[Fire Emblem] Haunted
Nov. 3rd, 2009 01:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
runicloreTitle: Haunted
Author: Amber Michelle //![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
myaru
Rating: T
Warnings: n/a
Word count: 4702
Summary: after the Mad King's War, Sephiran and Zelgius make a pilgrimage to Serenes.
A/N: as I haven't technically completed PoR, my references to the battle between Ike and the Black Knight are based on what I recall from RD and reading the PoR script ages ago. Or, in other words, probably wrong.
Also for 30 Breathtakes #26, "clear blue skies." It was inspired partly by Gauntlet #19, "Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow," which doesn't fit as well anymore. But then, when does anything turn out the way you think it will by the end?
...............................................................
When Zelgius returned to his master after Daein lost the Mad King's war, he remembered most the softness of Sephiran's hands removing his armor and the clamor of its steel on the white tiles of the imperial villa in Melior, the faint, fluttering brushes of delicate fingertips on his face, his arms, everywhere he later learned was bruised purple and bloody. A staff was procured, a spell murmured in the old tongue, one Zelgius had never heard a priest of any persuasion use, and with such fluency-- but it only dulled the pain. Depriving the body of its chance to heal naturally would mean weakening its ability to face injury next time, his master said. It was one of many factors contributing to the difference in strength and healing ability between beorc and laguz.
So it seemed his curse, the mark upon his back, had served him well - he never sought the services of healers when he was younger. Sephiran only sighed when Zelgius said so. The neutral line of his lips curved slightly downward. His eyes glinted in the lamp light, followed his hands, their tasks, their feather-like touches. Rents had split the blessed armor, which was then piled in a corner, some pieces unsalvagable: a slash through the shoulder guard, through a side plate where the sword Ragnell flayed his skin open to reveal his ribs, another across his left thigh that still burned, but not as much as the wound in his side, where Sephiran had paused. Zelgius tried to remain still against his pillows when the wound was prodded, but flinched and heard the silk crease with the shift of his weight.
Maybe a little more, his master murmured, reaching for one of his staves, laid across the corner of the bed. Zelgius stopped him, hand on his pale wrist, the metaphorical black and white. "No. Not--"
"You can't travel like this." Sephiran pulled away. His ring clinked against the golden handle of the healing staff; the decorative jewels jangled, swinging from tiny gold chains, a goddess's wealth. "If you are to be of use to me, you must be well."
Zelgius closed his eyes against the radiance of his master's healing words. The curtains were drawn, the servants had been dismissed. Such brilliance must creep around the scarlet drapery to light the window, but this was Lord Sephiran, her majesty's right hand, the purest of Ashera's servants on the council-- light clothed him as leaves clothed trees, or clouds the sky.
Ashera was a cold goddess, Sephiran once told him - but she was fair. Just. Stable. So must be her servant. Sometimes, Zelgius thought he understood why. And sometimes--
Sephiran's hand rested on his cheek, warm, his arm heavy, and Zelgius found the light dim again when he opened his eyes, yellow and white, red in his peripheral vision where the drapes hung from iron rods and pooled, folded on the floor like the empress's mantle of state. His master's hair twisted and fanned on a sheet drawn up to cover Zelgius and folded, precise and sharp, a hand below his shoulders. "Do you know you're all I have?" Sephiran's fingers tickled behind his ear, shifting the short hair, nails biting crescents into his scalp. "The empire might dance when I say the right thing, but you are the only one standing beside me. You can't be so careless--"
Zelgius wanted to lift his arm, but his master sat atop the sheet, still dressed, still pale, a red line across his bottom lip to match his teeth. The light was behind him now, the gleam of life in his gaze faint.
He wasn't careless; he wasn't even undefeated. His mouth was dry paper when he opened it to say something, his lips cracked, and then sealed by Sephiran's thumb. "No excuses." His voice trembled. "Go to sleep, Zelgius."
Again Sephiran disappeared into the light, the mattress shifting. Zelgius tried not to close his eyes, but he was asleep before his master came back.
*
His master was warm again when Zelgius woke, and kneeling beside the bed, still in his white sleeping robe with a loose, messy braid. When he leaned and folded the sheet back to look at the wound, feel it with slight roughness of his fingertips, it slid over his shoulder to swing like a pendulum and offer a momentary breath of some herbal scent. The curtains were still drawn and only one lamp lit right beside him on a small, round table. Sunlight lingered at the edges of the red drapes like silver trim. Sephiran's eyes flicked up to watch him, but Zelgius didn't flinch when he pressed harder, rubbed the skin, helped him sit up. A muscle twinged, as if he'd twisted or sprained something.
His master sat down heavily beside him, sank into the feather-bed. A bare leg showed through the part in his robe. "I'll tell them you arrived last night with a summons from the empress." Sephiran sat straight, but tilted his head, rested his temple for a moment on Zelgius's shoulder. His flyaway hair tickled. "The farther we are from this place the better."
Zelgius traced the folds of the sheet across his legs. He was days late, perhaps a fortnight; that was a quick coronation, even for a country on the verge of desperation. "Then you've finished all of our official business?"
"The queen has been crowned." It looked, from the angle of his head and the long shadow of his lashes that Sephiran was staring at the armor abandoned in the far corner, behind the armoire. "One of the others will be in Daein now to take control of the occupation. Our business lies south."
But not home, or his master would have mentioned the capitol and a reunion with their fiery little empress; the line of his shoulders would have eased instead of staying taut, pulling his fingers into a curl like talons. Zelgius looked at the tapestry decorating the wall past the foot of Sephiran's bed, depicting a knight and his steed, a silver lance, and a cloud shaped like a charging lion. "I'm sorry," Zelgius said. "If I hadn't underestimated him..."
