Illiom, Daughter of Prophecy (2nd Ed)

She awoke well before sunrise and immediately remembered that Who had come in during the night. Even in sleep she had felt his presence and taken comfort from it. Now his perch was empty once more.

Outside it was still dark, but the fragile glow that heralds the dawn hung low in the east, a thin nimbus of light gathering quietly behind the mountains, like a promise.

Illiom walked to the ridge and looked out. Starlight lit the ghostly blanket of cloud that filled the valley.

She stole a glance towards Tarmel’s bedding. It was empty.

His horses stood nearby, still asleep.

Illiom turned back to gaze over the cloud-covered valley. Soon she would leave all this behind.

She felt in her bones the confirmation of Who’s prediction, that she would not return.

The moment she had dreaded and dreamed of was upon her, and now that it was here, what did she feel? Certainly not joy or excitement, not even relief.

Instead, she felt empty and tired. And beneath that, like the cooling ashes of a previous day’s fire, the embers of her anger at the Rider still glowed.

Without realising it, she reached out for Who.

The owl responded immediately, not with thoughts or images, but just with his fey presence. She drank deeply from his wildness, knowing that the time for words was almost over.

Owls, Illiom had learned, are not sentimental. They are not burdened with the past, like people. They live in the present and accept whatever it brings, without regrets or fears. Sometimes Illiom sensed the difference between her and the owl to be like a great gulf that she would never entirely bridge, yet today was not such a time. Today she was just grateful for his presence and the connection they shared.

She knew viscerally that she would not have endured the torture of loneliness and retained her sanity without him. How could she explain to him that she needed and loved him, when his concerns were inevitably steeped in immediate necessity?

She had not sent these thoughts, but his next sending showed her that he had nevertheless picked them up.

You never found it hard to leave when the thaw came and the path down from the mountain opened up. You will leave now in the same way.

His comment stung her.

But then I was always coming back here, to you, she protested. Now things are different.

She could not bring herself to say that she might never see him again.

Yet Who’s comment had been true.

How easily she had left, caught up in the thrill of walking down to Velimoss each spring. Truth be told she was always a little glad to escape from his musty inner world for a time, especially after the interminable hibernation of winter.

The hardships she endured during the icy season always seemed ephemeral in the warm caress of the spring sun. The exhilaration she felt when the grip of ice succumbed to the thaw made the long moons of winter vanish as if they had never been.

It had been so every year.

Other memories arose, unbeckoned. She recalled the pride and optimism she had felt, descending from the mountain that first spring, and the respect accorded her by the simple folk of Velimoss for having survived the entire season alone.

There was little doubt that some believed her to be completely mad. Illiom had actively fostered this belief, for it kept unwanted visitors at bay.

Moreover, each year the villagers seemed happy to buy charms from this mad woman; for these, like she, must surely have been touched by the gods.

A soft sound from the shadowed end of the ridge drew her from her introspection. Illiom would have ignored it but the sound was followed by another.

She peered into the darkness but could see nothing. Illiom moved silently towards its source.

Tarmel materialised like a wraith out of the semi-darkness of early dawn.

Illiom, wide-eyed, brought a hand to her lips to stifle her surprise.

She watched, fascinated, as the Rider flowed through a sequence of fluid movements and postures.

Using hands and feet, elbows, knees, and indeed his entire body, Tarmel traced a slow and supple geometry of sweeping, flowing arches and circles.

Illiom soon began to discern a purpose behind each movement. The sweep of a hand would distract the eye for just the right span of time before the other would lash out, serpent-like, from behind the artful decoy. The receding of hands splayed as if in self-protection, and the backward lean of his body, provided the counterweight needed for a foot to catapult out with frightening force.

Tarmel moved with the grace of a swan and the speed of a cat.

She never would have thought him capable of such elegance.

This dance – for surely that must be what it was – seemed to suit an artist or a performer much more than it did a soldier.

Feeling furtive yet undetected, she watched the Rider for a while, drinking in his nimble prowess, the sheer beauty of his physical mastery of this art.

As she watched, Illiom felt a reluctant attraction.

Abruptly she turned away and quietly withdrew before he could see her.

She was making her way back when a soundless scream tore through her mind.

Illiom froze. Who?

She reached out to him tentatively as fear began to crawl up her spine.

The owl’s answer was not immediate, but when it did come, it made no sense.

Not human!

These two words were accompanied by such a disjointed flurry of images that Illiom did not know what to make of them. Her first thought was that perhaps a bear had wandered up from below, but then Who would have said bear.

The ledge before her was all darkness, outlined by the pallid light of dawn, so she immediately saw the shape when it climbed up over the ridge.

It was a human shape after all.

Almost immediately, a second shape followed the first.

Illiom instinctively shrunk low and began to backtrack as softly as she could. What were these men doing up here?

Then something inexplicable happened.

Wings sprouted from the farthest man’s head, and as they spread to their full span, a scream of pain tore through the still morning air.

Next, the wings detached themselves, banked sharply to the left, and flew off, swallowed by the dark.

“Who!” Illiom called out before she could stop herself.

The first intruder turned to face her and, ignoring his wailing companion, lunged towards her.

The steel of his sword caught the tenuous dawn light and flashed with cold malice.

In the grip of terror, Illiom turned to run and flew straight into the arms of a third man.

She screamed hysterically, thrashing her arms, but the Rider grabbed her by the shoulders, held her eyes for an instant, then, pushing her firmly to one side, sprang towards the approaching man.

Effortlessly avoiding the thrust of his blade, the Rider feigned a lunge, became airborne, and his foot crashed against the man’s lower leg, just below the knee.

There was a sickening sound of fracturing bone and the man went down with a howl.

Tarmel did not pause.

Propelled by the momentum of his attack he moved to intercept the second man, who was stumbling about, wailing incoherently.

But it was something closer at hand that stole Illiom’s attention.

The first man, the one that the Rider had crippled, was struggling to stand. He retrieved his weapon, and was now hobbling towards her once more. Every step he took was accompanied by a muffled cry of agony, and though his progress was slow, Illiom was transfixed.

The man’s eyes burned with fever-like insanity.

Paralysed, Illiom watched him as he gradually covered the distance between them.

She shook herself, turned to flee, scrambled away for a few steps, but her foot caught on something and she fell, hard.

The assassin almost upon her, Illiom felt her old power stir deep within her.

She did not have time to think, and her habitual rejection of its presence won by force of habit. She denied it, forced it back down, while simultaneously scrambling to put as much distance as she could between herself and the man’s sword.

But he had caught up, and was already raising his sword, preparing to strike.

Illiom screamed.

She raised a hand in a futile attempt to ward off the blow that would end her life. Suddenly, Tarmel’s arm locked around the assailant’s neck, forcing the head back, then he sliced the exposed throat open with his knife.

Blood sprayed out, drenching the Rider’s arm, splattering over Illiom.

Tarmel did not let go of the body until it slumped, lifeless.

Then he released it, allowing it to crumple to the ground.