Again, the laughter. “No. There have been others.”
“Where am I?”
“With your mother.”
“Then I am dead?” I licked my lips. “These are the Seven Heavens? My just reward?”
I sensed puzzlement.
“Where am I?” I asked again.
“Good-bye“ said the voice. “Good-bye“
“No!” I called. “Wait! Mother, I“
Somehow, the world shifted. Suddenly everything was different. Sounds rose—the rumble of thunder—shouts of men—
I lay facedown, my left cheek pressed into the sand. I felt it moving, crawling about like something alive.
Opening my eyes, I blinked at a sudden rush of color. Blues and browns and reds and greens blurred together like paints in a rainstorm.
My eyes did not want to focus, so I concentrated on a couple of pebbles a few inches in front of my eyes. They whirled and danced in intricate patterns. As I stared, they slowly grew sharp and distinct once more.
Not dead… that was the first and most important thing.
An acrid, unpleasant odor surrounded me, like burning flesh. I coughed a bit.
“Lord Aber?” distant voices called. “Get him up! Hurry! Inside!”
When I tried to push myself up, though, I found my arms didn't want to obey. I fumbled, didn't have the strength to continue.
What had happened?
Lightning… lightning had struck me.
Somehow, I had lived through it. I blinked again, took a deep breath, and sat up in a single motion. Coughing wracked my body.
Boots crunched on the sand in front of me. Hands seized me, lifted me, began to carry me.
“He's alive!” someone called.
I wondered—did he mean me or Aber?
It took every ounce of strength, but I raised my head and tried to see what was happening. Tears blurred my vision. I couldn't see anything much.
“Aber?” I croaked.
A dark, unmoving shape a few yards ahead might have been him.
No, he couldn't be dead. Moaning, I longed to crawl into a hole and pull the opening shut behind me. No, not Aber—my one friend here—
I began to crawl. Sharp, knifelike pains stabbed my knees and hands. My back ached terribly, and my chest burned. My eyes watered so much I could barely see, and my tears streamed onto the ground.
The dark shape ahead of me wasn't moving. If anything had happened to my brother, I didn't know what I'd do.
I had to pause to catch my breath. Spots jumped and flitted before my eyes. My ears rang.
But I was alive.
Just a few more feet and I'd reach my brother. Had he been hit, too, or had the lightning bolt jumped to him from me?
An acrid smell, like burnt flesh and clothing, suffused everything. I prayed it wasn't coming from him.
Suddenly the guards who had been exercising across the yard reached me, running full tilt. Without asking, four of them picked me up and carried me toward the house at a trot.
“Aber—” My voice came out a feeble croak. “Get Aber—”
“They have him, Lord Oberon.” The voice sounded distant, as though he stood at the far end of a long tunnel.
Somehow, I managed to focus on the speaker, a young officer with close-cropped blond hair and a slightly hooked nose. He supported my left shoulder as they carried me toward the house at a trot.
“Dead?” I whispered.
His lips moved, but I couldn't hear the words this time. My hearing seemed to be cutting in and out.
Then I started coughing and couldn't stop.
“—lightning hit you, sir,” he was saying. “Jace went for the company doctor. Don't try to talk, sir. You're both safe.”
“Aber—” I said.
“Can you hear me—Lord Oberon? Lord Oberon?”
“Yes…” My voice sounded like a frog's croak. “Is Aber—is he dead?”
His voice sounded louder this time. “Alive. Don't try to talk, sir. He hit his head. He's going to need stitches, but he should be all right.”
“Thanks.”
My brother still lived—that was all I needed to know. I allowed myself to relax.
They reached the door to the house and carried me inside. I hated feeling like a cripple, but didn't have the strength to object.
The young officer and his men set me down carefully on the floor next to the wall. They all crowded inside, out of the storm, out of harm's way.
My hearing definitely seemed to be returning. I heard crashes of thunder now, though it still sounded flat and far away.
Stripping off his jacket, the young officer folded it into a makeshift pillow and slipped it under my head.
“What's your name?” I asked him.
“Captain Neole.”
I began coughing again. The smells of burnt flesh and fabric grew stronger in the close, confined space. After a minute, I realized the smells came from me.
When I turned my head, I saw that Aber now lay beside me. Blood slicked the right-hand side of his face and pooled on the floor under him. A cold panic swept through me. He wasn't moving. Maybe Neole had made a mistake—
I pressed my eyes shut as a coughing fit struck.
The next thing I knew, a white-haired old man was bending over me, his weathered face creased with worry. I must have blacked out again; he hadn't been there a second ago.
He was the castle doctor—I recognized him from Juniper. I had seen him after the first great battle, the one in which Locke and Davin had fallen.
“Lord Oberon? Can you hear me?” he demanded, clapping his hands in front of my face to get my attention.
“Yes…” I whispered.
He held up a pair of fingers.
“How many?” he demanded.
“Two.” I began a new round of coughing.
“You'll live, I think.”
He moved over to Aber, knelt, and felt my brother's pulse.
“Well?” I demanded.
“Unconscious,” he said without looking at me. Leaning forward, he probed Aber's head with his fingers. “A shallow scalp wound. It looks worse than it really is. Unless he has some other injuries I can't see, he should be fine in a few days. Your family heals fast.”
Suddenly Aber stirred and moaned and tried to sit up. One hand went up to his head, but the doctor caught it and pressed it down at his side.
“Lie still,” he said to my brother. “You need stitches.”
“Wha—” Aber muttered.
The doctor called for needle and thread, and his assistant produced both. Then, as I watched, he peeled back a loose flap of Aber's scalp and plucked dirt and sand from the wound. It must have hurt; Aber began to thrash. At the doctor's command, six soldiers sit on my brother to keep him down. Two more held his head in place.
“Healing salve!” the doctor called.
He accepted a small jar from his assistant and smeared a greasy yellow-gray concoction liberally onto the wound. Without a second's pause, he began sewing the piece of scalp back in place. His stitches, I noticed, were small and neat.
My brother's wound, I saw, extended across the forehead, just above the hairline. It would leave an impressive scar after it healed.
Unfortunately, he would have to go bald or shave his head to show it off.
I glanced over at the open door. The sky, a dusky gray color that boiled like a soup cauldron, flickered constantly with lightning. I had never seen a such a fierce display of nature's fury. Tongues of light reaching halfway across the sky. Others leaped down and hit the ground, sometimes close and sometimes distant.
The doctor tied off the thread and motioned to the soldiers, who released Aber.
“Anything else hurt?” the doctor asked him.
“Everything!” my brother groaned.
The doctor snorted. “Rest for ten minutes. If you can't walk, these men will carry you to your bed.”
“Thanks for caring.” Slowly and carefully, Aber sat up and felt his head. “Ow!”
“If it hurts, don't touch it,” the doctor said without sympathy. “Let the salve do its work.”
“How many stitches?” I asked.
“Thirty-two.”
Aber groaned again.
“Don't complain,” I told him. “You didn't get struck by lightning!”