In any case, she wasn’t about to stop, turn back, or even slow down while that annoying Ulk Bog was capering about as if completely immune to the weariness that was affecting her. She wasn’t going to prove less able and willing, and then have to listen to the little creature’s pointed comments all the way back to whatever doorway would release her from this prison and put her back into her own world.
She spit some dust from her mouth and slogged ahead. She wasn’t giving up. Not until she got Redden out of that cage.
Although once she did so, she fervently hoped that Tesla Dart’s boast about being able to put them back in the Four Lands was more than just talk.
She returned to thinking about how she would deal with Redden’s magic-warded cage. There had to be a way to get past the Straken Lord’s magic. Or a way to negate it. Or to strip it away. She wished she knew more about that sort of thing, but in spite of her hopes of being allowed to join the Druid order, she possessed limited knowledge of magic. It was one thing to be a creature of magic; it was another entirely to have knowledge of its use.
The truth was that she didn’t have much experience at all; she only had the talent with which she had been born. That might seem to be enough, given that she could turn herself into smoke. But passing through iron bars laced with magic was impossible, even with a shape-change that left her as insubstantial as air. She would, out of necessity, have to brush against the bars or touch some part of the cage in order to gain entry, and that would be all it took to engage whatever magic was in place. Even reaching through the bars might be enough to give warning. If the Straken Lord was going to this much trouble to haul the boy along with him on this march, he must have an important reason for doing so. That meant every precaution against his escape or rescue would have been taken.
She considered the number of Goblin guards and demon-wolves assigned to stand watch on Redden: many more than were necessary, unless their real purpose was not so much to keep him in as to keep others out.
Tesla Dart reappeared in a rush from the wilderness ahead, a flurry of waving arms and churning legs. Oriantha held out her hands to slow the Ulk Bog down before she knocked her over.
“Lada returns!” Tesla announced in an excited voice. “There is an opening close! Different one, not familiar. We are going out!”
The young woman stared. “What do you mean? We are going out where?”
The Ulk Bog grinned, showing all of her considerable teeth. “Into your world, shape-shifter! Back to your home!”
She turned and darted away again, running hard, apparently afraid she might miss something if she lingered even a moment longer. Oriantha gave chase, suddenly frantic. What was Tesla Dart talking about? Why would they be going out into the Four Lands? But she knew the answers almost as soon as she asked the questions. This was the invasion the Ulk Bog had warned about, the invasion Tael Riverine had warned he would mount if he were not given Grianne Ohmsford. Somehow Oriantha had thought they would have more time before the Straken Lord acted on his threat. Apparently she had been wrong.
“Tesla, wait for me!” she called.
The chase went on for perhaps fifteen minutes, and it would have gone on much longer had the Ulk Bog not decided to turn around and rush back to offer fresh insight.
“Tael Riverine does this to show strength,” she announced, coming to a ragged halt in front of Oriantha. “He demonstrates his power to your people. Will wait to see what they do. Maybe he attacks. Maybe not. He is unpredictable. Very much dangerous.”
“Wait!” Oriantha snapped as she sensed the other was about to sprint off again. “Are you sure of where we’re going? How can Lada know?”
“Ha!” Tesla Dart was convulsed with laughter. “Lada so fast. Lada runs circles around army. Goes way, way ahead to see what he can find. Finds the opening. Can sense what it is. Opening must be to one place. Your world.”
True enough, Oriantha thought. Where else would Tael Riverine be taking his hordes? She glanced skyward, catching sight of the Straken Lord aboard his huge dragon, circling overhead, just visible through the clouds of dust and dirt.
“Maybe he’s not going through the opening just yet,” she said suddenly. “Maybe he’s just taking the army up to the opening and then will have it wait there to see what happens. Maybe he will send someone through to speak with the Elves and ask about Grianne.”
Tesla cocked her bristly head as if studying a very strange insect. “Tael Riverine will ask? No, shape-shifter. He demands, and then he takes!”
They continued on, the Ulk Bog and the Chzyks scouting ahead, Oriantha trudging along behind, no longer bothering to hurry, knowing it didn’t matter. She was not fast enough either to keep up with her companions or to get ahead of the army traveling in front of her. The army wasn’t quicker than she was, but it was much, much wider. It sprawled across several miles of wilderness, and any effort to go around it would require a sizable detour. Without knowing where it was going—because there was no way to know where this new opening would take them—she might as well wait and see where they ended up before making any decisions about what to do. Whatever she did, she needed the invading army to stay in one place long enough for her to leave it and return with whatever help she could find.
She realized she could not go back into the enemy camp when night came to try to free Redden. Doing so would risk death or capture, and she could afford neither because she was the only one who knew what was about to happen and could give warning. With the Druid order decimated, she would have to get word to both the Elves and the Federation’s Coalition Council. She would have to warn the Dwarves and the Border Cities. A united Four Lands would be needed if the Straken Lord’s army were to be stopped and turned back.
Even then …
She didn’t want to speculate further. Getting that far would be difficult enough.
