He counted the passages on each side, calling on the mental map he had formed in his head while exploring the tunnels as a child. He turned down the corridor that led to his mother’s chambers. He knew he was nearing the end when he saw a faint orange glow ahead, the light from the Queen’s fireplace shining through the fabric.
Careful not to make any sound to reveal himself he crept to the end of the tunnel and paused to listen. When he heard the faint, even breathing of his mother coming from the other side he gently pulled the stitching free until he was able to lift a corner of the tapestry back and look through at the scene beyond.
His mother lay in bed, asleep. It had been only a few weeks since he had last spoken with her, and he was shocked at how thin and frail she looked. He had heard about her refusal to eat, but even a hunger strike couldn’t have brought about such a startling transformation in such a short time.
It was the Ring, of course. Once she had been able to control its power, but with the fading of the Legacy, the Chaos within the Talisman had grown beyond her abilities. He had known it consumed her thoughts; now it was consuming her physical body as well.
Surely Drake had seen it, too. Why hadn’t he listened? Why had he been so stupid and stubborn? Was that part of the Ring’s power, too? Was it affecting not only the Queen but also those who served her? Sowing Chaos among the hapless mortals? Could it even be affecting Vaaler himself?
He shook his head to clear away such thoughts. The Ring was destroying his mother; that was all that mattered. He had to take it, not just for her sake but for the sake of the entire kingdom.
Slipping silently out from behind the tapestry, he crept across the floor until he stood over his mother’s bed. Up close she looked even worse, her pale skin covered in sweat and her brow furrowed as if she were in great pain. Behind her closed lids her eyes flickered madly with the never-ending visions brought on by the terrible power of the Ring. Though still asleep, her breath came in short, ragged gasps of her sunken chest.
The prince leaned in close, and the sickly smell of fever sweat filled his nostrils. His mother groaned and twitched in her sleep, but didn’t wake up. He reached down and carefully undid the clasp of her chain then gently removed it from her neck, taking the Ring with it.
She stirred once more, and Vaaler was certain she would wake this time. But instead she only sighed and settled into what seemed to be an even deeper sleep.
Clenching the Ring in his fist, he leaned forward and softly kissed the Queen on her forehead. Her furrowed brow relaxed, and her flickering eyes became still. She sighed a second time and rolled onto her side, her back to him, her breathing now slow and even.
He escaped back into the tunnel as quietly as he had come in, the Ring tucked safely away in the pocket of his belt.
Rianna woke slowly. For the first time in many months she didn’t want to wake up. On some unconscious level she was aware that she wasn’t dreaming; she wasn’t in the grip of a terrible vision. Sleep was a comfort, a peaceful sanctuary that her exhausted body and mind were reluctant to leave.
But another part of her knew something was wrong. She had longed to escape the torment of the dreams for so long that she couldn’t remember what real sleep was even like. It felt unnatural. She rolled and stretched, feeling refreshed but also anxious as she became aware of her surroundings.
Instinctively, her right hand reached up to clasp the ring at her neck. To her horror she found nothing.
Rianna Avareen, ruling Monarch of the Danaan kingdom, began to scream.
Vaaler emerged from the shadows on the southern edge of the city just as the first horn sounded. The Danaan looked back over his shoulder then sprinted toward them.
“Alarm!” he shouted as another horn blast nearly drowned out his words, this one coming from the opposite side of the city.
“What happened?” Jerrod demanded. “Did you get the Ring?”
The prince hoisted himself up into his saddle and nodded. “They must have discovered it was missing.”
Another horn echoed its call across the spires and towers of the city. This one was answered by two separate blasts coming from somewhere deep within the woods.
“They’re signaling the patrols,” Vaaler explained quickly. “The entire army is being mobilized to hunt us down.”
A sudden cacophony of noise exploded from deep within the forest as a score of horns answered the call with their own deep blasts. A similar wave of sound rolled out from the city, seeming to shake the very foundations of the buildings.
“Mount up!” Vaaler shouted. “We have to get out of here!”
They could barely hear him above the resounding blare, but he didn’t need to tell them twice. With Vaaler in the lead they wheeled their horses around and fled into the forest, making for the southern border that marked the separation between the Danaan woods and the lands of the Free Cities.
Keegan clung to his horse’s bridle with his right hand as they charged through the trees, the call of the horns echoing all around them. In his left he clutched Rexol’s staff, keeping it close so he could draw on its power should the need arise. It was impossible to tell where the patrols were from the noise, but it seemed as if they were coming from all sides. As they drove on the wild cacophony settled into a steady rhythm of call and response, first one from behind and then one up ahead. It was clear the Danaan were signaling to one another, coordinating their efforts.
The wizard closed his eyes and let his mind drift out, extending the vision of his second sight as far as he possibly could. The swiftness of the Danaan response was amazing. Behind them an army on foot and horseback was already swarming out from the city. Wave after wave of armed soldiers poured into the forest, each squadron led by a pair of Danaan wizards using magic to quickly pick up the trail of the invaders. The squads scattered out in all directions then pressed south, beating the bushes to drive their quarry forward.
