GODSWAR: The Spear of Athena, Chapter 11

Urelle was inside the Crucible, and all her friends can do is wait... and hope.

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Chapter 11.

"How long do we wait?" Ingram heard himself demanding again.

"As long as we must," Victoria responded from the dimness of the pre-dawn.

Even without more light, Ingram could see how exhausted Victoria was, dark circles beneath her eyes, the eyelids heavy, the mouth bracketed with lines of worry and weariness. I look no better, probably. It's been more than two days.

Quester was sleeping, at least; he could feel the vagueness of presence that told him his friend was not awake and alert. But neither Ingram nor Victoria had been able to rest much. "But shouldn't she have come out by now?"

"It is somewhat worrisome," Frederic's voice answered from behind them. "But many have taken days to pass the Crucible."

"How do you know when to stop watching?" Victoria asked quietly, gazing at the door to the Crucible of Children, gray and closed as it had been since Urelle had entered.

"When the door opens," Frederic said after a pause. "Either the candidate is there, and in passing through that doorway becomes a Salandaras in truth, or no one waits behind the door… and someone must go inside to retrieve the one who failed." His voice was soft, but Ingram could hear the sadness within, and the anger.

"Is there no way to change this?" Victoria asked. "No way for the Salandaras to stop sending their children into a deadly gantlet?"

"None that has been revealed to them, to their allies, or to me, Lady Victoria," Frederic answered. "Not without destroying that which they are, and perhaps destroying all they have built upon being who they are. We do not even know, as we said, the identities of the two beings who clashed over the destiny of their ancestor, nor whatever power it is who is their patron now. Those three, together, might do so, but without knowing who and what they are, it seems impossible to me that an acceptable ending might be made of this."

He shook his head. "And so the children must go, beloved and feared for… sometimes never to return."

Ingram shuddered. I wish I could have done this. It's my job as a Camp-Bel, to take these burdens and risks upon myself, not put them onto others. But that had not been an option.

So now he sat, and watched an unmoving gray door, and felt acid and tension within his gut.

The light brightened, and suddenly a brilliant ray of sun washed across the scene, touching everything with ruddy gold light. Ingram blinked.

Then he realized that the gray doorway had gone black. It was no longer closed, but open.

And there was no figure visible in the doorway.

"Athena, no…" he whispered, horror spreading in an icy constricting wave from his heart throughout his body. "No."

Victoria gasped and sagged to the ground, gaze fixed on the dark, empty archway, hands covering her mouth to hold in a mother's screams. Quester's mind was shadowed and the Iriistiik's head sank, both his sets of arms sagging.

Ingram forced himself to stand. She died for me. For everything that no longer matters, because I don't think I care for the mission one bit now. But I will find her and bring her out into the mocking sunlight.

     I won't let anyone else be the one to find her inside this death trap.

As he started for the doorway, Druyar Salandaras bellowed, "STOP!"

He paused, glaring back at the huge warrior, who was also staring intensely at the entrance to the Crucible. "Why?"

"Is not yet over."

He whirled back, seeing Victoria rising to her feet, and only then did he see it. A slight movement, from a tiny shape in dark clothes, collapsed at the very threshold of the door. "URELLE!"

Frederic caught him as he sprinted forward, Druyar doing the same to Victoria. Quester was there now, great faceted eyes taking in the scene, only hesitating when he saw the desperation with which his two friends were being restrained.

"No!" Druyar said, and his voice was hammered iron. "Not over! No help! She must cross threshold herself! Do not undo all she has done!"

That last was the only thing anyone could have said to have stopped him – or, he was certain, Victoria and Quester. For Urelle moved with the slowness of one not merely exhausted, but wounded, dying, with perhaps minutes remaining and only their iron will driving them forward. Neither he nor her aunt could have failed to go to her… if it were not for the fact that they would then make all that Urelle had done pointless.

"Okay. Okay. We'll stay out of it until she crosses the threshold," Ingram managed to grind out. He saw Victoria nod, Quester's head dip. "We promise. But let us go closer. Be as close as we can."

Frederic's grip on his arms eased, and Ingram hurried forward, Victoria at his side.

Had they not promised, Ingram wasn't sure he could have stopped himself. For he had never seen Urelle so badly injured.

A makeshift tourniquet gripped her swollen left leg above a vicious wound in her calf. Blood caked the leg, which was also leaking pus. Urelle's face was smeared with blood and other things in a streaked red-black-yellow pattern of filth, and even her dark skin seemed both paler and darker, with hints of hectic red on her cheeks. One hand gripped a battered length of metal, jamming one end into the stone to help drag herself forward. There were burns on her clothing and her hands, and scorch marks on her face. Her eyes stared intensely, looking only in front of her, a few feet before her, and Ingram knew she was utterly unaware of anything except the goal that lay before her, such a short distance away.

A gasping grunt, and she dragged herself another six inches forward; her other leg pushed, but it, too, was not uninjured; the ankle was puffed to nearly twice its normal size. The one with the tourniquet did not move at all, dead weight that was simply impeding her progress. Her lips bled, as though she'd bitten them in her pain.

But she extended her arms again, anchored herself, dragged forward. Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes, and Ingram felt his own splashing onto his clenched fists, hearing her agonized gasps and knowing he could do nothing to help her… or all this pain would be for naught.

Another six inches. Another, and her feet were near the threshold. She gave a whine and a growl, inhuman in their intensity, and pulled herself forward once more… and her feet slid past the border of the entranceway. "It is done." Druyar said, sadness mingling with satisfaction in his voice.