She thought about the reason behind the appearance of the openings. It was obvious the Forbidding was collapsing and the creatures trapped inside were breaking loose. For that to be so, didn’t the Ellcrys have to be failing? When had this happened and why hadn’t the Druids known about it—especially the three who were Elves, and who should have been aware of the problem long ago?
She picked up her pace, worried now that she would be too slow in doing what was needed. The day was fading, and with it the gray light that washed the barren landscape. Here in this prison of ancient Faerie creatures labeled demonkind, it was never brighter than the twilight of her own world, but she could still feel the approach of a deeper darkness.
Yet it was still light when she saw the wash of brightness ahead—a long swath that cut across the landscape’s horizon, pulsing softly, promising that something new and different was waiting. She hurried faster, catching up to the Ulk Bog and the Chzyks, which had slowed for her. By then, the front ranks of the demon army were already passing into the light and disappearing beyond. Atop his dragon, Tael Riverine was urging them on, sweeping across the sky in great arcs.
“Hurry!” Tesla Dart hissed at her.
In minutes they were positioned at the rear of the army’s left flank and could follow it through the opening in the Forbidding with a minimal chance of being recognized. There was so much dust and dirt in the air that it was impossible for anyone to see clearly for more than a few feet. All they had to do was pretend to belong. Oriantha began encountering Jarka Ruus almost immediately, but they were advancing through the roiling haze with heads down and eyes averted. She moved swiftly in their midst, a shadowy figure intent on avoiding physical contact. One of many, she angled in fits and starts among the trudging figures, making the same sounds they did, snapping and growling, animalistic and predatory. She tried to keep Tesla Dart and the Chzyks in sight, but they had disappeared somewhere ahead.
She was left on her own, much the way she preferred it—a reflection of how she had lived most of her life.
But after a long period of groping through clouds of dust, she passed through the wash of light flat
tened against the horizon and found herself outside the Forbidding and back in her own world. Haze changed to brilliant light that blinded her, and then to familiar sunlight. She recognized the Four Lands immediately; the changes in color and taste and smell were unmistakable. One minute she was inside the Forbidding and the next she was clear.
Yet she was still in proximity to creatures that would kill her in a second if they realized who she was.
She turned aside quickly, angling away from the ragged minions of the Straken Lord, beasts hacking and coughing from the dust in their throats, eyes gone red and narrow. She faded into nothing—just for a moment, just long enough to find concealment—before crouching down in heavy brush to get her bearings. She looked about and knew instantly she was nowhere near the Breakline or even in the deep Westland. This country was lush and green. A river shimmered in the distance, winding its way through hills and grasslands. There was farmland all around, plowed and seeded. The sun was bright and the skies clear.
Tesla Dart appeared from behind her, crouching close. “This is your world?”
“It is,” she acknowledged, still looking around.
“You know this place?”
Then she saw it, just visible through a screen of woods and tucked down between low rolling hills to her right. Sunlight glinted off metal surfaces in bright flashes and burned the blackened stones of massive walls and towers.
It was a city fortress, huge and forbidding.
She caught her breath. She knew the city instantly.
It was Arishaig.
Ten
The speech before the Federation’s Coalition Council had gone well. Edinja Orle was pleased. She was a formidable presence in any case, no matter the occasion or circumstance, but never more so than when she commanded an audience and could address them directly. The members of the council were already sufficiently intimidated by her that she could expect a certain deference. But when she struck the right chord, they would roll over and bare their bellies in an effort to demonstrate their submission.
She had spoken this day of the future, knowing that the uncertainties of the past year must be laid to rest. Three Prime Ministers in the span of twelve months were entirely too many for comfort—especially when the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the first two were infused with elements of violence and mystery. But she was the survivor who had escaped their fate by dint of cleverness and determination. She was the victim who had refused to yield to the fate her predecessor had assigned her, the strong-willed daughter of a family that had endured for centuries as a pillar of the community and an example of resilience.
It didn’t hurt that she infused her words with magic, giving her an aura that transcended expectations and instilled in the gathered a mix of unabashed hope and old-fashioned pride in their city and its people. For the delegates to the council, Edinja was exactly what they needed and had been hoping for. All concerns for her alliance with magic wielders and conjurers were set aside in tacit acceptance that everyone possessed a few flaws. All worries about the rumors that she engaged in dangerous practices and vile experiments were dismissed. Here was a woman who was not afraid to show her masculine side. Here was a woman who understood what a leader should be and who would advance the interests of the city in a way that would allow them all to share in a bright and shining future.
She wasn’t even sure what she said. When she spoke, she tended to go into a sort of trance and allow the words to flow unstructured and unedited. This was not to say she spoke without a purpose for what she was saying. But the tone and feel of her words were more important than the words themselves. If she could gain control of the emotions and the hearts of those listening, she could win them to her side on that alone. She knew how to do this, and she took advantage of it.
