Chapter 47
EIRLYS STARED AS Brander slipped on his coat and slung the long gun over his shoulder.
“You can’t leave. Brander, he’s dying.”
He picked up his pack as if she’d said nothing, but she saw his jaw go rigid.
“He’s your best friend, and he’s dying,” she whispered.
He whirled then. “Do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I can’t see the darkness in his eyes, and the knowledge in his face. I know he’s dying. He knows he’s dying.”
“Then how can you leave him?”
He looked at her for a long, silent moment. In his face, she could see some kind of battle was raging inside him. Brander, the ever nonchalant, ever joking, Brander looked dark, haunted . . . and deadly. Whatever his reasons for this choice that dumbfounded her, the decision had not been easy.
Twice he began to speak, then stopped. As if he wanted to tell her something and had to remind himself why he could not. And then, before she could do more than cry out his name in a final protest, he was gone. Leaving her to deal with the debris of the end.
And the imminent death of her beloved brother.
HE’D DONE THE right thing.
He couldn’t tell her. She had accepted Drake’s approaching death, with a bitter submission that was unspeakable in one so young. He could not bear to be the one to raise hope in her when even he knew it was most likely futile. Yet he had to try. While there was the slightest, faintest possibility, he had to try. For Drake was not only the heart and soul of their fight, as Kye had said, he was his brother in all but blood.
And the brother in blood of the girl whose distraught gaze seared him to his soul.
He’d done the right thing.
He repeated the words with every step for the first hour after he left the rover at the highest point he could take it without becoming a target. After that, the climb had grown difficult enough that he dared not spare the attention to any thought save staying upright.
But he’d reached the Edge. From here on, there was no cover, nothing to mask him from any eyes turned this way, including the Coalition. He wasn’t even sure where to go from here; he knew only that the stories said that she dwelt beyond the Edge.
And that she knew if anyone dared trespass there.
He barely made it a blaster’s shot past the last tree when he was stopped cold by a voice that seemed to come from both above and behind him.
“No further, son of Kalon.”
It wasn’t the Spirit, unless she had a booming bass voice.
But whoever it was apparently knew who he was. Coalition? Were they guarding even the Edge? But whoever it was hadn’t killed him on sight. Not that he would mind overmuch at this point.
He held his hands out from his sides, to show they were empty of weapons. Then, slowly, he turned around. “I seek the Spirit.”
“As do most who dare venture into her realm. Most die.”
He still couldn’t see the speaker, but by turning, he could now guess about where he was, and how the rocks ahead were echoing that booming voice all around him.
“That is what I wish to prevent. A death. A death that could doom all of Ziem forever.”
There was a moment of silence. Then, “And what death could be so important?”
Decision time, Brander thought. If this was a Coalition trap, his answer would spring it. His mission would fail and Drake would die. That he would as well was merely an afterthought.
The Raider was dying anyway, Brander told himself. And if he dies, the rebellion dies with him. For no matter how much Drake might think the mask mattered more than the man behind it, Brander knew he was wrong.
“How do you face it? Knowing they want you dead more than anything else? Knowing they hunt you every day, all of them?”
“Simple, my friend. I think of myself as already dead.”
That conversation had been months ago, when the latest Coalition effort at a “wanted” placard—with a drawing as inaccurate as the rest had been and a staggering reward amount—had gone up on every wall left standing in Zelos. And the flat, unemotional tone of the words told Brander that they were in fact truth. And he saw the sense of it; you could not be mortally afraid if you thought yourself already dead and were waiting only for your body to receive the message.
And now it had.
Brander thought of what Drake had suffered—the broken body, the agony, and the mental torture of knowing his death was imminent. Of knowing he would be leaving his family alone in a hellish world. Of knowing now that the woman he loved had risked her life to save him, only to learn he was going to die anyway. Compared to all that, a quick death by blaster if this was indeed a trap, would be Eos-sent. And his death would mean little.
But Drake’s . . .
What death could be so important?
“The Raider,” he finally answered.
The only sound was the wind whistling through the barren rocks. For a moment, Brander thought he was alone again.
