Another thought came to him, “So, why isn’t the world littered with forgotten spellweavings?”
“Those made to last, like this one, we take apart when we no longer need them. Those created with the intention of being temporary, like battle weavings, are designed to unravel when the one who made them releases the control point,” she answered.
“Control point?”
She nodded, “Usually the point still in contact with the caster. Observe.” Moving her fingers, another spellweave snaked forth and whipped across the intervening space. Tyrion suppressed his reflexive desire to dodge or avoid the obvious attack and held himself still. In the space of a few seconds it had wrapped itself entirely around him. The end remained in Lyralliantha’s hand.
Gesturing with her free hand she pointed at it, “The control point is here.”
Tyrion was feeling uncomfortably claustrophobic within the tight coils, but he ignored his discomfort. “So, if you release that, it will come apart?”
“Even so,” she replied.
“What if it is severed beyond that point, say a foot or two from your hand?”
“Only another spellweave could cut it.”
He stared at her. He had long since measured his strength against hers, as well as every other person he had encountered since he had begun fighting in the arena. He knew he was twice as strong as most of the She’Har and sometimes even more when compared to the other humans. It made no sense that they could create something he couldn’t cut.
“Release me, but don’t dispel it. I want to see if I can cut it,” he told her.
Her lips quirked into a faint smile, “You are welcome to test the truth of my words.” The spellweave unwound from his body and straightened out, forming a long snakelike rope over twenty feet in length. She continued to keep one end in her hand.
His first attempt was an utter failure. Tyrion stood several feet away and tried fire and wind first. He hadn’t thought they would work, but he wanted to see how they interacted with the material of her spellweave. It was completely unaffected, although the wind did cause it to stir a bit.
Imagining a finely honed blade of force, he sent his thought outward in a slicing arc, putting a modest amount of power into it. He was surprised when his attack failed to do the slightest damage. He might as well have struck the spellweave with a wooden stick for all the good it had done.
“That makes no sense,” he muttered. “My attack was far stronger than it is.”
“It is not a matter of strength,” she replied, “but rather a matter of form. Raw magic is too ‘soft’, for want of a better word. It is unformed in the most basic sense, being contained only by your constant mental attention. When it comes in contact with a spellweave, it is no more effective than water striking a stone.”
A shield made like that would render virtually all of my attacks useless. He glanced down at his arms, staring at the lines on them. “Let me try something else,” he said.
She nodded, so he created a blade of force around his right arm, using the line of scar tissue to form the aythar as tightly as he could. He knew from past experience that it would be stronger than his previous purely mental attempt, but he had never needed it for anything other than making his attack easier and more efficient to form. He put his full strength into it, and then struck the spellweave again.
The backlash as his blade of force came apart sent him reeling backward. It felt as if knives were stabbing into his skull. For a split second he had thought his spellblade might succeed, but the spellweave was yet unharmed, and now he was left with a splitting headache. He sat down heavily.
“Do you understand now, Tyrion?” asked Lyralliantha. Her tone was cool, but her aura reflected a subtle hint of sympathy. “There are some things that simply are not possible, even for you.”
Her condescension irritated him more than he dared to admit. “No, I don’t understand. What is possible and impossible, those are things I must learn, but I refuse to accept defeat yet. This way may not work, but that does not mean there isn’t one.”
“Will you try again then?” she asked with no hint of mockery.
He groaned, “No, I think that’s enough for now. I need to rest—and think. Would you like me to play for you tonight?”
“Later,” she answered. “Rest for a while, and I will return. I prefer your music when your mind is clear and at ease.”
“As you will,” he told her, and then she left.
He watched her leave, letting his mind linger idly on the sway of her hips as she walked gracefully away. The uniquely feminine way her body moved was mesmerizing, despite her cool demeanor, and it reminded him of Kate.
Despite her alien way of thinking, her body still moves much like any human woman’s would. He had always assumed that women’s hips swayed because of some feature of their personality, but now he wondered if it wasn’t the result of some difference in their hip bones.
Those thoughts led him to remember his last moments with Kate, and a blush rose on his cheeks. She was definitely wrong about Lyralliantha loving me, either as a pet or a man, but she was right about her willingness to help.
Hungry, he decided to eat some of the food left in his travel bag, rather than cook that evening. It would be a long time before he got bread again, and he knew he would miss it sorely once it was gone, but there was no saving it. If he kept it too long, it would just grow mold.
As he dug in the sack, he noticed a square package wrapped in oilcloth. He didn’t remember putting it there, and as he pulled it out his magesight examined the inside before his fingers could untie the twine that bound it. There were metal wires of some sort inside.
He didn’t understand until he saw them with his own eyes. Bronze strings. There could be only one explanation. His mother had packed her extra strings inside for him to use on his cittern. They were a valuable item, and they weren’t easy to acquire. If one of her own strings broke in the meantime, she would have to wait quite a while to replace them.
Something wet fell on the oilcloth in his hands and his vision grew blurry. Wiping at his eyes he sat and cradled the package against his chest.
