James West - The God King

As she jumped from the wagonbed, her limbs stiff and uncooperative, the side door to Hya’s shop cracked open, and the old woman peeked out. Behind her, a lamp’s comforting glow beckoned. Ellonlef wanted to dash for the promise of any warmth, no matter how scant, but she turned instead to help with Kian.

Hya took in the scene at a glance, then shot a baleful eye toward the starless sky. “This cold will bring much death to an already troubled land,” she said in an ominous tone.

Ellonlef did what she could to aid Hazad and Azuri in pulling a seemingly lifeless Kian from the wagon, but in the end could do little more than fret and keep the door from slamming shut. Her real work, along with Hya’s, would begin once Kian was inside.

Hya led them along at a hurried shuffle to a prepared room. A brazier glowed with heaped coals in one corner, but the gale’s frosty breath easily penetrated every nook and cranny. Still, compared to outside, the room was only cool.

Hazad and Azuri gently deposited Kian onto a raised pallet loaded with ratty blankets. As they worked, exposing the extent of Kian’s innumerable wounds, concerned hisses passed Hya’s teeth.

“You are the better healer,” Ellonlef said gravely. “Tell me what you need.”

Hya looked from Kian to her fellow sister, her eyes misty. “I can do nothing for him,” she said flatly, “save comfort him. By all rights, he should have perished before he reached the Pit. How he lasted this long is beyond me.” She took Ellonlef’s hand in her own. “I am truly sorry.”

Ellonlef’s heart broke anew at Hya’s words, and her sorrow was made all the worse by the tears streaming down Hazad’s bearded cheeks. Azuri, his face hard as stone, sighed heavily and turned away.

Stifling a moan, Ellonlef fell to her knees at Kian’s side. She clasped one of his blood-crusted hands in both of hers, a hand cold as death, and bowed her head over his hitching chest. A single, gulping sob wracked her, then searing tears fell on the dusty, moth-eaten blankets mercifully hiding the worst of his wounds. All was silent, save for Ellonlef’s soft, wrenching sounds of grief. She did not know how long she knelt there, praying to whatever god might yet hear her pleas.

At some point her prayers ended, and her mind wandered aimlessly. She saw Kian in memory, coming to her aid during the Bashye attack, a hulking shadow on that frantic night, full of menace for his enemies and strength for her … her , just an unknown woman alone in a world gone mad. Unknown as she was, still he had come, risked his life without pause, willing to die for a stranger in need. Her cheeks flamed at the thought. She had not looked at it that way before, had not accurately seen the selflessness of his actions. He was a man of honor … and he was a man dying before her. She had pressed him to help Aradan, so she had thought. Now she was not sure. In truth, she felt he would have come to Ammathor to spare a throne and a people to which he held no allegiance, no matter who had asked him. In memory, she admitted his hesitation had crumbled far too quickly, too easily had he abandoned his plan of returning to his home of Izutar. Few were such men.

And he is dying, she thought again, a wasted sacrifice, a wasted life.

“Ellonlef?” a voice rasped.

Ellonlef’s dark eyes flew open to gaze into his blue. Despite the unbearable pain he must be suffering, he offered her a half-smile. “Are you real?”

“Yes,” she said, vigorously rubbing his hand. He winced, so she stopped.

“Good. I thought … I thought you a dream … something sweet to ease the nightmare of Varis.”

“He is no nightmare,” Azuri hissed, as he and the others closed in tight, as if forming a protective wall.

“A shame,” Kian breathed, closing his eyes against a wave of misery that left his tattered flesh trembling. After a moment, he added weakly, “A shame I did not kill that wretched bastard at the palace. The chance was there, but mercy clouded my judgment.”

Ellonlef’s wan grin froze on her face. Suddenly she was not there anymore, not in Hya’s shop, not in Ammathor, but many leagues distant, back at the cleft under the rocks as the Tears of Pa’amadin were raining down. The recollection spun and twisted, becoming a memory of flashing lightning made brighter by the absolute darkness under a hill of weathered stone. Her flesh was afire like it had been then, as if touched by that lightning, tingling and alive!

At Kian’s touch, images and memories clashed inside her skull, things she should have taken note of at the time, but had not. Or had she pushed them away, fearful of what they might reveal? She had taken injuries during the Bashye attack, many bruises and scrapes, her ribs had been scored by an arrow, her knee had been the size of a melon. Yet after Kian had taken her from the cleft, those pains had troubled her no longer.

How often have I wondered at the tiny, pale scar on my side, she thought, alwayswithout considering the how of it? It was as if some part of her had refused to see or regard what had been right before her eyes. As well, there had been the blood coating her after Hazad had taken her from the cleft. She thought it had been Kian’s, from the abrasion on his brow….

More memories filtered through the murk of her mind, clarifying, solidifying….

There had been an explosion of light, the sound of the very earth rupturing-and pain, sharp and bright as a sword slamming into her head … and then, for a time, nothing. The images began to fade from her mind, replaced by dreadful understanding. I died.Something smashed into me, a stone, and I died … and Kian brought me back. Somehow, using the powers of creation, he made me whole.

The queer tingling she had felt when she lay down with Kian in the wagonbed surged over her skin once more, strong enough to steal her breath. She had the urge to clutch Kian to her breast, to hold him tight, to give back what he had given to her. Ellonlef had no idea if what she was feeling and thinking was an illusion of hope, or was truth. Nor did she understand how to do what her very soul seemed to be telling her to do.

Kian had fallen back into unconsciousness, and she knew she did not have time to reason or plan. She let instinct, insubstantial as a morning mist, guide her hands to his chest, just over his heart. All thought faded, leaving behind a serene emptiness-

The jolt of energy that coursed through her fingers and sank into her bones at the sensation of his cold, bloody skin was like a hammer crashing through her spirit. She managed to bite back a startled gasp, but only because awed wonder closed her throat. In that moment, she and Kian were one flesh, and she felt that whatever happened to Kian at the temple in the swamp, it had made him more than merely a man, more than flesh, blood, and bone.

Some unknown part of herself opened, releasing a power or force that she had not known was inside her. Through eyes slitted in rapturous ecstasy, she looked on the savaged man before, a man she knew she could not live without, who she loved with all her heart.

At that thought, her eyes flew wide, and then wider still as a faint, blue shimmer spread from her hands over Kian’s chest. Startled gasps erupted from herself and those hovering over her shoulder. She paid them no heed. The gleaming luminescence spread until it covered the whole of Kian’s body like a translucent, azure cocoon. By heartbeats, that soothing glow grew brighter and brighter, forcing her to squint.

Her breath failed her when Kian’s torn skin began closing … healing . Kian’s back arched violently, and his coverings were thrown aside, fully exposing the extent of his injuries. The raw, weeping wounds in his arms swiftly mended from the inside out, becoming whole in the span of two deep breaths. Where ribs had shown through deep slashes, the muscles knitted together, followed by whole skin.