“Sister! How nice of you to return.” He frowned as she dismounted. “What happened to your face?”
“A minor sufferance for our cause. I will ask you to heal them later.”
“I am a Mage, Avalon, not a bloody miracle worker,” he said with a scowl. “Come. We have much to catch up on.”
She handed over the reins of her horse to a Cyman soldier and followed Adrian up the stairs to the Keep. At the enormous double doors, Adrian threw them open with a flourish and waved his arm around the marble foyer. “Welcome home.”
Her eyes eagerly absorbed every detail as she scanned the bespelled interior. It was exactly as she remembered with the magnificent staircase and elegant cornices with running leaf pattern that ran the length of the room. Stunning, stained glassed doors led to a sitting room on the left, the furniture still covered in dust cloths. And, the nonpareil—a sculpture of Galen Starr standing erect in the center of the foyer holding a staff in one hand and a book in the other.
You are right, Adrian. I am home. And, a Netherworld curse to the next person who tries to take it from me.
Adrian pointed to the sitting room. “Let us go and sit down. I want to hear all about your travels.”
She followed him into the room, and he hastily ripped the cloths from the sofa and one of the chairs. He took the chair and leaned forward on his elbows. “Tell me. Do you have confirmation that the Savitars are dead? Did they perish in the flooding of Pyraan?”
“No, they didn’t.”
“What?”
“They are alive, Adrian, but they are children. Just children. Powerful, yes, but young and inexperienced.” She proceeded to tell him all she knew about the four young Savitars and the pendants that Galen Starr instructed them to locate. “Once fitted together, the pendants contain a map to the power that can destroy our plans.”
“How do we stop them?”
“It’s done. I killed one.”
He sat upright. “You killed one of the Savitars?”
She nodded. “Thus, the scars. He was an Elf and a bodyshifter, and I now have his pendant with me.”
Adrian’s face sagged in relief. “I could kiss you, sister! Well done. But, really, what are the chances that I would have the Savitars directly in my sight and let them escape? I actually ordered them to go! Regardless, this is very good news. Without the Savitars to interfere, the next phase of our plan is guaranteed to succeed.”
“Which is?”
“That the Kings swear fealty to me by Earthshine in five days time.”
Avalon stood from the sofa. “I’m not so sure, Adrian. At least not with the King of Iserlohn, anyway. He plans to fight.”
“Is he bloody mad?”
“The defeat of Teag and his soldiers outside the walls of Nysa bolstered the King’s confidence. Even if it was with the help of the Savitars.”
Adrian shook his head. “I thought as much when Teag didn’t return. He got what he deserved. How many dead Massans did he leave in his wake?”
“None.”
“Not one?”
“No, I told you the Savitars are very powerful. But, there are only three of them left and they are unsophisticated. They will be but pesky gnats against the full might of the Cymans. And, us, of course.”
The front door slammed open interrupting their conversation. Adrian’s captain, Lucin, stormed into the sitting room. He glared directly at her. “I ‘eard you were back. What news do you ‘ave of my son?”
“Nice to see you, too, Lucin,” she drawled.
He waited, arms crossed.
She sighed and sat back down. “When I last saw Titus, he was alive. In fact, he seemed to be quite at home with his captors.”
“Why didn’t you bring ‘im back with you?”
“I tried, but I couldn’t do so. Not with the Savitars and all of the soldiers crawling around King Maximus’s palace. If you want your son back, Lucin, you had better be prepared to fight for him.”
He narrowed his eye at Adrian. “You think it will come to that, Master?”
“It looks that way. Avalon tells me the Massans plan to contest my rule.”
Lucin nodded. “I will ready the men.”
Adrian held up a finger. “Before you go, please order one of the soldiers to bring me a woman from the tents.”
Lucin glared at Adrian boldly, allowing the disgust to show on his face.
Avalon stood. “Did you hear my brother, Captain? That was an order! Now move.”
