The Warden

Chapter 56

Freedom from the mesmer was both at once an exhilaration and a horror. His mind unshackled reached for his lifelight, but his memories made him stutter and hesitate. Memories suppressed deep within his mind boiled up from those infected parts, bursting through like pus from a festering wound.

The night in his cell detonated back into his memory. Lady Telias—no, the night queen—stooping over him, gloating, triumphant, whispering words laced with cloying sentiment. Her mesmer forced into him, violating his lifelight, corralling it, compelling submission with terrible strength. His stomach lurched at the memory, threatening to empty what little it had in it onto the stone floor.

Words battered at the back of his mind. A request, urgent and pleading. They sounded annoyingly like that Domrae boy. He pushed them away, or the shock of the moment did, or the sudden expurgation of those dark filaments about his lifelight might have. Thoughts, emotions, his entire being jumbled, as he sought to draw a complete breath, not these short little hiccups that only made his chest constrict more and more and his heart thrum at greater and greater speeds.

How could I have not seen it? he wondered. Idiot. Fool!

The shift in sympathies. The subtle change in tolerances. The sudden and inexplicable dizzy spells. All of it pointed to some sort of manipulation. Others had wondered. Others had questioned his rapid shift.

Why hadn't he?

A violent storm gained in strength within his body, swirling, angry, tempestuous. It lanced out in violent, stinging strikes. Thunderous words followed in each poignant thought and memory.

He covered his face with his hands. Fool. Imbecile. Arrogant old man.

But with every storm, the bright agonizing flashes were accompanied by rain. Tears spilled down Master Elwith's cheeks as the horror of his freedom broke upon him.

Limbs suddenly released from their temporary petrification, the High Mage crumpled in on himself, slumping into an incoherent heap, legs splayed, arms any which way.

How could I have missed it? How could I have missed it? How could I have missed it?

No answer came.

This whole situation, this whole awful debacle, revealed his worst failing: his arrogance. It would be not only his undoing, but all Haimlant as well. His arrogance would be the tool of everyone's destruction.

Oh, what a fool I've been.

A shock went through him.

He shook his head, stirring from his stupor.

Words that were not words, feelings that were not his own—warm and overpoweringly effulgent—filled him, banishing his despair, clearing his mind, bringing back into crisp exactness the words the Domrae boy had forced on him.

"Light?" wondered Master Elwith out loud.

Screams drew his attention to the world around him and up into the heights of the conical structure he now found himself in. Soldiers fell from a ledge above, twisting and writhing in the air in some futile attempt to suspend their fall. Their screams cut short with a fleshy crunch as they collided with the ground. He winced at the sight and sound.

He cast about, finding to his shock that Lady Kyla and Masis were on the ground, both apparently in bad shape. A killing stroke from one of the many milling wighties would soon come and claim Kyla. Master Elwith recalled enough to know what awaited the Domrae boy.

He seized his lifelight, the source of his sudden clarity retreating as his own will surged to fill the breach.

If the Domrae lad wants light, thought Master Elwith, well, let there be light.