He heard the slide of Sephiran's braid and knew his master turned his head, probably stared at him, but kept his own face forward. With a blessed sword, even a fool could get lucky and strike him, and Zelgius had forgotten that the child who answered his challenge was no fool, nor dependent on luck to guide his sword - only young and inexperienced. In a few years Ike would outgrow both circumstances. Perhaps he would lead the opposing force again when Sephiran turned this disaster around, turned it into another war, another opportunity. Ashera wouldn't awaken for another two hundred years, but if submerging Tellius in war took only twenty more years, or fifty, judgment would be swift, harsh, unquestionable. I've no doubt she will agree with my assessment of the situation, his master said, more than once, but let us not leave it to chance.
"If this war is a failure," his master said, tilting his head aside, "the fault lies with both of us."
Zelgius pushed his fingers into his hair. Rusty red blood flaked onto the sheets, made him stop, but now his scalp prickled and itched. "You played your part to perfection."
"The empress was adamant about sending help." Sephiran rose and waited, made a gesture, though he was too slender to be of much help if Zelgius couldn't stand under his own power. "I didn't want to say no. The senate will no doubt lay the groundwork for another war without our help, in any case. They'll squeeze Daein dry if they can."
Zelgius tested the strength of both legs, levered himself up with both arms, felt the skin pull over his ribs and burn. He clenched his teeth and tossed the sheet back to stand bare and accept the robe his master offered: soft, cotton, surprisingly large, almost too big for him, and luxurious enough. I'll help you to the bath, Sephiran murmured, taking his arm and watching Zelgius while they walked. Did he suffer any more pain? Was the night's sleep enough, did he feel this, that, would he be able to bend, to sit and rise again, or should his master stay--?
He should have been ashamed when he answered yes to the last, though he was perfectly capable of bending down to reach a towel, to scrub blood from his knee, though it made him wince and clench his teeth. He wasn't dizzy anymore, nor nauseated, and those were what prevented earlier use of the warping powder to return when he was ordered. If crawling made his head swim, teleporting would have ripped him apart from the inside. But he said nothing; Sephiran made him sit on a heavy wooden stool and did everything - sponged blood and dust from his skin, long since turned to mud by sweat and heat, washed it from his hair, first apologizing for the perfume, as it was what the staff left for his own use, and then speculating on the results of their failure. One of the northern dukes would take charge of the occupation army, surely. It was more convenient that way. They were thick as thieves, it likely didn't matter which hand clenched around Daein's heart - but practically speaking, it would be Gaddos, Seliora, or Numida.
Zelgius predicted Seliora. Lekain wouldn't waste his resources on foreign soil when he could pour them into ship-bound business to Crimea, who would most definitely be in the market for basic goods such as food surplus and textiles. There was money to be made. The man would replace all his teeth with gold if it wouldn't compromise his ability to eat - perhaps every bone in his body, too.
He saw Sephiran smile in a mirror on the far side of the room, above a table where more towels were folded, and baskets of soap, oils, and sponges sat in a neat row, the straw painted in pastel colors: blue, lavender, green. Melior liked its luxuries almost as much as their own capitol, Zelgius thought, looking at the metalwork framing the oval mirror, its silver plating. His master's reflection would have made an appropriate painting for the setting, an oil perhaps, beautiful but stiff, down to the way his smile didn't crease the skin around his eyes like it should.
A change of his own clothing waited at the bottom of Sephiran's trunk. He wrote a letter to the second-in-command in Daein to explain their strange circumstances while Zelgius dressed. Open, the curtains revealed tall windows reaching from floor to ceiling, and the sway of branches outside in an invisible wind. Their shadow lay faintly on the tile floor, blue sunlight shifting between smears of gray.
"Before you worry - you won't need armor at our destination," Sephiran said, folding the missive and sharpening the creases with his nails. He left the room for several minutes, and sound indicated his location - two chambers away, maybe three if they were small, all the doors open. He crossed several rugs and opened a drawer. Then, a thump. When his master returned, the paper was sealed with purple wax, the impression indicating his rank - duke of Persis. "Are you hungry?" He knelt beside his trunk, opened it, pulled his own affects out, his robe parting again to reveal pale leg. "You mentioned feeling sick last night."
Zelgius found his boots and sat on the bed, watching. He didn't remember saying such a thing - but he didn't recall arriving, either, nor making it all the way up the stairs to these rooms. "Whatever it is seems to have gone."
Sephiran looked up. A line marred the smoothness between his raven brows, but he didn't say anything, only stood up and closed the chest, slipping the robe from his shoulders to dress. Back turned, his long hair let loose, it swayed and hid the details, long brushstrokes of ink over the back to curve inward, graceful, to brush the back of his master's thighs, where the light traced the muscle in pale lavender tones. What would it look like if the hair were parted by dark wings? How would the shadows change, the musculature of his back? Zelgius wanted to reach and touch one of those shoulder blades, where the skin was clean and unmarked, and instead ripped his eyes away, pulled his boots on, and laced them as tightly as possible. Let them cut the circulation. If he tripped, he'd blame it on vertigo.
Since meeting Sephiran he'd become a despicable man - for different reasons, however, than Zelgius suspected his master would enumerate. A warrior's duty was to kill, no matter the ethics one constructed. He would spill the blood of Daein or Begnion, or Crimea, all as his master dictated, serve as he was meant to serve. That should have been all he wanted. It wasn't in his duty to possess, to desire, but he transgressed - in thought, if not in deed.
