Glyphbinder by T. Eric Bakutis Page A

ruined. Was that woman insane?
    “Get away from him!” Kara managed to stand, did so without anyone’s help, but before she could attempt to walk, Senior Mender Landra rushed past her in a flash of flowing white robes.
    Landra leapt over the fountain’s border, nimble as a fox, and then she ran right across the water toward Aryn. Ice crackled beneath her feet as Kara stared and gawked. She had not known you could use the Hand of Life to do that.
    Strong arms grabbed Kara’s shoulders and forced her around. She gasped, fighting, but then she saw Elder Halde and all fighting stopped. He was here. He could protect her.
    “Are you hurt?” Halde’s eyes were wide.
    Kara nodded. That battlemage had come so close to taking her away from Solyr, away from her friends. Away to where, to what?
    Death was part of life. It might be harsh, even painful, but she knew her life would end. As with all who died in the Five Provinces she would then stand before Order and Ruin, plead her case and accept her judgment. Afterward, she would rejoin the Five.
    Being taken by some mad mage was different. It meant torture. In the days of the All Province War, death had been far from the worst fate for captives of the Metla Tassauns. They, and the Demonkin mages they served, had fed many souls to the Mavoureen.
    “Sera.” Kara pulled another worry from her muddy mind. “She’s burned. Aryn hit her—”
    “We are taking care of everyone,” Halde assured her. “Even Aryn. Now focus. Calm your mind. Tell me what’s happened.”
    Kara listened to him. She focused. She recounted everything that had happened from the moment she met Sashia in the square to when Sashia went after Aryn’s floating body. After she finished, Halde squeezed her arms and let her stand.
    “Aryn will live. No one died. Well done.”
    “How could this happen?” Kara’s lips and tongue felt swollen, another aspect of her anemia. “Who could turn a man’s mind in on itself like that?”
    “We know nothing yet, save that his abduction failed.” Halde looked around. “First, we’ll see to the injured. Then we must talk, all of us, in the Council Chambers. You’ll still graduate today, but not before we speak. And not before a Bloodmender transfuses you.”
    “Of course, respected elder.” Kara fought her trembling knees until they stopped trembling. She made up her mind right then. If that battlemage tried to abduct her again, she would die before letting him take her. She would kill herself if she had to.
    Losing her life was a far sight better than losing her soul.

Chapter 9
     
    “SIT DOWN,” HALDE SAID.
    Knees still shaking, Kara sat on one of the room’s two benches. They were in the square back room of the Council Chamber. Unlike the rest of the building its walls were ancient stone, bricks built upon bricks and sealed with grout. The air here felt cooler, moist and damp. Oddly, the darkened interior made Kara feel safe.
    This room, windowless and lit by a lamp of phantom fire, looked to be a staging area for the elders before they entered the general assembly. Its only furnishings were the long bench on which Kara sat and the one across from it.
    Byn, Sera, and Trell waited in the main chamber, and Kara hoped they weren’t worried. She had been busy. One of Landra’s Bloodmenders had spent the last few hours infusing Kara with enough blood to recover her faculties, but she still felt cold and stiff.
    “We’ll join the others in a moment.” Halde sat across from her. “First, we need to talk. Aryn planned to kill you.”
    Kara remembered the hatred in Aryn’s eyes and shuddered. “It wasn’t Aryn. That mage glyphed him to attack me.”
    “Glyphing the minds of men is a far greater task than a simple animal. Aryn needed real hate in his heart, and that hate made him into a weapon. Why aim that weapon at you?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “I believe you. This never should have happened.”
    “It’s not your fault.”
    “Oh, but it is. I am