At the age when you were happy enough to chase butterflies in the palace gardens, he was already planning campaigns with his lead soldiers. We must bide our time and strike when the moment is right.”
Alarion scowled and stalked off without another word.
“Headstrong boy,” said Sardion, although Rieuk thought he heard a note of pride rather than censure in his voice. “You must be tired after your long journey, Emissary Mordiern. And I believe Lord Estael has some news for you. Go to him.”
News? Rieuk, who had been drooping in the soporific heat, was suddenly alert again. Had he earned his reward, and would the precious souls of Imri and Tabris be released at last from the soul-glass?
“You’ve done well,” said Lord Estael. Rieuk stared at the tiled floor. “You’ve drawn the Commanderie’s teeth. Let’s see how valiant they are without their Angelstones to protect them.”
“But I was careless. A boy died.” Rieuk could not meet Lord Estael’s penetrating gaze. “And one of the Guerriers bested me in a duel. I still have much to learn, my lord.” Yet he had seen the mission through because it was for Imri, and he knew he would do it all again, if only in the vainest of hopes that it might bring Imri back. Yet the question was choked in his throat; he hardly dared to ask, for fear that the answer would not be what he so fervently wished for.
“And Imri, my lord? I’ve fulfilled my part of the agreement.”
“Imri,” Lord Estael repeated distantly. He seemed preoccupied, as though some other matter was absorbing his attention.
“Has anything happened? Is the soul-glass still intact?” He could not bear to think that his all efforts might have been in vain.
“Come with me.”
Rieuk followed Lord Estael to the top of the Rift Tower. As he climbed the winding stair, he suddenly sensed Ormas’s heart start to beat more rapidly. Rieuk pressed one hand to his tattooed skin, feeling the excited throb beneath his breastbone.
“Will you let me go to greet them, Master? It’s so long since I flew with my kin.”
“How could I deny you?” Rieuk said, smiling in spite of the sadness he felt on returning to the place where Imri had first revealed the mysteries of the Rift to him.
He reached the top and as he came out into the misty verdant light, Ormas gave a triumphant cry and burst from his breast, darting off over the shadowed trees, Almiras following in his wake.
Rieuk leaned on the wall and gazed down on the vast forest that stretched into the distant horizon. The only sound was that of the breeze stirring the boughs of the fir trees. He wished that, like Ormas, he could fly free and unconstrained, leaving behind the burden of grief and duty that weighed so heavily on him.
“There’s a revivifying quality in the air of the Rift,” said Lord Estael, gazing out after his shadow hawk. “Yet, look closely, Rieuk. Do you notice anything different?”
“Different?” Rieuk had been away for so long that he could not be sure if his memories of the Rift were reliable. “The emerald moon looks a little hazy tonight. The light is not so intense, perhaps, as I remember.” But when I was with you, Imri, I experienced everything so much more intensely… He raised his head to stare at the unfamiliar constellations glittering faintly above. “And the stars are not so bright.”
The shrill, wild cries of shadow hawks broke the silence of the moonlit night and Rieuk recognized Ormas and Almiras. A flock had come swooping down to feed on the oozing sap of the Haoma tree.
“Night after night, the order has been monitoring the Rift. At first we thought it might be a temporary anomaly, but if you study our charts, Rieuk, you will see that we are observing a distinct change. The emerald moon is waning. The Rift is slowly closing.”
“But what of Imri?” Rieuk stared at Lord Estael, aghast. “If the Rift closes before…” His voice trailed away as the unthinkable implications sank in.
The light in Lord Estael’s eyes was bleak as a wintry sky. “I cannot say. This situation is new to us.”
“And what of Tabris, Ormas, Almiras—”
“Our Emissaries draw their strength from the Rift. And if our Emissaries grow weaker, so will we. We have never found ourselves in such a perilous situation before.”
This revelation had set Rieuk’s thoughts spinning. He had risked so much to destroy the Angelstones, strengthened by the belief that the magi would be invulnerable once it was done. It had never occurred to him that their powers could be diminishing for quite another reason. “But why is this happening, Lord Estael?”
“Azilis.”
“How could it be Azilis?”
“We first observed the changes after Kaspar Linnaius stole the Lodestar. We hoped that it was a temporary abnormality. Since then, matters have been deteriorating.” Lord Estael slowly shook his head. “It seems that her presence alone was powerful enough to keep the Rift between our world and the Ways Beyond open. But now…”
“Master…” Ormas was calling to him. “My kin are leaving. The Haoma tree is dying. They must fly farther in to search for another. What should I do?”
“Come back to me now, Ormas.” Rieuk tried to quell the panic in his voice. If Ormas abandoned him, he would be utterly alone. He turned to Lord Estael. “Did you hear? The Haoma tree is dying. The shadow hawks are leaving.”