They didn't speak again until they took their morning meal downstairs, but Sephiran's hand remained warm on his arm all the way down.
*
Once they left the white gates of Melior, their journey proceeded in steps via warping spells, short at first to account for lingering symptoms of Zelgius's injuries. They passed the first night at a remote hostel a dozen leagues from the border with Begnion, and the second in a more pleasant inn somewhere in the southern reach of Seliora province, where the land flattened and slanted down toward the fork of the Ribahn. The third jump took them to a small rural town, no more than fifteen public buildings and a general store, an inn, a smithy and a storage area which, from the look of the platform at the back and the boarded-up cubbies, used to be a slave market. Ivy climbed over the sides, clogged the gaps between planks. Rotting wood bestowed its scent upon the area and the street in front.
To the west, where gray fog should have obscured the grassland a few leagues out, was the forest - Serenes, bright green treetops like emerald facets under the late afternoon sun. His master paused for long minutes on the porch of the inn to look at it with a face too smooth. Shadows smeared below his eyes, a bright green glint from the forest making them shine until he turned his back on the trees and went inside. Zelgius followed him. The inn housed the only tavern in town, and men too old to work sat around a wide round table to whisper about the miracle they were looking at a moment ago. The curse is lifted. Should we go? You think there's herons under that green like afore?
Should we go? Should we?
Sephiran's shoulders remained stiff until they reached their room - facing east, a pity, though Zelgius now knew their destination lay somewhere beneath the treetops.
"Where would they go?" Sephiran's voice strained to be light, wavering when the door closed, trembling somewhere between laughter and irritation. "What do they expect to do with themselves there? Why?"
Zelgius watched him yank the tie to his plain cloak, let it slip on to the floor. He smelled straw and thought the double bed there in the corner would be flat and uncomfortable, though the linens, quilted, white, and folded just right, made it look soft enough to be a feather mattress. Dusty, diffuse light illuminated Sephiran's white coat, the line of his pants. His hair pressed flat between his shoulder blades, as if by wings.
"What do they think--" A sharp sigh. He stood before the window, a shade.
"Perhaps they want to pay their respects," Zelgius said. To apologize, he thought, but didn't say it.
Sephiran's voice pitched low, flat and steady again. "Too late."
Supper came to their room late: two bowls of meat stew Zelgius was obliged to eat himself, and half a loaf of bread that went to his master. They didn't talk; Sephiran averted his eyes for the rest of the night, always toward the window, or the lamp, or the unlit brazier in the corner by the door, until he finally shucked the coat across his chair and went to bed early. He didn't relent and speak until the lamp was extinguished and Zelgius stretched beside him on the hard straw mattress. Closer, his master said, a hot whisper on his shoulder - only that. His hands said the rest, and the tavern downstairs was loud enough to keep their secrets.
Sephiran shook him awake the next morning when the sky was still gray, already washed, dressed, his hair combed to a shine. Then he left Zelgius to get ready, eat, settle the bill, and went to the morning market for food he deemed edible: fruit, it turned out when they met on the outskirts of town, the sun two spans over the horizon. Mandarin oranges, soft, ripe persimmons he sliced one-handed with a knife hardly bigger than the fruit, dried strawberries, and a wedge of cheese in a hard rind. Sephiran had trouble cutting it while they walked, and gave up after scratching his hand with the tip of his knife. He insisted on maintaining their pace when Zelgius asked if they should stop. It's three hours from here, his master said. If we're lucky, we can be out of the forest before sunset and find a better place to sleep.
Local legend claimed Serenes was haunted; the forest's refusal to heal lent credence to the rumor, though Zelgius felt nothing once they passed between the first of the branches. Aspens stretched to the sky, mixed with fir, pine, maple, oaks surrounded by rings of grass and wildflowers. Winter was only just letting go of Tellius, but the plum trees were in full bloom and raining blossoms, and the cherry branches knobbed with buds and tiny green spots. He followed his master's back, as there was no path - not to his eyes. Sephiran stopped at intervals to stroke a low branch here, to pick a blossom there, to unwind tangles. The trees didn't clutch at him like they did Zelgius, always catching the corner of his cloak, hanging their branches just low enough to scratch him if he didn't watch himself. He heard himself ask where they were going. The sound fell flat.
Sephiran paused midstep, looked briefly over his shoulder. "An altar stands at the center of the forest, and behind that, the lake at the center of the world." Again he turned his back and started walking. "That is our destination."
Until now, Zelgius had never met a forest that actively tried to trip him up. Vines hid beneath dead leaves and damp earth; at times the forest floor dipped suddenly and jarred his teeth when his foot fell too hard. Sweat gathered at his hairline. A pine-scented breeze cooled his temples, a faint breath that disappeared and left his skin prickling, both hot and cold.
"You'll want to stay out of the water, however." An afterthought, faint, carried away by the arms of the trees. "Nothing that falls into that lake will come out again."
Wonderful. Zelgius stepped over a root, nearly tripped on the next. Another tree broke his fall before he could embarrass himself, the only convenient one of the lot.
His shirt stuck to his sweaty skin by the time they reached the altar. Wide steps circled upward two stories to the top, which glowed with the sun's radiance but remained a mystery from Zelgius's vantage point on the ground. Sephiran sat on one of the stairs and allowed him to rest a few minutes, catch his breath, before getting up again and leading Zelgius around the altar and its carved, vine-curtained columns to a narrow path through the trees on the other side. Round gray rocks inlaid the dirt trail, implying a road, well-worn and all shades of gray and brown, like sparrow wings. Beyond lay a clearing carpeted with tall yellow grass bent and broken by rain and winter, stained by mud, and-- water spreading from the meadow to the hills, a roughly elliptical mirror that must be a league across, its color a deep green that echoed the trees and flung the light of the sun back up to the sky in a shimmer.