Adrian snickered as Lucin turned to go. “It’s been a while, Captain, since you’ve seen your wife,” he taunted. “If you or one of your officers would like to—”
“Never!” the captain roared, spinning back. “I ‘ave never in my life, nor ever will, commit rape against a woman! As long as I breathe, neither will any of the soldiers in my command. I can’t stop you from doing what you will, but the spirits know I wish I could.”
Avalon laughed at the livid captain and his ridiculous notions.
One of the guards from outside the Keep rushed into the sitting room, eye blinking wildly.
“Captain! They’re ‘ere! An army approaches the Valley of Flame from the west!”
***
The small brick house sat apart from the others on the street. Neglected and rundown, it was obvious that no one had entered the home in quite a long time. Weeds popped up through the cracks in the stone walk and the windows were boarded with slats of wood.
Dillon and Janin shifted uneasily as they searched the area, but Rogan stood frozen in place, unable to tear his eyes or tumultuous thoughts from the house in front of him. In a chilling torrent, memories he did not know he possessed flowed through him, and he began to recall the events that led to his exile.
The scene unfolded behind his mind’s eye as though it were happening at that very moment.
A six-year-old Rogan played in the front yard, and his father ran up behind him and tossed him into the air. Laughing, Rogan turned in his father’s arms to wave good-bye to his friend, Dillon.
His mother stood in the doorway with an apron tied around her waist, chestnut hair pulled back at the nape of her neck, calling them both to dinner with a smile on her face.
Somewhere nearby, a dog began to bark frantically.
Then, the ominous sound of horses thundering down the small lane.
His father’s head whipped around toward the horsemen. With a panicked cry, he raced toward the house and shoved Rogan into his mother’s arms.
She clutched him protectively to her breast. “Gordin! What do we do?”
“Run!”
She sprinted out the back door and lifted him into the back of a wagon hitched to their plow horse. She hushed him gently and told him to stay down and hang on tight as she climbed in beside him.
His father charged out of the house and mounted the horse, slapping his hand harshly against the animal’s rump. The horse, evidently not used to such rough treatment, took off with a lurch.
Both versions of Rogan were crying now. The boy because he was frightened, and the man because he knew how it would all end. How could his father hope to outrun the King’s men—for that was surely who they were—with a plow horse?
Rogan tried to yell out to him, to warn him, but no sound issued from his mouth.
His father’s face looked crazed and wide-eyed as he raced along the narrow and uneven road that ran through the sparse forest behind their house. He tried to maneuver a sharp corner and the King’s men gained on them. Predictably, one of the back wheels caught in a rut, and the wagon bed swung around the horse and smashed into a tree, sending all three occupants sailing through the air to the ground.
It was over in an instant, both parents dead from the impact.
They died in an impulsive attempt to save his life. The only reason Rogan survived at all was by landing on his mother’s soft body before slamming to the ground.
King Rik had been right—it had been his fault.
“Rogan!” He was j
olted out of his memory-filled trance by Dillon. “Can you hear me?”
Rogan held up his hand to stay Dillon, walked a few feet away into the trees, fell to his knees and vomited. He remained that way for several long moments, grateful that neither Janin nor Dillon tried to approach. It surprised him that he had known all along what really happened to his parents but suppressed the memory because it had been so painful. All it had taken was one glimpse of his childhood home to trigger the recollection of what had transpired that fateful day.
There was consolation in the remembrance as well. He could now vividly recall the faces of his mother and father, heretofore always indefinable, shadowed visages. He could now clearly feel the profound love they had for him. He had never been abandoned. He had been loved and protected until the very end. The knowledge of these truths proved to be the antidote for something inside of him that he wasn’t aware was in need of healing.
When he finally felt like he had control of his emotions and nausea, he walked shakily back to his companions. He braced himself for a taunt from Janin, but she only looked at him with concern in her eyes. “Are you all right? Do you want to keep going?”
