Tallah [Book 3 Complete]

"I'm sorry, but you want to do what to me?" Sil wasn't sure she'd heard Tallah right. "How does it help us if you sever my connection to the goddess? We still need healing, especially now."

A chill wind had picked up, whistling among the high cliffs. She must've misheard Tallah and Christina's plan, because the whole idea was balmy.

Sure enough, she didn't want to be Panacea's puppet, not after the goddess had abandoned them at the Rock. But even the two sorceresses couldn't deny that losing access to healing magic for their little group was just as good as hacking a limb off. What would it achieve aside from misery?

"There are daemons breathing down our necks. There's a god that's gotten it in his head to use you. And we've still an empress to slay," she counted off on her fingers. "The princeling is still out there ready to tear your head off, with my lover in tow I might add. There's no safe passage to Solstice. And we're scraping the bottom of the barrel with our supplies. How is severing me from the goddess a good idea?"

It was all Christina's idea. The ghost wanted to do something to both her and Vergil, but the logic of it eluded Sil.

Seemed like Tallah had gone off to have herself a good scream that the entire camp had heard, echoes being what they were, and was now back with ideas. Like they didn't have enough to worry about without coming up with creative ways of worsening their already precarious situation.

The sorceress raised her hands in a placating gesture. Sil was gripping her mace, but that had become a kind of involuntary reaction to just about everything.

"I know how it sounds." Tallah struck for a reasonable tone, but only came out impatient. "But you wouldn't be severed from her. You should still have your healing and everything else the goddess offers. We want to cut her off from intervening through you. No more little visits when convenient for her ladyship."

No one knew how healing magic manifested from the goddess to her healers. Doubly so now, when they were all aware of Panacea's real nature as a machine spirit and not divine.

The last thing Sil wanted to do was fool about with their last certain ability. For all her faults, Panacea's healing as dependable as could be.

"You can't know what will happen," Sil protested. "We have no idea how the relation works. Nobody knows—"

This time it was Christina herself answering through Tallah's voice. "Oh, but I do, you worrisome hen. She's shown her hand enough times for me to figure out her tricks. And she's made the mistake of holding me. I know how she does what she does, and I know how to lock her out of your head. And you want this." Tallah's voice carried Christina's insufferable arrogance. "I know you don't like her using you. Else you wouldn't have given yourself an aneurysm just to use your barriers as they should be used."

Vergil sat between them, still shirtless and listless. His gaze followed their exchange, moving expectantly from one speaker to the other. Sil looked at him.

"You've got nothing to say?" she asked him. "They want to do this to you too."

"I'm all for it." He shrugged and dug his head deep between his shoulders, eyes looking to Tallah. "If Sil doesn't want it, I do. You said you can stop Ryder from ever coming to me again. Do it. I want it."

"In due time, boy," Christina said, waving him away. "I don't want this one's patron to see what we do. It's why she needs to be first. That, or we need to head away from her."

"Panacea's not really our biggest concern right now," Sil said. "You forget all the other things on our plate? Most of them aren't even to do with us. We're just—"

"Victims of circumstance, yes," Christina agreed. She twisted Tallah's face into a grin. "And your goddess could've prevented all of it. She is not on our side. She is not our friend. I think it's time we cut ourselves off from her meddling. And then properly deal with her."

"Will you do the same to the others here?" Was Tallah this thick-headed? If they lost their healing, the road ahead would only get unspeakably harder. Even if she couldn't heal Tallah, Sil could still help Vergil and herself. They weren't as indestructible as the sorceress. "You cut me off, but she still has agents here."

Even the dragon had raised its head, eyes half-lidded as it regarded their back and forth. If it understood a single word they said was impossible to know, but it didn't seem to matter to the lizard. A wash of hot air and sulphur stench wafted down the hill from where it lay on the rocks.

Tallah's grin only widened, as if it was all a joke to them. "Our time here is almost done. We've gambled and we've lost." She sneered at that. "Tallah gambled on the Rock and lost. Now we have a different plan. We will only discuss it after we deal with our leaks. See reason, Silestra."

Sil couldn't remember Christina ever using her actual name in a conversation. It momentarily struck her as odd, almost blasphemous, to hear it from that one's mouth.

"If the two of you are done," Tallah said, shaking her head, "can we get on with things? Sil, your goddess is useless to us. She's done nothing but hinder my goals, keep secrets, and generally be a cryptic sow. I've a spy in my head that reports to Catharina, the boy has one in his soul that reports to this Ryder bastard, and you have your goddess listening in and doing nothing. How can we achieve anything with any of these watching over our shoulders? Don't you want your free will back?"

Of course she bloody wanted that! If not for necessity, she would've spat in Panacea's eye right at the Rock. As much as Sil hated being the plaything of the powerful, she still remained a pragmatist. Losing the healing would hurt them…

But staying shackled to the machine spirit will inevitably break you. For the first time that day, Dreea spoke up. We are not made to serve or be used. This is why I chose freedom from Catharina. This is why I chose to be made into you.