Sephiran's path cut straight from the trees to the pebbly shore. The grass shifted and parted as if moving of its own accord to make way, nothing breaking under his soft steps, nothing snapping - there was only the soft crush of gravel while his master walked, and then the tap of his boots on a flat rock wide enough to sleep on, and more gravel. The air there smelled like wet leaves and moss, freshly broken hay and grass from Zelgius's own trail, which wasn't nearly as graceful. He waited on the granite slab and watched Sephiran remove his sandals, fold his cloak.
"You're not thinking of wading?" Zelgius reached, stopped his master half-turn with a brush to his arm. "You said--"
"The rocks here continue for thirty strides after slanting into the water," Sephiran said without looking. He pulled his arm free. "Stay here."
He didn't roll his pants up or remove his coat, but waded into the green water and let it plaster the white to his legs, distort their shape, so it seemed Zelgius looked at his master's feet through wavy glass, perhaps a bottle. Sephiran made waves with his confident stride, kicked up glittering droplets to drench his knees and dampen the skirt of his coat. The ends of his hair dripped jewels of water. Zelgius counted twenty six steps before he saw his master stop and gaze down, the water up to his knees, and he wondered if thirty had been an estimate - if he stood at the ledge of the shelf now, looking into the abyss.
That thought squeezed Zelgius's throat. The lake looked normal enough; it moved like water, smelled like it, reminding him of a smaller pool he'd splashed in with his friends as a child, years before the mark of blasphemy appeared on his back. But Sephiran didn't play with him by telling wild stories; he didn't tell outright lies. Goddess only knew how he'd skipped around the nature of these sabbaticals with the empress, but he wouldn't have told an untruth.
Objects did not float on this lake; they didn't swim, they didn't drift. He leaned down, picked a stalk of grass, laid it on the surface.
It sank-- like a rock.
He looked up, and Sephiran held something half out of the water in a loose-fingered grip, and he stood several steps beyond the place he paused earlier - again looking downward, as if he expected to see something. Another object, perhaps? The one he was holding threw the light back at Zelgius like a mirror, refusing to be identified.
A full minute passed with a long sigh of wind that rattled the grass behind him and played with Sephiran's hair, tossing the wet ends up and sending water flying. The surface of the lake didn't move. What kind of enchantment made that possible? Something divine - or maybe galdr, if one made a distinction. Zelgius didn't dare walk in. If everything sunk to the bottom, even living, breathing bodies, how could he assume it would be possible to lift his feet out again once they dipped into the water? Or maybe one could walk, even wade, but to submerge oneself was death. In that case, his master--
"Sephiran." He thought the shock of hearing the name might draw the attention he sought, but Zelgius had to repeat himself, louder, clearing his throat of tension before he saw the dark head move. And when it did, he had no idea what to say while cowering on the shore. "Can-- I be of assistance?"
Silence.
He left the granite slab. Pebbles crunched. "What is it--"
Sephiran turned around abruptly and sent his hair flying. "No, stay there," he said. It was a staff he carried, reminiscent of the elaborate decorations the senior senators carried for formal occasions, dangling with red tassels that managed to look completely dry despite its storage in the lake. Flat like a medallion, the decoration at the top from which they swirled wasn't identifiable.
Zelgius waited where he was ordered and offered his hand once his master had waded to the shore. The charms on his staff clinked against the golden base. Sephiran remained light, but the water dragged the hem of his trousers when Zelgius pulled him out, wanted to drag his master down with it. "I'm sorry," he said once Sephiran stood beside him on dry ground. "After what you said..." He looked out at the lake. "I thought something had gone wrong."
Sephiran's clothes clung to his skin, soaked through, showing flesh beneath. "It's good that you called me," he said after a breath, flinching away from a meeting of gazes. "I... forgot something." He pulled Zelgius by the sleeve.
It looked so innocent, the lake, when he looked back. The waves caused by Sephiran's movement had already stilled. Now that Zelgius knew what to watch for, there were numerous signs the water wasn't normal - signs in what there wasn't: insects didn't buzz past his ears to land on the surface, birds didn't sweep down capture them, neither leaves nor grass littered the surface. The water stayed clear, the silt unmoved, even when walked upon. He listened as Sephiran sat down, tied his sandals, hearing the quiet, the distance between himself and the birdsong that accompanied them on their trek through the trees.
Zelgius turned his back on the water and helped his master up. "Is this place sacred?"
Sephiran shook his head. "That would be the altar. This is..." His eyes narrowed, the skin crinkling slightly. He didn't let go of Zelgius's arm. "If there is a place anywhere in this world that has not been touched by the goddess..."
Then he was glad he hadn't set foot in it, and wished he knew why Sephiran would. "The staff?"
"A gift from the goddess. It will be useful later." Sephiran turned back to the forest. "And in the meantime it will charm Sanaki to no end."
Zelgius held him back, though his hold on his master's arm was loose. "You said you forgot something."
Sephiran turned the staff in his hand, made the ornaments spin and jingle. They weren't gold as they first appeared, but bronze, still smooth and shiny, more than they had any right to be. "Sometimes," he said, leaning it against his shoulder, looking straight ahead, "I forget that I want to live to see this through."
Zelgius let him go when he pulled away, a chill or a fist clenching the pit of his stomach. But he followed - he would always follow, no matter where Sephiran's footsteps led him. Still, he was glad to leave the lake behind, and hoped they would never go back.