“I have no other choice.” He held out his hand to Dillon. The Dwarf looked at him sideways but took his hand. “I remember you. I remember everything. It’s good to see you again, old friend.”
Dillon pumped his hand firmly and slapped him on the back. “About time!”
“Your memories came back to you?” asked a shocked Janin.
“Yes, and they were not all pleasant. But, I can’t talk about it now. I really must hurry and retrieve the pendant so I can reunite with my friends.” He watched Dillon and Janin glance at each other. “Is there a problem?”
“No problem,” Janin said. “As long as you realize we’re coming with you to Sarphia.”
Rogan shook his head. “No, it’s too dangerous—”
Janin laughed aloud. “And we have been on a picnic this whole time?”
“You don’t understand what we face. I don’t even know what we face, but it will be formidable magic to be sure.”
Janin picked up her pack from the ground at her feet. “Discussion over. We’re coming.”
Dillon nodded his agreement.
Rogan swallowed in relief, secretly pleased. It would be nice to have his two Dwarven friends with him. “I’ll be glad to have you. Have you seen anything?”
“No one,” replied Dillon.
“Well, be prepared. The King’s men are near, I’m sure of it.” Rogan watched them both nod in a form of grim excitement that only a soldier can appreciate and then turned and led the way through the trees. He recalled a back door from his memory and decided it would be safer to go in through there.
Circling around the house at the line of trees, the trio stopped for a moment at the edge of the clearing in back before cautiously approaching at a running crouch.
Rogan went straight to the door and opened it, a flame of fire held out in front of him.
He heard Janin whisper very softly, close to his ear. “Forget what I said earlier. I love when you do that.”
The tips of his ears burned with embarrassment as he pushed inside into what turned out to be the kitchen. There wasn’t much to see, so he passed through into a living room with two interior doors branching from it, one on each side of the house.
He went into the one on the right. A small bed had been pushed up against one wall and a wooden chest sat atop the mattress. He walked over and lifted the lid to examine the contents. Clothes, shoes and a few pieces of jewelry, but no pendant. Pocketing the jewelry, he left to search the other room. Dillon and Janin were already inside, but there was nothing to see—it was completely empty.
“It has to be here!” Rogan growled in frustration. He went back into the living room and then the kitchen, but his search turned up nothing.
Sudden movement outside the boarded window near the door caught his eye.
“Get down!” he shouted just as the front door opened and someone hurled a lit torch into the living room. The oil from the pitch dripped onto the threadbare carpet and immediately went up in a blaze.
Rogan thrust out his hands, gathered the flames together into a cohesive ball and snuffed out the energy of the fire with little effort.
“Come on out, shifter!” shouted a voice from outside. “Do it peacefully and no one will get hurt!”
Rogan crawled over to the window and peered out through the wooden slats. “Six Iron Fists,” he whispered to Dillon and Janin. “Those are your fellow soldiers out there. Go out the back now, and they’ll never know you were involved.”
Dillon reached out to put a hand on his shoulder. “I am here, Rogan, because it’s the right thing to do. I could never live with myself if I left you to face this on your own. She’s here,” he said, jerking his thumb at Janin, “because she likes a good fight.”
Rogan turned to see that Janin still had the same excited glint in her eyes he had seen earlier. He shook his head. “I have to find a way to do this peacefully. I can’t kill innocent men.”
“We can still thump them pretty good,” Janin pointed out.
“Either way, I won’t go back to that cell. Too many lives depend on it. Ready?”
After receiving a nod from his companions, Rogan got to his feet, sprinted toward the door, and shouldered into it sending splinters flying as he sailed out into the evening air and dove to the side.
That’s when all hell broke loose.
Chapter 33
Aquataine
Beck tried with all of his considerable might to control his downward drop, but couldn’t gain purchase in the steep tunnel smooth and slippery with water and moss. He could hear Bajan scrabbling just as furiously behind him, roaring and spitting all the way. After what seemed like a lifetime of falling, he heard water rushing below him seconds before he plunged into its warm depths. Using his arms and legs to propel to the surface, his head broke through just as the Draca Cat crashed into the pool beside him.