Freedom from use and from consequences. Dreea had ran when she'd realised that the empress valued no one, least of all those that served her. Panacea valued only her goals. The parallel drawn was no great revelation.

She paced around the top of the hill, biting on the tip of her finger, teeth drawing blood as she ripped skin. It had taken her every ounce of will she possessed to use a barrier as she had. The more she pushed, the more she felt the chains that bound her mind, that deep part that wasn't Sil or Dreea but everything else.

When she'd managed to break through, she'd had a moment of clarity. Chains. She was chained to Panacea, bound by her hypocritical morality, a conduit for her power.

"Fine." She threw up her hands. "Fine. On your head be it. Do whatever you must. If we die, we die."

"That's the spirit," Tallah said.

Then the sorceress promptly stabbed Sil with a blood tendril, straight through the corner of her left eye. Sil's vision turned briefly red. Shock gripped her, but it lasted only a heartbeat. Just like that, the tendril was out. There was no pain. It had all happened in an instant.

Blood and snot burst from her nose. She tasted metal in the back of her throat. Her sinuses screamed in outrage.

"See? Was that so bad?" Tallah asked, a smug grin on her face. "Test your healing on the boy."

Sil coughed and spat a glob of blood that had oozed in the back of her throat. "Wh-what did you do?" A burp and gurgle and she almost toppled, head suddenly light. Tallah grabbed her wrist and steadied her.

She wanted to place a protective hand over her eye. But it didn't hurt. Nothing hurt. At best, her eye felt as if she had an upsetting grain of sand irritating her. Nothing more.

"Test your healing. Then we'll tell you."

Sil shook loose of the sorceress and placed a hand on Vergil's shoulder. The boy dutifully raised his axe and cut a shallow line on his cheek. The wounds on his chest had self-sealed once the binding had taken effect. There was nothing else to heal there.

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"I require this one be mended," Sil prayed.

Nothing happened. She counted heartbeats. On the fifth she felt panic overtaking the sudden nausea. On the tenth, familiar power blossomed through her. Light enveloped Vergil. When it faded, the cut was healed without even a scar.

Tallah's grin grew ever smugger.

"What did you do?" Sil asked.

A weight had dropped off her shoulder, one she hadn't known she'd been carrying. For some reason, she felt her head… light. Like a busy tap room that had gone quiet all of a sudden. It was eerie.

What had changed?

"Everyone is illum sensitive to some degree," Tallah said as she knelt in the grass, next to Vergil.

The dragon stretched out its neck and its gaze fell heavy on them, eyes fully opened, irises drawn into slits. It rumbled.

"Even this guy," Tallah went on, "much as we like to think of him as a blank, still has some traces going through him. He just can't grasp illum to use."

She wrapped an arm around Vergil's shoulder and, with her free hand, pointed at his eye. The same blood spike. A short stab, then immediate retreat. The boy didn't even react, only blinked a few times once it was done, then wiped his bloody nose on the tattered ruin of his sleeve.

"Soul magic. So much comes down to soul magic." Tallah pressed a thumb to Vergil's cheek, drawing his eyelid down for a better look. "Some say the eye is the window into the soul. Turns out they're right."

Sil's eye itched. She rubbed at it and wasn't surprised to find her hand stained by blood.

"You stabbed me in the soul?" It was a stupid thing to ask, but Tallah wasn't making herself clear.

"Our friends are using sympathetic connections to spy on us," the sorceress went on. "For me, Catharina's using Rhine. For Vergil here, it's the dreg tied into him. And you had your brains scrambled while in training, I bet. Feeling lighter?"

Both she and Vergil answer at once, "Yes."

"Good. We've cut a few synapses in your heads, then cauterised the cuts—not literally, don't look at me like that. Anna's stumbled over this while she was in Vergil's head. Confirmed it in mine. We would've aborted if it wasn't also present in you."

"You could've asked to test." Sil blew her nose and winced at the uncomfortable sensation. "Before stabbing me in the eye. That's how you blank someone."

"Same principle, actually. We were more directed in our effort. Also, wanted to do it before your goddess found a way to prevent it."

The camp was roused now. People were coming closer to stare at the dragon. None had any idea of what had just happened or the fresh danger they were in due to Vergil.

Surprisingly, for Sil at least, the elendine approached. She was carrying a leather vest and a linen shirt over her shoulder.

"Lady healer," the elendine saluted with a fist to her chest as she passed Sil and went to Vergil's side. "Lady Cinder. Vergil, these are for you. From Cram. Should fit you. We've only ever seen you in rags. Figured you could use a change of clothes."

Blood pooled around Vergil, muddying the ground. The elendine—Sil struggled to recall her name—didn't seem to notice or care.

"Thank you," was all Vergil stammered out as he received his gift. "Uh… sorry. I… meant to come see you. Things got a bit weird here."

The elendine's opalescent eyes climbed to take in the dragon sprawling on the rocks above them, like a great, fuming gargoyle.

"I can see," she said, not missing a beat. "You'll find me when you're good and ready, I'm sure. The lads and I are volunteering for advance scouting."