.
Cross-posted to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
springkink.
Author: Amber Michelle //
myaruRating: T
Warnings: n/a
Word count: 4702
Summary: after the Mad King's War, Sephiran and Zelgius make a pilgrimage to Serenes.
A/N: as I haven't technically completed PoR, my references to the battle between Ike and the Black Knight are based on what I recall from RD and reading the PoR script ages ago. Or, in other words, probably wrong.
Also for 30 Breathtakes #26, "clear blue skies." It was inspired partly by Gauntlet #19, "Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow," which doesn't fit as well anymore. But then, when does anything turn out the way you think it will by the end?
...............................................................
When Zelgius returned to his master after Daein lost the Mad King's war, he remembered most the softness of Sephiran's hands removing his armor and the clamor of its steel on the white tiles of the imperial villa in Melior, the faint, fluttering brushes of delicate fingertips on his face, his arms, everywhere he later learned was bruised purple and bloody. A staff was procured, a spell murmured in the old tongue, one Zelgius had never heard a priest of any persuasion use, and with such fluency-- but it only dulled the pain. Depriving the body of its chance to heal naturally would mean weakening its ability to face injury next time, his master said. It was one of many factors contributing to the difference in strength and healing ability between beorc and laguz.
So it seemed his curse, the mark upon his back, had served him well - he never sought the services of healers when he was younger. Sephiran only sighed when Zelgius said so. The neutral line of his lips curved slightly downward. His eyes glinted in the lamp light, followed his hands, their tasks, their feather-like touches. Rents had split the blessed armor, which was then piled in a corner, some pieces unsalvagable: a slash through the shoulder guard, through a side plate where the sword Ragnell flayed his skin open to reveal his ribs, another across his left thigh that still burned, but not as much as the wound in his side, where Sephiran had paused. Zelgius tried to remain still against his pillows when the wound was prodded, but flinched and heard the silk crease with the shift of his weight.
Maybe a little more, his master murmured, reaching for one of his staves, laid across the corner of the bed. Zelgius stopped him, hand on his pale wrist, the metaphorical black and white. "No. Not--"
"You can't travel like this." Sephiran pulled away. His ring clinked against the golden handle of the healing staff; the decorative jewels jangled, swinging from tiny gold chains, a goddess's wealth. "If you are to be of use to me, you must be well."
Zelgius closed his eyes against the radiance of his master's healing words. The curtains were drawn, the servants had been dismissed. Such brilliance must creep around the scarlet drapery to light the window, but this was Lord Sephiran, her majesty's right hand, the purest of Ashera's servants on the council-- light clothed him as leaves clothed trees, or clouds the sky.
Ashera was a cold goddess, Sephiran once told him - but she was fair. Just. Stable. So must be her servant. Sometimes, Zelgius thought he understood why. And sometimes--
Sephiran's hand rested on his cheek, warm, his arm heavy, and Zelgius found the light dim again when he opened his eyes, yellow and white, red in his peripheral vision where the drapes hung from iron rods and pooled, folded on the floor like the empress's mantle of state. His master's hair twisted and fanned on a sheet drawn up to cover Zelgius and folded, precise and sharp, a hand below his shoulders. "Do you know you're all I have?" Sephiran's fingers tickled behind his ear, shifting the short hair, nails biting crescents into his scalp. "The empire might dance when I say the right thing, but you are the only one standing beside me. You can't be so careless--"
Zelgius wanted to lift his arm, but his master sat atop the sheet, still dressed, still pale, a red line across his bottom lip to match his teeth. The light was behind him now, the gleam of life in his gaze faint.
He wasn't careless; he wasn't even undefeated. His mouth was dry paper when he opened it to say something, his lips cracked, and then sealed by Sephiran's thumb. "No excuses." His voice trembled. "Go to sleep, Zelgius."
Again Sephiran disappeared into the light, the mattress shifting. Zelgius tried not to close his eyes, but he was asleep before his master came back.
*
His master was warm again when Zelgius woke, and kneeling beside the bed, still in his white sleeping robe with a loose, messy braid. When he leaned and folded the sheet back to look at the wound, feel it with slight roughness of his fingertips, it slid over his shoulder to swing like a pendulum and offer a momentary breath of some herbal scent. The curtains were still drawn and only one lamp lit right beside him on a small, round table. Sunlight lingered at the edges of the red drapes like silver trim. Sephiran's eyes flicked up to watch him, but Zelgius didn't flinch when he pressed harder, rubbed the skin, helped him sit up. A muscle twinged, as if he'd twisted or sprained something.
His master sat down heavily beside him, sank into the feather-bed. A bare leg showed through the part in his robe. "I'll tell them you arrived last night with a summons from the empress." Sephiran sat straight, but tilted his head, rested his temple for a moment on Zelgius's shoulder. His flyaway hair tickled. "The farther we are from this place the better."
Zelgius traced the folds of the sheet across his legs. He was days late, perhaps a fortnight; that was a quick coronation, even for a country on the verge of desperation. "Then you've finished all of our official business?"
"The queen has been crowned." It looked, from the angle of his head and the long shadow of his lashes that Sephiran was staring at the armor abandoned in the far corner, behind the armoire. "One of the others will be in Daein now to take control of the occupation. Our business lies south."
But not home, or his master would have mentioned the capitol and a reunion with their fiery little empress; the line of his shoulders would have eased instead of staying taut, pulling his fingers into a curl like talons. Zelgius looked at the tapestry decorating the wall past the foot of Sephiran's bed, depicting a knight and his steed, a silver lance, and a cloud shaped like a charging lion. "I'm sorry," Zelgius said. "If I hadn't underestimated him..."
