Lady of Mercy (The Sundered, Book 3) (7 page)

Turning, she looked hard at the one thing that had remained the same: the trunk of the Lady’s Tree. It did not seem out of place surrounded by cold stone and marble. In the odd, pale glow of the hall, it, too, seemed a monument to the Lady—and one no less hard than the walls around it.

Latham was not here to guide her, not here to await her return. He would not come again, but his ghost stood watch in her memory. Darin waited instead.

The walk down the hall was eerie. Her steps rang in the silence, as they had done twice before. But now she was alone, no Lady to follow, and no direction laid out for her.

Not that she needed one. There were no branching paths from this long hall and no doors to tempt her away from the final destination that lay at its end: the Lady’s garden. The hall seemed to go on forever, but she realized it for illusion—or perhaps fear. If she had ever hoped to come home to Elliath, this was not the manner that she had envisaged. Although they were long dead, she felt the eyes of her line upon her and felt their anger, their sense of betrayal, at all that she had done against them. Not for this had she been made Sarillorn of the line; not for this had she become the vessel for the ancient power of the first matriarch. It would have been better for all concerned if the power had traveled through the line as crown, or staff, or ring, the way it
did with any other line. That way, had the power been misused, it could have been passed on, either by will or force, to one less likely to fail it.

Now, with the destruction of the Lady of Elliath, there was no way that the power of the forebears of the line could be handed down. The power was locked within her blood, and when she died, it would die with her—lost forever to the mortal world. Not that it mattered. Who was left to pass it down to? Silent, she cursed the Lady’s choice. But not so dearly or deeply as she did her own.

The hall ended, gradually opening out into the garden that Erin remembered. She stepped onto the narrow path, assailed by the fragrance of a hundred different blossoms. Taking a deep breath, she allowed her wonder to show—for this was indeed the garden of her memory. The centuries that had passed had wrought no changes here. More than at any other time, she felt awe at the power of the Servants of Lernan. That the hall had remained untouched by tracery of dust or cobweb did not surprise her; the hall was a dead, solid thing. But these flowers, these plants and smallish trees—they were of the living, and what lived, changed. That was a maxim of all the lines.

On impulse, she bent down to touch a petal of a large violet flower. It was cool but not cold. She snapped it in two and a thin trickle of sap beaded unevenly across the tear. The flowers were indeed alive. Half-ashamed, she tucked the half petal into a pocket and continued to walk toward the garden’s center.

She became aware that she approached it when she heard the musical tinkle of water striking water—the fountain of the Lady’s garden. The flowers gave way before her as she stepped onto a patterned patch of stone and marble-work-one that interlocked seamlessly beneath her booted foot. And in front of her, the fountain flowed. Clear, small streams of water fell from either hand of the statue in its center.

Erin lost control of her knees for a moment, and they folded beneath her.

In the middle of the fountain, the piece of sculpture that she had once seen as vague and unformed was now a precise, alabaster cast. She knew the lines of the face, with its narrow nose and squared chin. She knew the shape of its rounded eyes, and the way the white, stone hair flowed around its high cheekbones. The only thing that she did not recognize was its expression; a
thing halfway between peace and pain—caught and frozen by the hands of the master sculptor that had designed this hall.

The Lady of Elliath.

She rose again, and stumbled toward it, until she stood at the edge of the water looking into a mirror that bleached all color from her.

Erin of Elliath, the last Sarillorn of the line, looked back at her, face unreadable, expression the only thing that was not exact. Even the details of what she wore now were correct.

Wordlessly she removed her boots and socks. Placing them in a haphazard pile beside the fountain she rolled up her pant legs and took one firm step in. She wasn’t sure why, but she wanted to actually touch the statue—to wring some sort of answer out of it.

And as her foot hit the water, a brilliant glow engulfed her. It was warm and light, but not blinding. She heard the voice that she most and least wanted to hear, but the words, at first, made no sense.

“Forgive me, Erin. Forgive God.”

