Post by Eurydice on May 27, 2007 0:33:23 GMT -5
Lagoon shuffled by the frost-painted window and pulled the thick curtains closed as he had done for the rest of the windows around the front room. It was a near-futile gesture; the cold air was going to seep in with or without the sturdy cloth blocking it, sooner or later, but he ultimately preferred it to his sister’s methods of keeping comfortable—like most of her methods of achieving anything, they involved copious amounts of open flame. The only working fireplaces, though, were in their tiny bedrooms; he didn’t feel like being cooped up in his room nor did he relish the idea of open flames unattended in his room all day, even though Cloche assured him that it was perfectly safe.
Across the room, Davin was sitting by the front door, meticulously polishing and examining Hyperion for the hundredth time, even though the sword was in immaculate condition. He was nervous, and it was obvious why. Maura had been out since dawn, for whatever reason; no one had seen her leave, but she’d left a note saying that she’d be back by mid-afternoon, at the latest.
It was quickly approaching dusk now.
But Maura could take care of herself. For his part, Lagoon was more concerned about the sudden surge of towns that had been leveled in the vicinity. There had been close to a year in which Bryant’s deadly visits had disappeared from the known world almost entirely. But they’d started again a few months ago, and Lagoon was starting to worry. There was no way to predict or stop the sudden, devastating strikes. The local government had turned to the Six, asking them for advice, but there was little that could be done to help. Amiel had gone to the South in order to ask for her aunt’s help, accompanied by Nolan, but even that guaranteed nothing.
For now, all they could do was wait for clues of where the next attack might be and hope that they would receive news soon enough that they would be able to do more than mourn the dead who were left behind.
As it happened, both Davin and Lagoon’s concerns were addressed in one fell swoop.
The front door blew open with a bang, dull gray sleet blowing across the threshold, and a figure stepped in, holding something bundled in a cloak and kicking the door closed. The something bundled in a cloak was Maura Mordrellyn, breathing unevenly, shivering, her skin pale and blue-tinged.
And the figure holding her, clear blue eyes peering out from under a brush of unkempt blonde hair, was Froderic Altheim.
Davin was on his feet with his sword at the lordling’s throat before Lagoon had even fully registered that it was, in fact, the same fop-assassin that had abruptly left their company six years ago. Davin’s voice was dangerously soft. “What did you do to her?”
The youngest son of Altheim easily shrugged away from the blade, almost as quickly as it had come up to breeze against his neck. “Calm down, boy,” he said harshly, and it was an iron-hard command, not a suggestion. “All I did was find her and bring her back here.” He looked over the room quickly, appraisingly, taking in the place and shifting the weight in his arms.
“Frod!” Lagoon strode over and placed a hand on Davin’s arm, holding him back. “What are you doing here? Where was she?”
There was a clatter at the stairs, and a bright, blond-haired figure poked her head out, mismatched eyes matching her brother's. “What’s happening—” She froze as soon as she saw who it was, and Lagoon wasn’t sure whether she was more shocked by the appearance of Frod or Maura. Abruptly stifling the initial moment of shock, Cloche turned on her heel and sprinted for the bedrooms; Lagoon gestured for Frod to follow. By the time they got to the room, there was a fire roaring in the fireplace, and the covers on the bed were warm.
“I found her,” said Frod, carefully setting her down and pulling the sheets up over her, “by the ruins of one of the wiped-out towns a mile or two from here. She was unconscious, half-frozen. Sheer luck that I was passing through there, and I barely saw her anyway.”
“Near one of the towns?” whispered Cloche as she tucked the covers in securely around Maura’s trembling form. “The ones that her father's been... by Furon, it’s a wonder she even made it out alive.” Standing, Cloche hurried to the closet, pulled out a dry tunic to exchange for Maura's icy, dirt-stained robes and hurried back to the bed. She stopped, pointedly looking at the men, but Frod didn’t budge, and because Frod didn’t budge, neither did Davin.
Cloche glared. “Oh for goodness sake, at least turn around!”
The young swordsman spoke up, still frighteningly expressionless in face and voice. “Excuse me. Who is this person?”
“Oh,” said Lagoon. “Davin, this is Frod Altheim. You remember, we told you how we met him in Boren?”
“I do,” said Davin quietly. “I also remember something about his being an assassin charged to kill Mistress Maura.”
