It was like a giant hand grabbed Schneider by the scruff of the neck and yanked him sharply and not gently at all through a rent in space. It was unexpected and indignant and he was spitting with rage by the time he was dumped onto the cold, blood crusted roof of Sta-Veron castle. He spun about in a moment's confusion, grasping after a place that was not there anymore. This night sky was not obscured by clouds. Torch light turned the stone of the rooftop flickering orange. Voices cried out in simultaneous alarm. He was sitting in the ashes of his own witchly bonfire with Gara sprawled over his legs, moaning in pain.
He snapped his head around to make sure the spell had caught everyone it ought. Kall lay a few feet away with the strange girl huddled next to him. The Prophet was gone. Slipped through his fingers. It would be too much to wish that his last barrage of attack before he'd been forced to turn back and snatch Gara and Kall-Su out of the self-destructing fortress, had finished the man off. It could have. Angelo's physical form had been failing, it might have been enough, but until Schneider saw his cold corpse he would not be satisfied.
Arshes Nei was pelting towards him. Geo Note was on her heels with an astonished look on his craggy face, as if he hadn't thought Schneider would be successful.
"You're hurt!" Arshes sounded vaguely accusing. Schneider realized she wasn't talking to him when he tried to pull his legs from under Gara's bulk and the big man cried out in pain.
"Darshe." Arshes looked up at him pleadingly. "Do something."
His mind was still a little too preoccupied with thoughts of the Prophet's escape to wonder when she had gotten so desperately concerned over Gara's well being. He ascertained the extent of the damage. Broken and crushed bones, shoulder, hip, leg -- a bevy of lesser hurts that Schneider was too impatient to worry about. He cast a hasty healing, repairing the major damage and Gara had hardly let out a sigh of relief when Schneider was pushing him off his lower legs and turning to seek out the object of this whole expedition. Now that he thought about it he hadn't seen a flicker of awareness out of Kall-Su since he'd laid eyes on him.
The girl who'd been caught up in his spell and brought back with them was huddled in a frightened ball a few feet away. Geo Note crouched by Kall-Su, one hand hovering over his pale head. Schneider slapped his hand away with a snarl, sending out his own magical probes to see what damage had been done.
"He's whole -- physically." Geo Note said, sounding a little offended.
"Shut up." Schneider placed a hand over Kall's forehead, one on his bare chest and sought after injury, but the priest was right. There was none. Just cool skin and even breathing and not a shred of consciousness that Schneider could latch onto and drag Kall back up into the land of the living.
Gara limped over, half supported by Arshes. "How is he?" There was a great deal of worry in the ninja master's voice. Schneider scowled up at them, then drew his brows at the way Arshes was fussing over Gara. "I don't know and why the hell did I bother to mend your bones if you're going to use her as a crutch?"
Gara blanched. Arshes drew her brows, her lips tightening in what might have been the prelude to a stubborn glare. Schneider's thoughts were too scattered to linger on the two of them.
"We should get him inside." Geo Note offered his opinion and Schneider glared up at him, the very sound of his voice grating on his nerves. But since it was valid and reasonable advice one could hardly sit here in the cold northern night just to be contrary. One had to show a spark of reason even when all one really wanted to do was throw a tantrum to vent frustration. But he was worried about Kall's lack of response. His luck had not been running good enough of late to hope that it was merely the sleep of exhaustion.
He put an arm under Kall's shoulders and Geo Note moved to lend a hand.
"Let me help."
"Don't touch him. I've got him."
The priest backed off at the dangerous look in Schneider's eyes. Schneider got Kall up in his arms with a grunt. Dead weight. Lifeless limbs that were starting to scare him. The old witch opened the tower door for him and stepped aside to let him pass. He barely noticed her. Barely noticed the girl who hugged herself miserably, standing apart from the people who belonged here. He heard them following him down the narrow stairs. He had to be careful in his negotiation of them with his awkward burden. He reached the lower door and with no one to open it for him blasted it off its hinges with a thought. It shattered against the far wall and the startled screams of servants could be heard from the hall. A cluster of them gathered there, drawn he supposed, by the curiosity of what he had been doing on the tower. He brushed past them, ignoring their gasps and their excited chatter. A few of them ran before him down the hall, the others clustered behind joining the procession that trailed him.
