She seemed to be getting stronger suddenly, her words carrying a certain force as she spoke them. Then, all at once, she was struggling to break free, trying to squirm out of Cymrian’s arms and get back to her feet.
“No, Arling, don’t!” Aphen cried out, trying to help Cymrian hold her down. “Stop it. You aren’t ready!”
But Arlingfant Elessedil was more than ready. Stronger than both of them combined, she wrenched free of their hands, flushed and wild-eyed, a different person entirely. In seconds she was standing clear of them. “You don’t know!” she screamed.
Aphen took a step back. Her sister seemed transformed. She didn’t even look as if she recognized her. “Arling, it’s me!”
Arling stared at her, then nodded. “I can walk by myself,” she said.
Her companions exchanged a worried glance. “All right,” Aphenglow agreed, holding up her hands in a placating gesture. “If that’s what you want.”
There was a tension between them that hadn’t been there two minutes before, and it had resulted in a full-blown confrontation that Aphen didn’t understand. Something had happened to Arling. She wasn’t the same person. This new Arling was hard and determined in ways that the old had never been.
Aphen didn’t know what to do.
They started down the passageway, moving through the darkness, following the beams of their smokeless torches, heading for the opening into the other cavern. They passed into it without another word being spoken, Cymrian in the lead again, Arling and Aphen right on his heels, almost side by side, the latter giving the former frequent sideways glances that were not returned. The stone columns rose all around them like giants frozen in place, sentinels against dangers long since forgotten, but perhaps right around the corner. The gloom absorbed the light cast by the torches so that it felt as if they were traversing a massive space in which walls had been cast down and darkness ran on forever.
They were almost to the far wall and could see its stone block surface behind soaring columns spread out before them in staggered rows when there was a flash of movement off to one side.
Cymrian wheeled toward it, and Aphen quickly moved to place herself in front of Arlingfant. But then she heard a sudden gasp, and she wheeled around to find her sister firmly clutched in the arms of Edinja Orle with a slender blade set just below Arling’s chin.
Aphen, her sister mouthed silently.
Ahead, the moor cat Cinla materialized out of the darkness, long and sleek and dangerous as she advanced on Cymrian.
“Don’t do anything foolish,” Edinja said softly.
She emphasized her words by pressing the knife she held a little more tightly against the skin of Arling Elessedil’s exposed throat.
“Why don’t we take a few minutes to talk things over,” she said, and gave them a satisfied smile.
Twenty-five
Inside the Forbidding, the light was hazy and gray and the air tasted of metal and damp. Tesla Dart led Oriantha and Redden Ohmsford through the wilderness they had found upon returning to the land of the Jarka Ruus, skittering here and there as she went, constantly in motion. Fugitives from the Straken Lord’s Catcher, Tarwick, and his minions, they were constantly looking over their shoulders for unwelcome pursuit. They had tried to disguise all evidence of their passing before coming back into the Forbidding, wading through creek waters and even traveling the trampled pathway left by the passing of Tael Riverine’s massive army, hoping their few footprints would disappear amid the many. But they understood that Tarwick was Catcher for a reason, and that even these efforts might not be enough to fool him.
Still, it would be unexpected for them to return to a place they had struggled so hard to escape, so there was reason to believe Tarwick might confine his search to the Four Lands. He could not know of Tesla Dart’s presence or suspect the help she would give the two outlanders with whom she traveled. Diverting their escape route from the obvious to the unlikely might throw him off sufficiently to allow them to complete a swift journey through the Forbidding and then to escape back into the Four Lands by means of another portal before their hunter knew what they were about.
It was a dangerous game they were playing, and Redden couldn’t be certain how the odds were stacked. Because they had fled so suddenly and made the decision to come back into the Forbidding so abruptly, there had been no time to gather up water and food, and they had almost nothing of either. Nor did the boy think that Tesla Dart—for all her knowledge of her own country and its creatures—knew exactly where they could find another way back into the Four Lands. She acted as if she did; she even insisted that she did. But something about the way she phrased it suggested it wasn’t as settled as she tried to make it sound. She might have confidence such an opening existed because the imprisoning wall was crumbling, but that didn’t meant she had a road map of its location imprinted in her mind.
What she did have was Lada, and the presence of the odd little creature provided the boy with a small glimmer of hope. The Chzyk seemed capable of finding its way in any territory and under any conditions, racing all over the place at blinding speed, never seeming to tire, a lizard imbued with innate instincts. Even if Tesla Dart wasn’t certain of the path they should take, he thought maybe Lada might be.
He thought, too, that something had better happen soon to resolve their situation. His strength was almost gone, and his state of mind was still precarious. He remained mired in memories of his imprisonment at Kraal Reach, of the sounds and stench and discomforts of the rolling cage that had brought him back into the Four Lands, imprisoned like some exotic creature. He still flinched at the thought of the abuse and taunts he had received from his captors and was still devastated by images of Khyber Elessedil’s terrible death. And it felt to him as if his newfound freedom was an illusion that could fade as swiftly as a mirage. He had no faith in its solidity, no confidence in its permanence. He had a sense of impending collapse, as if everything might go back to the way it had been in a single instant.
