Mercedes Lackey - Lamma's Night (anthology)

Clever enough to be a mage I was, but I had bitter reason to know I was not wise. Light fell on the blood-smeared blade that had once been a sacred instrument. And at that moment, I was gifted with a revelation as keen as any granted to the very greatest of all mages.

"Your club," I gasped. "It is a creature of this world. It cannot destroy its master."

I darted forward, feinting and slashing in some parody of swordsplay. The Master's laughter hurt my ears. He evaded the Blade, then reached out and knocked me down. I went sprawling, but as I fell, I tossed the Blade.

Hilt over point, it spun in the smoky air until my ally, my... love?... snatched it and lunged forward. With the weaponscraft I lacked, he held the Master off long enough for me to reach the gate.

"Go on!" he urged me.

I planted my feet, "Not alone."

Perhaps, if he had not been weary almost unto death, he might have dodged about the Master and joined me in the shadow of the gate. But as he ran, the Master seized him and sank his fangs where neck met shoulder as if determined, could he not breed mages, he would feast upon the one in his power.

My scream matched his. I ran from the gate, beating on the Master's back, drawing his attention. The Master turned toward me. I knew a moment's bitter triumph; we would die together, mage and mage, like a ballad no one would ever sing. Then the creature shrieked and collapsed.

I saw my friend standing there, reeling, but still on his feet. Even as the Master sought to drain him, he had struck to the heart, piercing that unholy flesh with a blade that was not of his forging, not of his world; and it had proved mortal, or as mortal as anything might.

Now, my companion's blood coursed down his neck and chest. The light that pooled about him dwindled.

"Go," he whispered, and hurled the blade back to me. The black blood of the Master burned off it in flight. I caught it before it touched the trampled ground.

I ran forward then and caught him too before he fell.

"Little fool!" he murmured. "The hounds are only stunned. Let them rise, and they will seek us out. Take the gate."

"Not alone!" I tugged his arm over my shoulder, and staggered toward what might be a very dubious refuge. With every heartbeat, I could feel the warmth of his blood.

"Just one step more," I begged him. "Please." Another, then another, and then...

... we were falling through black night until a silvery light exploded about us. He crumpled against me, bearing us both down onto ground that did not reek of monsters' blood.

Behind us loomed yet another gate. Before us... ah yes, before us shone a river, crossed only by a bridge formed by a Blade like mine, only immensely longer and finer. The river shimmered with its own light. Across it, the sky lightened toward an unimaginable dawn.

We could cross, if I could bear him that far... but even as I watched, the sword bridge was withdrawn. The crossing was barred, at least to me.

I looked down at my companion's face. So pale it was, and so serene now. My eyes filled, shimmering with the light from the river. I knew what that pallor, that painlessness meant.

Not long indeed.

"Behind us," he whispered. "The fane I sought. I did not mean to enter it... quite like this." He coughed. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

Drawing upon the strength that even the weakest man or woman finds at a moment of utmost trial, I drew him with me into the sanctuary.

Beyond the standing stones shimmered a pool. Beside it lay a stone as great as those that formed the gate. It gleamed as if it had been purified for some holy use.

"Bring me there..."

It looked too much like a bier for comfort, but we had the choice either of that stone or the cold ground. He slumped down onto the rock, propping himself with one hand, or he surely would have fallen full length. His reflection gleamed in the water, except for the spreading darkness from his wounds.

The silver light that yoked him with his native earth flared up like a candle end, then guttered out. In this new darkness, he still gazed at his reflection. Now it held more life than he. His blood dripped from his body down the stone. Tapers of light erupted at each end of the altarstone.

I stumbled toward the pool to fill the Cup. I set it to his mouth. At least, I could wash the blood from his face, wet his lips before he set forth on his journey, and I on mine.

"Light fails, light and life together. I would be dead at home," he murmured in quiet amazement. "I don't want this. I want..."

He let the water moisten his lips.

I set Cup and Blade aside and took his hands in mine.

"Stay with me," I begged. "I love you."

"I love you," he cried softly, "but I cannot stay."

So strange it was to hear a magus speak of love, not power. Anger flickered in me that we would not have the time we had earned.

"If I inscribed the circle now and you drew on me..." I faltered.

"We would not survive the passage. Listen..." His voice had sunk to a whisper.

I bent close. "My true name. Gereint," he said. "Remember me. And..."

His fingers tightened on my hands, raising them toward his lips as the sun rose. He kissed the pallid scars upon my wrists and they vanished. He drew his silver bracelet from his arm and ringed my left wrist with it, still warm with the last of his life.

"You must return now," he said.

Tears poured down my face.

"I don't want to leave you." There the admission was. I had another one to make, too. "Gereint, Gereint, my name is..."

He shook his head. "Your name was marred. And so I give you another. It is 'Beloved.'" Our lips touched, then parted.

"I will take that kiss with me into forever," he said, smiling. "I beg you, go. Already, your light grows fainter."

Gereint's hands gripped the stone as if he sought to hold onto life long enough to bid me farewell. I saw him glance at the river that he must cross, then back at me. He did not want me to see him pass.

I cleaned the Blade in the long harsh grass. I filled the Cup again, disturbing the shadowy reflection that I did not want to see dissipate when the ripples subsided Then I drew myself up, saluted him, as befitted an adept of our order, inscribed the circle, and began, ruthlessly suppressing my voice's trembling, the Invocation.

No fumes of incense eased my throat or my passage home. Instead, light wreathed up about me. It hid Gereint from my sight—all the farewell we would have. I forced myself not to weep. I needed my breath for the rite.

Cascades of silver exploded about me.

I lay upon the floor of Gereint's house, which was now and forever mine by my love's gift, idly drinking in the fragrance of rain upon the lilacs. Finally, I opened my eyes. I lay wholly covered with blossoms.

I let myself curl up on the floor as if, lacking Gereint, I could embrace my grief. Bereaved I was, yet somehow fulfilled. What else in me had changed? I would not find out by lying here.

I struggled onto my feet. The fire was banked. I stirred it into brilliant life. I hung the pot of porridge over it and set the kettle on the hearth to boil water for herb tea. Soon I would be hungry, I knew that from other workings. Soon, too, people would come, to inquire how I fared, as they would say. I knew they came even more for healcraft and reassurance. They were Gereint's people: no, they were ours. His sacrifice had kept them safe.

I looked out the window and saw not the familiar garden, the familiar slope edging down to the riverbank, but, with the shimmering of my tears, another river altogether, bridged by a sword that even now my Gereint must have dared cross.

A life of work. A life of service, friendship, perhaps love again; I would face it all.

The years would not pass rapidly. I would not wish them lessened, nor would he. An end to our waiting would come, in the fullness of my years or the midst of some good deed. And when I too crossed that final river, Gereint would greet me on the farther bank, smiling at me in the fragrance of the lilacs.