1Chapter Fourteen – The Calm after the Storm
Once upon a time, there lived a very strange little girl. She was not especially pretty, clever, or strong. Her dreams, however, were powerful. Whatever she desired caused the Ways to ripple, and all of the things she imagined took form.
The girl dreamt of vast deserts, tall craggy mountains, deep green forests, and a bottomless dark sea. She dreamt of volcanos ringed with smoke, rainbows that bridged canyons, and clouds that one could walk upon or even keep in your pockets.
She dreamt of a magnificent garden where stars bloomed like flowers, watched over by a beautiful woman with kindly eyes.
Because she was so often alone, the girl imagined that she had wonderful friends, people and creatures who would gladly join her on adventures.
Young as she was, she unfortunately already knew that no place, no matter how lovely, was ever completely safe. In her experience, few people were worthy of trust.
And so she brought along a stick to protect herself.
Or perhaps it wasn't really a stick? It was sharp as lightning. It could cut through anything, and when she needed to find her way in the dark, it burned like a star.
- Anonymous Footnote.
Written (poorly, and in pencil) on the back endpaper of one particularly infamous, sometimes empty copy of "A Wizard's Guide to Magic in General"
I don't know how much time passed before I awoke. The plains were empty, as if there hadn't been a battle at all, let alone a fight between four Guardians, and the armies of Frost and every last Kingdom. There was nothing around me. Not even any dead. I wasn't looking at snow, I realized. Malcit had burned all of the snow and ice from the Winterplains for miles when he'd joined the fight. It smelled a little like the sea still, and I realized that I was buried in a huge pile of salt.
I'd been so desperate to get rid of the water that I'd forgotten that the sea also had Earth in it.
That was going to be a horrible mess to clean up. Salt would kill the land though. Seven Stars would have to send dozens of wizards… if there were any left.
I thought at first that I was bleeding, but then I realized that whatever was dripping off my face was searing hot and blue. A spot above my left eye felt strangely solid, like a chunk of stone was embedded in it. It hurt a little to roll my jaw.
I was also badly wounded. I didn't know when, or how it had happened, but when I'd drawn on Leviathan I couldn't possibly have focused on anything else. At some point, someone had bravely put a sword through my right side just below my ribs, but they hadn't killed me. Or maybe they had… just not quickly enough to stop me from doing what I had to do.
I knew enough about gut wounds to know that was not how I would choose to die. A long time ago, I remembered someone asking me… it seemed like Hugh, how I wanted to die. And I'd told them I didn't want to die, before I'd really come to understand that sometimes death was the very best outcome, and life, or something like it, was really the unthinkable punishment.
I squinted. A white figure was approaching me, looking a bit like a reflection in water. The Warrior was gone, which meant there was only one other thing in all the world which glowed with that exact same light.
Astaril.
"What happened?" I asked the unicorn. I thought I knew, but… too much of it made no sense to me. "Was that my father that pushed Leviathan back into the Ways? Where's Assimya?"
I tried to sit, and that proved to be a very bad idea. I collapsed, flat on my back in the dirt. I couldn't move. If anyone had still been around to kill me, I would've been dead.
Astaril snorted. "Yes. And as for the Warrior, she'll be back. When she's needed."
I did not like how Astaril had said "she'll be back". Did he mean Assimya was already dead? She'd scarcely had time to be alive again.
"People aren't things. You can't just keep using them when they're necessary and… putting them away when they're not!" I would have protested more, but the unicorn gave me the most incredulous look, as if I'd said something astoundingly stupid.
Of course. The Maker could do exactly what they'd always done. Everything I'd risked and lost didn't change that. More importantly, it was too hard to keep arguing with Astaril while bleeding from a gut wound that sucked away half my breath.
I wondered if I was going to die sooner, or later. I didn't want to go slowly the way Captain Orna had. "Fine," I said stiffly. "You can obviously do whatever you want. So what about healing me?"
It seemed worth asking.
The unicorn considered. "It's not necessary."
I was beginning to really hate that word, but arguing with Astaril would get me nowhere.
He took no more than two steps in the direction of the sun and then disappeared as if he'd never been.
I took his words as evidence that I wasn't going to die, and forced myself to sit up. It hurt, but I wasn't as dizzy as I had been the first time. Now that the shock was wearing off, I was in a lot of pain, but I wasn't as badly injured as I'd thought. Either that, or…
The Guardian of the West's signature itched on my spine. Apparently, she was knitting me back together. Walking was still going to be difficult, but I preferred not to wait to find out who'd come looking for me.
"Hugh!" I shouted. "Sinnifer!"
There was no response. Then, Pistachio suddenly zipped over my head. He chirped excitedly and licked my nose.
