Glancing to the side, I discovered that Penny had fallen into bad habits again. While she had initially been taken by surprise just as I had, she recovered from it quickly. She had leapt across the table, and snatching up a platter full of duck and other succulent fowl, she flung it into the face of the assassin attempting to take King Nicholas’ life. Her opponent side-stepped the makeshift missile and reacted by throwing a dagger toward her.
The bastard’s reflexes were fast. He had snatched the dagger from his belt so quickly, I barely saw the action. If he had been aiming at some dowager duchess or helpless damsel, it might have caused serious harm. My Penny has been described as many things, but it had been a long time since anyone called her a ‘helpless damsel’; today was no exception. The silver platter was still in her hands and she deftly swatted the blade from the air before charging forward to engage the man in direct ‘platter to sword’ combat.
She was fighting a man with excellent sword skills and superior strength, for she was no longer my Anath’Meridum. On a good day, I might have given him a fifty-fifty chance, but only because he was armed, and her weapon was a makeshift serving platter. Penny had continued to make it a habit of practicing with the soldiers of Castle Cameron, until I had insisted that she stop. It wasn’t really becoming to have the Countess di’Cameron drilling in the yard with the men at arms. She hadn’t given up though, and she continued to practice in private with Harold, Cyhan, or Dorian when they were at the keep.
I spotted Dorian as he was about to intervene, for he had already dismembered the remaining assassin, the one that had threatened King James. Holding up a hand, I signaled for him to wait rather than interfere. “She’s got this,” I told him. I secretly worried she might not, but I didn’t want to be the one to steal her glory. Instead I watched carefully, that I might intervene if things went badly.
We needn’t have worried; in the span of less than a minute she had completely demoralized her opponent. The fight was over when she slammed the edge of the platter into the bridge of his nose, sending blood spurting forth while he collapsed on the floor. All told the entirety of the fight, from the moment of surprise until Penny’s victory, was less than a minute and a half.
King James was surrounded by armed guardsmen now, as was King Nicholas, but if there were more assassins, they had chosen not to make their presence known. “Stand aside,” James yelled at two of his bodyguards who were obstructing his view of the room. “Who were these men? I want names! I want answers!” He was pointing at the recently deceased men, who were all conveniently clad in his own arms and livery.
Ignoring the uproar and interrogation, I went to my friend Walter first. Even without using my senses, I could see he was quite clearly dead, the sword had passed completely through him and my magesight confirmed that his heart had been neatly pierced. He had died almost instantly.
Elaine was still in a state of disbelief, but as I approached, her eyes lit up with hope. “You’ve got to save him! He’s dying!” They were the words of a desperate child, unable to accept what was plainly in front of her.
“Go help Sir Barnabas. I’ll see to your father,” I told her, with a calm that I didn’t truly feel.
“No, we can save him,” she repeated stubbornly.
“Know your limits. Tend to the man you can aid, so that I can see to Walter,” I said harshly. She hesitated, but I was devoid of sympathy. “Now!” I barked in a tone of cold authority. I was doubtful that anything could be done, but if it could, I wouldn’t be able to manage it with her crying over my shoulder.
Her face blanched at my sharp words, but she rose and did as I had ordered. I took her place beside Walter and began a more thorough examination of his body, both within and without. It was as bad as my first impression had suggested. His heart had been seriously damaged and it had probably been more than a minute since it last beat. I looked upward and found Penny standing beside me. “Make sure no one disturbs me,” I told her. “If I don’t awaken on my own within a few minutes, or if I stop breathing, let Elaine try to wake me.”
Penelope’s eyes locked on my own for a brief but intense moment. I saw fear and doubt within them, but she merely nodded.
Stretching myself out upon the cold marble floor, I drew Walter’s still form close beside me, and then I closed my eyes. Letting my mind expand beyond my own body, I tried to focus my awareness on the still shape lying next to me. It has to have been nearly two minutes since the sword passed through him, I thought for second, and then I pushed those thoughts aside.
For a moment I felt myself failing, I couldn’t force myself into Walter’s dead body. I have to listen. Stilling my inner turmoil, I let go of my doubts, and soon I began to hear the song that was Walter’s physical form; and within it, the melody of his now dwindling spirit. I had once sent my mind into Penny’s unconscious form when she was dying, but this was different. I wasn’t simply entering his body; I was assimilating it within myself. In part it was necessary, for Walter was no longer truly attached to the flesh and bone that had housed him for so long.
Somehow I had to assume responsibility for his corpse long enough to reanimate it, and simultaneously I needed to keep the spark that was truly Walter from departing before I was done. It was a task that defied conscious thought, which was the very reason that the waking rational mind was incapable of such a task.
Searing cold tore through me, my heart was no longer beating, my blood was cooling, and around me I could sense little more than darkness. I had become a flame, a burning light in an endless void, and yet I could still feel the dying flesh around me. In the distance there was another light, but it was flickering, drawn away as if caught in an inexorable and frigid wind.
No.
Pushing… I expanded, a searing light flaring within an empty hall, and the darkness receded. Pain tore through me; the sensation of a torn back and hopelessly damaged heart. I was driving his heart to beat, forcing his blood to move, while my thoughts were like fire along his damaged nerves. I imagined his heart whole and I felt the flesh knitting as his body struggled to conform to the imposition of my will.
Even as his body mended I could see the light that was Walter receding. He wavered, on the verge of going out. Reaching out I tried to grasp him, but the distance between us seemed impossibly great. I was holding two bodies now, his and my own, and the effort to keep them both alive was greater than I had imagined. While the effort in terms of pure power was negligible, the complexity of the human body is staggering. All the things our bodies normally do automatically, I was attempting to do deliberately, for him as well as for myself.
In the end I failed… but I refused to accept defeat. Instead, I released my own form and took up sole residence within Walter’s, letting my instincts keep his body alive, while I bent my conscious will toward the tiny light that was almost gone now. Goddamnit! You will not be allowed to go quietly. Come back!
There was a sense of connection then, and I felt Walter’s mind respond for the first time, with a bewildering rush of fear and confusion. We were standing together at the edge of the abyss; a place where light twisted and turned, taking another direction… transforming into something so dark I couldn’t see it directly. It reminded me of the shiggreth. The void… this is the void, the place from whence they have returned. Even as that thought struck me, I could see myself eroding, as the source of my own light began to lose coherence. How did they survive this?
I had no time for wondering though, using the connection we had somehow forged I drew Walter away, pulling and dragging him with all the energy I had left to me. For what seemed an eternity I struggled, until it seemed I had no strength left, until at last, with a snapping sensation, I felt Walter’s spirit reattach to his body. His heartbeat stabilized and I withdrew to make room, as his spirit bloomed to life within his once still form.