Down to the residential level and the red faced housekeeper was thundering down the hall with an excited serving girl on her heels. She almost fell down when she saw what he carried and began a fervent string of thanksgivings that he put a stop to with the impatient order to go and make certain her lord's chamber was in the order to receive him. She turned on her heels and ran down the hall before him, entering Kall's rooms moments before he did, snapping commands at her servants to get a fire started and hurrying to turn down the blankets herself.
Schneider laid him down carefully, leaned over him while the room bustled with servants and excited onlookers. He tried another exploration in case he'd missed something on the tower. The noise of the people behind him tore at his concentration.
"Out!!" he roared, looking over his shoulder to glare at the lot of them. The servants quaked. They stumbled over each other in their efforts to obey him. The guards retreated a little less enthusiastically, but go they did. That left Geo Note and Gara and Arshes. The housekeeper stubbornly stood on the other side of the bed, wringing her hands. The room was somewhat decimated, the wardrobe standing open where he'd had the servants raid it for fuel for his fire. The hearth was cold, not having had a fire in it for weeks.
It was no worse off than its owner. Kall was filthy. Smudged with dried blood and dirt. The torn trousers he wore were crusted with it. There were faint bruises under the dirt. Distant signs of abuse. Schneider's fingers tightened on the sheets by Kall's head. But there was no present injury. Nothing he could find to account for the depth of the unconsciousness, the lack of even subconscious awareness. He could not even find the pathway into Kall's dreams. It was as if he were not even there.
"Damnit." He muttered. "Where the hell are you?"
"Darshe." Arshes touched his back. "Heal yourself."
He leaned there a moment more, then forced himself to take stock of his own condition. He was bleeding from no few wounds. He had burns and a few fractured bones that he had managed to ignore for the last half hour or so. Or had it even been that long? He closed his eyes and mended the ills. Straightened up and fixed Keitlan with his stare. "Clean him up. Let me know if he wakes."
Then he whirled and brushed past Arshes, jerked his head at Gara on his way out to indicate he wanted the man's company. Gara walked down the hall at his side, one big hand rubbing at his arm. Arshes followed in their wake.
"Did you get him?" Gara asked solemnly.
"I don't know. Probably not." He hissed in frustration at the last admission. "Did you recognize anything?"
"Mountains. I'd guess western from the trees. I'd never seen that fortress before."
"Me neither. It was the western range. I could see the ocean. Of course there's a thousand miles of mountainous coast along the western ocean. It doesn't do me a damn bit of good in finding my way back there."
Gara canted a wary look at him. "You sure he's not dead?"
"Yes. No. I need to be certain."
"Okay. We find that fortress -- or what's left of it and we've got a starting point. But you don't honestly think he'd stick around there, do you? For all we know he could be hightailing back south to reclaim his position as Prophet of the One God."
"That would make it easier if he did."
Gara cast a look over his shoulder at Arshes. "Not exactly." He said slowly.
Schneider stopped, glaring at the two of them. "Don't even start with that drivel about civil war in the south. I don't care if the whole of the south is up in flames as long as Angelo is dead. Hell, I'll start the fire myself if I have to and if the two of you have a problem with that -- oh well. I'll live with the guilt."
"A little bit of subtlety wouldn't hurt you once and a while, Darshe." Arshes complained.
"Subtlety? I'm perfectly subtle."
Gara laughed. Schneider's eyes narrowed threateningly, he lifted his chin imperiously and said. "I'm finished talking with you. The both of you. So leave me alone."