“Forgive
you
?” She wheeled around, searching for a glimpse of the figure that had always accompanied the voice, wondering if Stefanos—First of the Sundered—had been too confident of his victory and his work. Her heart quickened with hope.

“Forgive me if you can.” The voice continued as if it had not been interrupted. “Our time is short, although the essence of my garden will preserve yours for a while.”

“Lady, please—”

“I am no longer here. If I had had the chance, or the courage to risk it, I would have conversed with you in times past—but I made my choice, whether fairly or not, and it is only an echo that you hear now, caught and trapped as my garden is, by the power of Lernan. I can only ask again that you forgive me. When I have finished speaking thus, I will take the field against the First of the Enemy—and, child, I shall not survive it. By my choice, and by the vision and hope of God, I will perish.

“This cowardice, it is such a human thing. I am almost ashamed of it. And I have little enough time to be ashamed.”

The voice paused, and Erin clenched her fists; the Lady was gone, as dead to her as the rest of the line. Hope’s birth was short and bright—but its death lingered. She listened, afraid to lose a single word of the Lady’s last message to her.

“Some years after the awakening of the Twin Hearts—and the first of our many sacrifices—the Servants of Lernan found a way to discern the difference between time present and time to be; we lost one of our number to this discovery—the veils of time tore him from the grip of the merely present, and we could not call him back. We are not human, child, and the ties that bind us to mortal time are few; we knew that we could not use this odd form of travel and magic without too.much of a risk.

“We had fought long and hard against the Servants of the Enemy and their Malanthi children, but the ranks of the Enemy seemed to swell and grow, even as ours dwindled. I, and three others whom you have never met, went to the meeting place of Lernan, and spoke with Him. Long and bitter were our words, for if we are not human, there is something of the mortal understanding within us—and those that were dying were the children and grandchildren of our blood.

“Thus was the Gifting of Lernan granted. Two Servants it cost us, and we paid that price willingly, that our children might have recourse other than death to defend our mutual goals. And so we fought again, some hundred of your years, but although the rate of our loss was less, the Malanthi still gained ground.

“I went alone to Lernan, to speak with Him again. We spoke long, and the words were painful. For He is God, but His hand could do nothing to stem our losses—nothing beyond the Gifting. But still ... Ah.... ”

The voice stopped a moment as Erin bowed her head. When it resumed, it was harsher.

“After that meeting, I made my first attempt to see through the veils that tie the present, like a blindfold, around us. Years I labored in my Woodhall, for I had not the mage-craft of some of the Servants, but I would not ask them to go where the First of their number would not—and I would not ask them to pay the price.

“The price ... ah, Sarillorn, forgive me.”

Again the voice fell silent for a moment. Erin’s hands hung slack at her sides as she waited for it to continue.

“I found my first answer: the time and place of my death—and its manner. Perhaps if I had stopped then, you would not be here with such just cause against me. But I could not, or would not, stop. I chose the death, accepted it, and the lines of the future hardened around my choice. I looked beyond my
death, to see our lands fall inevitably to the hands of the Enemy and his minions. And I looked beyond that still.

“To see you, Sarillorn. To see you here.”

Again silence. But the bitterness of it was Erin’s alone. She couldn’t understand why the Lady’s tone held sorrow, but no anger.

“Much was not clear to me, and I retraced my steps, traversing present and future and past alike to find better answers. Forgive me,” the Lady said again.

“Forgive you?” Erin said numbly again. “For what, Lady? It was my choice that has brought us here.”

But the voice continued, unbroken by Erin’s tortured words.

“I saw the death of your mother.”

Erin went white.

“I saw the vow that you would make should your mother’s death take place. I knew of the death in you that would make you Lernan’s Hope, and the hope of the future generations. I am sorry. Many years I searched for a way to avoid that death—for Kerlinda was my daughter, my youngest. But choice—and the luxury of it—was not mine.”