Tallah's ears pricked up at that. She emerged from whatever internal council she held and looked to the chit. "What scouting?" she asked. "I didn't order any scouting."

"The old woman did," the elendine said, not taking her eyes off the dragon. "Some of the civilians said they're seeing movement in the hills. We're going to go and check."

Vergil made to rise as he was shrugging out of his ruined spider clothes. "I'll come help."

Tallah shoved him right back down. Except that she didn't. Vergil easily shrugged her aside with a sweep of his arm, almost shoving her down on her arse. Between him and the sorceress, Sil wasn't sure which one was more shocked by the development.

"Uh… sorry, Tallah," Vergil said. "I didn't mean to."

"Nevermind that." Tallah straightened. Her hands flashed fire for a moment. Then she spread her stance and her arms, invitingly. "Push me."

"Why?" Vergil, ever the little worrywart, took a step back from her. "I don't want to push you."

"Shove me, boy. I'm infused. You won't hurt me."

"But—"

"Do it or I promise I'll flame your face." Tallah ignited a fireball. "Now."

So Vergil did. To Sil's eyes it didn't quite look like he'd put his back into it. Or much effort at all.

Tallah was thrown back a good five meters to land painfully on her arse, going arse over tits a couple rolls down the hill's side. Sil burst out laughing. Vergil stared at his hands as if they were alien to him. Then he ran after Tallah.

"Sorry. Sorry. Sorry."

The elendine looked shocked at the great Cinder thrown on her ass by a boy barely out of his teens.

"Hope you didn't break anything. Would've sucked to discover I can no longer heal you," Sil called out as she headed to where Tallah was dusting herself off, with Vergil fussing around the sorceress. "Calm down, Vergil. She asked for it."

"You can't heal me anyway. I'm fine," Tallah grumbled, red in the cheeks. She shrugged off Vergil's helping hand "I'll have you try that again with Vilfor so I can get an idea of how strong you really are now. Try and jump next. Straight up."

Vergil complied. In a single attempt he easily went higher than their heads, though nothing completely spectacular. An aelir would've doubled that easily. And his landing was less than graceful.

"Right, so you're strong and can jump high now." Tallah shook grass out of her mangled hair. "Lovely. See that you don't hurt yourself or someone else until we figure out more of your new condition. Let me know if the dwarf's strength compounds with this new weirdness."

Vergil slunk off together with the elendine, dressing as he went down into the bustling camp. Liosse was ordering people around, getting the gawkers to their business and the soldiers to manning the guard posts.

Sil stood by Tallah and took a deep breath. The lightness didn't leave her. She could only imagine the kind of precise channelling the two ghosts had managed to devise and then implement. Incredible. Like with Dreea before and breaking past Aliana's implanted memories, now she was feeling shackles falling loose. Hopefully, these would be the last.

No matter how deep she dug, she always found something else that held her in binding. If she could fly like Tallah, she probably would've spent some time screaming her lungs out where no one could see her.

"What now?" she asked, eyes scanning the hustle and bustle. "This was all finely distracting, but what are we doing? The moment you meet with an imperial troop, it'll come to blows. We can't just head towards the empire and hope for the best."

Tallah sniffed in annoyance and rubbed at her eyes with the heel of her palm. "Next we're going to piss in your goddess's coffee. We're heading to your school."

"How's that pissing in her coffee? It's what she wanted us to do. It's what I suggest we do."

"Yes, but I plan on beating the feathers off her the moment I get there."

Sil scoffed. "That worked well in Grefe."

Tallah sniffed loudly, right eye twitching. "This won't be like Grefe."

"Because you're angrier and can scowl better now?" Sil found the idea hilarious. "What's changed? You can cast a more powerful devourer. Doesn't feel to me like that's going to matter much."

"Christina's figured her defences."

"That's nice. What of her offence? And after she feeds you your teeth, what then?"

If she knew her friend at all, she knew what the long silence meant. Tallah had no idea what to do next, and she was trying not to panic. This whole mess with Ryder and Vergil would have been a heavy blow for her pride to weather.

Sil needled her because someone had to. Tallah generally was at her best when poked and prodded, not when left to simmer in her own bile. If this weren't helpful, Christina would've likely intervened with some snide remark.

Tallah puffed out her cheek and finally rubbed at the places where Vergil had struck her. She'd be black and blue by tomorrow, if that roll was any indication of the boy's new strength. "I don't know," the sorceress said, wincing as she stood tall. "Catharina. Ort. Ryder. I have three enemies to bloody, and no idea how to do it. I don't know how to reach any of them. It's all a mess."

They were saved from the long, heavy silence by screaming.

A commotion broke out at the far edge of camp. The dragon turned its head and grumbled unhappily from its perch. From afar, it looked like a scuffle. Then an outright brawl.

Then people were running and the pass filled with screams.

Tallah rose into the air and blasted forward as Sil hurried towards the healers.

On the air, as if coming from the blue itself, rose chanting and singing. Sil recognised the song. All healers would.

Why was there a priest of Ort all the way out here?