He cleaned up. He didn't have the energy for a Sartor spell, so dressed in loose house clothes. Soft, embroidered linen that lay on his skin like a caress. Some of the things Yoko had bought for him in her forays into the city -- before she'd lost the baby. He leaned against the door of his room in a sudden attack of weariness. He had thrown a fair deal of high power spells at Angelo -- had taken no few hits himself in the process -- and the son of a bitch squirms away. Even taken off guard, he managed to escape - managed to surprise them with the tricks he had hidden up his self-righteous sleeve. That damned fortress had been a shock. Nothing to hint what it was on the outside, no warding at all -- but on the inside -- it had almost swallowed him, magic and all, before he'd summoned the strength to break free of it. If he had fought the majority of his battle with Angelo within its walls he wasn't sure if he could have overcome the man.
Little wonder he had not gotten a hint of Kall-Su during his month of searching. Little wonder that Kall had not been able to get out of the place. A month smothered by those wards. A month in a place where the Prophet had nothing better to do than break him. Schneider recalled his time under Angelo's care. The Prophet had at least had the call of his religious duty to distract him then. Even then, he was harder to crack than Kall was. Kall had a soft streak. Kall, when he was in his right mind, had a weakness for morality that Schneider had never developed. Kall felt guilty over things that he wasn't even responsible for. Kall had a need to be accepted that was so deeply buried he refused to admit to himself, thanks to the damned crazy place he had grown up in, but Schneider was aware of it. Schneider had used it in the past to his advantage. The Prophet was a mind witch. If the Prophet had been able to get into his mind, he could damn well get into Kall's.
His ground his teeth in simmering indignation. Angelo had broken things that belonged to him. Yoko. Kall-Su. He only had Gara to thank that Arshes hadn't ended up a casualty of the Prophet's twisted sense of retaliation.
He pushed himself off the door, restless to do something -- anything. Went out into the hall, where there were thankfully less mulling domestics to annoy him. Went back down the hall to Kall's room. Keitlan had cleaned the dirt and blood off. Had him under the covers where he lay like the dead, pale and fragile looking. A fire was crackling in the hearth. The housekeeper had shut the open wardrobe doors and drawn the drapes, casting the room in shadow. The woman was adding fuel to the fire, elation turned to nervousness in her eyes. She watched Schneider warily as he stood at the end of the bed, one hand on a carved oaken banister.
"I've never seen him taken sick, my lord." She whispered faintly. "I didn't think that -- sorcerers -- were prone to ailment."
"Its not physical. There are other things . . ."
Other things. It was either the power that got you -- the same power that healed you -- that when used in too much of an abundance, past that safe limit that most wizards instinctually knew, that threw the body into catatonia in efforts to protect itself. Or it was the mind -- because weren't they all creatures who practiced in the intricacies of mentality more than common men? All the pondering and all the lifetime's worth of dogma just built up until it all boiled around inside the mind like a disease and you either blocked it out and let it fester or you convinced yourself that it didn't matter and threw it all out. He was of the latter breed. He thought Kall was most certainly in the former category. All that fuel for Angelo to burn.
There was a shuffling by the door. A hesitant scratch of fingers trailing along the doorframe. He looked up and drew in his breath, carefully, slowly. Yoko stood there, pressed against the frame, peeking into the room as if she feared it held bogeymen. Her hair was unkempt about her shoulders, her eyes wide and liquid.
"Yoko?" he called to her softly. She didn't respond. Her eyes fixed on Kall-Su. Tears began to slip down her cheeks.
"He's lost." She whispered. "He can't find his way back. He doesn't want to." She pushed herself off of the doorframe and padded towards the bed. Sat down carefully on the edge and stared down, sniffling. Her fingers brushed his hair and the tears dripped down her chin. She looked up at Schneider, and there was devastation in that gaze. Devastation and a hurt so deep that only the barest tip of it showed. But he saw it and felt it in the depth of her gaze and it seemed as if someone had hit him in the gut.
"He hurts people, Rushie and he justifies it with God. I didn't deserve it. He didn't. Don't let him get away with it."