Frod barked a laugh somewhere between anger and amusement. “Mistress Maura?”
Lagoon sighed, ignoring Frod's comment, and hoped he sounded more patient and sure of himself than he felt. “Yes, Davin. But we can trust him.” I think. I hope. For now, at least.
“Besides,” said Frod, blasé. “If I wanted to kill your precious Mistress Maura, why in the Light would I have bothered bringing her here first and letting you all see that she was still alive before doing her in?”
On the bed, Maura emitted a soft whimpering cry and curled towards Frod, who looked down at the noise and reached under the blanket to rest a hand on hers, his expression unshakably calm. With an impatient stomp of her slippered foot, Cloche shook the dry clothes again, and Lagoon and Davin meekly turned away, in no particular hurry to provoke the queen’s wrath. Frod stayed exactly where he was.
Cloche gave a cry of exasperation. “Froderic!”
“I’ll do it,” he said blandly.
Before Cloche could voice an even stronger objection, Maura gave another cry which turned into a weak cough, and then slowly, slowly, her eyes fluttered open. She blinked hard against the firelight, eyes darting back and forth between the figures as if they were phantoms from her nightmares. When she opened her mouth to speak, the voice that came out was tired and frail, as though she had just been prematurely woken from a much needed sleep. “Where… how long was I…” She trailed off uncertainly.
“Hello, my dear,” said Frod quietly.
Maura frowned, as if hearing the familiar voice from far away, and her eyes lit on his face, struggling to focus. Then they went wide, alive with hope, wonder, and disbelief. “Frod?”
He tilted his head jauntily. “The same.”
Her icy fingers clasped desperately around his, trembling even more violently than before. “I thought you were dead,” she said quietly, simply.
Froderic Altheim stared at her, and Maura Mordrellyn stared back at him. Behind Frod’s carefully composed demeanor, he could feel something in the pit of his stomach stirring, that sinking feeling of losing control that always happened when he was with her. You make things difficult, he told her once, and it was true. Regardless, he’d imagined their reunion countless times, what he would say, usually, Hello, Maura; sorry I have to kill you and all, or variants thereon. And this time, he would tell himself, this time it would be clean, detached, professional, the way it should have been the first time. But now, seeing her again in person, it all came back in a rush: the kiss he’d stolen down by the ruins on Trilarese; his failed attempt on her life; the way she’d waltzed into his dreams and refused to leave; the hot brush of her breath on his ear; his anguished confession in the library and the way she hadn’t let him escape without kissing her one last time—and more.
A shaky hand reached up from under the covers to gently touch his face, lay her fingers against his cheek. He closed his eyes.
Lagoon looked on in wondering discomfort. The tension between the two figures, cloaked in dark cloth and freezing water, was frighteningly palpable. It was too intimate, too private, and being privy to it felt extremely wrong. He cleared his throat. “Cloche. Davin. C’mon.” He stood and nodded towards the door.
Cloche looked up indignantly. “Brother! What are you doing? We need to get her into something dry and warm, and maybe get her something warm to eat, and—”
“I can get myself dressed,” said Maura, not moving from where she lay, cold hand still resting on Frod’s cheek.
Lagoon nodded. “Like she said. She can do it. C’mon. You can make her something warm to eat and bring it to her when it’s done.”
Obviously frustrated and highly offended, Cloche stood and flounced past her brother, angry footsteps reverberating down the hall. Lagoon followed, pausing to watch Davin stare at the two seated on the bed and finally leave the room. “Davin?” he asked, closing the door behind them. “You okay?”
He was looking back at Lagoon, but Lagoon had the distinct impression that Davin barely registered his presence in the same space. “Yes. I’m fine.”
“You sure?”
The young man’s dark eyes focused on Lagoon’s mismatched ones, a gaze of subdued bewilderment. “How can you just leave her in there with him? How can you possibly think that it’s alright to just leave her with him? She’s your friend!”
“And she’s yours,” said Lagoon kindly. “And you've trusted her in everything. So, trust her in this.” He grinned. “I mean, you know she'll kick your ass if you don't.”
Davin did not look reassured, and in truth, Lagoon was even more uneasy than Davin looked.
“C’mon,” Lagoon said with a nod. “Let’s help Cloche get something together in the kitchen. Nolan'll have a fit if she upsets any of his things in there.”