He wiped the water from his eyes.
What is this?
To either side of him, miniature waterfalls that originated from some unseen source splashed down into the lagoon where he now treaded water. Just ahead, a crescent-shaped, white sandy beach led to another lagoon and cave opening. In between, crystallized stalagmites jutted up from the sand reaching for their stalactite kin hanging from a tiered ceiling. Higher still was what appeared to be a sky studded with millions of emeralds, and their glow blanketed the atmosphere in a soft green hue.
“Greetings, stranger! Over here!”
Beck gasped in shock as a group of people pulled themselves from the second pool and hurried across the beach toward him.
There are people here? Beck paused. Dear Highworld, are they nude?
“Do not be afraid,” one shouted to him. “Come out of the water and join us.”
Cautiously, Beck swam to shore with Bajan beside him. A closer look determined that, no, they weren’t nude…but, not quite clothed either. People…but, not quite human. Their flesh-toned bodies androgynous in nature with all of the shapes and angles that normally distinguished male from female smoothed out. Yet the face of the man beckoning to him had a definite masculine cast and the woman next to him was decidedly female.
“I’m Beck Atlan,” he said, nodding his head in greeting. “And, this is Bajan.”
The people made little murmuring sounds of delight at the introduction of the Draca Cat. The same man spoke again, a very tall and lean fellow. “Welcome to Aquataine, Master Atlan. My name is Digby.”
Beck puzzled over the sound of his voice. The only way he could describe it was wet, as though spoken around a mouthful of water. Beck narrowed his eyes. Are those gills on his neck? Impossible, he thought, shaking his head.
“Digby, what is this place?
“This is our home, Aquataine,” came the slurpy reply.
A sudden shout and splash from the cavern preceded the arriva
l of a young boy on the back of…a porpoise. The two frolicked in the second pool, the porpoise leaping into the air in a high arc only to dive back down into the water and disappear from view. They would re-emerge a few seconds later, the boy clinging tightly to the leathery, slick hide with his knees and roaring in unrestrained laughter. Beck shook his head in wonder as the playful pair turned and vanished back into the cave.
“Look, Diggy—”
“Digby,”
“Sorry, Digby. Forgive us for intruding. It was quite by accident that the grate we found led us to…Aquataine. We would appreciate your help in returning to the outside as quickly as possible.”
Digby motioned for Beck to follow. “First, you must meet with the Elders at the Temple of Grotte.”
Beck opened his mouth to protest, but Digby stopped him. “You have no choice, Master Atlan. It is the law in Aquataine. Any outsider who discovers our world must meet with the Elders before they can leave again.”
Beck bit back a retort and nodded, figuring it would be faster to just meet with the Elders so he and Bajan could be on their way.
He followed Digby through the stalagmites. Curious, he asked, “Digby, why is it so light here? Not only is it evening, but this place is so far underground, it should be dark all the time.”
Digby pointed up toward the cave’s ceiling. “Glow worms.”
Beck squinted up at the luminescent pinpricks of green light on the ceiling of the cavern. “Glow worms?”
“Yes, the worms are our only source of light and because they are nocturnal creatures, they glow at night and sleep during the day. So, in Aquataine, day is night and night is day,” he said proudly, as if the Aquatainians had discovered some form of logic as of yet beyond those that dwelled on the land above.
“I’ve never seen a glow worm before.”
Digby shrugged. “Oh, they are all over the island if you look close enough.”
When they reached the end of the beach before the opening to the cavern, Digby led them to a small raft tethered to one of the stalagmites. They boarded and remained standing as Digby took hold of a long pole and guided them into the waterway. The rest of the Aquatainians simply dove into the water and glided through the lagoon with the same ease as the porpoise.