"Pistachio!" I exclaimed, giving him a scratch on the rump, just above his tail. "You made it through another battle, eh? You're a mighty warrior now!"
The air rippled around Kisrel's pysanka, and my heart skipped a beat. For a moment I thought Leviathan was about to break free, and I didn't even have a stick to hit him with.
Then it began to rain. Not like it had for days when the rivers rose and the sea came to meet us… but softly in between rays of sunlight, just as it would sometimes rain the springtime a thousand miles away on a little apple farm I almost couldn't remember.
As if she were painting herself with watercolor, Sinnifer slowly appeared. All the black, cracking awfulness was gone. She was beautiful, glassy and blue-green again. At first, she didn't say anything. She only came very close to me, and I felt a strange sensation around my neck. My Chain tumbled into my hand. There was still more sand stopped up in the top of it than rested in the bottom. It wasn't completed, but then again… it had never been a normal Seeker's Chain, more of an unusual way for all of the Guardians and maybe the Maker to tug me in whatever direction they needed me to go. The Chain faded into sparkles of light, and I felt a strange sort of loss. I hadn't liked being a pawn or a prisoner… but I was going to miss being a Seeker. Even if I had never really been one at all.
"It was my duty to guide you at the beginning of your journey," Sinnifer said. "I was not required to like you." My heart would've shattered if she'd meant that, but I saw a familiar hint of a crocodile smile beginning on her face. "But I find that I do." She touched me with her nose. "You have been infuriating! So pigheaded! Rude! Stupid! Brave. Very, very brave."
Be brave.
It was the first thing that she, as herself, had said to me. To the Guardians those were important words. Maybe the most important words? What was necessary was not easy. More often than not, it was terrifying.
"Go now," Sinnifer said, "With the blessing of the Guardian of the East."
I braced myself for pain, and cold. I was so sure it would be both of those, maybe more than I could take in my current state without losing consciousness. Nothing happened. But Sinnifer was calm. Everything seemed to be in order, at least from her perspective.
Maybe my body had just adapted?
"Well," Sinnifer said, her tone suddenly changing. She may have become a Guardian, but she was still her usual, bratty self. "That was what I was supposed to say! But, you know, the words are simply not as powerful when I have nothing more to give you! Do you understand how disappointing this is for me? I am a Guardian now, and you are not impressed!"
"Oh, I was very impressed by your appearance! I was!" I said, though I didn't expect that my best flattery would convince her. "And how you've made a sunshower," I gestured to the clear sky from which it was still raining, and the beginnings of the rainbow above us. "I love sunshowers. But what do you mean, you don't have anything to give me? I mean, I didn't feel anything."
"Not the weight of the ocean, when you dropped it on your own head?" Sinnifer snorted.
"Oh. That's right. I guess I did drain Leviathan, didn't I?" I grimaced.
"Foolish. Reckless. You are lucky you are not dead!" Sinnifer scolded.
I sighed. "You're right, of course. You usually are."
"Usually?" Sinnifer echoed. She wrinkled her nose.
"Nobody is right all of the time. And for what it's worth, I'm very grateful that you like me, even a little bit," I said. "I couldn't have done any of this without you."
"You did most of this without me," she said, a bit softer. "And even with my interference."
Did she feel guilty?
"I know you didn't mean it," I sighed. "And I don't hold it against you. That'd be awfully hypocritical of me, considering what my father made me do."
"Is that one gone?" Sinnifer wondered.
"Into that egg and the Ways with Leviathan and the Warrior. So… for now, I suppose he is. But Astaril did say the Warrior would be back," I admitted. "Which I suppose means we haven't seen the last of the Old King either. Or Menenan. Or Leviathan. Stars, this all just keeps happening, doesn't it?"
"It is only ever as it must be," Sinnifer nodded.
"So what now?" I asked.
"Feh! As if this one knows?" Sinnifer rolled her eyes at me, for a moment sounding like a Servant again. "Pick yourself up. Find out what comes next."
The faint rainbow that had been forming in the sunlight above us became a full arc, and then a double.
"Show-off," I said. Far away and yet right above my ear, I could hear the faintest sound of her laughter.
I was too exhausted to put together any sort of tracking spell, but it wasn't difficult to tell which direction Dak had fled. Everyone who had survived the battle had run back to Corith. Dak had clearly gone the other way. He'd taken a terrible amount of damage acting as my shield against Leviathan, and from what I knew of the cost of his existence, that meant he had to get far, far away from anyone he didn't want to hurt while he was in the process of healing.
Of course, Dak could easily drain me and I didn't have much to spare. Still, my gut told me that I needed to find him.
