His hands flitted here and there, feeling along Elayeen’s spine, her hips, thighs and shins and ankles, then gently around her neck and shoulders, and finally her arms.
As satisfied as he could ever be in the circumstances, he gently lifted Elayeen, turning her over, cradling her in his arms. There was a bruise above her left eye, but no cuts or lacerations. But she looked pale, and as he caressed her hair away from her face, another shock struck Gawain. The black braid, outward physical symbol of the throth that bound them together, was a lustrous silver.
“E, miheth,” he whispered, the single letter ‘e’ his pet name for her. He remembered when first he used it, it made her giggle, and earned him a shower of kisses, “It sounds as though you are saying ‘i’ in my language, which means ‘your’ or ‘yours’, and I am, and you are mine, mithroth”. “Wake up, E, please wake up…”
He held her thus, rocking gently back and forth, her face inches from his, feeling her breath upon his cheek as he caressed her brow.
“Dum vitala est spesilla est…” Allazar croaked again, still crawling towards them, in obvious pain, his face bloody from a cut above his eye where, presumably, he’d landed hard. He was dragging the lustrous white staff with him, though strangely, its considerable weight didn’t seem to bother him in the slightest.
“I don’t understand, Allazar, I don’t understand the wizard’s tongue!” Gawain gasped in anguish, and the wizard sighed, and at the edge of the circle, gave up the struggle, and simply laid face down on the marble, and closed his eyes.
It was at least an hour later, Gawain still rocking Elayeen in his arms and whispering her name over and over, Allazar still asleep or unconscious half in and half out of the circle and still clutching the staff, when the elfin queen of Raheen stirred a little, and took deeper breaths.
Gawain’s eyes snapped open, and he studied her face, let out a great gasp of joy when finally her eyelids fluttered, and cried ‘Oh Elayeen!” when she opened them, and he gazed once more into her beautiful hazel-green eyes.
“Miheth?” she whispered.
Something was wrong. Her pupils were but pin-points of black in her gold-flecked irises.
“Here, my love, hush, I’m here.”
“G’wain?”
“Yes. The circle… we were thrown from it. Don’t try to move yet, tell me where you hurt, can you feel your legs miheth, can you move your feet just a little?”
Much to Gawain’s delight, her dainty booted feet flexed a little, then she bent her knees a little, and flexed her legs and arms.
“My head aches, G’wain, and my shoulder…and…and my hand.”
“I’m not surprised, miheth, we were flung out with great force. Poor Allazar, he is cut, and seems unconscious…”
“G’wain…” Elayeen whispered, her face pointed upward to the sky through the top of the Keep, her eyes gazing straight ahead. “G’wain, I cannot see. All is darkness.”
9. Descent
Elayeen wept, her sightless eyes screwed tight shut, her face buried in Gawain’s tunic. He simply held her, tightly, his arms about her, his right hand buried deep in her hair. All he could do was rock her gently, and say her name. Thus he held her, until the tears and the shuddering of her slender shoulders subsided.
At length she spoke, softly. “Allazar?”
“I think he sleeps, miheth.”
“You should tend him. You said he was bleeding.”
“Yes. But I won’t leave you…”
“You must. He is our friend. Go to him, I am safe enough here. Go, G’wain.”
Gawain cradled her tear-streaked face in his hand, her eyes wide open now but staring straight through him, seeing him not, and he kissed her. She held on to his arm a while, then allowed him to disengage from her, sitting quietly while he moved away.
Allazar groaned a little when Gawain gently shook him and called his name. Gawain knew Allazar’s injuries couldn’t involve broken bones, not from the way the wizard had crawled so far towards himself and Elayeen. He tried to roll the wizard over, but even senseless, Allazar refused to relinquish his grip on the staff. Gawain, in turmoil and in fear, his beloved blind and great waves of guilt washing over him that it was he, Gawain of Raheen, who had caused this catastrophe, suddenly shook the wizard violently.
Allazar groaned again, and stirred, and then seemed to protest in words Gawain could not understand.
“Wake up, whitebeard, I need you! I need you Allazar, Elayeen needs you!”
“Eyem arrak, Longsword, arrak, dar me paxana…” Allazar muttered, and looked up, dazed, as if being woken from a deep sleep. Dried blood caked his face, his left eye swollen closed by the bruise and the cut he’d received.
The wizard pushed himself up to his knees, and then caught sight of Elayeen, sitting alone, gazing into space, utterly bereft. At that, Allazar sat back on his legs, then swung the staff as though it were a simple walking stick, slamming it upright and with it, dragging himself up to his feet. He wobbled a little, scanned the hall, and then hobbled towards Elayeen, Gawain at his side. When they drew close to Elayeen’s side, Allazar simply slid down the staff to plop unceremoniously beside her.
“Allazar?” Elayeen sighed. “Are you hurt?”
“Nai, Elayeen, Eyem nai malak. Et dthu, dthu meleeah?”
“I don’t understand, Allazar, I don’t understand your words.”
“Dwarfspit, Allazar, have you forgotten how to speak the common tongue?” Gawain cried in anguish. “Elayeen is blind, wizard, you must do something!”
For a long moment, Allazar stared at Gawain as he might at some fantastic creature made real from childhood imagination. Then his eyes narrowed, he stared at Elayeen’s face, then back up at Gawain.
“Dthu nai me compinde? Verithias?” he gasped.
“Dwarfspit and Elve’s Blood!” Gawain cried, and then sank to his knees before both of them. “Listen to me,” he said forcefully, trying desperately to quell the raging emotion within him, “We must go down. We cannot stay here. Elayeen, my love, Allazar seems dazed, half here and half elsewhere, and you, I must get you and he to a healer as quickly as I can.”
Elayeen simply nodded towards the sound of his voice.
“Can you stay here, you and Allazar? I will saddle the horses, gather our things, and we’ll leave. Yes?”
“Yes, G’wain.” Elayeen said, simply, and lifelessly.
“Ay, Longsword, compindathu.” Allazar announced, clutching the staff in his right hand, and Elayeen’s uninjured hand in his left, and occasionally jerking his head this way and that, as if distracted by people or things moving around them in that vast empty hall.
Gawain sighed, and hurried to the waiting horses. Gwyn bobbed her head and snorted at his approach. “By the Teeth, Ugly,” he whispered, patting Gwyn’s neck, “Never have I needed you more.”
In haste, Gawain saddled the horses, and in haste, gave them a last watering. The pack-horse would at least have a slightly less burdensome journey down the pass than she’d had coming up.
“Mi scribendana!” Allazar called, suddenly alarmed, and making Gawain jump in the silence of Keep. “Mi scribendana!” he called again, waving frantically at the shoulder bag containing his notebooks far across the other side of the Keep.
“Dwarfspit.” Gawain muttered, and ran stiffly, his muscles still aching from the circle’s blast, to collect the leather bag. He made a point of showing the wizard that it was now safely in his possession, and slung it over his shoulder, making certain it and its contents were secure. For all Gawain knew, the notes Allazar had made may contain a clue to Elayeen’s blindness, and possibly even a way of undoing it. Gawain could only hope her condition was a temporary one.