As we walked, he held his hands out in front of him, flexing his fingers as Nithea had commanded him. They looked dreadful, discolored and scarred where they stuck out of the bandages that remained about his palms, but he could move them fairly well and was gradually regaining his strength and dexterity.
“I miss Jasyr, myself,” I said. “Do you think he and Molly are waiting for us back - Stars of night!” I stopped and pressed a hand to my forehead. If four of my Witnesses hadn’t been posted in front, behind, and to the sides of us as bodyguards, I might have thought someone had stuck a rapier right between my ears.
“What is it?” By the time Roxanne asked the question, the sensation was gone.
“Nothing,” I said, blinking my watering eyes and kneading my scalp a little, thinking I must have had too much wine the previous night.
Pink and orange lightning flashed from beyond the Edge. We walked on. Roxanne said something about riding. The piercing pain shot through my skull again… this time accompanied by screams and shouts from every side.
“Ware!”
“Firestorm!”
With a skull-shattering blast, a forked tongue of brilliant white streaked across the green-starred dome above us. Wails of terror rose from the city.
“Face out!” Paulo shouted to my bodyguards, shoving them with his bandaged hands.
The four Witnesses drew close around me, one facing each compass point. Paulo had come up with the idea, thinking they could watch for the rifts heading toward me and get me out of the path. He had forced them to practice it over and over, even when they insisted no storms would dare come again, because the king was come to the Bounded.
“What in the name of Annadis - ?” Roxanne’s yell was cut off when Paulo shoved her back flat against mine. The princess had never experienced a firestorm. The one we’d survived on our first day in the Bounded had not reached so far as the Blue Tower.
“Alas, the death fire… save us… ” A wailing Singlar, trailing a length of tappa cloth behind him, raced down the lane just ahead of a jagged rent in the earth.
Paulo reached for his hand, but his fingers slipped out of Paulo’s grasp, and the Singlar fell screaming into the fire. Feeling weak and useless, I struggled to keep breathing, clutching the sides of my head to keep it from cracking in two. Hands dragged me sideways. A burst of white flame blackened my shirt, scorched my cheek, and incinerated one of my bodyguards.
“We’ll watch out,” yelled Paulo in my ear. “Do as you need!”
This storm was far worse than the first one. I could scarcely hear him for the thunder and the pain in my head. Another rift split the sky. Fighting not to cry out, I sank to my knees. Gathering what strength I had left, I closed my eyes and plunged myself into darkness.
The canvas of my mind was scarred with searing ribbons of fire, one and then another, coming so fast I almost couldn’t keep up. As I had done before, I attempted to seal each rift as it appeared, to absorb the heat, the pain, and the terror that rode the lightning like an enemy warrior on a white charger.
Control the fire. Build your fastness strong. Confine the flames behind these walls, leaving the world dark… silent… safe…
I built the walls thick, muffling the shouts of warning, the clamor of fear and destruction. I no longer felt the hands pulling me to safety, only the soul-searing flames.
Hold, I told myself. You must hold. One slip, one weakness, will breach this armor you forge, these walls you build, this fastness that is safety. Keep it dark outside. In here, let the fire burn…
An odd sound called me out of the silent dark. The low-pitched trill might have been the buzz of a hummingbird’s wings until it skittered up the scale into a cheerful melody you might hear at a jongler fair. The piper dragged my limp senses along with him until his music was abruptly halted by a harsh whisper. “Quiet till he wakes. Your noise disturbs the king.”
“If he sleeps, then my playin‘ don’t disturb him. If he wakes, then he can decide for hisself if it bothers. My whistle must play the last of the storm away. It’s been too long silent.”
“We’ll stuff the stick down your gullet!”
“It’s all right,” I said, opening my eyes to a string of dusty, whitish lumps dangling just above my nose. Tappa roots. Three pale and anxious faces, bearing a striking resemblance to the lumpy roots, hovered close in the smoke haze that hung below the low ceiling.
“Majesty!”
The dangling foodstuffs had to be nudged out of the way, along with my relieved bodyguards, before I could prop myself up on my elbows. The place looked bleaker than the worst tenant shacks at Comigor. Dirt floor, low ceiling. My prickly bed felt like twigs with a thin blanket thrown over them. Beyond a tiny fire flickering in a freshly dug fire pit, a scrawny, light-haired youth was curled up against the wall of dried mud, playing a reed shepherd’s pipe.
“How is it with you, sire?” Nithea knelt on the floor beside me, her cool hands on my forehead and cheek. “I’m all right,” I said, taking her hands and moving them aside so I could sit up all the way. “What am I doing here? The storm… How bad was it?” Paulo stood just behind Nithea.
He stepped around her and squatted down beside me. “Seven towers destroyed in the city,” he said, speaking low. “Twenty-some damaged. Three Singlars lost, including Gant.” Gant was my fourth bodyguard, the one I’d seen catch fire. “It was just as before. All the lightning headed straight for you. After a bit everything went dark, and then it was over. You wouldn’t wake up, though, so we brought you to the closest shelter.”
“The princess?”
Paulo jerked his head to a shadowy spot beyond the makeshift fire pit.
Roxanne sat on the dirt by the wall, huddled under a long cloak, staring at her knees. She must have felt us looking at her, for she glanced up and met my gaze. Her face was smudged with soot, and her eyes were bleak. Pressing her hand to her mouth, she slowly rose to her feet. After a moment, she inhaled deeply, lowered her hand, and straightened her spine. “I’m going back to the Blue Tower now,” she said. “I’ll be in my bed.”
She stepped to the silvery trace on the wall and vanished.
Paulo gazed after her. “Her mouth was open to scream the whole time, but she couldn’t make a noise Pulled you to safety once, though. And grabbed Kalo before he could fall into a rift. He did the same for her When it was over, she followed us in here. Sat here all day staring like that.”
All day… “How long have I been out?”
“It’s almost time for the lights to go down. Are you sure you’re all right now?”
“I’m fine,” I repeated. Especially for having been insensible most of a day. “Is this your fastness?” I asked the piper.
“Tis.”
“If I could have a drink of something… ”
My three bodyguards almost fell over themselves rummaging about the place as I got to my feet. The piper directed them to a crude clay bowl, and I was soon drinking a cup of weak tappa ale.
“You’re Tom from Lach Vristal,” I said. The arm he’d used to point out the water bowl had no hand on it.
“Aye. I am that.” He grinned broadly. “And you’re the new king.”
“I followed you here from your father’s lay.”
The hand holding the reed pipe fell into his lap. “Did you now? How fare they at the lay - Pap and Hugh and Dora? I’ve a sorrow not to see them.”
“They seem well enough. But your father grieves. He thinks you were stolen away by thieves.”
“He didn’t understand how I had to come here.”
“I suppose you’d like to go back now.”
The youth had probably not been out of this hovel in weeks. The place smelled like it.
“Why would I want to go back?” said Tom.
“For your family. For the hills. For the sheep. I don’t know. What have you here? Wouldn’t you go back just to see the sun or eat a slab of bacon?”