Magic's Pawn

It's all I deserve. It was all my fault -

He couldn't see where he was going, and he didn't give a damn. He tripped and fell any number of times, but bruises and cuts didn't matter; he just picked himself back up and kept running in whatever direction he happened to be facing.

His whole universe had collapsed the moment Tylendel had thrown himself off that tower. Somewhere down in the depths of his soul was the dim thought that if he ran far enough, ran fast enough, he might run off the edge of the world and into an oblivion where there would be no more feeling, and no more pain.

He didn't run off the edge of the world, quite. He ran off the bank into the river.

The ground just disappeared under his feet, and he flailed his arms wildly as he half-fell, half-tumbled down the bank and somersaulted at the bottom into the icy water. It closed over his head, and the cold shocked him into an instant of forgetfulness; he lost the desire for oblivion as instinct took over, and he fought back to the surface.

He gulped air, shook water out of his eyes, and in a flash of lightning saw an oncoming tree limb too late to dodge it. He managed to turn away from it, but it hit him across the back of the head and knocked him under again. The second time his head broke the surface, he was dazed and unthinking; in another glare of lighting he saw the branches of a bush beside him and grabbed at them -

They were too far away, far out of his frantic reach -

Then the hush shook violently, and seemed to stretch toward him. He snatched at the ends of the branches. He caught them, somehow; they cut into his hand, but he managed to pull himself into the shallows.

He had just enough strength left to crawl halfway up into the rain-slick bank, and just enough mind left to wonder why he'd bothered to save himself.

He lay facedown in the sodden, dead grass on the bank; chilled and numb, and growing colder, and wracked with anguished guilt and mourning.

'Lendel, 'Lendel, it was all my fault - oh, gods, it was all my fault - I should have told Savil. I should have tried to stop you.

He sobbed into the rough grass, the damp-smelling earth, longing inarticulately for the power of a god to reverse time, to unmake all that had happened.

I'm sorry - oh, please, someone, take it all back! If you have to have someone, take me instead! Make it a dream, oh, gods - please -

But it wasn't a dream; no more than the rain that was diluting his tears, or the icy water that tugged at his legs. And no god intervened to unmake the past. The wintry cold was closing in on him, chilling the fire along his veins; he was too weak to move, and too tired, and far too grief stricken to care. It occurred to him then that he might die here, as alone as Tylendel had died.

It was no less than his deserts, and he changed his prayers. Please - he asked, desperately, of powers that were not answering. Please - let me die.

He thought of every mistake he had made, every wrong turning, and moaned. I deserve to die, he thought in anguish, closing his eyes. I want to die.

:No.:The mind-voice was bright, bright as a flame, and sharp as steel, piercing his dark hope for death :No, you must not. You must live, Chosen.:

He raised his head a little, but couldn't get his eyes open, and really didn't want to :You don't know,: he thought bleakly back at the intruder :Let me alone. No one wants me, nobody should want me; I kill everything I care for :

But someone grabbed him by the back of the collar and half-dragged him up the bank. He tried to twist away, but his body wouldn't work right anymore, and all he did was thrash feebly. Heartbeats later the rain was no longer pounding his back, and the green-smelling, soft moss under his weakly moving hands was dry; he'd been pulled into some kind of shelter. Whatever had him let go of his collar, after lowering him gently down onto the moss; he managed to get his eyes open, but with the lightning fading off in the distance, he could see nothing but darkness.

Something warm and large lay down beside him with a sigh. A soft nose nuzzled his cheek -

 - like Gala had -

The sensation brought up memories that cut him into little shreds. He brought his knees up under his chest and curled up on himself, sobbing uncontrollably, driven to the edge of sanity by grief and loneliness.

: - but I am here - :

He brought his head up a little, and looked for the speaker with vision blurred by tears - and in a last glare of the lightning met a pair of glowing sapphire eyes-eyes so full of compassion and love that he knew their owner would forgive him anything. That love reached out for him, and flowed over into him. It couldn't erase his loss, but it could share the pain - and it didn't blame him for what had happened.

He uncurled, and groped for the smooth white neck and shoulder the way he had seized on the branches of the bush to keep from drowning.

He sobbed himself into exhaustion on that shoulder, wept until he hadn't the strength to shed another tear, and into a kind of fevered half-sleep. And all the while, that bright voice murmured, like a litany, over and over, into his mind -

:I am here, my Chosen. I love you. I will never leave you :

'Savil, we found him.' Mardic burst into the room that had been Vanyel's and Tylendel's, dripping from head to toe, and shivering in the draft from the door behind him.

As he turned to close the door, Savil dredged up energy she hadn't dreamed she still possessed, and started to rise. Jaysen and Healer Andrel simultaneously seized her shoulders and pushed her back down into her chair.

'Where?' she demanded, in a voice hoarsened by weeping. 'Who found him? Is he all right?'