And - from where, Ingram could not say – a phantom voice whispered "And will beyond that of iron… well enough, little one."

Ingram and Victoria were instantly near her. "Urelle, Urelle, you did it, you did it, understand us? It's okay, we're going to help you now."

Her eyes refocused, slid past Victoria, fixed on his face, looked into his own, and those cracked, bleeding lips curved up. "It's… okay now… Ingram…" she whispered.

Then her head dropped to the pavement and the metal rod, so fiercely held, tumbled from fingers gone limp.

"NO!"

"Calm yourself!" Frederic snapped. "She is not dead – not quite – and by Shargamor and the Water of Life, she will not die if I can help it."

The Guardian of Nature laid his hand on Urelle's, and instantly, deep, rippling green light flowed across the girl's form. "Unloose that tourniquet," Frederic said, and Druyar bent and did so with the smoothness of one long accustomed to following this man's directions. "Ah," Frederic said distantly, "both infection and poison. A cruel combination. The leg itself may have passed the point of salvage."

No! Ingram breathed the word.

"Can it not be restored, if severed clean?" Victoria asked, her voice unnaturally calm.

"There are those who could do so," Frederic said. "None of them are here, however, and you have no luxury of time to seek one out. But I did say may. It is possible that I may still be able to help her body to defeat the forces that seek to destroy it."

"Do you need anything? Ingredients, healing draughts – Athena's Name, why didn't she use her own healing?"

"I have all I require for the moment," Frederic said. "As to why… I would have to guess that she could not. Her pack may have been sealed. Even her magic, perhaps, was no longer hers to command."

"Founder…" Ingram whispered, feeling the horrific weight of helplessness once more. It's like watching Victoria dying. Once again, I can do nothing to help!

All he could do was pray to Athena and Urelle's own Myrionar to help her.

The lines of concentration on Frederic's face, as he threw his powers and those of Shargamor against the terrible injuries Urelle had sustained, were also hauntingly familiar. The Wanderer's face had looked the same.

Frederic sat there for long minutes, quietly intoning spells or prayers in a strange mixture of languages. Was Urelle's face relaxing, smoothing out? And if it was… was it because she was getting better, or because the end was approaching? Ingram swallowed, feeling dust and splinters of fear in his throat.

The rippling, leafy, emerald light danced up and down the girl's form, returning always to focus on the savage wound in her calf, from which blood was trickling, mixed with yellow-green corruption. Frederic was breathing faster now, and Ingram saw sweat standing out on the older man's brow, beginning to soak the neck of his famous White Robe. "Druyar," he said, strain evident despite an artificial lightness of tone, "I must say, your patron has angered me once more. There was no need for this."

Druyar bowed his head. "Not think so either, but she not listen to me."

"If Urelle dies," Ingram heard himself snarl from between gritted teeth, "your patron will by the Founder hear something from us!"

The golden-haired warrior raised his head and looked with stern sympathy into Ingram's eyes. "Was her choice. Was her risk. She want to help you." He sighed. "Know that hurts. But don't blame Her, Mistress of Twilight, Fortune. All Salandaras take risk." An aching sadness passed across the normally-cheerful features. "Me and sister, Daryana, we go in together. Take different paths. I come out. She carried out."

"How can you stand it?"

Druyar straightened. "Is part of who we are. Hear your story, yes? Why Camp-Bels die in training? Why God-Warrior training kill so many? Because is what must be." He gestured to Urelle. "Not want to see her die. Trust Guardian will heal. But if not? Soul is safe. She go where she belong."

"But she will have died for nothing!"

"No," Druyar said firmly. "She made it. She Salandaras now. She still alive. Made promise. If die, is now our promise."

It should have been wonderful news: Druyar – who right now was the Salandaras, the leader – was saying he took Urelle's oath as his own, that no matter what, one of the Salandaras would guide them to the Seal. But all that promise managed was a minuscule lightening, a feeling that it wouldn't all have been for naught. But, looking at Urelle's too-thin face, he couldn't bring himself to care.

"It is… very bad," Frederic gasped, still pouring the forest-jade power into Urelle's slender form. "There is a touch of something else, not mere magic, something greater, associated with all of this. I need a connection, something of our own, to combat this."

"But," Quester buzzed in puzzlement, "but are you not a holy man yourself? A Guardian is a servant and channel of Shargamor, yes?"

"Yes," he admitted, "but not directly. I gain the strength, the energy, from Shargamor's blessing, but it is not the power of the gods. Such is not for ordinary humans to channel. I need a touch of the true power, or something else that lies beyond the realm of the ordinary magic I wield."

Ingram's head came up. "Something connected to the gods?"

But before he could concentrate, could focus his desperation into the cry to call forth his oldest friend, he saw Victoria Vantage, with a peculiar expression, extend her hand. "Would this suffice?" she asked.

Frederic, confusion obvious, took her hand.

A faint shimmer showed about their hands, and to his surprise Ingram saw faint red-gold sparkles flowing over Urelle along with the leaf-green. Frederic stared, astounded, into Victoria's eyes. "But… I don't understand."

"It isn't necessary to understand – as long as it is enough."

"It… yes. Yes, it is. I feel a resonance between your … power and Urelle's. Perhaps the connection of mother to child, despite your surface relationship… but I feel the infection weakening. The poison begins to disperse, diluting in the flow of power and will. Urelle's spirit … her spirit is with us now, helping." Despite the sweat and strain on his face, Frederic smiled. "She will recover."

"Thank the Lady," Ingram heard himself say, and sank to the ground. The tears still trickled down his cheeks, but at last, for the first time in days, Ingram smiled.