Dark.
Consciousness returned slowly.
A hush had fallen over everything and everyone. I had a sense of dislocation, as though I watched myself from a great distance, and yet I could see nothing but white in every direction. Detached from my body, like an observer looking through someone else's eyes, I peered into the whiteness for answers.
Though my life might be nothing more than a speck of dust on a game-board of cosmic proportions, my thoughts remained clear and sharp. I remembered the lightning. I remembered the pain, though it had vanished. An eerie calmness, like nothing I had ever felt before, began to settle over me.
A laugh, high and musical, broke the silence.
“Who's there?” I called.
A blur of white passed a hand-breadth from my eyes, then a brilliant light dazzled me. I blinked furiously and shaded my face with my hand.
That light—it moved and breathed, it ate and drank with me. Yes, it had eyes, whatever it was. But no human ever gazed out through them, these windows to the soul, so pure and perfect they made my heart ache just to be near.
“Why are you here?” the voice said. It seemed to come from below, then above, then below again.
“First, tell me where I am,” I said.
“Here, with me,” said the voice.
I licked my lips. “Am I the first one?”
Again, the laughter. “No. There have been others.”
“Where am I?”
“With your mother.”
“Then I am dead?” I licked my lips. “These are the Seven Heavens? My just reward?”
I sensed puzzlement.
“Where am I?” I asked again.
“Good-bye“ said the voice. “Good-bye“
“No!” I called. “Wait! Mother, I“
Somehow, the world shifted. Suddenly everything was different. Sounds rose—the rumble of thunder—shouts of men—
I lay facedown, my left cheek pressed into the sand. I felt it moving, crawling about like something alive.
Opening my eyes, I blinked at a sudden rush of color. Blues and browns and reds and greens blurred together like paints in a rainstorm.
My eyes did not want to focus, so I concentrated on a couple of pebbles a few inches in front of my eyes. They whirled and danced in intricate patterns. As I stared, they slowly grew sharp and distinct once more.
Not dead… that was the first and most important thing.
An acrid, unpleasant odor surrounded me, like burning flesh. I coughed a bit.
“Lord Aber?” distant voices called. “Get him up! Hurry! Inside!”
When I tried to push myself up, though, I found my arms didn't want to obey. I fumbled, didn't have the strength to continue.
What had happened?
Lightning… lightning had struck me.
Somehow, I had lived through it. I blinked again, took a deep breath, and sat up in a single motion. Coughing wracked my body.
Boots crunched on the sand in front of me. Hands seized me, lifted me, began to carry me.
“He's alive!” someone called.
I wondered—did he mean me or Aber?
It took every ounce of strength, but I raised my head and tried to see what was happening. Tears blurred my vision. I couldn't see anything much.
“Aber?” I croaked.
A dark, unmoving shape a few yards ahead might have been him.
No, he couldn't be dead. Moaning, I longed to crawl into a hole and pull the opening shut behind me. No, not Aber—my one friend here—
I began to crawl. Sharp, knifelike pains stabbed my knees and hands. My back ached terribly, and my chest burned. My eyes watered so much I could barely see, and my tears streamed onto the ground.
The dark shape ahead of me wasn't moving. If anything had happened to my brother, I didn't know what I'd do.
I had to pause to catch my breath. Spots jumped and flitted before my eyes. My ears rang.
But I was alive.
Just a few more feet and I'd reach my brother. Had he been hit, too, or had the lightning bolt jumped to him from me?
An acrid smell, like burnt flesh and clothing, suffused everything. I prayed it wasn't coming from him.
Suddenly the guards who had been exercising across the yard reached me, running full tilt. Without asking, four of them picked me up and carried me toward the house at a trot.
“Aber—” My voice came out a feeble croak. “Get Aber—”
“They have him, Lord Oberon.” The voice sounded distant, as though he stood at the far end of a long tunnel.
Somehow, I managed to focus on the speaker, a young officer with close-cropped blond hair and a slightly hooked nose. He supported my left shoulder as they carried me toward the house at a trot.
“Dead?” I whispered.