Chapter 13: 12. Joined Forces

The man was named Dorian, and he was the latest pet of Eris. He was her type in every respect: tall, physically strong, Kathar, experienced, and mundane; he would not be powerful enough to resist her magic. It had taken her two years before she let any man at all near her son, but now she rarely went anywhere without a male partner.

“How did you find me?” Aletheia asked. “Where is she?”

“She and Corvo are a few days’ ride north,” Dorian said. They ate a quick pre-dawn breakfast. Trito looked unconcerned with these latest events, but the young Melitas was as interested as he was confused. “She didn’t want to make him ride hard enough to catch up with you. And we only had one horse anyway.”

Aletheia smiled and held her hand up to the mare’s mouth, trailing fingers along the underside of its head. She and Eris had been given this horse as a gift from the king of Skane himself. Her name was Sinir, and although Aletheia wasn’t surprised, it was reassuring to know that she hadn’t been lost yet.

“Then you must have used some enchantment to track us down,” Melitas said. “Like—like a Seeker.”

Dorian nodded. “She gave me this.” He picked up his makeshift compass from where it had spilled to the ground nearby. It was nothing but a wood splinter held in a glass of water. Nothing metal to it. “She threw this together and cast a spell on it—I don’t know what—and told me it’d always point toward Aletheia.”

“We created that spell together, so we could always find each other,” Aletheia said. “And Corvo, too. But I thought she was still in Verarszag. Why did you come after me?”

Dorian looked away. His expression fell. “It’s Corvo. He isn’t well.”

“What happened?”

“I’m not sure I can explain with justice. But you’ll want to see him right away. It isn’t a natural ailment. Eris doesn’t know what to do, and time is short.”

Aletheia’s skin frosted over. Nothing scared her like the thought of harm coming to Corvo. He was precious enough as a child, a child she loved, but his life was so much more than just that. She knew better than anyone that life in Esenia was never safe for children, especially when their friends and parents were adventurers.

“That’s why you’re interrupting our heroic quest?” Melitas said, almost amazed. “For a sick child?”

“If you’d seen the manner of this sickness, you wouldn’t be so surprised,” Dorian said.

“Yes, I’m sure it’s terribly sad story. Very tragic, even,” Melitas said. “But we’re already devoted to a different feat of valor, with short time. Very short time. I would explain it to you, but we’re in such a hurry, it doesn’t really make sense, does it?”

Aletheia ignored him. “I’ll come. Take me back to her.” She looked to her companions. “I have to make sure he’s okay. Take the sword and go on without me.”

“You would leave me in dubious company,” Trito said.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Trito said, “I would sooner come with you. The Boyar is short on time, but so does this child seem to be. I should wish to examine him.”

“You’re mad,” Melitas said. “If he dies, we don’t get a thing. All this will be for nothing.”

Aletheia shrugged. “Then go alone. You slew the Hydra; you can find a tree.”

She’d been carrying the sword with their things, but now she tossed it at him over their dying fire. It was a bluff; she didn’t want to part with it yet.

The look on Melitas’ face as it landed in the grass beside him told her that the bluff would pay off.

“Well, I—I wouldn’t want to take all the glory for myself, you know,” he said. “I’m a wizard of war. I don’t know how to disentangle the ancient enchantments around the Oak of Spring like the two of you do.”

“Then you’re coming with us?” Dorian said. “Three magicians, an elf, and an old man. It’s almost like we’re getting ready to slay a dragon.”

“I can tell by your look that dealing with this boy’s trouble is nothing so trivial,” Trito said. He picked the golden sword of Bornimir up and slid it into his belt. It was not much of a way to carry a weapon, but he had no sidearm, and his old scabbard wouldn’t fit the strangely curved blade.

“I’m afraid you may be right, elf,” Dorian said.

“I don’t want to wait,” Aletheia said. She fetched her horse and began readying him. “Take us to her.”

They saw the lights long before they saw Eris. At the top of one hill, looking out toward the mountains, three small suns seemed to hang in the air. It was late, cloudy, and dark, but that one distant section of the plains was bright as it would be in the sun’s direct light. Its radiance ruined Aletheia’s night-adjusted eyes.

She recognized the spell. The solid yellow orbs in the sky were the first spell she had learned as an adventurer, from her first mentor. It was then the only spell she had ever taught back to Eris.