To the south, ahead of the fleeing party, were the patrols. There were literally hundreds of them, fanning out in response to the staccato bursts of sound to form a wide semicircle that threatened to cut off all hope of escape.
Even the forest itself seemed to answer the call. The horns had woken ancient magics meant to protect the Danaan and their kingdom; long-dormant spells woven into every branch and leaf had been stirred to life. The trees were shifting and moving, a subtle transformation of the path ahead, funneling them into the heart of their enemy’s strength. The trees themselves were leading them into an ambush.
Keegan recognized the hopelessness of their situation in a single instant of revelation. But he hardly cared. There was something else that dominated his vision, a single glowing ember so bright it threatened to blind him to everything else: the Ring in Vaaler’s belt.
“Stop!” he hollered when they stumbled into a small clearing. Everyone pulled up their horses sharply, as if the very command of the word had some power they could not resist. “We can’t outrun them. We’re already surrounded.”
Vaaler agreed. “This is the land of my people. We can move farther and faster on foot or through the treetops than you can on horseback. The patrols won’t let us get away.”
The wall of sound closing in on them made it impossible to doubt his words.
“I didn’t come all this way to die in the woods, hunted like some animal!” Scythe snapped. “Come on, wizard. Cast some kind of spell to get us out of this!”
“Magic can’t save us,” Vaaler said. “Danaan war wizards are among those hunting us. Strong as Keegan is, they would simply overwhelm him if he tried to use the Chaos against them.”
“Not if I use the Ring,” Keegan said. “They can’t stand against the power of Old Magic.”
“No!” Jerrod suddenly shouted, much to the mage’s surprise. “It’s too dangerous. The Crown destroyed Rexol when he tried to use it; its power consumed him. The Ring is just as dangerous.”
“What are you talking about?” Scythe snapped. “You’re the one who keeps saying
Keegan’s supposed to save the world! He doesn’t stand much chance of that if he dies right here. Let him use the damn Ring!”
“No,” Jerrod repeated. “He needs more training. He needs to let his visions guide him, teach him. If he uses the ring now he will suffer the same fate as his master. He needs more time to learn to control the power of the Talisman.”
“I don’t think he’s got much time left,” was her scathing reply.
“Vaaler knows these woods, he knows how the patrols operate,” Jerrod said, speaking to Keegan and ignoring the angry young woman. “Use your magic to hide yourself and him. The rest of us will press on and draw the attention of the Danaan while you double back and around to freedom.”
“That’s suicide,” Keegan protested. “The patrols will kill you all!”
“Our lives are meaningless,” Jerrod said.
“Speak for yourself,” Scythe muttered.
The monk gave her a grave look.
“You may not believe in Keegan’s destiny, but he alone can save the world. His life is worth more than any other: yours or mine. The fate of the mortal world hangs in the balance. Keegan must survive. He must be allowed to fulfill his destiny.”
Scythe seemed at a loss for words and turned to Norr for support. The barbarian only shrugged his massive shoulders, uncertain what he could say. It was actually Keegan who spoke next.
“No. I won’t abandon you. None of you. You deserve better than this.”
“What we deserve is not—”
The young wizard cut him off. “If I am to save the world, then I must first be able to save those who stand with me.”
He turned to Vaaler and held out his hand. “The Ring. Hurry.”
The Danaan hesitated only briefly before surrendering the Talisman.
Keegan took it with a trembling hand. He climbed awkwardly down from his horse, the ring clenched tightly in his right fist and Rexol’s staff in his left, and handed the reins to Jerrod.
“Take the horses and move to the edges of the clearing. I don’t want you to be too close in case … well, just in case.”
There was no time to argue. The sound of the horns continued to draw closer. The others did as he instructed without speaking. He waited until they had moved as far from him as they could go without completely vanishing into the trees. He hoped that would be a safe enough distance.
Knowing it was time to claim his destiny, Keegan placed the Ring on his finger.
Chapter 52
Power flooded through the young wizard. Power beyond anything he had ever known. Power unlike anything he had ever imagined. The Ring had torn open a fissure in the mortal world and Keegan had become a mere conduit channeling the raw energy of Chaos. He gasped and dropped to his knees, physically unable to stand as the magic poured through him, Rexol’s staff slipping from his grasp and falling to the ground beside him.
His mind was lost amid the Chaos storm. Everything he had done before was but a taste of what he had unleashed, a sprinkling of a few drops compared with the torrent drowning him now. His mind was overwhelmed by the fury of the storm, his will battered and tossed aside by the Talisman’s infinite power. Without boundaries or limits, the Chaos exploded out from him into the mortal world.
It flew up to the sky, gathering into a dark and ominous cloud. A sudden wind sprang up and howled around him, a tornado whipping his hair and clothes, tearing at him as if it would flay his very flesh from his bones. It swept up the fallen leaves and twigs in the clearing, surrounding him with a swirling green and brown wall. Arcs of lightning shot down from the thunderclouds, slamming into the ground and trees around him, shattering the branches and splitting the trunks.
His companions were driven back farther from the clearing by the tornado enveloping him. They retreated into the trees, seeking shelter from the unnatural lightning and trying to stay beyond the range of the magical winds.