Now she walked the council chamber halls, the speech finished, her day’s work on that front complete. She had given them cause to believe and had set them on a course of action. Over the next few weeks, they would be reworking the taxation system to pay for her new undertakings, both of public works and military construction. She had asked for a stronger presence throughout the Southland and beyond. She wanted embassies in all of the major cities of the other lands—an outreach that would allow her to connect more directly to both the Elves and the Dwarves and even to the Federation’s longtime nemesis, the Borderlands of Callahorn.
It was her intention, in fact, to travel to the latter within the next month to meet with the body of representatives of those cities at the Rotunda in the city of Tyrsis, there to propose a fresh alliance—one that she intended would benefit them more than her. At least, it would do so in the short run and on the surface. Lay the groundwork for what you really wanted to accomplish by instigating a plan of misdirection, then wait for the right time to reveal your true intentions.
It was an approach she had learned from various members of her family through hard lessons witnessed and suffered. They were a rapacious, dangerous brood, the Orles—and none more so than those who were closest to her. Her father had murdered his first two wives and a brother. Her stepmother was an accomplished poisoner who was every inch a match for her father and who had helped him to dispatch the wife before her. Their lives thereafter were spent in large part keeping close watch on each other, although their union somehow endured.
Her brother was a monster.
She and her brother were the children of the previous wife and kept alive mostly because their father insisted on heirs and his present wife did not care to bear them. But instead of growing closer, as one might have expected, they were set apart and eventually against each other by the circumstances. Edinja had never liked or trusted her brother, even when she was very young, but she had never been given cause for this beyond what her instincts told her. Her brother was five years older than she, and had pursuits of his own to occupy his time. So, mostly, he ignored her.
But when she grew old enough to draw his attention—somewhere around the age of eleven or twelve—he began a systematic campaign of brutality. At first it was defined by small acts of cruelty practiced when no one was looking and later denied. An older and much better liar than she, he was able to refute her claims when she dared to make them. At that point, she was still small and unskilled and could not hold her own. But as the acts grew more frequent and more devastating—pets killed or made to disappear, special treasures ruined, sweets soiled in vile ways, and pain inflicted when they were alone and there was no one to intervene—she began to see that no one would save her if she did not save herself. Complaints to her father and stepmother were pointless. In the Orle family, you swam or sank on your own.
When her brother began to visit her bed at night, shortly after she turned thirteen, compelling her to perform unspeakable acts, she knew she could tolerate him no longer.
Her one advantage lay in his belief that she could not hurt him back, that she was too small and intimidated even to attempt it. But she had been growing up in other ways, especially in her innate understanding and gradual mastery of magic. There were writings and books on it tucked away in her father’s office that she discovered while he was away. Careful readings and experiments led to the happy discovery that she had a natural aptitude for magic—a practice that had been a part of the history of her family for many centuries. Trapped in a desperate situation with no allies to stand up for her, she found that magic gave her a new confidence and a sense of empowerment. Her parents and her brother did not have use of this skill, so she kept her own powers a closely guarded secret. What mattered was that, for the first time, she felt she could do what was needed to protect herself.
What she decided to do was to remove her brother from the picture entirely; otherwise he would keep tormenting her until he killed her. To prevent that from happening, she must find a way to eliminate him first. But she couldn’t let her father and stepmother know she was responsible. Her father doted on her brother and would never forgive her, no matter the reason.
Since mis
direction followed by swift action had always been the solution to the problems of the Orle family, so it would be here.
She waited until they were vacationing in the countryside near the borders of the Eastland. They had a home there, one shared by various members of the Orle clan. There was another family visiting at the same time, bringing the number of visitors to nine. She took note of who was there, and she chose a cousin from the other family who was close in age to her brother and whom she liked no better to be her unwitting accomplice. She went to his sleeping chamber on the first night they arrived and seduced him. She would not have been able to do so before her brother’s unwanted advances, but she found it easy enough now. When they coupled and were close and intertwined, she used a magic she had been experimenting with for some time to subvert his mind and bend him to her will.
When they were finished, she dispatched him to her brother’s room carrying a knife sharp enough to do the job. And while her brother lay sleeping, her cousin gutted him from neck to groin. Her brother’s death cries aroused the family. Her father rushed to his son’s room, found the other boy standing over him with the knife, and killed him on the spot.
After that, things improved in Edinja’s life. Her father, never having had much interest in her anyway, found her presence a cause for irritation. Evidently, he had never been keen on her as heir to his fortune. Her stepmother, who openly disliked her, sent her to live with an aunt, but what neither knew was that the aunt, who had no children of her own, was a far more accomplished magic user than her niece. Thus, she quickly developed a friendship with the secretive thirteen-year-old and began teaching her the secrets behind her own formidable skills. Edinja arranged for a permanent change of residence when both had agreed it would be better if they lived together so Edinja could spend more time developing her skills. The planting of a subtle suggestion in her stepmother’s treacherous mind—one that seemed to provide a simple solution to the problem of what to do with her now that her father no longer wanted her around—was all it took.