The area they rode toward was treeless. Though their own shadows were cast behind them, color washed away as they came closer to the place directly beneath the magelights. The three were positioned in just a way to light every angle of every object, and thus to eradicate any shadow. Even the blades of grass underhoof seemed to be shadeless.

The campsite came into view. A tent, a few amenities around it, and a firepit with no trace of having ever been lit. Dorian dismounted, and so did Aletheia.

The tent door pulled open.

A little boy sprinted forward to meet them. He had pale skin, dark hair, and very blue eyes, and he ran with flailing arms through the grass, smiling and shrieking, “Aunt Ally!”

She fell to a knee to hug him, but when he reached her, it was with the impact of a charging rhinoceros. She toppled over—but it didn’t make a difference. He held her tight.

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“Corvo,” she said. She kissed him on the crown his head. It had been a year since they last saw each other, and while she knew it was a cliché, he seemed enormous now. She only noticed how fast he grew when she wasn’t there to watch. “I missed you.”

“Corvo!” came a sharper voice. “You may never go beyond the lights. You know this.”

Aletheia looked up and saw Eris standing with folded arms before the tent. Corvo frowned and nodded, and he ran straight back to his mother.

But he didn’t let Aletheia go. He grabbed her hand and dragged her with him, and he only stopped when he was close enough to grab hold of his mother’s leg instead

Corvo’s eyes shifted to the men behind Aletheia’s back. So did Eris’. She nodded to them.

“You have brought company, I see,” she said. “An elf, no less.”

“We were kind of in the middle of something,” Aletheia said. “But we came right away. Well—I did.”

Eris eyed Trito and Melitas. “You will wait out here until we have need for you. ‘Tis late; you may wish to find some rest, while you can.”

Melitas stared up at the nearest light. “How will we ‘find rest’ with these damn things in our eyes?”

“I would think you would start by closing them,” she said, and she led Corvo and Aletheia inside her tent.

It was no darker inside. A fourth light hung at its center, and it blared into Aletheia’s eyes when she sat down.

They regarded each other. Eris remained the most beautiful woman Aletheia had ever met. She was tall, fair, elfin, symmetrical, slender and curvaceous at once. But she had not looked worse in years. Her eyes were red. Her hair was messier than usual. She looked older and more tired than Aletheia could remember, but she pulled her son into her lap with the same affection as ever.

Her manner was severe.

“What happened?” Aletheia whispered.

Eris closed her eyes. Her son looked up at her, and the two were quiet. Aletheia shaded herself from the bright light with a hand. A swath of shadow was cast down on her body; when Eris saw, she grabbed at her wrist and pulled it down.

“Don’t!” she said, precise and quiet. “Not near Corvo. Please.” She moved to hold her son by the top of his head. “I am sorry. I have not slept—in some time.”

She sighed. Then she explained.

She told Aletheia about the Shadow Man. She showed her the book with the strange symbol on its cover, and she described the Tower of Keraz. No detail was spared. Aletheia listened in silent horror. She and Eris had made countless enemies over the last decade, among them demons, but none had ever been so enigmatic. They could always be killed. But the darkness itself?

“You must help me,” she concluded. “I do not know what else to do—or where else to go. You must help.”

“Of course I’ll help,” Aletheia said. “I’ll do whatever I can. But… have you seen the Shadow Man since you left the Tower?”

“No,” Eris said. “He has not taken a solid form. The lights keep him away. But I have caught glimpses in Corvo’s shadow, when he thinks I am not looking. He follows us still. I was right to think he would.”

“So he’s safe,” Aletheia said.

“He is not safe,” Eris said. “I do not know what the Shadow Man is capable of. It has killed a goblin in my thrall already. And should my magic lapse, should I become spellsick or be injured, that might be all it would take for me or Corvo to find our lives ended.”

Aletheia was younger, less experienced, and less powerful than Eris. She was not half so good as a magician, and Eris knew that well. That she had dragged Corvo across the Grelnoi Mountains just for Aletheia’s help showed her desperation. It also showed that Aletheia was her only friend left in the world.

But Aletheia had no idea what to do either. And as she settled in to accepting this new twist to her plans, she realized that things were not nearly as simple as Eris wanted them to be.

“My new companions and I have been looking to help a nobleman who’s very sick,” she said. “His name is Ilya Kaylof, he’s a boyar—a kind of high ranking nobleman here.”