“You didn’t deserve a son like me, Momma,” he said quietly, trying again to dry his eyes. His effort was wasted however, and eventually he gave up, sitting down and letting the evening settle around him while he wrapped himself in thoughts of the home he could not return to.
Chapter 44
“That doesn’t make sense,” complained Matthew.
“What doesn’t?” I asked.
“Why is he calling himself Tyrion now? His name is Daniel.”
I smiled patiently at my son. We were all tired now, and it was very late. “That was the name the She’Har gave him.”
“I know that, but it isn’t his real name. You’re telling it as if he believes it’s really his name now, but he knows it isn’t. It’s just a name they made up for him,” he argued with visible irritation.
I glanced at Moira and Lynarralla, but neither of them spoke, probably because they were too sleepy to care.
“Your name is the same,” I told him. “Your mother and I just made it up for you.”
“But he already had a name.”
I nodded, “I know what you’re saying, son, but his switch was his own choice. I can’t change his thoughts and deeds. I can only relate them to you. At that point he was going through a lot of internal shifts, and I believe he changed names to distance himself from his past.”
“The past was nicer than his present,” said Moira with a yawn. “Why would he want to be farther from it?”
“People will do strange things to protect their self-image. He had an idea of himself, as a good son, a kind young man, a lover of animals and people. The things he did, as time went on, were completely at odds with how he thought about himself before,” I explained. “When he threatened and tortured the people of Colne, that was when he could no longer reconcile his present with his past. I think he took his new name
to protect his memory of himself from who he had actually become. It also gave him the freedom to accept his new self without the restraints that his old life would naturally impose.”
“Restraints?” asked Matthew.
“Tyrion, in his mind, was not beholden to anyone. He didn’t bother so much worrying about good and evil, or kindness and cruelty. He simply did what he felt needed doing, or sometimes simply what he wanted to do,” I said.
“Then why didn’t he do as he wished with Catherine Sayer when she came to say farewell?” asked Lynarralla.
“Well,” I began, “He may have been playing identity games with himself, but he was still Daniel, deep down, and she was an integral part of his memory of his old self. Forcing her would have damaged the one thing that was still precious to him; his first love.”
“This is an awful story, Daddy,” declared Moira.
“You’re right,” I agreed. “And we’re all tired. Let’s sleep on it, and I’ll finish tomorrow after breakfast.”
They didn’t complain too much at that suggestion, and we were all much better the next morning for having slept. As soon as we had eaten however, they gathered around me like hungry predators.
“Are you ready?” asked Moira.
I looked at her in surprise, “You want me to start now? I thought you didn’t like this story.”
“I just want to know how it ends,” she told me.
Grinning, I looked at Lynarralla, “You already know how it ends.”
Penny was waiting for Matthew to finish collecting the dishes from our morning meal, since the chore had fallen to him that morning. She looked askance at me, “You didn’t finish your tale last night?”
“It’s taking longer than I expected,” I said apologetically. She hadn’t stayed to listen when I began the story after dinner and had given up and gone to bed long before we had.
“Hmmm,” she replied, thinking. “I have some things to take care of today, so if you plan on telling stories all day you will have to fend for yourself. I won’t be back to make lunch.”
“I’ll tell Peter to tell the castle kitchen staff to expect us for the noon meal then,” I said. “We should probably put in an appearance for the evening meal as well. We’ve been keeping ourselves rather isolated of late.”
Our home was connected, via a magical portal, to Castle Cameron, where I nominally resided as Earl and landowner. The portal was disguised as the entrance to our apartments within the castle, but when opened by the proper hand, actually led to our hidden mountain home, far from the castle itself.
Generally, we had our evening meals at the castle, as well as spending our days there, but recently we had been living reclusively; making few appearances over the past few months.
Penny nodded and stretched up to give me a warm kiss on the cheek. “Make sure Matthew finishes cleaning up in the kitchen. I need to get ready. I’ll see you at dinner.” With that she left.
I watched her go, thinking to myself how lucky I was. My own fate could have been nearly as dark as Daniel Tennick’s. I caught my daughter staring at me. “What?” I asked defensively.
“I don’t want to know what you were thinking,” she said accusingly.
I laughed, “Nothing like that.” For some reason she seemed to think there was only one thing that ever occurred to me when my mind turned to her mother. Apparently I had set a bad example at some point in the past and she had never gotten over the impression. “Honestly!” I added.
“I see you smirking,” she continued. “Don’t be disgusting.”
I threw my hands up. She had me laughing now, and that only made her more convinced that I was guilty. “Fine, whatever,” I said. “I can’t argue. Your mother is a fine figure of a woman. Perhaps I should go see if we can provide you with another sibling?” When in doubt, go on the offensive.
“Ugh!” exclaimed Moira. “Stop! I’m going to go see if Matthew needs help.” She left me alone with Lynarralla and Conall.
Lynarralla stared at me blankly, and Conall did the same.
I shrugged and watched as my younger son imitated me, lifting his shoulders and turning his hands palms up.