He slogged on because he had no choice in the matter, but it was working at him, gnawing at his sanity and eroding his emotional and psychological balance. He could feel it happening and he had no defense against it.
The day wore on, and their journey across miles of barren emptiness continued. They were moving in a mostly northerly direction, trying to get to a hole in the wall of the Forbidding that would bring them out much farther north of where they had started and presumably closer to where Redden and Oriantha both thought they should be when they reentered the Four Lands.
When they finally stopped for a rest, Oriantha waited until Tesla Dart was chittering away with Lada before kneeling beside a dejected Redden.
“How are you holding up?” she asked quietly.
Redden shook his head, his wild red hair falling over his eyes. “Not well.”
“Can you keep walking?”
“Probably. But I feel like I’m coming apart inside. I can’t seem to stop it from happening.”
She put her hands on his shoulders. “Remember what I said. I won’t leave you, no matter what.”
“I know that.”
“I will stay with you, and I will find a way to get us both safely back into the Four Lands and to Arborlon and to your brother. I know these are only words, but they are a promise. You will not be returned to Tael Riverine while I am still alive.”
He was crying again, and he brushed at his tears angrily. “It just feels like there’s no end to any this. I keep thinking about all the others. All of the dead. I feel as if I’m being drawn to them. I can feel their hands closing on me. I can’t make myself believe I won’t end up like them.”
“Listen to me,” she said. Her lean, smooth face was so close to his own, he could feel her breath on his face. “By the end of this day, we will be outside the Forbidding and back in the Four Lands. I will make Tesla Dart promise this. There won’t be another day inside this world. Then maybe you can start putting what you’re feeling right now behind yo
u.”
He nodded without looking at her. “I can’t do anything before then, I can tell you that much.”
“Just concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other,” she said. “Just stay with that for the rest of today. You’ll be fine.”
They set out again shortly afterward. They had finished the little food and water Oriantha had brought with her from the camp. Tesla Dart seemed to be able to go for long periods with no food or water at all, and she said nothing of the supplies situation, insisting they press on.
“I want us out of here by nightfall,” Oriantha insisted.
“I want us out of here forever!” the Ulk Bog snapped in reply.
It was midafternoon when they reached the rim of a crater-shaped valley that dropped away in a huge, sweeping bowl, its slopes rock-strewn and chopped apart by twisting defiles. The valley floor stretched away for perhaps a mile, all of it riven with jagged cracks and littered with boulders and clumps of thick scrub. It was a stark, desolate landscape, an arena poorly carved by ancient cataclysms and the passing of time, rough-hewn but immediately reminiscent of the place where Redden had watched Khyber Elessedil do battle with Tael Riverine. When he made the connection, a deep shudder went all through him, and he wrenched his gaze away and concentrated on the ground in front of him.
“What is that?” Oriantha asked Tesla Dart.
The Ulk Bog glanced over and shook her head. “Kroat Abyss. Very bad. You don’t go there. Dangerous things.”
They kept walking, glancing over now and then to the valley. “Who was Kroat?” the shape-shifter pressed.
“Straken Lord, very early. One of first. Drilled down for place to keep the bad things collected.”
“The bad things. What sort of bad things?”
“Elf magic, talismans and sorceries used against the Jarka Ruus in ancient wars. Locked away with us, these ones, when we were imprisoned. But no one knows their power, no one knows how to use, afraid to try.” She gave them a sly look. “Weka touched them and no harm came to him, he told. But Straken Lords keep such for themselves, not let others come close. Weka not like others. Weka knows all the secrets of the lands, all the hiding places, all the treasure chambers and tombs and keeps. So he visits and looks.”
She gestured at the valley. “Takes me there, once. Long ago. So long. I was still learning. Just a girl. Takes me down into darkness and shows me what is there. Things of the Old World. Of when Jarka Ruus were one with Faerie. Long since gone.”
Redden, who had been only half listening before, suddenly realized what he was hearing. He stopped where he was. “What did you say?” he asked sharply. “Things of the Old World?”
The other two stopped and turned back to him. “No, Redden,” Oriantha said in warning. She was already sensing what was coming.
“Were there pretty stones?” he asked, ignoring her. “Did Weka show you colored stones?”
“Some,” said the Ulk Bog. “In a box, locked up. Pretty stones. Different colors.”
“Were they in sets of three?” he pressed, moving over excitedly.
“Redden, stop it!” Oriantha snapped.
Tesla Dart glanced over at her, and then looked back at the boy. “Sets of three. Red. Green. Another two. Yellow, maybe?”
“Four sets, four colors? You saw these stones? They were down there?”
“Saw them like I see you. Took them out of case and held them in my hands. Pretty in the light. Glittered and shined. But they were only stones, not magic. Nothing happened. I put them back.”
“Shades!” Redden breathed, turning to Oriantha. “Do you believe it? We’ve found the missing Elfstones!” He held up his hands as she started to object, giddy with excitement. “No, listen to me. This is a miracle. We had the chance to find them all along; we just didn’t know it. Tesla Dart knew where they were. She knew! But she didn’t know we were looking for them because we didn’t say anything about it. We just told her we were trying to find friends that had been carried off by a dragon. We didn’t tell her why we were inside the Forbidding in the first place. We didn’t say what we had really come looking for!”