He heard the slide of Sephiran's braid and knew his master turned his head, probably stared at him, but kept his own face forward. With a blessed sword, even a fool could get lucky and strike him, and Zelgius had forgotten that the child who answered his challenge was no fool, nor dependent on luck to guide his sword - only young and inexperienced. In a few years Ike would outgrow both circumstances. Perhaps he would lead the opposing force again when Sephiran turned this disaster around, turned it into another war, another opportunity. Ashera wouldn't awaken for another two hundred years, but if submerging Tellius in war took only twenty more years, or fifty, judgment would be swift, harsh, unquestionable. I've no doubt she will agree with my assessment of the situation, his master said, more than once, but let us not leave it to chance.
"If this war is a failure," his master said, tilting his head aside, "the fault lies with both of us."
Zelgius pushed his fingers into his hair. Rusty red blood flaked onto the sheets, made him stop, but now his scalp prickled and itched. "You played your part to perfection."
"The empress was adamant about sending help." Sephiran rose and waited, made a gesture, though he was too slender to be of much help if Zelgius couldn't stand under his own power. "I didn't want to say no. The senate will no doubt lay the groundwork for another war without our help, in any case. They'll squeeze Daein dry if they can."
Zelgius tested the strength of both legs, levered himself up with both arms, felt the skin pull over his ribs and burn. He clenched his teeth and tossed the sheet back to stand bare and accept the robe his master offered: soft, cotton, surprisingly large, almost too big for him, and luxurious enough. I'll help you to the bath, Sephiran murmured, taking his arm and watching Zelgius while they walked. Did he suffer any more pain? Was the night's sleep enough, did he feel this, that, would he be able to bend, to sit and rise again, or should his master stay--?
He should have been ashamed when he answered yes to the last, though he was perfectly capable of bending down to reach a towel, to scrub blood from his knee, though it made him wince and clench his teeth. He wasn't dizzy anymore, nor nauseated, and those were what prevented earlier use of the warping powder to return when he was ordered. If crawling made his head swim, teleporting would have ripped him apart from the inside. But he said nothing; Sephiran made him sit on a heavy wooden stool and did everything - sponged blood and dust from his skin, long since turned to mud by sweat and heat, washed it from his hair, first apologizing for the perfume, as it was what the staff left for his own use, and then speculating on the results of their failure. One of the northern dukes would take charge of the occupation army, surely. It was more convenient that way. They were thick as thieves, it likely didn't matter which hand clenched around Daein's heart - but practically speaking, it would be Gaddos, Seliora, or Numida.
Zelgius predicted Seliora. Lekain wouldn't waste his resources on foreign soil when he could pour them into ship-bound business to Crimea, who would most definitely be in the market for basic goods such as food surplus and textiles. There was money to be made. The man would replace all his teeth with gold if it wouldn't compromise his ability to eat - perhaps every bone in his body, too.
He saw Sephiran smile in a mirror on the far side of the room, above a table where more towels were folded, and baskets of soap, oils, and sponges sat in a neat row, the straw painted in pastel colors: blue, lavender, green. Melior liked its luxuries almost as much as their own capitol, Zelgius thought, looking at the metalwork framing the oval mirror, its silver plating. His master's reflection would have made an appropriate painting for the setting, an oil perhaps, beautiful but stiff, down to the way his smile didn't crease the skin around his eyes like it should.
A change of his own clothing waited at the bottom of Sephiran's trunk. He wrote a letter to the second-in-command in Daein to explain their strange circumstances while Zelgius dressed. Open, the curtains revealed tall windows reaching from floor to ceiling, and the sway of branches outside in an invisible wind. Their shadow lay faintly on the tile floor, blue sunlight shifting between smears of gray.
"Before you worry - you won't need armor at our destination," Sephiran said, folding the missive and sharpening the creases with his nails. He left the room for several minutes, and sound indicated his location - two chambers away, maybe three if they were small, all the doors open. He crossed several rugs and opened a drawer. Then, a thump. When his master returned, the paper was sealed with purple wax, the impression indicating his rank - duke of Persis. "Are you hungry?" He knelt beside his trunk, opened it, pulled his own affects out, his robe parting again to reveal pale leg. "You mentioned feeling sick last night."
Zelgius found his boots and sat on the bed, watching. He didn't remember saying such a thing - but he didn't recall arriving, either, nor making it all the way up the stairs to these rooms. "Whatever it is seems to have gone."
Sephiran looked up. A line marred the smoothness between his raven brows, but he didn't say anything, only stood up and closed the chest, slipping the robe from his shoulders to dress. Back turned, his long hair let loose, it swayed and hid the details, long brushstrokes of ink over the back to curve inward, graceful, to brush the back of his master's thighs, where the light traced the muscle in pale lavender tones. What would it look like if the hair were parted by dark wings? How would the shadows change, the musculature of his back? Zelgius wanted to reach and touch one of those shoulder blades, where the skin was clean and unmarked, and instead ripped his eyes away, pulled his boots on, and laced them as tightly as possible. Let them cut the circulation. If he tripped, he'd blame it on vertigo.
Since meeting Sephiran he'd become a despicable man - for different reasons, however, than Zelgius suspected his master would enumerate. A warrior's duty was to kill, no matter the ethics one constructed. He would spill the blood of Daein or Begnion, or Crimea, all as his master dictated, serve as he was meant to serve. That should have been all he wanted. It wasn't in his duty to possess, to desire, but he transgressed - in thought, if not in deed.
They didn't speak again until they took their morning meal downstairs, but Sephiran's hand remained warm on his arm all the way down.
