The Silenced Tale, стр. 116
“Goodbye? Bevel—”
“Wyndam, be a good lad! Marry that girl Caerdac and have a Happily Ever After, and know that Kintyre and I love you very much!”
“I . . . goodbye!” Wyndam returns, and Writer, he is crying, too. The pain in my side is lessened, but it still hurts when my breath catches, and the burning at the back of my eyes grows so intense that I can feel the tears pushing their way out, rolling down my face as well. “Goodbye. I love you both, and . . . wait, Caerdac’s a girl?”
Pip laughs wetly as the portal closes with a final, soft pop.
There is a moment of stunned silence, and then Pip laughs a second time, weak and pained-sounding.
“Classic epic fantasy trope,” she whispers. “The girl disguised as a boy.”
“Is that it?” Bevel asks miserably. “Is that all of it? Is the magic gone now?”
“Almost gone,” Pip says softly, and then opens one of her fists. Pip holds up a single sprig of ivy, still writhing and curling and glowing bright green. She reaches out and presses it hard against Kintyre’s wound. I bend down over her hand and whisper the strongest Words of Healing, and Repairing, and Recreating that I know. And, as of just a few moments ago, I do know rather a lot of them.
We watch as the blood stops flowing, and the sides of the wound inch together. It doesn’t close, not completely, but it seems to be enough to keep the wound from being fatal. Kintyre’s breathing evens out, and he relaxes back into Bevel’s arms, eyes closed in a true sleep.
Above us, a thin siren wail pierces the silence. A flashlight beam sweeps down the escalators, and a voice calls, “Anyone down here?”
“Help!” Kora shouts, from the door of the ballroom, and races toward the escalator, waving her arms wildly. “We’re down here, and we need medical help!”
The next few moments are a blur of emergency personnel in dayglo vests, and the commotion of shouting voices, people crying, and loud assurances that everything will be all right now.
I am exhausted, and all I can do is wrap my hand in Pip’s and hold on.
I come back to myself when my wife untangles her hand to shove at Bevel.
“Hey, you lump. Move.”
Bevel snaps his eyes up to her, horrified. “No. No, I—I can’t! I . . .”
Pip points at the people ranged around us, clutching medical bags, grim-faced but hopeful. “Ah,” I say. “Bevel, you need to—”
“I won’t leave him!” Bevel snarls. “I won’t . . . I won’t be where he’s not.”
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Pip snarls back.She grabs him by the shoulders and hauls him back as much as she can. His hands flail up, red to the wrists, and I gulp in horror. “Move so the paramedic can get in!”
“The what?” Bevel yelps, caught off guard by Pip’s insistence and manhandling. “Is that a healer?”
Pip grins at him. “Better. I promise.”
“Fuck of a Dead Dog Party,” Pip says from the other side of the hospital room. She’s leaning against the wall, arms crossed over her stomach, watching Kintyre as intently as the rest of us.
She looks better than the rest of us, too, having been the only one of us well enough to escape the paramedics’ roving eyes and slip up to our hotel room for a shower and a change of clothes. The fire department has cleared the tower for occupation, though only the out-of-town guests with no immediate way home have been allowed to remain. Pip has brought me clothing, as well, and it feels nice to have a soft shirt over my wrapped ribs. Pip even stopped at one of the clothing shops between the hotel and the hospital to buy Bevel some jeans, a t-shirt, and a cozy red hoodie. Bevel still has blood crusted in his hair, though, and under his nails. A scrub in the waiting room washroom sink can only achieve so much.
“A what?” Bevel asks, moving as if he will glance back over his shoulder, but never quite managing to complete the gesture. He cannot tear his eyes away from his trothed’s face.
“Usually, at conventions, the committee who put on the con get together to finally relax once the con is over. Hang out in someone’s suite, eat pizza, drink the leftover booze, actually get time to meet the guests. Celebrate the end of the con and fight off sleep. Dead Dog Party.”
“Sounds exhausting,” I say.
“Usually is,” Pip agrees, and she lifts her eyes enough to send a twinkling look of fatigued mirth in my direction. “This is the best one I’ve been to yet, though.”
“The best?” Bevel splutters, affronted.
“Yeah,” Pip says, and steps forward to rest a kindly hand on his shoulder. “’Cause Kintyre’s gonna be fine.”
Bevel reaches up and clutches at Pip’s hand. He blows out a hard sigh, and if it ends on a bit of a sob, it is not my place to point it out.
I shift in my chair, trying to find a comfortable position, and failing. Though we are not supposed to use our phones in the hospital, I am being abysmally selfish and naughty, and am monitoring the media feeds, both social and mainstream. So far, it seems that only vague reports of what happened inside the convention center are surfacing. No one cornered the fans, nor did we threaten them to keep what they saw secret. If they care to tell the world that they experienced magic, real magic, while suffering a traumatic experience in an airless, lightless building, I am certain that it will cause no harm. Even if others believe them, there is no longer any magic in the Overrealm—no one would be able to recreate the experience or spells.
So far, the news is reporting it as either a homegrown terrorist attack or a crazed murder spree perpetrated by yet another maladjusted, entitled white