Magic's Promise

There was nothing but pain now; and he lacked even the strength to weep.

Jervis was shaking him; he tried to push the man's hands away, but it was like a babe trying to push away the hand of an adult. 'Go,' he panted, too spent even to moan. 'Can't - hold it - stable.'

There's nothing left. I overestimated again -

He could feel the Gate pulsing with the beating of his own heart. In a moment it would collapse.

'Go - now,' he tried to urge the armsmaster. He was so tired; he'd give anything to be able to rest, beyond the pain.

Shadow-Lover -

Death had long since lost any fear for him. He had been courted by the Shadow-Lover for so long that His embrace would be welcome, if only it would bring him peace. There was nothing left - not even his will.

But Jervis had enough will for two.

'I'm not goin' without you!' the old man growled, as the palace walls cried in a hundred agonized voices around them. 'You remember what you said about giving up? Dammit, Van, don't do it now! There's nobody to pick up your load if you give up on me!”

The words reached through the haze of pain and weakness as nothing else could have. He struggled to his feet, Jervis supporting him, as the palace bucked around them. Jervis started for the open Gate, more than half dragging him over the rubble, and finally draped his arm across his own shoulders and carried him through the Gate itself.

He'd thought there could be no worse pain than passing that Gate.

He discovered a heartbeat later that he was wrong.

There was a flash of light on metal as Jervis' boots clattered onto the stone of the corridor floor. It was training, a training that refused to admit to having no strength, that made him squirm sideways in Jervis' grip.

But it wasn't quite enough. There was a rush of dark cloth toward them, and the hard impact of something driving into his stomach and jerking upward-

“Leren!” Jervis roared. 'What in - '

And pain that blacked out everything else sent him bonelessly to the floor as Jervis let go of him.

Somewhere - in some other world beyond the pain - there was a sound of scuffling. All he knew was the pain, the agony that was the center of him, as he lay on his side and clutched his stomach, something hot and wet trickling between his fingers.

Heal - I have to Heal myself- He had just enough Healing-Gift to save himself. He reached, feebly, - no strength -

:Chosen!: Yfandes' mind-voice, faint and far-off - and a brief, unsteady surge of energy from her to him, all unlooked-for; energy that could Heal him.

But something else brushed his mind, a sense of dark and evil wings.

It was with Leren. A dark force that ruled Leren, and it was poised to strike at the armsmaster.

He had a choice; save himself - or save Jervis.

Which was not a choice at all.

No!

Vanyel took that borrowed strength and hurled it at the unprotected, unsuspecting darkness like a spear of light.

It penetrated.

But it did not kill. The darkness fled, wounded, but not conquered, as Vanyel began fading into a darkness of his own.