“This is worse than I feared.” Lord Estael leaned far out and Almiras fluttered down to perch on his forearm. Rieuk anxiously scanned the sky for a sight of Ormas. At last he spotted three hawks skimming in a breathtaking aerial dance across the luminous disc of the moon. What if Ormas doesn’t want to return?
“Is it possible, Rieuk, that the book in which your magister sealed Azilis was not destroyed when the college fell?”
Rieuk was still watching Ormas, and Lord Estael’s question startled him. “You mean that all this while we’ve assumed she’s free, and she’s still trapped in Hervé’s book?”
“Just suppose that your magister hid the book in a safe place? Or smuggled it out of Karantec before the Inquisition struck? Someone in his family might have it in their possession now and be keeping it safe from the Inquisition.”
“His family?” Little Klervie playing with her fat grey tabby cat on the doorstep, soft-voiced Madame de Maunoir bringing him homemade lemonade when he was working late for her husband…it had never once occurred to Rieuk that the book might have survived the Inquisition’s brutal purge.
“I want you to go back to Francia, Rieuk, and look for any clues you can unearth. If there’s the slightest chance that you can track her—”
“Go back?” To return to Francia meant assuming another false identity, living on the edge, constantly in fear of the Inquisition. He had done terrible things in Kemper and all in the belief that it was for Imri. And now Lord Estael was telling him that it was not enough, and Imri’s immortal soul was in peril.
“Wouldn’t it be better to try to restore Imri now?” He heard the desperation in his own voice. “Before the Rift closes any farther?”
“We are proposing to undertake a very risky and delicate operation.” Lord Estael’s wintry expression grew icier still. “For there to be any hope of it succeeding at all, the Rift must be stable. The consequences of failure are too dreadful to be imagined.”
Ormas silently alighted on Rieuk’s shoulder. Rieuk closed his eyes, relieved beyond words that the smoke hawk had not flown too far into the Rift and abandoned him. Don’t leave me like that again, Ormas. You’re all that I have now, my only companion.
“If you don’t bring Azilis back to us, Rieuk, there’s a very real risk that next time you set Ormas loose in the Rift, he may not return at all.”
Had Lord Estael read his thoughts? Rieuk drew in a slow, resigned breath. “Very well. I’ll do it. I’ll go back to Francia.”
“Don’t stay too long within the Rift,” Lord Estael had warned. “Even with our Emissaries’ protection, our bodies are not able to tolerate the rarefied atmosphere for long.”
Imri’s tomb shimmered dully in the hazy light in the clearing at the foot of the Emerald Tower. The clear crystal had become more opaque, as if layers of ice had encrusted the case, making it harder to see Imri’s still form within. Yet just to glimpse the indistinct outlines of those familiar, beloved features, so perfectly preserved within the aethyr crystal, brought sudden tears to Rieuk’s long-dry eyes.
“I couldn’t leave again without seeing you once more.” Rieuk slipped to his knees, one hand touching the chill aethyr crystal. “Where are you, Imri?” he whispered. “Can you still hear me?” He slowly let his head rest against the casket, close to Imri’s. “Are you at peace?” He could not forget what he had done to Paol. The child’s spirit had been so frail and vulnerable out of his body. “Or are you in torment, trapped in the soul-glass? If only you could tell me. I don’t want to make you suffer.” All he wanted was to hear Imri’s voice, gently, affectionately chiding him as he often had when they were together. “I keep telling myself that this is all for you, to give you your life again, but am I deceiving myself? Am I being selfish, wanting to bring you back from the dead?”
The dreamlike atmosphere within the Rift must have begun to affect him…or was the growing numbness he felt seeping from the chill of the aethyr crystal? A slight breeze stirred the branches of the trees nearby and set the hairs at the nape of Rieuk’s neck prickling. Was it his imagination? Or had he felt the touch of invisible hands drifting a brief caress?
He raised his head. There, on the edge of the clearing, half-clothed in shadow, stood Imri, his black hair loose about his shoulders.
“Imri?” Yet there was something indistinct about his lover, as though a gauzy veil was separating them, softly trembling in the breeze from the Rift. Yet Rieuk found himself stumbling headlong toward him, hands outstretched, even though sense told him that he could not embrace a shade. “Is it really you?”
“Stay with me, Rieuk. Stay here.”
“Rieuk.” A harsh voice was calling his name. He felt the sting of a hand-slap across his face. “Rieuk, wake up!”
“No,” Rieuk murmured angrily. “Go away. Leave us be.”
“Stay with me, Rieuk…”
“Us?” Someone gripped him by the shoulders, pulling him to his feet. “You fool! I warned you not to stay in here too long.”
Groggily, Rieuk opened his eyes to see Lord Estael glaring at him. “But Imri was here—”
“Look around you! There’s no one here but ourselves.”