Erin’s eyes clamped shut. She saw again her mother’s still, devastated body.
I saw your mother’s death....
Understanding was far more painful than the question had been. Silence closed in upon her, constricting her throat; she struggled against it, destroying its fabric with a single word.

“
Sorry
?” Her voice tore into the hall’s stillness. She struck out and hit the statue at the fountain’s center. It didn’t even give her the satisfaction of scraping her hand; it was smooth and cold. In a sudden fury she brought her fists down and sent water splashing chaotically out to the tiled ground. The voice of the Lady was silent a few moments, as if, three centuries ago, she had expected no less.

When she spoke again, it was worse.

“Child, there is much to forgive. Do you understand now why I spoke to you of cowardice? We all, high or low, have our fears—and you are the worst of mine.

“For I saw more.

“I saw your meeting with the First Servant of the Enemy. I saw what the outcome of that meeting would be. I could not speak of it to your comrades—but to Kandor, I did. Because I had seen that I would, and I had seen what his choice would be.
He is most human of our number, although far from last, and he could not, for our sake, believe in the harsh path our hope had to take.

“I saw your choice as well.

“I would have told you—believe that—but in one of the reckonings, I did, and you left off your course. Now I tell you because I cannot see as clearly what happens after this. I do not know if it is because I have not the power, or because the First of the Enemy has begun his own Sight, or if my absence blurs the future.”

She fell silent again. Erin shook, drawing her arms tightly around her chest, and sinking into the water.

“I spoke of my vision to God. I can go where He cannot go, but I cannot understand all of His working. And Lernan said that in you, and in your choices, so hard and so painful, lay our only hope for an end to this ancient conflict—for an end to Malthan, and through that his church and his rule.”

“An
end?
He rules the whole damned world!”

“And so we chose.

“But there is more, child. You slept for over three hundred years, bound by the First Servant to darkness. And you did not age or wither in this time. Erin—you will not age. Not while Stefanos lives. Your comrades—Belfas, Rein, Teya, and Carla—paid blood-price for your youth. And Kandor, unhuman, unchanging, cemented this. You are tied, through them, to the Lord of the dark plane. And they are tied to you until the moment of your death releases them. ”

Erin looked up, her chin skimming the edge of the water. Her face was ashen. She realized then what she had avoided even suspecting: that her dream had been no figment of troubled subconscious. The friends that she had loved and betrayed in life continued to be betrayed
by
her life. They were trapped, without hope of waking, in the nightmare realm of darkness.

For one wild moment she wanted to have an end to it. She searched around frantically for some weapon, some means of killing herself—and freeing those five she had trapped by the cruelty of her choice.

“
Why?
”

His
voice. Stefanos’ words. Here.

She gave a choked scream and put her hands to her ears—
shutting her eyes so that she would not have to see the expression on Stefanos’ face once more. His look of surprise, of fear, and of a slowly building, implacable determination. His work, the work of the darkness he served, the Enemy he was bound to.

“No! Not for me!” She twisted in the water as if invisible hands had wrenched at her insides, going through the curtain of fragile flesh to do so.

The Lady spoke again—bitter comfort.

“Sarillorn. I am sorry.”

“How
could
you? They trusted you!
I
trusted you! How could you
use
us this way?” She struggled to her feet, dripping wet, the knot in her throat too tight for tears.

And once again, as if she had seen it—and she probably had, Erin thought bitterly-the Lady’s disembodied voice said, “For the only hope of a true end to our conflict. Do not think that I do not know how much our lands will suner—have sunered—from the only choice I have. But I must look beyond myself, and my kin—to the future of the rest of humanity.

“You accepted, by your vows within the circle, the burden of responsibility—whatever the cost. Each of us, making that vow or hearing it, pray that the cost will be measured in our lives alone—that price, all of the line’s kin are willing to pay. You are not the strongest of your line, except in power. And you must pay the same price that I have paid—not the sacrifice of your life, which for you especially would have been easy, but the sacrifice of that which you have loved.