“Careful with that,” Livak took it from me hastily and plunged the blade repeatedly into a patch of damp earth until the blade gleamed, cleaned of the oily salve it had carried.
“What were you planning to do with that?” I stared at her, startled.
“His lordship over there was none too keen on giving up your warm body to return to that cold one yonder.” Livak glowered at Temar’s unconscious form. “I was just about ready to make his decision for him, when he yielded. Let him argue the fall of the runes with a dose of tahn in his blood.”
I hugged Livak to me. “Thanks for the thought, but don’t blame the lad too much.” I closed my eyes on a brief memory of that appalling sensation of being locked away in endless darkness, cut off from all sensation. “After a taste of what he’s been going through, I can’t say I would have done any different.” Seeing the world through Temar’s eyes had been a salutory reminder of the power of the emotions of youth, the mixture of fear and impetuousness that had driven me in my turn first to the excesses of thassin and then to service with Messire.
Livak snorted and muttered something under her breath as Shiv and the others approached cautiously, the mercenaries in particular looking extremely unsettled. “What do we do now?” Tavie demanded truculently, folding muscular arms over his rounded gut, a scowl lifting his lip to show teeth like a row of burned-out houses. “We came to find this cave and now we’ve done it. What next?”
I looked at Shiv and Usara who turned to Parrail. “Well, I have as many of the small items as we thought promising with me,” he offered. “Shall we see who we can revive?” He looked questioningly at Guinalle, whose head had turned at his words.
“Let me see,” she held out her hands and Parrail gave her the casket with alacrity, kneeling beside her to open it. As Guinalle examined the rings and trinkets with tentative hands, she looked up at us, eyes wide. “How long have we slept?”
I exchanged an uncertain glance with Shiv and Usara. but Parrail spoke up eagerly. “Close on twenty-four generations, as far as we can tell.”
Guinalle’s jaw dropped and she gaped at the lad. “What? How? I mean…” The multitude of questions defeated her and she buried her face in her hands, Parrail putting a helpless arm around her in a futile attempt at comfort.
“We have come to find you, to seek your assistance against that same enemy that destroyed your colony here.” Usara knelt before Guinalle and took her hands in his, holding her tearful gaze. “There will be answers to all your questions in time, but just at present we need your aid. Your Artifice has long been lost to our people and the Elietimm, the men who attacked you, they are using it against us. Will you help us?”
Guinalle struggled for an answer. “I…”
“Leave the rest of it for another time, just consider that one thing,” Usara’s voice was calm and soothing but I could hear the urgency behind his words. “We need your help, otherwise more people will die at the hands of these invaders.”
Guinalle blinked and rubbed away her tears with a trembling hand. “Whatever I can do, I will,” she faltered.
“Should we be doing this?” Parrail looked around the great cavern, uncertainty wrinkling his brow. “I mean, the theory sounded all very well, but—”
“What else are we going to do, now we’ve come this far?” Shiv took a parchment from Parrail’s book. “I hardly think we can leave Guinalle all alone? Now, is this a list of the people you think owned these artifacts?”
Parrail scrambled to his feet hastily. “It’s what we compiled from the dreams, the most common images that were seen. You see, that one there, the chatelaine, all the evidence suggests it belongs to a mature woman with rather noticeable pock marks and—”
Shiv thrust the list at the scholar. “You read it out. Tavie and Buril, come with me and see if you can find anyone matching his descriptions.”
The mercenaries shared an uncertain look before joining Shiv and then Usara in slowly quartering the cave as Parrail read out brief and often unflattering descriptions of the people they sought.
“Oh dear.” Guinalle stifled a hesitant smile. “Mistress Cullam always preferred to be called robust or sturdy rather than fat.”
“Are you up to doing this?” Livak was looking at Guinalle with open skepticism.
The slender woman lifted her chin and a spark of determination lit her eye. “I am, but first we should revive as many Adepts in artifice as we may. They will be able to support me in restoring the others.”
“Can you identify them for us?” I took a step toward the others.
“In a moment.” Guinalle turned to Temar’s motionless form. “I cannot leave him in the darkness any longer.”
She knelt to lay her hands on Temar’s own, where they clasped the hilts of the sword. I gripped Livak’s fingers so hard that she flinched. Again I felt that shadowy touch, like a breath of cold air, but it passed and I felt a curious sense of release as Temar drew a first, long shuddering breath. As he opened his eyes Guinalle drew him close to her and, by unspoken agreement, Livak and I turned to leave the pair of them alone.
“How are you getting on?”
Shiv looked up from a child’s tiny form at my question, an enameled silver flower on a bracelet in his hand. “Pretty well, but we’ve artifacts for fewer than a third all told, even with those still back in Hadrumal.” He shook his head. “We’d better be careful whom we chose to revive. I hope Guinalle can identify people for us; I don’t fancy finding I’ve woken a child whose mother is still no better than dead.”
I looked back over my shoulder to Guinalle and Temar, still clinging to whatever reassurance they could give each other.
“She says we should try and revive any Adept in Artifice,” I commented.
“Can you,” Shiv hesitated. “I mean, do you think—”
“I can still remember the dreams, if that’s what you’re trying to ask,” I managed a weak grin, but in fact when I looked through my memories the dread that had colored the images for so long was absent. I could still remember, but now it was like recalling a story, a tale I’d heard, something that had happened to someone else, if it had ever happened at all. I walked a little way and pointed to a long-boned woman with a smear of old blood dark against the white of her frozen hands. “This is Avila; I’m pretty sure she chose a brooch, set with rubies and little pinkish diamonds.”
“It’s a cloak pin and has an inscription on the underside,” said Guinalle, coming toward us, hugging herself and shivering slightly. “It was from her betrothed, an Esquire For Sylarre.”
“You remember that kind of detail?” Parrail wrapped his cloak around Guinalle’s shoulders and she thanked him absently. “Of course,” she replied with a faint smile. “It was only yesterday, after all.”
I felt a presence at my shoulder and turned to see Temar waiting. Livak stirred under my arm and I held her close to silence her.
“I must apologize for my conduct,” the young man began stiffly; I sympathized with his struggle between pride and embarrassment, but I shook my head.
“No, you weren’t to know,” I said firmly. “I bear you no ill will.” I was relieved to find I meant it, too, if a little surprised at myself. Having had the smallest taste of imprisonment within my own head, I found I simply could not blame the boy.
“I should make some recompense,” Temar’s jaw jutted obstinately. “You should keep the sword, it is the only thing of value I possess.” His eyes looked lost, clinging to this hollow notion of honor.
I shook my head in absolute refusal. “No, I’m sorry but I cannot accept it.” A tremor in my voice showed me I was not yet so secure as I thought.
“I insist—” Temar tried to lay the scabbard in my hands, so I put them behind my back.
“It was never mine,” I told him firmly this time. “I don’t want it!”