Hours passed. The sun sank low in the sky, and I found myself at the Precipice where my uncle had charged his minions with taking up Captain Orna's sword. That had all been for nothing in the end. Ma had taken it. We'd all known she was going to. Allen and I had both meant to stop her, but she'd outsmarted us, and never gave a hint of what she was planning. That probably shouldn't have been a surprise. She was easily ten times the Tessar either of us would ever be. We'd wanted so badly to protect her, and in obsessing over that, we'd forgotten something very important. She was our mother. One way or another, she was going to protect us.
It did not surprise me that the Sword of the Warrior had not gotten drawn into the Ways with Leviathan, Assimya, and my father. I'd tried to return it to the Guardians in the very beginning and the Well I'd thrown it into had literally spit it back out. The Sword burned white in the darkness.
Dak was lying a few feet away from it, not moving at all.
It was obvious that Dak had meant to put it the Sword where it was. He'd gone to the most desolate place in the North, not so he wouldn't hurt anyone while he was healing. The Sword of the Warrior could not fall into the hands of our enemies. It had to be somewhere safe, where the surviving Tessars would find it and protect it as they always had. The Warrior could always return to the Garden, but the Sword couldn't stay there too long. If it did, the Ways would probably close forever. All that, it was really just speculating. I still didn't understand what we'd done, let alone if it was right or wrong.
"Dak?" I called out.
I was almost afraid to speak. What if he didn't respond?
He didn't.
"Dak!" I shouted, frantic. I knew it wasn't safe, but I came forward anyway.
A piercing pain shot through my gut, pulling the life the Guardian of the West had been steadily sewing into me right out of my body.
"Don't," Dak warned. "Don't come no closer!"
"Dak, there's nothing up here to heal you!" I protested. "I know you don't want to hurt anyone, but… there's not even trees, Dak. Just rocks and snow!"
"I had to make sure it was safe," he said. "Couldn't just… leave it down there in a pile of salt."
"You didn't need to come up here though. It's safe with you, Dak!" I told him. "It was always safe with you! Come on," I said. "Let's just go down a bit. I'll be okay. The Guardian of the West is healing me."
Astaril could've healed me better if he'd been decent in the least, but I decided that wasn't worth bringing up. Pain wracked my gut again. I was still too close to Dak.
I didn't want to take a step back. But I was testing whether the work of one of the greatest necromancers in history was stronger than the meager efforts of a Guardian who'd already almost killed me once for no good reason at all. I had to step back so I could breathe. And I had to breathe so I could yell at Dak, because I saw what he was doing.
"I don't want to hurt no one," Dak said.
"Stars, then why don't we find a way to fix you?" I protested. "I'm done Signing the Pact. Let's go out on the Ways and break all the rules and figure out what this magic thing really is! Let's go find out if faeries make good beer!"
"S'all right. I've had time enough," Dak replied. "I'm not sorry."
I couldn't think of anything more to say, because I already knew I wasn't going to move him. I thought of how Captain Orna had compared the two of us to Tarran and the Warrior, and how convinced she'd been that the two of us would be fighting the good fight long after everyone else was dust.
"You sound like Master Beetle! And I hate that! And I know you think that's a compliment!" I took a deep breath. I couldn't yell at him. I could barely breathe. I'd just stole power from a Guardian and thrown half an ocean into the Ways… and I'd never felt more helpless.
"Look how it's shining. S'pretty, isn't it?" Dak whispered.
The Sword, of course. That was why Dak had wanted it from me when we first met. He hadn't known what it was. He'd just thought it was... pretty.
"Bright as a star," I said.
A faint haze, like smoke from a fire that had just been put out, began to pour out of Dak. The magic pulled on me so strongly that I stumbled backwards into a tree. Before I could protest or do anything, the power exploded in all directions and then faded into the black of the night sky.
Dak was gone. Completely. There was no sign he had ever been there at all.
I ran to the flat spot in the snow and dug frantically with both hands. I couldn't even find his Order of the Daystar medallion, or even the clasp of his belt. Finally, my cold and bloody fingers touched something solid. A rock, under all of the snow.
Nothing, after all.
Except…
It was the wrong season for crocuses, but… there was a little shoot of something green, the tiniest spark of life, cracking right through the stone.
I put my hand on the Sword and tried to draw it from the stone. I don't know what possessed me to do it, except that I was frustrated, terrified, and panicking.
The Sword of the Warrior did not come free, but it did strike me with a force like a bolt of lightning which shot straight through my head, right behind my eyes, and for a moment I could see across the Ways straight to the Gardens.
Then, I was back in my own body. Cold, still bleeding… and staring at the most brilliant white light in the world, surrounded by snow, and a sea of red roses.