I won't. But he couldn't make his lips form the words. All he could do was stare because she was crying and it was the first time he'd seen her cry since she'd lost the baby. She lay down, next to Kall-Su, wrapping her arms around him, as if he were a child she gave comfort to. She crooned soft, nonsense words low in her throat, and all the while the tears flowed.
He left them like that, almost in a daze, because she had asked something of him that he didn't know how to go about. He didn't know how to finish what he'd started if his prey stayed to ground. He could not vent his rage or avenge her or Kall, if Angelo refused to show himself. If he ran every time it got to hot for him, retreating to plot in secret and spring traps when they least expected it. If he had known the location of the Prophet's fortress, he would have left within the day, even if it proved nothing more than abandoned ruins. It would have been a starting point. A place to look to see if perhaps he had not finished off the man after all. Perhaps the body lay shattered and broken within those mountains. He thought about the weather. It had not been particularly warm there. Rather cold actually, now that he thought about it -- not that he had recognized it in his wrath. So not too far south. It still left maybe three -- four hundred miles of mountainous coast once one got past the northern range. A great deal of land to search. Hopeless unless he could get a fix on the fortress. Unless the wards that had protected it and that had been used to destroy it were damaged enough to leak the resonance of magic.
He needed to do something.
Lily sat in a corner of the great hall, huddled away from the fire, from the groups of mulling, excited servants who belonged in this place and she despaired. She was lost here. She didn't even know where here was. Or who these people were. It was cold outside. There was dirty, melting snow on the ground. She had gone into the courtyard to see if she recognized this place and found herself in the yard of a great castle. A great and active castle that was astir with activity and excitement. She heard the scraps of conversation. The hearsay and speculation that ran rampart. They offered thanksgivings to the spirits they worshipped that their lord had been returned to them. They spoke in hushed whispers over the miracle wrought by the dark wizard. She thought she knew which one he was. She had seen only glimpses of him in the Place Without Windows, and only marginally more once they had appeared in this place, but she recognized his face. His was not a countenance one would easily forget. Even if only seen briefly. He was the man her old master, the wizard, had met with before the church guards had come and taken them away. He was the man her new, crueler master had been so determined to find. He frightened her almost as much as the Master had. For he was powerful and angry. She'd had enough of powerful, angry men.
It was the other whispers that made her prick her ears. When they talked about him. About Kall-Su. About their lord. Another powerful man, then. She had guessed as much. She felt small and dirty here in this grand hall, with so many servants -- his servants -- coming and going, all of them ignoring her. Where would she go, a masterless slave? Sooner or later someone would see the slave tattoo and claim her. She could not hide the mark forever. Did she even wish to hide it at all. All she had ever known was the life of a slave. She wasn't sure she could take care of herself alone. She didn't even have an instrument to work as a minstrel. Lyres were not cheap to buy. She had nothing to her name to trade for one, save her body and she balked at being reduced to that profession. It was not an easy one to escape once entered. She would have walked out of this castle and into the town beyond if it had not been dark still and she not a little afraid to venture into the streets of an unknown city alone and at night. There were some places that were hardly safe for a woman alone during the height of day.
A shadow fell over her as she sat contemplating her dour existence. She looked up in surprise to find a large, raw boned woman looking down at her. The woman's brows were narrowed in contemplation and perhaps a little distaste. Lily lowered her head slightly, letting her hair shroud the fright in her eyes.
"You're the girl that came back with Lord Schneider. You belonged to the monster that took my lord and hurt lady Yoko."
Lily didn't know what to say to that, other than to slowly nod her head in acquiescence. "He was my master. Yes." She whispered.
"Hummph." The woman snorted in disgust. "Vilest creature on the face of the earth, if you ask me. I'll have nothing of his in this castle."
"I'll leave." Lily said, fighting back the tremor of dread in her voice. She started to push herself up.
"What's that on your hand. A slave mark?" The woman's hand shot out, quick as a cat and snatched Lily's wrist. "You're a slave?"
It was an obvious question. The answer so very obvious with the scarring of her skin.