Davin retreated to the kitchen reluctantly, and Lagoon, with a final glance towards the closed door, followed, fighting a subdued throb of dread in his heart and trying not to think about the woman in bed, the assassin by her side, and the worried admission that Maura had made to him, over a year ago.
* * *
After some time, Frod pulled the tunic down over Maura’s torso and tucked the blankets in close around her once again. She was still cold and clammy, her hair damp and matted with icy water, but some of the color was starting to come back into her face, and her wheezy breath was coming more evenly now. He slid up on the bed next to her, crooking an arm around her midsection and another around her shoulders, pulling her body close to his own.
Maura shuddered softly, lying against his open shirt and letting the bare skin of him warm her back to herself. Frod could feel her struggling to press closer, desperately leeching off him.
“How did you find me?” she asked quietly.
“Been trailing you on and off for a month,” he murmured. “This was one of the first opportunities when I had a chance to follow you while you went off alone. So I took it.”
I went off alone… Her vision blurred slightly, and she blinked hard, trying to remember where she might have been going, the memories coming back to her in disjointed fragments. It had gotten so hard to keep track of those moments when Angie seized her recently. “I left… this morning. The bridge by Eregal. To that little town, what’s it called… Minasheer?” She shook her head slightly; the cold and shock were making it hard to think, hard to recall. Maura looked up tiredly, unable or unwilling to try and puzzle it out any farther. “Did I make it there?”
Frod nodded. “I lost sight of you for an hour or two, and then I found you lying in the frozen creek bed, the one that runs through the square. The town is gone.”
Maura shivered. Too late. Again. She’d been trying for the past nine days to chart or predict the movement between the destroyed towns. That must have been where she’d gone. And again, she’d failed. She must have been close, though; she must have been close to the heart of the storm in order to be so thoroughly devastated by its force, and her even surviving the encounter seemed surprising, at best.
She wasn’t really sure what she was hoping to do, once she did get there in time to confront the death at its source, her cursed father. Try and reason with him? But he was possessed completely, beyond reason. Distract him, even for just a few minutes, giving the people time to get away? Unlikely that she would allow him to be distracted. And Maura certainly didn’t delude herself into thinking that she could stop him. She’d never be that powerful, no matter how much she trained
Nimble fingers ran through her hair lightly, and she shivered again under their touch. Her vision went hazy again, and she struggled to focus on the man beside her. “Did you see which way he left?”
“What?”
“Bryant,” she muttered, straining against the soporifically warm sheets into wakefulness and clear vision. “Did he come your way when he left Minasheer, or did he go by the east road? Or did he just portal out?”
Frod was watching her eyes intently, free hand still running lightly, absently through her damp hair. There was something in his gaze that she hadn’t seen there for a long time, not since their dinner together on Trilarese.
Not since his dreams.
It frightened her.
“What is it?” she asked, trying to meet his eyes.
“Your father’s gone, Maura,” the assassin said quietly, studying her features for a response. “He’s been gone for over a year now.”
Maura stared back, at a loss. It had been years since she’d seen him face to face, to be sure, but gone completely, bound away or dead? Surely, she would have felt something like that, or someone more attuned to him like Ranial would have picked up on it and passed on the information. She didn’t even think it was possible for him to die, at this point, and for him to be bound away…
His eyes were still on hers, his face an emotionless mask. She forced herself to focus on it, through the dizzily self-aware haze in which she was drifting, as if she were swathed in semi-transparent sheets, barely able to make out the details beyond her own person. “How can you know that? How can you be sure that he's not the one who--”
“Because I saw you destroy Minasheer.”
Silence landed, heavy and grave, and numbly, Maura thought back to that day at Frost Reach, when Cyrima had used her to channel Angelina and what she had been told.
Bryant holds a portion of my essence, my trade for taking on mortal form made long ago… that bond has made him the natural focal point of the energies left by my spell and the slivers of me still around. He is cursed, and will remain so. Although it is possible to seal him away so he can do no further harm, that has its own… repercussions.
For if he is locked away, you will become the spell’s next target.
“Your promise?” Maura whispered, her voice trembling.
Frod nodded stolidly. “I will honor it.”
Everything was blurring, happening much to quickly, and Maura was hardly even sure of where she was or when she was; all she knew for sure was that Frod was holding her close and that soon, she would be dead, and the danger would pass on to someone else.