“Please,” he said, not above begging for this. Surely she would help, if she could? Had she not been helping the Raider all along? “It already hovers too close; it will soon be too late. If it is not already.”
There was another long moment of silence. Bleak despair began to settle into his soul. This had been folly, useless folly. He would not be there for his best friend’s last moments, and for nothing. He—
“Follow.”
Before the command had faded away, a huge shadow loomed up, followed by the man who cast it. Tall, lean, but broad-shouldered, the man’s powerful build belied the slight limp Brander noticed. He said nothing more, but turned and headed up the mountain.
Whatever impairment the man had, it did nothing to limit his speed as they climbed. He clearly needed no guidance on the path Brander could not even see, and so he trusted the man’s obvious knowledge and simply followed as best he could in his wake.
It seemed an age before the man slowed. He had never looked back to see if he was followed; either he assumed Brander would keep up, or did not care if he did not.
A few paces later, the man stopped before an exposed section of the mountain’s stone, weathered and clear of any growth because of its vertical face.
“I suggest you close your eyes,” the man said, not even looking over his shoulder.
In his puzzlement over the words, Brander could think of nothing to say. And in the next instant he had no one to say it to; the big man stepped forward . . . and vanished.
For a moment, he just stood there, gaping. Logic argued with the illogic of coming here in the first place, looking for some sort of magic. If he could believe in the Spirit and her powers, why should he not believe this?
Follow.
He closed his eyes. And stepped forward.
He felt nothing. The ground seemed solid, stable under his feet. He realized with an inward grimace he was wary of opening his eyes. That prodded him into doing just that.
It was a cave, tall and narrow. And oddly warm, a comfort after the cold damp of the mountain. A bare arm’s reach away stood the man who had led him here.
“You took less time than most,” he observed, his voice tempered now, as if he reined it in here in this place. Before Brander could decide if that had been a compliment, the big man pointed to a large, flat rock to his left. “Your weapons.”
Every instinct he had rebelled, but Brander realized the long gun at least would be useless in these close quarters. He laid it down on the rock. He disliked giving up his blaster, but accepted it as necessary for the moment. He placed it beside the long gun and straightened.
The big man didn’t move. Brander frowned. Then realized. His fingers danced over the hilt of his dagger. He rarely took it off, and even when sleeping, it was close at hand, his last line of personal defense. But that thought only reminded him of all the sparring bouts he and Drake had had, practicing with the lethally sharp blades. In fact, one of those, many months ago, had been the last time he’d seen Drake laugh. And now he would probably never see that again.
He’d gambled by coming here, and now he must play by the house rules. He pulled the dagger out of the sheath, the one Eirlys had made for him, and put it on the rock beside the blaster.
The big man turned and headed deeper into the cave. He was walking toward what looked like another blank wall, and Brander wondered if he would again vanish in that impossible way. But this time he veered right, and Brander realized the wall stopped a few feet short of the side wall of the cave. The man stopped there, looked back and commanded, “Wait.”
It chafed, when time was so crucial, but Brander didn’t see that he had any choice. He looked around, but in the dim light it looked like nothing but an ordinary cave. An oddly warm cave, yes, but just a cave.
“Come forward.”
He hadn’t expected the command so quickly, but was grateful. He walked to where the man stood, then walked past him as the man gestured him onward.
He stepped into what appeared to be a living area, with weavings hanging on the walls and thick cushions for seating. It was even warmer in here, warm enough he knew he would be comfortable without his coat. It was also well lit, although he wasn’t sure of the source. The walls glowed faintly, from what he couldn’t tell.
Then one of the weavings he had thought against a stone wall moved. A feminine hand gripped the edge of it, pushing it back. A woman emerged from behind it. Dressed in a simple gown of pale blue, she was tall, slender, and had long, vividly red hair.
Brander’s breath caught. And then the woman stepped into the full light of the room and he knew. He stared, beyond gaping. Utterly astounded.
For, before him, some years older and marked with scars, yet still beautiful, stood the long-dead Iolana Davorin.