Michael Manning - The Line of Illeniel

“Maybe… hang in there Dad, it’s not over yet,” I choked before I could say more. His injury was mortal, but the nature of it was something that I could fix… if I could do three things at once. I struggled to think clearly. If it had been my own body it would have been easier. I need absolute focus, I thought to myself. I needed to cast my spirit into him, like I had done with the horse a long year ago. Working from within would be far easier.

I whispered a few words and cast my mind out, staring into my father’s blue eyes. For a moment I felt our minds touch as I strove to enter, but then my thoughts snapped back, pulled inexorably back into my own head. I was anchored within my own body… by the bond. My heart cried out in anguish as I realized I couldn’t do what was needed. I struggled inwardly, seeking to free myself from the restraint created by the bond. Pain shot through me as I sought to snap it by force and Penny stumbled and fell beside me. I was killing both of us.

Despair washed over me and I gave up, then I heard my father trying to speak again. I held his head up and listened, but even with my ear close I couldn’t understand him. His eyes pierced me as he tried to speak. With a finger he traced a shape on the ground, but I failed to understand. He spoke again, but the only word I could make out was ‘chandelier’. That made no sense.

“I can’t understand… what are you trying to say?” I replied with eyes too blurred to see.

He pointed at James, who was reclining a few feet away, and mouthed the word ‘chandelier’ again. He seemed so urgent and I was desperate to understand him. “James! What does he mean… chandelier?”

James stared a moment before answering, “I think he means the new chandelier in the great hall, back at Lancaster. He made it for me after your battle.” Things had been so chaotic back then I had hardly noticed. I had never known.

Royce nodded at his words and pointed at my eyes, then back at James. A tear rolled down from his eye as he looked at me. “I think he wants you to see the chandelier Mort,” Penny said softly beside me.

I nodded in agreement. “Where is Marcus?” I asked her. My only hope now was that his goddess would do what I could not, but time was running out.

Dorian had come in and answered my question, “He’s in Lancaster Mordecai. He went yesterday, a child came down sick.”

A black wave rolled over me, but I pushed it back. Despair would help no one. I examined the wounds again; I would have to do the best I could from the outside. I began pulling at the shaft of the arrow, trying to seal the damaged lung as the head came out. My father jerked at the pain and the head of the arrow cut deeper against his heart. I was killing him. I felt his heart beating faster, too fast, as it struggled to force blood through his body.

Watching him struggle tore at my heart and I did the only thing left to me… I began damping the pain, suppressing the signals his nerves were sending. There were so many I couldn’t be sure of what I was doing, but his body began to relax. The heart slowed and his chest relaxed.

“Royce?” I heard my mother’s voice over my shoulder. Looking back I saw her standing there, her face was calm but I could see fear in her eyes, the fear of losing the one person most important to her. It was a look that ravaged my soul, for I knew I could do nothing to prevent it.

She sat down across from me and stroked the hair from his face. I saw their eyes meet, as they had a thousand times before, communicating feelings I had never fully understood. “It’s ok darling, I’ll be alright,” she told him. He tried to speak but his voice was gone. “Mordecai will take care of us, don’t worry. I know you love me. Relax, you need to rest.”

The words unmade me and I began to weep like a child, hopeless and uncontrolled. The sorrow of a man who knows he can never go home again. My life was changing, and the safety and security my father had given me would soon be gone forever. In a crowd of friends and loved ones I felt more alone than ever.

My father took a long time dying. He had been far stronger than I imagined, and his body struggled to breathe long after he lost consciousness. The pain of watching it was too great, and in the end I gently stilled his heart to speed his passing. Once it was done I sat staring blankly into space, numb and tired.

After some time Penny led me to our rooms. Along the way people spoke to me, expressing their sympathies at my loss, but I barely heard them. At long last I fell into bed, sinking into a deep slumber. One filled with sorrow and unsaid words.

The week that followed was grey and tasteless. Marc returned the next morning and with the aid of his goddess healed the wounded that remained, including his own father. I avoided him for several days, my grief was too great and some part of me blamed him for his absence when my father needed him. It only served to increase my anger at the gods.

A funeral was held and I spoke of my memories, but I could not remember afterward what I had said. It was as if the emptiness in my heart had eaten the memory of it. I returned to working on the iron bombs with a renewed vigor, driving myself as if exhaustion could defeat the demons that haunted me.

Royce’s idea served me well. By linking the containment enchantment with a ward to absorb heat I was able to empower multiple pieces of iron with much less personal effort. I developed a routine and soon the only limit to how many I could produce was the time it took me to arrange the enchantment and the linkage. Usually I could manage fifteen or more in an hour.

Angus came to find me a week after the funeral. He was having some issues with the dam. The one thing I was having the most difficulty with, was talking to other people, but the reality of our problems would not wait on my grief. “I need to talk to you about the foundation,” he told me.

I was busy creating more iron bombs and Angus was irritating me. “If you need more men or materials talk to Joe. He’ll get you whatever you need,” I told him brusquely. Since our ill-fated escape from Albamarl our ranks had swelled by another two hundred men. We now had more than enough men for the dam project as well as the building of more temporary shelters for the winter. Food didn’t look like it would be a problem either; we had taken far more from the king’s ware-houses than we would need, far more than he had stolen from us.

Angus sighed, “It’s not more labor I need. It’s a basic problem with the base, there’s no way we can finish this thing when you want it. The foundation isn’t sufficient, it won’t hold up till spring if we keep building on what’s there.”

I was annoyed. Since his arrival I had heard a lot from Angus about what we ‘couldn’t’ do. He had the same perfectionist traits that had made my father a skilled blacksmith. But where Royce had been willing to consider what ‘might’ be possible, Angus seemed only to see what wasn’t possible. Of course I hadn’t given him any personal support since I had returned. Given the purely mundane resources currently at his disposal it might have been reasonable for him to despair of ever finishing the dam. In a sense his failure was my fault. Like everything else, I thought to myself.

“I’ll come down and look at it. We can talk about it there,” I told him. Today would be as good as any to begin testing my new ideas for the dam. Maybe it would cheer the dour man up, but I doubted it.

Hours later we stood looking up at the dam my father had started. It rose twenty feet now; the stones at its base were large, five foot by five. Above that they were smaller, a foot and a half on each side. Water spilled over in the center where a channel had been left near the top, to prevent the rising water from overwhelming what had already been built. The water behind it was already fifteen feet deep and stretched from one side of the narrow entrance to Shepherd’s Rest to the other.