“Here?”
Maura pursed her lips. Even after all the second chances in the world, Lagoon and Cloche wouldn't be able to avoid blaming Frod for her death if they disappeared from her room and returned to find her lying in a pool of her own blood, the assassin gone. But if she delayed, whatever programming Angie was working on her, whatever curse had been passed on to her from her father would have time to counter their actions and protect itself by whatever means necessary. She nodded.
The dagger was already in his hand. Frod extricated himself from his encircling embrace around her and bent to kiss her, his hand resting on her collarbone, gently stroking her skin.
There was a minute shift in energy, barely enough for her to realize what was happening, and then purple-blue haze filled Maura’s vision; something with a harsh crackle burst from her, sending Frod reeling back in surprise, the dagger thrown from his hand, skidding across the floor like ice. The indigo glow fading from her sight, Maura struggled to prop herself up on her elbows, cupping the amulet, Angelina’s bloodstone, which was pulsing warmly against her chest. Shakily but surely, Maura reached out mentally with all of her strength, gently probing the gem resting against her breast. All of the drowsiness had left her, and she stared blankly as realization slowly dawned on her.
Aethmyr.
She couldn’t even muster the strength to be furious at him. She didn’t have time. She had to think calmly, rationally, and figure out some way of neutralizing the amulet long enough for Frod to kill her.
Frod, shaking away the pain in his hand, looked at her guardedly as he went to retrieve the knife. “They took that away from you, Tiberious and the rest of your ‘hero’ friends. How did you get it back?”
“It was Aethmyr,” she said softly, her face twisted with repressed anger. “He took it, then gave it back to me, and he must have enchanted it to keep me safe."
Frod nodded with cold countenance and ran a hand through his pale hair; Maura could imagine him running through his arsenal of anti-magic weaponry, but she knew all to well that it would do him no good. Even Froderic had to know that by now. Aethmyr was old as the ages and never forgot his grudges nor his promises. He had sworn to complete Angelina’s work, and no power in the world would stop him.
“Alright,” he said finally, his voice taut, and Maura thought her heart would break at the sound of his voice, for it was brimming with reluctant resignation to a powerlessness that he had been burdened with for years now and had never truly been able to accept. “What, then, shall we do?”
If only she knew.
“Let me try to hold it back,” she said softly, knowing that it would be useless but determined to try, none the less. “I’ll try to repress whatever spell he placed on it. If you see it falter, even for an instant, do what you have to do.”
He nodded, his hand curled around her wrist on the bed.
Maura closed her eyes and breathed. And she threw herself at the spell on the amulet.
She jerked back as if she’d been slapped, arching against the bed as purple-blue heat crackled through her. It was as if she were on fire, blazing through her limbs, searing under her eyelids, and invading every inch of space and effort she had. It was all she could do to keep from screaming.
She pushed back against the opposing force in the dark stone that rested on her chest. It was agonizing, as if she were directing the attack against herself, and in a sudden, surreal beat, she knew that she was. She and Angelina’s bloodstone had spent six years together and were too closely intertwined to detach. Maura could no more rip off the necklace and rid herself of Angelina’s spectre than she could reach up and strangle herself. No matter how much effort she poured into it, it would never be enough for her to overcome herself.
The warm pressure of Frod’s hand on her wrist pulled her back to reality, and she drew a great breath, chest heaving, eyes wide and shocked. More shocking than how great the agony had been was the fact that the spell hadn’t even been trying to do her serious harm. “How long was I…?”
“Nearly ten minutes.”
You watched over me every second, she knew and did not say.
An even deeper cold than the one she’d felt in the frozen stream near Minasheer had settled into her bones. As her breathing slowed, returning to a normal, less-hysterical pace, she became acutely aware of how each lungful cut into her like the cold touch of his knife. Maura hadn’t known she could feel this deathly cold without being a frozen corpse. She sank back weakly, eyes closed again, trembling helplessly with the effort of merely staying conscious.
Frod seemed to be saying something, but she could scarcely spare the energy to think. All she could do was breathe, as his arm slipped around her shoulders again and he lay beside her, holding her to his chest, his chin resting on the top of her head.
