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Portal to Twilight: Chapter 2 (unfinished)

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CHAPTER TWO : The Storm

The whiteness took her.

She screamed in silence, tossed as helplessly as a wind-borne leaf in the swirling torrent of light. It dazzled her, blazed through her closed eyelids and burned along the channels of her vision. Flesh and bone were slowly consumed in the heatless inferno, causing both unfathomable pain and endless ecstasy.

Then, after an eternity that lasted the space of a heartbeat, it was over.

Halinia's eyes fluttered open. Her skin felt warm and flushed; the heavy woollen covers atop her body seemed to smother her. She tossed them aside and tried to sit up, only to fall back to the pillows in a vertiginous daze. A cry, sounding muffled, reached her ears, and suddenly cool fingers were caressing her face, brushing back her pale hair, helping her to sit up.

"Lady Halinia," said a voice, as Halinia's head slowly cleared from the tempestuous vision, only to realise her actual body was in almost as much agony. She recognised the face of Malitha, one of the castle physician's serving-maids. "Thank the Goddess you're awake! How do you feel?"

"Her fever still has not broken," observed another voice, laying a hand on the young noblewoman's forehead and cheeks. "Bring water."

As the physician's aides sponged her face and body (Halinia realised, with a great surge of embarrassment, that she was mostly nude and her hair was loose), she asked—in a voice strangely hoarse, as from constant yelling—what was going on.

The castle physician had come, and she shook her head, taking a seat on a stool next to Halinia's bed. "We still cannot be sure," she admitted. "I do not wish to cause you worry with speculation until we know for certain."

"But—what—what happened?" Halinia asked, struggling to sit up. Her voice scraped through a parched and exhausted throat, and the physician gave her a goblet of water—real water, purified through tanilión, so that it contained no poisons and could not cause illness. "I— All I remember is…" She thought for a moment. What did she remember? "I…I…remember…my betrothal feast… But all I knew after that was…whiteness. Light and heat, swirling like the heart of a stormcloud…" She shook herself. "How long has it been? Where is Vardigil?"

The physician's eyes were unreadable. "Lord Vardigil is dead."

Halinia was shocked. She had barely known Vardigil, the son of one of Saleira Dûra's other noble families; in fact, their first meeting had been a scant week before they were scheduled to be betrothed, their wedding intended to form an alliance between Halinia's house of Koristova and Vardigil's Garsegan. Even so, such news was a shock.

"H-how—?" Halinia whispered.

"This we do not know. Your father tried to scry what happened with his Gift, but even he could not see. All we know is that you and young Lord Vardigil had left the ballroom, and the next we knew of you, he lay dead in your sitting-room, and you were gone.

"Our first thought was that an assassin or some other enemy of your father had struck, but we received no ransom-note, no demands. Then, almost two weeks later, you reappeared at the castle gates, weakened and feverish. We took you in and nursed you, though there was a great deal of fear that you would slip away, unable to recover from whatever ordeal had been visited upon you. We still have no idea where you were."

Halinia's insides seemed to slowly freeze. "How…how long ago was that?"

"Three days ago. The strength of your blood has shown itself again, Lady. No-one expected such a rapid recovery."

The doors to the bedchamber burst open just then, and Halinia jumped in spite of herself. The physician sprung to her feet and spun around, ready to ream whomever had dared to disturb her patient, but quickly subsided when she saw that it was none other than the lord of the manor himself, Vanhoros Koristova, head of the Great House Koristova and Halinia's father. Her mother, the Lady Chariélas nao Marieva, followed closely behind.

"With respect, my Lord and my Lady," the physician said, curtsying, "Lady Halinia is still very frail. She may be awake, but will require more time to fully recover."

"Of course," Lord Vanhoros said heartily. "Thank you, Tasha Yunalis." He politely pushed past her to the bed, where he bent down and gently but firmly embraced his daughter.

"You had us quite frightened for a while there, siha," he said quietly, as Chariélas moved to his side and stroked Halinia's amber-green hair. Halinia felt her mother's gentle mental probing, the tanilión Gift of her birth-House, and tried not to resist. Perhaps Chariélas could find what Halinia could not remember.

"Siha, are you blocking me?" Lady Chariélas asked, puzzled, and her mental voice sounded muffled in Halinia's mind, as if coming from behind a wall. [There is a shield here. What's wrong, daughter? You know you have nothing to fear from us.]

Halinia attempted to respond telepathically, but the throbbing in her head discouraged that. "I—I don't know," she said. "I'm not trying to—" Her head felt suddenly light and the edges of her vision darkened. The physician Yunalis must have seen the girl falter, for she pushed aside the noble parents and helped Halinia lay down.

"She is still feverish," the mentalist explained with polite asperity. "Please, my Lord and my Lady, I must ask—as her physician—that she be allowed to rest alone until her fever has broken."

Vanhoros nodded solemnly; Chariélas looked troubled. "You know best, of course," the Lord said, dipping his head slightly in her direction. "Please let us know as soon as you feel she is doing better." They left the bedchamber, linked arm in arm, probably conversing on a tight telepathic band that Halinia and others, no matter how sensitive, could not hear.

Yunalis fed Halinia some horrid-tasting herbal paste that she claimed would help her sleep, and let her wash away the taste with another goblet of sweet water. Any tasha could explain that normal water, taken from a river or pond, contained soil, very mild poisons, and myriad tiny animals that could not be seen without the aid of tanilión-enhanced senses. The same psychic gift could be used to purge the poison and creatures from water, leaving it pure and wholesome. This required time and effort, however, and pure drinking water was a luxury available only to the very rich. Halinia loved the taste of water, and drank every drop of the stuff from the vessel Yunalis handed her.