*
Once they left the white gates of Melior, their journey proceeded in steps via warping spells, short at first to account for lingering symptoms of Zelgius's injuries. They passed the first night at a remote hostel a dozen leagues from the border with Begnion, and the second in a more pleasant inn somewhere in the southern reach of Seliora province, where the land flattened and slanted down toward the fork of the Ribahn. The third jump took them to a small rural town, no more than fifteen public buildings and a general store, an inn, a smithy and a storage area which, from the look of the platform at the back and the boarded-up cubbies, used to be a slave market. Ivy climbed over the sides, clogged the gaps between planks. Rotting wood bestowed its scent upon the area and the street in front.
To the west, where gray fog should have obscured the grassland a few leagues out, was the forest - Serenes, bright green treetops like emerald facets under the late afternoon sun. His master paused for long minutes on the porch of the inn to look at it with a face too smooth. Shadows smeared below his eyes, a bright green glint from the forest making them shine until he turned his back on the trees and went inside. Zelgius followed him. The inn housed the only tavern in town, and men too old to work sat around a wide round table to whisper about the miracle they were looking at a moment ago. The curse is lifted. Should we go? You think there's herons under that green like afore?
Should we go? Should we?
Sephiran's shoulders remained stiff until they reached their room - facing east, a pity, though Zelgius now knew their destination lay somewhere beneath the treetops.
"Where would they go?" Sephiran's voice strained to be light, wavering when the door closed, trembling somewhere between laughter and irritation. "What do they expect to do with themselves there? Why?"
Zelgius watched him yank the tie to his plain cloak, let it slip on to the floor. He smelled straw and thought the double bed there in the corner would be flat and uncomfortable, though the linens, quilted, white, and folded just right, made it look soft enough to be a feather mattress. Dusty, diffuse light illuminated Sephiran's white coat, the line of his pants. His hair pressed flat between his shoulder blades, as if by wings.
"What do they think--" A sharp sigh. He stood before the window, a shade.
"Perhaps they want to pay their respects," Zelgius said. To apologize, he thought, but didn't say it.
Sephiran's voice pitched low, flat and steady again. "Too late."
Supper came to their room late: two bowls of meat stew Zelgius was obliged to eat himself, and half a loaf of bread that went to his master. They didn't talk; Sephiran averted his eyes for the rest of the night, always toward the window, or the lamp, or the unlit brazier in the corner by the door, until he finally shucked the coat across his chair and went to bed early. He didn't relent and speak until the lamp was extinguished and Zelgius stretched beside him on the hard straw mattress. Closer, his master said, a hot whisper on his shoulder - only that. His hands said the rest, and the tavern downstairs was loud enough to keep their secrets.
Sephiran shook him awake the next morning when the sky was still gray, already washed, dressed, his hair combed to a shine. Then he left Zelgius to get ready, eat, settle the bill, and went to the morning market for food he deemed edible: fruit, it turned out when they met on the outskirts of town, the sun two spans over the horizon. Mandarin oranges, soft, ripe persimmons he sliced one-handed with a knife hardly bigger than the fruit, dried strawberries, and a wedge of cheese in a hard rind. Sephiran had trouble cutting it while they walked, and gave up after scratching his hand with the tip of his knife. He insisted on maintaining their pace when Zelgius asked if they should stop. It's three hours from here, his master said. If we're lucky, we can be out of the forest before sunset and find a better place to sleep.
Local legend claimed Serenes was haunted; the forest's refusal to heal lent credence to the rumor, though Zelgius felt nothing once they passed between the first of the branches. Aspens stretched to the sky, mixed with fir, pine, maple, oaks surrounded by rings of grass and wildflowers. Winter was only just letting go of Tellius, but the plum trees were in full bloom and raining blossoms, and the cherry branches knobbed with buds and tiny green spots. He followed his master's back, as there was no path - not to his eyes. Sephiran stopped at intervals to stroke a low branch here, to pick a blossom there, to unwind tangles. The trees didn't clutch at him like they did Zelgius, always catching the corner of his cloak, hanging their branches just low enough to scratch him if he didn't watch himself. He heard himself ask where they were going. The sound fell flat.
Sephiran paused midstep, looked briefly over his shoulder. "An altar stands at the center of the forest, and behind that, the lake at the center of the world." Again he turned his back and started walking. "That is our destination."
Until now, Zelgius had never met a forest that actively tried to trip him up. Vines hid beneath dead leaves and damp earth; at times the forest floor dipped suddenly and jarred his teeth when his foot fell too hard. Sweat gathered at his hairline. A pine-scented breeze cooled his temples, a faint breath that disappeared and left his skin prickling, both hot and cold.
"You'll want to stay out of the water, however." An afterthought, faint, carried away by the arms of the trees. "Nothing that falls into that lake will come out again."
Wonderful. Zelgius stepped over a root, nearly tripped on the next. Another tree broke his fall before he could embarrass himself, the only convenient one of the lot.
His shirt stuck to his sweaty skin by the time they reached the altar. Wide steps circled upward two stories to the top, which glowed with the sun's radiance but remained a mystery from Zelgius's vantage point on the ground. Sephiran sat on one of the stairs and allowed him to rest a few minutes, catch his breath, before getting up again and leading Zelgius around the altar and its carved, vine-curtained columns to a narrow path through the trees on the other side. Round gray rocks inlaid the dirt trail, implying a road, well-worn and all shades of gray and brown, like sparrow wings. Beyond lay a clearing carpeted with tall yellow grass bent and broken by rain and winter, stained by mud, and-- water spreading from the meadow to the hills, a roughly elliptical mirror that must be a league across, its color a deep green that echoed the trees and flung the light of the sun back up to the sky in a shimmer.