“I know what a boyar is,” Eris said.

“Oh. I didn’t. Well—his mother told us about an old legend, that one hundred years ago, a hero named Ziroslava Bornimir’s killed a giant. He took a golden acorn from its lair and planted it somewhere in the wilderness, and said that any worthy hero who found it after he died would be able to save a man from death with one of its branches. And then he was killed by a hydra.”

“This is a fairy tale,” Eris said. “Every realm has at least one such myth.”

“It isn’t a fairy tale. We found the hydra, and we found his sword. Its says where to go next. We were almost there when Dorian showed up.”

Eris sighed again. “I see. And you think this matter is more urgent than Corvo’s affliction.”

Aletheia shrunk. She was wary of attracting Eris’ anger, especially when she was so clearly strained. But she nodded.

“It’s called the Oak of Spring. I promised Ilya’s mother that I would get it for her, no matter what. We all did. Melitas and Trito and—someone else.”

“There is no time for that,” Eris said.

“What if the branches could cure Corvo, too?”

Eris fell silent. She did not blink as her eyes gazed into Aletheia’s.

“There is no reason to believe they could,” she said.

“Eris—I don’t know where else to start. And the Boyar is running out of time. He won't survive more than another month unless we do something.”

“The Boyar is not my son,” Eris said. “He is not your concern.”

“They’re both my concern!” Aletheia said, loud enough to be heard far outside the tent. “We don’t have to choose between them. We can help them both. If you have a plan, if you have something you want me to do, then tell me, and we can go do that instead. But you don’t have any ideas, so let’s start with mine.”

Corvo had sat silently the entire conversation, attentive and glancing back between the two women in the tent. Aletheia had always wondered how much he understood about his mother’s magic, and his father’s death, and all the trouble they seemed to keep finding themselves in.

But now he stood and pulled away from his mother. Instead he went to her ear, and he whispered, “Aunt Ally promised.”

“What?” Eris turned to look at him.

“You said to always do what I promised. Aunt Ally promised to help the boy.”

“The boy?” Eris said. She couldn't help but smile. “The boyar."

Corvo nodded.

“That’s right. I promised his family I would find the Oak of Spring for him,” Aletheia said. She knew Eris was a deeply uncaring woman, except for the welfare of those she regarded as family; it would be impossible to use empathy to get her to do anything. But if Corvo told her to do something—she would do it. “And we’ve almost found it.”

“She has to keep her promise,” Corvo said.

Eris stared into her son’s eyes. “You are so kind. It must be from your father.” She grabbed him, sighing one last time, before saying, “Very well. With you to help watch him, we may be able to keep him safe from the Shadow Man in perpetuity. It may be that this Oak of Spring does have the power to help him; or, if it does not, perhaps we may find some other benefit from making allies of the Boyar. In any event… your help will buy us time while I continue to think and study the Shadow Man’s true nature.”

“Ilya doesn’t have time,” Aletheia said. “So thank you. I’ll stay with Corvo, and I can channel the lights, too. So you can actually sleep.”

“The lights are no concern,” she said. “My arcane focus sustains them while I rest. But I cannot sleep anyway. I do not think I will for some time yet. Now leave us; we have a great deal to think over. Will you come to bed, my little crow?”

Corvo frowned. “But I’m not tired. I want to play with Aunt Ally!”

“She will be here to play with tomorrow. It is late now. Come. Get ready.” Eris glanced to Aletheia. “Thank you, Aletheia. For coming when you were needed.”

“You couldn’t have stopped me from coming to help after I heard Corvo was sick,” she said. She waved to Corvo. “Night-night. I’ll be right outside, okay? You don’t have to be afraid.”

Dorian, Trito, and Melitas all moved far out of the range of the lights, to where they could sleep in relative darkness. But Aletheia didn’t. She put down her things outside of Eris’ tent and let the magelights burn through her eyelids until dawn.

It was not a good night’s sleep. When the sun finally rose, she couldn’t tell the difference, and she woke up feeling like Eris looked. But she would make do.

Eris and Corvo were still yet to rise, even as the men prepared a quick breakfast. Aletheia dreaded that she might have changed her mind overnight.

But when the flap to the tent flew open, Eris emerged with her staff in-hand. She glanced at the four adventurers around her.

“You are in luck," she said. "I have decided to find this Oak of Spring for you."