“Will you take your sister outside and play with her this morning?” I asked him. By sister I meant Irene, my younger daughter, who was only seven. Conall was nine.
“I want to hear the story,” he said insistently.
I had sent him and his sister to bed the night before, judging the tale to be far too dark for either of them. “You’ve already missed the first part, and I really don’t want you hearing the rest till you’re older.” I was uncomfortable enough with some of what I had already told his older brother and sister.
It took a bit of convincing, but he finally conceded and took his sister out to play. In the meantime the twins had finished the dishes, and we all settled into the den to finish the story.
“Where did I leave off last night?” I asked.
“He was crying because he missed his momma,” said Matthew bluntly.
I had thought my description was a bit more poetic than that, but his remark was accurate enough. “I suppose that’s fair,” I said. “After a while, he finished unpacking the wires and used them to restring his cittern. He had just finished and retuned it when Lyralliantha returned a few hours later…”
***
She approached gracefully, her limbs in perfect harmony as she moved. It might have been romantic to say that she ‘glided in’, as was sometimes done in stories, but she did no such thing. Her motions were natural, athletic and sure, and they broadcast the fact that the young woman nearby was not only lithe but very healthy.
Since Amarah’s death, Tyrion had ignored his normal urges, but his farewell encounter with Kate that morning had served to remind him that he was still hearty and hale, in the prime of his youth. Lyralliantha’s lissome steps seemed loud in his ears, and though he didn’t look up, he watched her advance unwaveringly with his magesight.
In short, he was horny as hell.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
Ignoring the wolf rising within himself, he answered, “I was just tuning my instrument. What would you like to hear?”
She had already learned the names of all the songs he knew, but she wanted something different. “Play something that fits your memories,” she suggested.
Tyrion frowned, “That’s a tough one.” Looking back over the past week, he had run the gamut of emotions. Happiness, nostalgia, regret, anger, remorse, and self-loathing; he had felt them all in just a few days. He could think of songs that would match one or more, but none that would stay the course for what she wanted. “I’ll play the ‘Merry Widow’ first and improvise when I get to a point where it doesn’t feel appropriate,” he replied.
The ‘Merry Widow’ was a light-hearted song about a woman (a widow), living alone who befriended a songbird. The tune was sweet and poignant, rising in tempo and becoming almost lively, then falling to a low point when the bird failed to return one day.
“If you think it is complementary to your experience then it will be perfect,” said Lyralliantha. She moved to stand behind him as she had done once before, resting her forearms on his shoulders and placing her fingers lightly against his temples.
Tyrion had to consciously relax, allowing his ever present shield to dissipate, so that her magic could reach his mind unimpeded. Her touch was gentle, and he soon felt a subtle presence within his head, as she observed his mental imagery and allowed herself to share his emotions. A pleasant scent caught his nose, and the soft press of her body against his shoulders only reinforced the desire that had been nagging at him before. He disciplined his mind fiercely, but not before she saw, and felt, what had begun to course through his mind.
He felt her pulse quicken in response, but she said nothing. Probably laughing at my animal instincts, he figured. Returning to his task, he began to play without singing, letting his mind drift back to the day he had been reunited with his parents.
The me
lody flowed smoothly, perfectly matching his emotions, the loneliness and poignancy of his first sight of home. He felt again the first touch of hope when he met his mother and father again. The inescapable belief every child has, no matter what has gone wrong, surely their parents can set things right. Reality soon dismissed this irrational feeling, and he was left with a sense of disappointment and sadness, knowing they could not truly help, and that he would soon be forced to leave them again.
He lived again the moment in the field, playing for the Catherine Sayer of his past memories and then seeing her appear again, as if by magic. All the emotions returned; his joy at meeting her, the relief he had felt knowing she was doing well without him, and the jealousy of discovering she belonged to someone else.
The bird returned in the song as he met his daughter, Brigid, and it flew high until it was bathed in pure sunlight, while she bounded around the hillside with the sheepdog. The happiness of those few hours swelled within his heart only to inevitably darken as a harsh tone interrupted the music. Seeing his father’s bruised and broken body brought both sorrow and anger while his fingers left the familiar melody of the ‘Merry Widow’ and traveled the barren road of vengeance and retribution.
Familiar faces stared at him with fear and loathing, and while some part of him recoiled from their censure, another part rejoiced in the fury and rage that now filled him. It replaced the cold emptiness with a hot fire that, for the time it lasted, gave him purpose and meaning. He desired nothing more than their suffering, and the wildfire consuming his mind nearly overwhelmed his reason. It was the face of a child that brought him back from the brink of chaos.
The notes falling from his fingers followed his heart into a declining theme of dark regret, and it was there that Tyrion Illeniel was born, a new identity rising from the ashes of a broken man. This new figure had Daniel’s face, but he was cloaked in fire and shadow, a man without joy or sorrow, only hard resolve and remorseless choices. He bade farewell to the past and took to the saddle, riding away from friends and family. The giant trees of a dark forest rose before him, but one last spark reached out…