After a time—she could not say how long, she felt him move away, and she heard the clink of glass, metal, and liquid by the fire, smelled the warmed wine before he brought it to her another eternity later. “Drink. It will take away the cold.”
It was much stronger than anything she’d usually consider tasteful, but she downed the glass, feeling the warm glow of the alcohol slowly trickling through her blood, through her chest, torso, abdomen, legs. The ever-present cold was still there, but Frod was right, and the drink held it at bay, comforting and sure. She shuddered the sigh of one who, long awaiting comfort, receives it so suddenly and unexpectedly that its presence is, for a moment, unpleasant.
She could feel the amulet still there, a cold burn against her skin.
“Better?” Frod asked.
Maura nodded once.
“So,” she asked, once she trusted herself to speak without her voice breaking. “What, then, shall we do?”
“Does the amulet just protect you against overt attack?” he asked. “It might be possible to trick it into accepting an attack which is seemingly innocuous.”
“Dunno. I suppose so, although I don’t think I’d put anything past Aethmyr.” Or her.
Frod chuckled. “Even the great Bitch herself was susceptible to the element of surprise,” he said. “All the magic in the world can’t make a person unconditionally immortal. The body follows certain rules that must be obeyed. You breathe, your heart beats, blood flows through your veins uninterrupted, or you die. All that was needed then was for her to be caught off guard. The same strategy could effect the same results.”
Maura’s eyes rolled over to her sword, resting against the mantle. Frod smiled wanly. “Not exactly what I had in mind.”
She inclined her head slightly, unsure what to think. “Then what did you mean?”
He regarded her frankly. “Well. What would you use, if you were me?”
A flash of his dreams of seven years previous and his attempt on her life at Trilarese. “Poison…”
“The old ways are the best, I’ve found.”
New hope lit up in her eyes. It hardly seemed likely that Aethmyr’s protection of her would have overlooked it, but it was a better possibility than anything at this point. Even if they never had figured out, in the waking world, whether the amulet was proof against poison, Froderic was right; the body had rules that must be obeyed, and magic could only bend those rules, not rewrite them entirely. Besides, even if Angie possessed her entirely, her body was too weak from the last possession to function properly in adequate defense. It had to work. They had to try. She swallowed, fighting the sinking feeling in her gut. There was no choice. “Do it.”
Strong fingers ran over her cold hand before he withdrew his gentle grip and tucked the blankets in around her more securely. “It is already done, my dear.”
His words sank into her slowly, as did the realization of what they meant, hitting her like an avalanche, gradually gathering unstoppable force.
Another minute and she would be dead.
She was already dead.
Maura couldn’t help it. She laughed aloud, unabashed, child-like sweetness. “Just like before, except this time I didn’t spot you… oh, Frod…”
Twenty-six years’ of memories battered her as she tried to snatch at them, grab onto some one thought to anchor her to this moment: the first spell she’d ever cast against Instructor Janek, sending him flying back against the wall with terrifying force; the first friendships she’d ever found, in Lorelai and Vanir; her father’s bandaged arm as he stormed into her life; the smell of sweat and blood tickling her nose as Frod pressed his mouth to hers that first time; the touch of the walls in the Mordrellyn Keep in Morabrenin; the feel of Asriel’s fur in her hand and his pressure on her mind. She remembered the clink of steel as she sparred with Lagoon, the twinkle in Kuntaire’s eye when he looked at her, the gentle acceptance of Alshalys’ gaze, the way Davin's face lit up like an angel's when Hyperion burst into brilliance that first night when they'd met.
She thought of seeing her death every night in Frod’s dreams, how it had left her terrified at first, and then curious, and then touched; of the phantom in white, gently touching Bryant’s head as they both wept; of the white hand-print on Ranial’s skin as she lay sprawled on the floor, full of hurt and surprise; of Cyrima’s death at Aethmyr’s hands.
She thought of watching her father watching his daughter and the woman he loved, how it was so close to the picture of a happy family, he said.
She thought of watching her father slip away, day by day, into a shadow of the man he had been.
Anything would be better than facing that same fate.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling quietly.
Eyelids heavy, Maura could feel the strength draining from her, starting at her fingers and toes, irrevocably creeping up. She shook with weak laughter, giddy, high off of her own mortality.
Frod’s bent his face to hers to kiss her, soft and easy. His smile was unreadable.
He lay there and held her until it was over.