"Now rest," the physician admonished, pulling the covers up to Halinia's chin. "You may feel hot and feverish, but you will have chills, as well, so you must be kept warm," she said, responding to the young noblewoman's unvoiced complaint. "I will return every half an hour to check on you." She silently crossed the room and left, pulling the heavy rainwood door shut behind her.

Once she was gone, Halinia kicked off the covers and swung her legs over the side of the bed. The bearskin rug on the floor next to her bed was soft and warm, but the stone tiles beyond it were cold; a sharp, but not entirely unpleasant, reprieve from the intense heat filling her body. She moved across the room in her bare feet, keeping her eyes fixed on the polished-glass mirror set above the carven rosewood vanity. Her skin was pale, except for the patches burning on her face, and her chartreuse hair hung in lank strands to below her waist. Halinia felt a flush born of modesty suffusing her face, heating it further: but since there were no men present to see her, it hardly mattered that her hair (and lack of clothing, for that matter) was indecent.

She leaned on the vanity and stared into the mirror. The same blue eyes she had seen in reflections for nineteen years stared back at her, reddened with fatigue and cachexia. Halinia blinked, and suddenly her hair went from lemony-green to the colour of ivy leaves, a green so deep it was nearly black. The blue eyes she had seen for so many years seemed to ignite, flashes of lightning and blue fire tangible behind them, and Halinia felt herself smiling. Yes…

Abruptly, her fever broke, and she found herself drenched in sweat. Whatever vision she had seen in the mirror was gone now—hallucination? or foresight? (Goddess grant it was only a fever-dream)—and Halinia's knees weakened, almost dropping her to the floor. She managed to crawl back to the bed, her eyelids growing heavier with each step, and collapsed into a dreamless sleep that lasted for an entire day.

*****

"Do you have any experience with weapons?" Mikadzuki asked, rolling up the sleeves of her gauzy robe without taking her eyes from Marissa.

"Some," the Earth-girl responded. "Not too much, I'm afraid." She had come back, as Mikadzuki knew she would; in the month since their first meeting, Marissa had made sporadic visits to Dûr, explaining that her grandparents and other relatives were now living in her home and helping to take care of her younger brothers and sisters, as well as aiding Marissa with arrangements for her parents' funeral and several financial matters related to Earth's unfamiliar economy (Mikadzuki had known better than to press for details).

"What sort of weapon do you prefer?" The young seeress seated herself on the floor, folding her legs beneath her, and began raising her energy with one corner of her mind. The quick-and-dirty lessons in history and language of Dûr had proceeded apace—Marissa seemed very eager for the knowledge—and the two women now rarely needed to resort to speaking in Mikadzuki's presence-chamber, where she had set up a psychic enchantment that rendered all languages understandable.

"Well, I've had kendo lessons, but not many. That's a sort of martial arts technique using swords, but not real swords; just symbolic ones made from wood or bamboo. I did some foam-fighting, which is even further removed from actual sword-fighting… Imagine reenactments of historic battles, except that the weapons are made of wood or a similar material, and padded with layers of cloth, so that you can get hit by them and not be seriously hurt." She sighed. "If I'm to be some kind of a warrior, I think I'd like a weapon that's easy to use and doesn't take too much fancy technique. Now that I think of it, I don't think I really want anything with—with a blade. The idea of spilling blood, even if it's a monster's blood, freaks me out. Maybe someday I'll get used to it, but right now, it's not something I want to do."

"I understand." Mikadzuki concentrated for a moment, focusing her psionic energy, and then reached out, pulling together shards of crystal and particles of metal from deep within the ground, blending them together into a translucent material that was lighter and stronger than steel. "Will this suit you?" The glow suffusing the new weapon faded, leaving a perfectly-formed unflanged mace suspended in the air before her.

Marissa's eyes were wide; Mikadzuki plucked the object out of the air and held it out. The Earth-woman accepted it with something approaching reverence, asking, "How did you do that?"

"It's one of my psychic talents. I have told you that the humans of Saleira Dûra distrust magic, and so they rely almost entirely upon psionic abilities. We Wreiths are less squeamish about spellcasting, but we also occasionally possess psionic gifts. Mine are the Sight, as you know, and this one, which is sometimes called Ôcreativity', but that term isn't quite accurate, since one doesn't make things so much as pull them together out of particles in the air, aether, and earth."

"Conservation of matter," Marissa said quietly, nodding. "Makes sense."

Mikadzuki watched as Marissa rose to her feet and tested the new weapon, swinging it experimentally and checking its balance. "You should have little need to use it outside of defending yourself," the seeress assured. "The human lands of Saleira Dûra are reasonably well-protected; beasts and monsters are rare, but not extinct. Further from the cities, there may be bandits and the like, but I will do my best to guide you from afar."

Marissa nodded. "So what's my first task?"

Mikadzuki paused, her head cocked as if listening. Shirotaki was sending her a telepathic call, letting her know that he returned successful from the hunt. "Going to meet my brother," she said, smiling, and they went to wait for him. {unfinished}
This is as far as I ever got fleshing out the first story in the Door to Twilight setting.

I don't know if it's the result of HTML or something that happens when I open a Mac .rtf file in Windows, but all my smart quotes and apostrophes and some punctuation marks turn into accented letters that I have to go through and manually change. I hope I didn't miss any.

The Door to Twilight setting is ©2006 or 2007 (I don't remember exactly which) by me, A. A. Sterling (Amethyst Sadachbia). I'd forgotten I invented the word "siha" in the Çalavian language; it's a semi-formal term of endearment for a young woman. Just in case, y'know, you thought I borrowed it from a certain thing that didn't come out until 2010. :P
© 2013 - 2024 AmethystSadachbia
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