Sephiran's path cut straight from the trees to the pebbly shore. The grass shifted and parted as if moving of its own accord to make way, nothing breaking under his soft steps, nothing snapping - there was only the soft crush of gravel while his master walked, and then the tap of his boots on a flat rock wide enough to sleep on, and more gravel. The air there smelled like wet leaves and moss, freshly broken hay and grass from Zelgius's own trail, which wasn't nearly as graceful. He waited on the granite slab and watched Sephiran remove his sandals, fold his cloak.
"You're not thinking of wading?" Zelgius reached, stopped his master half-turn with a brush to his arm. "You said--"
"The rocks here continue for thirty strides after slanting into the water," Sephiran said without looking. He pulled his arm free. "Stay here."
He didn't roll his pants up or remove his coat, but waded into the green water and let it plaster the white to his legs, distort their shape, so it seemed Zelgius looked at his master's feet through wavy glass, perhaps a bottle. Sephiran made waves with his confident stride, kicked up glittering droplets to drench his knees and dampen the skirt of his coat. The ends of his hair dripped jewels of water. Zelgius counted twenty six steps before he saw his master stop and gaze down, the water up to his knees, and he wondered if thirty had been an estimate - if he stood at the ledge of the shelf now, looking into the abyss.
That thought squeezed Zelgius's throat. The lake looked normal enough; it moved like water, smelled like it, reminding him of a smaller pool he'd splashed in with his friends as a child, years before the mark of blasphemy appeared on his back. But Sephiran didn't play with him by telling wild stories; he didn't tell outright lies. Goddess only knew how he'd skipped around the nature of these sabbaticals with the empress, but he wouldn't have told an untruth.
Objects did not float on this lake; they didn't swim, they didn't drift. He leaned down, picked a stalk of grass, laid it on the surface.
It sank-- like a rock.
He looked up, and Sephiran held something half out of the water in a loose-fingered grip, and he stood several steps beyond the place he paused earlier - again looking downward, as if he expected to see something. Another object, perhaps? The one he was holding threw the light back at Zelgius like a mirror, refusing to be identified.
A full minute passed with a long sigh of wind that rattled the grass behind him and played with Sephiran's hair, tossing the wet ends up and sending water flying. The surface of the lake didn't move. What kind of enchantment made that possible? Something divine - or maybe galdr, if one made a distinction. Zelgius didn't dare walk in. If everything sunk to the bottom, even living, breathing bodies, how could he assume it would be possible to lift his feet out again once they dipped into the water? Or maybe one could walk, even wade, but to submerge oneself was death. In that case, his master--
"Sephiran." He thought the shock of hearing the name might draw the attention he sought, but Zelgius had to repeat himself, louder, clearing his throat of tension before he saw the dark head move. And when it did, he had no idea what to say while cowering on the shore. "Can-- I be of assistance?"
Silence.
He left the granite slab. Pebbles crunched. "What is it--"
Sephiran turned around abruptly and sent his hair flying. "No, stay there," he said. It was a staff he carried, reminiscent of the elaborate decorations the senior senators carried for formal occasions, dangling with red tassels that managed to look completely dry despite its storage in the lake. Flat like a medallion, the decoration at the top from which they swirled wasn't identifiable.
Zelgius waited where he was ordered and offered his hand once his master had waded to the shore. The charms on his staff clinked against the golden base. Sephiran remained light, but the water dragged the hem of his trousers when Zelgius pulled him out, wanted to drag his master down with it. "I'm sorry," he said once Sephiran stood beside him on dry ground. "After what you said..." He looked out at the lake. "I thought something had gone wrong."
Sephiran's clothes clung to his skin, soaked through, showing flesh beneath. "It's good that you called me," he said after a breath, flinching away from a meeting of gazes. "I... forgot something." He pulled Zelgius by the sleeve.
It looked so innocent, the lake, when he looked back. The waves caused by Sephiran's movement had already stilled. Now that Zelgius knew what to watch for, there were numerous signs the water wasn't normal - signs in what there wasn't: insects didn't buzz past his ears to land on the surface, birds didn't sweep down capture them, neither leaves nor grass littered the surface. The water stayed clear, the silt unmoved, even when walked upon. He listened as Sephiran sat down, tied his sandals, hearing the quiet, the distance between himself and the birdsong that accompanied them on their trek through the trees.
Zelgius turned his back on the water and helped his master up. "Is this place sacred?"
Sephiran shook his head. "That would be the altar. This is..." His eyes narrowed, the skin crinkling slightly. He didn't let go of Zelgius's arm. "If there is a place anywhere in this world that has not been touched by the goddess..."
Then he was glad he hadn't set foot in it, and wished he knew why Sephiran would. "The staff?"
"A gift from the goddess. It will be useful later." Sephiran turned back to the forest. "And in the meantime it will charm Sanaki to no end."
Zelgius held him back, though his hold on his master's arm was loose. "You said you forgot something."
Sephiran turned the staff in his hand, made the ornaments spin and jingle. They weren't gold as they first appeared, but bronze, still smooth and shiny, more than they had any right to be. "Sometimes," he said, leaning it against his shoulder, looking straight ahead, "I forget that I want to live to see this through."
Zelgius let him go when he pulled away, a chill or a fist clenching the pit of his stomach. But he followed - he would always follow, no matter where Sephiran's footsteps led him. Still, he was glad to leave the lake behind, and hoped they would never go back.
.
Cross-posted to
springkink.