The power continued to well up inside him, pouring into him from the Chaos Sea far faster than it could escape into the mortal world. He felt as if he were going to burst, the pressure inside him mounting until his skin stretched and began to crack, bleeding out tiny rivulets of molten blue liquid. He threw his head back and screamed in agony.
In response to his cry Jerrod leapt from the forest and rushed toward him, only to be blown back by the ferocious winds within the clearing. The monk was lifted from his feet by the wild currents and hurled against a nearby tree hard enough to crack his ribs.
He grunted in pain, struggled to his feet, and rushed forward again. This time the storm flung him twenty feet through the air to land face-first with a dull thud outside the range of its localized fury. Jerrod rolled onto his side, tried valiantly to rise, then fell back down and lay still.
Keegan could feel the Chaos rushing out from the Ring and through him like a great river that had jumped its banks, wild and untamed, a force of pure destruction. A bolt of lightning struck him, engulfing him in its blue fire. He should have been consumed in that single instant, devoured as Rexol had been when he dared to use the Crown. Only he wasn’t.
The pain was excruciating, the heat from the incandescent flames unbearable. His skin was scorched and blistered and burned. But somehow he was still alive. Somehow, he had survived. Clinging to the knowledge that this alone proved he was stronger than his master had ever been, Keegan gathered his will and tried to impose it on the Chaos.
He began to rein it in, building a dam deep inside himself to stem the wild flow, caging the infinite power within the structure of the Ring itself. The magic rushing through him became a mere trickle. The Chaos began to well up within the Talisman instead of him, a great pool he could draw upon as he needed it: a part of him, but separate.
He allowed the reservoir of Chaos that had built up within his own body to seep out into the forest, and the heat and pressure inside him began to subside. With great effort, Keegan rose to his feet.
The storm still raged in the clearing; he couldn’t see for all the debris swirling around him. He raised his left hand to the sky and slowly brought his arm down to his side, his fingers closing into a tight fist as he did so. In response to his command the winds died and the lightning stopped, though dark clouds still broiled overhead.
The Chaos was his now: his to control, his to command. The Ring offered him a limitless supply of energy, and all he had to do was draw it out and bend it to his will. He began the slow chant of a dark spell. The clouds above him rumbled and churned, then began to dissipate, spreading out in a fine, black mist that settled slowly down upon the trees.
Keegan continued his chant, closing his eyes so he could see the effects of the Chaos. With his second sight the mage located a single patrol moving swiftly toward the clearing, clambering through the branches high above the forest floor. He set the magic upon them.
The dark mist had become a shadowy fog. In response to his will, it crawled through the forest toward the advancing patrol, wrapping itself around the trunks and branches of the trees, seeping beneath the bark and into the leaves, slithering down into the roots. The trees began to change.
For a brief instant he felt the old enchantments of the forest fighting against him. Powerful wards binding the woods to the Danaan resisted his spell, but he easily brushed them aside and continued to work his spell of transformation.
The patrol leader stopped; she sensed that something was wrong, though she wasn’t sure what it was. She crouched down on the branch she had been standing on and reached back to draw her bow. Beneath her feet the branch began to sway. No, not sway: writhe.
She glanced down and to her horror saw that the leaves around her feet were squirming like great green maggots. A thin branch slithered out and wrapped itself around her ankle. A swarm of leaves fluttered down to cover her face, leaving a sticky, glistening trail as they crawled across her skin.
She tried to shout out a warning, but another limb lashed out and encircled her neck, drawing it so tight her eyes bulged and her mouth gaped. She str
uggled to draw breath, but the leaves filled her mouth and pushed down her throat, choking the life out of her.
Not that her warning would have made any difference. Behind her the forest had already come alive and swallowed every member of her patrol.
The shadow fog spread south rapidly, working the hideous metamorphosis on every tree it touched. In his mind’s eye Keegan watched with morbid fascination the futile struggles of his enemies as they encountered this unthinkable foe.
The scene was repeated over and over, the Danaan sensing or seeing the fog but not realizing what was wrong until the attack began. Then they slashed wildly at the branches snaking out toward them, hacking the wood in desperation. But the branches they chopped through still slithered forward as if they were alive. And as they looked on in numb horror, vines dropped from the foliage above to entangle their limbs and choke the life from them.
Others panicked and fired their bows into the swarms of leaves falling down to envelop them, to no avail. They vanished beneath a blanket of squirming, wriggling vegetation, their muffled screams quickly smothered.
A few managed to sound their horns before they died, but this was a different note. Fall back. Retreat. The line of the patrols had broken. Those still alive were now in a race for their lives, fleeing before the horrors of the shadow fog, moving away from Keegan and his friends. Satisfied, the mage turned his focus to the north, directing the fog toward the soldiers that had pursued them from the city.
Warned by the horns of the patrols, the city soldiers had already begun their retreat to the relative safety of the city. A few brave wizards stayed behind, combining their power in an effort to halt the spread of the deadly fog. But their spells were useless against Keegan’s magic, and they fell screaming as the forest consumed them, unable to slow the relentless advance.