"There is no slavery in Sta-Veron." The woman announced primly. "Lord Kall-Su doesn't permit it."
Lily flinched at his name. She wanted the woman to let her hand go.
"I don't imagine a slave would have much choice in the master who bought her. Did you?"
"No, mistress." Barely a whisper. "I was not --- content under his rule."
"Hummph. No slave trade here, but slavers pass through. You'll find yourself back on the block if you wonder about in the city. All right then, there's nothing to do but have you stay here, but I warn you there are no slackabouts in my castle. There's chores a plenty for the servants. What do you do, girl?"
"Do? I --I am a minstrel."
"A minstrel? That's a lackwit's profession. Not honest work. There's laundry to be washed and work in the kitchen that will do you just fine. Room and board and a silver piece a week for your troubles. A slave couldn't ask for more than that."
"No." She agreed softly. A slave could never ask for more than that.
The woman's face softened slightly at the humble tone. She patted Lily's hand.
"I don't envy the life of a slave. I'm Keitlan, housemistress of this castle. What's your name, girl?"
"Lily."
"You look bruised and battered enough to sleep a handful of nights and here there's only a slice of this one left. I'll have one of the girls show you to the maid's dormitory and find you a cot. Come down to the kitchen tomorrow with the other girls for breakfast and we'll see about getting your situated."
"Yes ma'am."
"What are you doing up here?"
Arshes crept up behind him on the tower as he stared at the lightening night sky to the south west. The faint stain of his blood was still outlined on the tower floor. The pile of cinder that had been the bonfire had mostly blown away on the feirce winds that played at this the highest point of the castle. He didn't say anything. Just stared.
She stood behind him for a while. Not moving, but he could feel her presense. He could always feel her presense. Then in a small, accuastory voice she said.
"You're planning on leaving, aren't you? You're going to go looking for him and you don't even know where to start."
He had a notion. He didn't say that, too tired and full of turbulence to explain himself to her.
"Oh, that's just fine." She hissed. "Go off and leave everyone else to deal with the hard things. It's so easy to run and fight the battle. You never did give a damn about the casulties."
He slowly turned to fix her with a disaproving stare. "Don't presume to preach to me, Arshes. We both know you're not qualified."
"Damnit, Darshe, as impossible as it may sound there are people here who need you. Need your presense! Yoko does. Kall-Su does, though its beyond me why, since you always did treat him like shit. I do! You cannot just run off when everything is so screwed up here."
He stared at her, into her dark eyes and remembered the look she had given Gara. Another time and it would have sent him into a fury. Now he just felt cold and emotionless.
"You need me? And here I thought Gara was the benafactor of your affection nowadays."
She glared at him. Her fists clenched at her sides, her ears twitched in aggitation. So very upset, his Arshes.
"What do you care? You ignore me because you're afraid Yoko will hate you for it. You don't need me, Darshe. Does it offend you so greatly that someone else might? Goddamned you. Sometimes I hate you so much."
"But not forever, right." He mused. "Because eventually they all die and its back to you and me."
She just looked at him, then she turned away and dissapeared down the tower door. He turned back to look at the distant mountains, but his words played in his mind and he couldn't quite see them for the blur of tears.
He might have taken off that night, so disturbed by the mere notion of his enemies continued existence had he been. But the conversation with Arshes haunted him in another way and he found himself downstairs, standing in the portal of Kall-Su's darkened room. Staring at Yoko, who had fallen asleep on top of the covers next to Kall. At the both of them, his injured ones, his lost ones who he had not been able to protect and blamed himself. All to get at him. One way or another Angelo had done it all to get at him for something he had never really had a choice in doing to begin with.
He brushed her hair, the soft curve of her tear streaked cheek.
"I'm sorry." He whispered to the room at large. And because he was weary of mind, body and magic, and more melancholy than he could easily recall being, he lay down next to her and wrapped his arms about the both of them. Yoko murmured in her sleep. Kall didn't move. Schneider buried his face in her hair and tried to block out everything. If he didn't, at least for this while, it would drive him mad.