“Redden, what difference does it make now? That search is ended!”
“Only because, until this moment, we had no place to look. We didn’t know where to go. Only Khyber knew anything, and she took that knowledge with her when she died. But think about it! Tesla Dart knows this information, too. She can take us down there into that pit. We can still find the Elfstones and bring them back out again!”
Oriantha stared at him. “Listen to yourself. How many are dead already because they thought they could find the missing Stones? How many, Redden? Now you want to risk our lives, as well? You want to forget about getting out of here, about finding a way back to your brother? You want to go hunting for the Elfstones, too? You must be out of your mind!”
Redden stepped forward so that he was right in front of her.
“I need to do this. Do you understand me? I need to. I’ve watched everyone die—and most of them right in front of me. I watched Carrick die. I watched the Ard Rhys die at the hands of Tael Riverine. All of this happened because of the search for the Elfstones—I understand that. But if we now have a chance to find the Stones and bring them back into the Four Lands—to finally do what we set out to do—don’t we have an obligation to try? It would provide some small vindication for what’s been sacrificed. It would prove that those who are gone didn’t die for nothing!”
Oriantha shook her head. “No. It was madness before, and it is madness now.”
“But we’ve suffered so much! The Druids are mostly dead; the order is destroyed. Your mother is dead. My brother may be dead, too. The search was a disaster. If we could get possession of the Elfstones, at least we would have something to show for all that.” He shook his head and stared at the ground. “I am not going back without trying. I can’t. I won’t ever be the same if I give up on this chance. I have to try to find a way back to who I was before all this began. Maybe I can do that if we recover the Stones.”
Oriantha folded her arms. “The Elfstones have been the cause of everything bad that has happened. Why do you think it would be any different now? Insisting on this just gives you one more chance to kill yourself and take us with you. I risked my life to break you free of that cage. Was it all for this? To have you take up right where you left off and in the end die anyway?”
“But what if all that is behind us?” He wheeled on Tesla Dart. “Are you sure the Elfstones are still down there, in this underground storage chamber? Can we find a way down there like you did?”
She looked from him to Oriantha and back again, clearly uneasy. “Stairs take you down—a long way down. But the stones are there. No one touches Old World magic, not even Tael Riverine. We can do, can go, if you want.”
“Does something guard the magic? Are there creatures watching over it? Is it dangerous down there?”
“Nothing guards. Nothing watches. It is a dead place with dead things from a dead world. Only the Straken Lord goes. And Weka, too, once upon a time. Now, you maybe.”
“You see?” Redden turned back to Oriantha. “We can do this! If we bring back the Elfstones, it will mean we didn’t fail entirely. You must see it. We can’t let this chance pass! We have to take it. We have to at least have a look!”
She glared at him. “You were the one who claimed to be falling apart. You were the one who insisted we had to be out of the Forbidding by day’s end. Remember?”
“But knowing the Elfstones are down there changes everything. Now we have a real purpose in being here, one that doesn’t involve running and hiding and fighting to stay alive. We have a chance to bring back the most important magic in Elven lore.”
“Bringing back the Elfstones won’t bring back the Ard Rhys or my mother. It won’t bring back any of them. The past is done. You understand that, don’t you?”
Redden took a deep breath and exhaled sharply. He could feel this opportunity slipping away from
him, and he couldn’t stand the thought of it. Oriantha was determined not to go, and if she didn’t she probably wouldn’t let him go, either. She was too invested in saving him, had given up too much to bring him back to his family. He understood what that meant, and he knew he wouldn’t fight her.
But if that happened, he would never recover from what he had gone through. He could sense it—and not just in an offhand way, but deep down inside where the pain never quite goes away. Doing this, giving it at least a chance, would help him heal. It would lend him the emotional strength that had been steadily eroding all during his imprisonment and systematic incapacitation.
He met Oriantha’s hard stare squarely. “What if the Elfstones could be used to help us defend against the Straken Lord’s invasion? What if one of those sets has the power to negate the size and numbers of his army—maybe even to destroy it? Would it be worth it then?”
“We don’t know what the Stones can do, Redden.”
“But if we had them in our possession, we might be able to find out. We would have four chances to find a magic that would make a difference. Isn’t that worth the risk?”
She continued to stare at him, saying nothing.
“We just need someone with Elven blood to wield the Stones,” he continued. “Even I would do! I’m more than half Elf. My mother’s blood is Elven; my father had some small portion of Elven blood, as well. I could try to use them.”
Oriantha sighed wearily. “You are determined, aren’t you? Even given the probable danger. Even knowing that it might all come to nothing. Your stubbornness exceeds your fears and doubts and your need to escape this place.” She shook her head. “Hard to believe.”
He almost laughed. “No harder to believe than anything else that’s happened. It’s just another part of the madness we’ve been struggling with since we left Bakrabru. But this, maybe, will lead to something good. For me, it means finding a way to live what what’s happened. It means putting an end to this whole business. I have to try.”