A Respite From Storms by Robert J Crane & Michael Winstone

Author:Robert J Crane & Michael Winstone [Crane, Robert J & Winstone, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Ostiagard Press
Published: 2018-04-03T04:00:00+00:00

*

After a long time, Jasen’s fit tapered off. He stopped shaking. The lightheaded feeling that had misted his mind eased away, like a fog gently dispelled by the breeze.

He sat in morose quiet at the base of the conduction rods, arms folded around his knees.

Alixa perched beside him. She rubbed a hand up and down his back. On the other side sat Scourgey. She leaned against Jasen’s shoulder. For the last fifteen minutes, she had pressed her nose gently against his forehead without moving it. Her breath, rancid as it was, was almost comforting against his cheek.

Kuura sat opposite. He’d pulled the legs of his trousers up, so they bunched around his knees, ending only a few inches down the calf.

“No one could endure things like you have,” he said. “To go through such turmoil … it is a terrible thing. Heartache breaks all of us—and you have seen so much of it, both of you. It is only natural that you would feel as broken as you do.”

“I don’t feel broken,” said Jasen bitterly. “I feel guilty. I am guilty.”

“You’re not,” Alixa said.

He ignored her. No sense arguing. Alixa wouldn’t see things reasonably, he knew now. And all her protests would not cause Jasen to reconsider what he knew was truth.

“So what now?” Kuura asked.

Jasen lifted his shoulders in a small shrug. “I don’t know.”

“We can’t take him on,” Alixa said. “Not us. Probably not Longwell.” She turned to Kuura. “You know that, don’t you? You must see?”

Kuura sighed, a long exhale. “This Baraghosa …” he began. After a pause, he restarted another way. “I’d never have believed what you said about the volcano, days ago. But after the storm …” He shook his head. “There are magics, and I would never had denied that. But … the sheer force and power of what I have seen … these are not magics I have even heard of. The scale, it’s … it’s unprecedented.”

“He has to be stopped,” Jasen said.

“We aren’t the ones to do it,” Alixa said, hard. “A man who can rip open a mountain will not be felled by a fifteen-year-old with a dagger he picked up off the street.”

Jasen gave her a hard look.

“I’m sorry,” she said, “but it’s true. What you want, and what you can reasonably achieve … they’re very different things, Jasen. And you need to listen to that—before it’s too late for you.”

He pursed his lips and looked away.

She was wrong. So wrong.

Kuura repeated, “So—what now?”

Jasen glanced around the forest of conduction rods, humming quietly as they waited for a storm to unload upon them.

“Back to the city, I guess,” he conceded after a long time. Sour-faced, he added, “Not like there’s anything up here for us.”

“Then come,” said Kuura, rising. He stuck out a hand, and helped Jasen to his feet. “You can walk?”

He moved—but Scourgey slipped in under his legs. She swept him off his feet, so he sat—very awkwardly—upon her dangerously curved back.

She looked up at him with black, coal-lump eyes.

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