Terry Brooks - Bloodfire Quest

He laughed, a terrible rattling in his throat. “I … don’t have to … know you … to kill you.”

She took a chance. “Is it the Elfstones? Is that what you are after?”

He nodded once. “She … wants to …”

He couldn’t finish, blood spilling from his mouth.

“Wants to what? Tell me.”

“Wants … to know.”

She was getting nowhere, and she needed to go to Cymrian. She glanced over. He was lying on his side, watching her through pain-fogged eyes, listening to what was being said. She could see the blood on his body and the blade buried in his back. But she needed to continue with what she was doing.

She bent close to the dying man. “You said ‘she’ wants to know? Who? Give me a name!”

The assassin laughed.

“Don’t die and leave her safe! Tell me who she is!”

His eyes found hers, and she could see death clouding them. “Why … not? She’s … killed me. Maybe she will … kill you … as well.”

He was racked by a sudden fit of coughing, and for a moment Aphen was certain she had lost him and would never know the name of the one who had sent him.

But then he gathered himself and whispered, “Edinja … Orle. Now, you …”

But then his voice faded, and his eyes fixed in a vacant stare. The life went out of him with a soft sigh, and he was gone.

She stared down at him a moment longer, then got up and went over to Cymrian, kneeling beside him, her hand on his cheek.

He smiled up at her. “You got here … just in time.”

“Don’t talk.” She bent close to him, searching for his wounds. She found the worst of them quickly enough. The knife that had caused the first was still buried in his back. A deep penetration to his chest marked the second, although the blade was no longer there. Both were bleeding freely, the rents ragged and gaping. She reached for his hands, gripping them in her own. “Close your eyes. Keep them closed.”

She sent a wave of numbing magic all through his body to ease the pain, and then followed it with an infusion of sleep magic that put him under completely. When that was done, she began work. She stanched the flow of blood to the chest wound, searching for internal injuries to his vital organs. Finding none, she pinched the edges of the torn skin and muscle together and sealed it with a fusing of tissue. It took a long time and deep concentration, and she worried all through it that she was sacrificing the back wound in the effort. But she knew this injury was the more serious, and that the loss of blood from the other wound was not as severe.

While she worked, Cymrian made small noises, but was otherwise still. She stroked his brow once and kissed it afterward, anguished by what had been done to him. He had defended Arling and herself against all three of these creatures, mutants and assassin alike. He had sacrificed himself for them, and she would never doubt again what her sister had told her about his reason for taking on the job of protector.

That he loved her.

That he had always loved her.

She hadn’t believed it before. She couldn’t conceive of it being true. So many years had passed since she had even seen him. So much had happened since they were children, and yet none of it seemed to have mattered. None of it had diminished his feelings for her. She wondered at his obstinacy, at his dogged determination to have her—how else could she think of it? But she knew even as she thought it that this wasn’t it at all. It was more akin to the taking of a vow. It was making of a commitment to something he believed in so utterly that he would wait as long and do as much as was necessary to see it fulfilled.

Even though the effort cost him his life.

As might happen here, if she failed to heal him.

She finished with the chest wound and moved on to the damage to his back. She laid him out facedown and extracted the knife, reaching along the razor-sharp edge of the blade to its tip with her magic to make certain he was shielded as she worked on him. His lungs and heart were unscathed, the injuries he had incurred confined to muscle and tissue and a complex network of blood vessels. The blade removed, she began the effort of mending arteries and veins so that the ends joined perfectly, tying together sinew and ligament, repairing torn muscles, and cleansing the whole of lingering infection.

By the time she was done, she was exhausted. She took time to bind up both wounds with strips of cloth she tore from the clothes worn by the dead assassin. Then she closed her eyes for what she expected to be a moment’s rest and promptly fell asleep.

Arlingfant Elessedil is dreaming.

She rides in an airship, high above the ground, lost in clouds that seem to buoy the vessel in the manner of an ocean’s waters. Through holes in these clouds, Arling can spy the earth far below—a distant patchwork of green woods, blue lakes, silver rivers, and brown mountains, all of it perfectly formed and reassuring. She is pleased to be able to observe it, but to remain above it, too. She can see it without touching it, can witness its presence without having to descend.

She is afraid it might not be real.

Aphenglow rides next to her. Her sister wears white robes that billow and flow like gauzy streamers. She smiles when Arling glances at her, further reassurance that all is well. Arling speaks to her, although she is uncertain of the words she uses. But Aphenglow doesn’t answer; she only smiles again and then points.

Ahead, looping through the clouds, is a flock of giant birds, their wings as wide as the airship is long, great predators in search of food. But they do not seem to notice the airship and continue their flight without paying it the slightest attention.

When Arling looks to her sister for an explanation, Aphen is gone.

Seconds later she sees her sister in the pilot box, standing at the controls. There are others aboard the airship, too. She cannot see who they are, but she knows instinctively they are Elves. They scurry along the decks and climb the rigging of the masts and work the radian draws and trim the light sheaths. They do sailors’ work, and nothing interrupts or distracts them from their efforts, even her calls of encouragement.

Suddenly the airship lurches and drops before steadying again. Arling seizes the railing against which she has been leaning, catching herself so that she does not fall. She feels her heart in her throat, and she is suddenly afraid. The airship jolts and drops a second time, and now she looks to the pilot box for Aphen. But her sister has vanished, disappeared into the ether. Nor are the other Elves still aboard. All are gone, as if they never were.

She is alone.

Terrified, she struggles across the deck as the airship begins to spiral downward, dropping swiftly earthward. She is intent on reaching the controls so that she can slow the vessel’s descent. But even though she fights her way across the heaving deck, she can never seem to get any closer to the pilot box. She is moving steadily, but the deck stretches out and grows longer. The airship drops through layers of clouds, sinking into them one moment and then abruptly falling back out again. Because she is no longer standing at the railing, she cannot tell how far she has fallen or how close the ground is beneath her. She senses that the time left before impact is very short, but she cannot find a way to measure it.

Then the airship catches fire. She screams for Aphenglow, but her sister does not respond. She is truly gone, and Arling cannot depend on her for help. She must save herself. She continues to crawl toward the pilot box, but the flames are everywhere and the heat is too intense. She begins to slide backward toward the railing and then the railing disappears and she falls over the side and …