Kral swore and dove forward. Tol’chuk still succeeded in restraining him, but only halfheartedly. Even Tol’chuk found the elv’in’s actions more than a little petty. Kral’s words had been fair and correct. Meric did not need the stone, while they needed it sorely.
The elv’in’s next words restored the og’re’s faith in the thin man. “I will keep my stone, but I will also go with you.”
“Why?” spat Kral. “I suspect this sudden change of heart and charity. Why help us now?”
“I offer no charity.” Meric fingered the bird’s crown of feathers. He nodded to the falcon. “The bird’s nails have silvered. It is the sign.” Meric tried to keep his voice in its usual detached tone, but his excitement could not be hidden. “He has found our lost king.”
NEE’LAHN KEPT HER back against the trunk of the old elm. Her fingers delved the crannies of its bark. Nearby, she heard the mare nicker with fear as it hid at the edge of the wood. The horse had skittered into the forest as far as its tied lead would allow, attempting to blend into the trees’ shadows.
What the mare shied from loomed near Nee’lahn’s shoulders.
She tried to ignore the skal’tum’s towering figure. The creature still licked its lips with a long black tongue. The other skal’tum, relieved of guarding her, had its turn to feast on the remains of the slaughtered stallion. The sound of snapping bone and sucking lips drove her eyes far from the sight.
Her fingers worked the bark harder with her nails; the pain kept her from running in terror from the creatures. The beasts had not even bothered to tie her up, confident that escape from them was impossible. And they were right. They moved as quickly as striking snakes, and their eyes were sharp in the dim moonlight. Escape for her was impossible.
As she waited, her eyes kept drifting to the root-shrouded entrance to the tunnel. Rockingham had betrayed her, but as much as she hated the scoundrel, at least he had been able to help the si’lura escape. And if Rockingham found Kral and the og’re among the twisting tunnels and could warn them, they too might be able to find another exit to the caves and slip away from the claws of her captors. Her life could at least buy these others their freedom—or so she hoped.
She sighed as her fingers worked. For as long as possible, she must maintain Rockingham’s lie. Let the skal’tum think she was the sister of the child they sought. It kept her alive and kept the beasts here—away from the cottage. She hoped Er’ril and the girl had been able to escape the old man’s farm and had run far away from here. The longer she helped maintain the ruse the better their chance of escape. So she bit her tongue and waited.
Beside her, the skal’tum must have caught her eyes on the tunnel. “Fear not, little one, your ssisster will come.” It laughed at her. “Such a ssweet reunion. I may even let her taste your heart.”
She did not answer the creature, just ignored it, refusing to let her fear show. They might kill her, but she would offer them no sport.
Her nails finally dug through the last of the elm’s bark to reach the meaty pulp. She rested her fingers there, the tree’s cool flesh soothing her torn flesh. She stood there. Lightning played upon the peaks of the nearby Teeth. Thunderheads brewed. The storm that the black clouds heralded would be one to shake the roots of the world. She closed her eyes on the warring sky and began her preparations. She reached toward the tree’s spirit.
When the skal’tum came for her, Nee’lahn planned on giving them no sport—but she would give them a fight!
34
ELENA CROUCHED IN the blackness of the cave. The darkness was so profound she felt it press against her skin. If not for her uncle’s arm around her shoulder, she would have thought herself sucked to another plane where light had yet to be imagined. Never had she experienced such total darkness. Her eyes stretched wide, seeking light.
Her uncle slipped his arm from around her shoulder, breaking her tether with the world. Now only the rock under her feet remained to convince her the world still existed. Her only solace was that the burning in her right hand had completely faded with the light. She hugged herself tight, suddenly wishing the moon’falcon had not abandoned her. Its light would be most welcome.
As if the gods had heard her, brightness suddenly burst back into the chamber. Blinded by the explosive return of light, it took a moment for Elena’s eyes to blink back the glare. Her uncle raised the lantern. He had flamed the wick back to life and twisted the oil key to a bright glow. He held the lamp high.
In the lantern’s light, so much duller than the crystal radiance, Elena saw Er’ril crouch down and retrieve the iron fist from the stone floor. He studied the ward for a moment, a strange expression locked upon his face, then carefully placed it into a pocket of his shirt.
As Er’ril straightened and stood, movement drew Elena’s eyes to the back half of the chamber. A cry rose to her lips. The mass of goblins squirmed and roiled around the prostrate form of the mad headmaster. Re’alto lay facedown on the stone floor, his good arm thrust toward where the statue had once stood. He did not appear to be moving—or breathing. A single goblin crept up and lifted Re’alto’s hand. The arm hung limp within its claws. The goblin dropped the hand and scooted back in fear.
Er’ril by now had also spotted Re’alto. He took a step toward the former headmaster.
Uncle Bol spoke from beside Elena. “Don’t, Er’ril. He’s dead. The boy’s light was all that sustained him. With the magick gone, his life has fled. From the way those goblins are acting, I suggest we leave him undisturbed.”
Er’ril nodded and retrieved the sword he had left with Bol. The sword, though no longer bathed in the light of the statue, still seemed to shine with more than lamplight. Lines of radiance danced across its surface.
“We should try for the passage through which we entered,” Er’ril said. “There are fewer goblins.”
“Be warned,” Uncle Bol said, “that any aggression on our part could ignite their wrath. They have just seen their statue vanish before their eyes, and Re’alto, whom they worshipped, lies dead at their feet.” Uncle Bol nodded to where several goblins huddled together, pointing claws toward them. “I believe we are being blamed for their losses.”
“Then the sooner we vanish, the better.” Er’ril nodded for Elena to approach him. “We need a distraction,” he said. “Something to spook them away for a heartbeat and buy us time to slip free.”
Elena nodded but could not fathom what the swordsman thought she could do.
Her uncle seemed even less sure of Er’ril’s plan. He kept his voice hushed and his eyes quick upon the goblins surrounding them. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to scare them in their present state, Er’ril. The creatures are stirred up enough already. A panic could—”
“We will be meat in their bellies if we don’t hurry.” Er’ril lowered to one knee beside Elena. He kept his sword raised toward the clutch of rock’goblins. “Now, child, I showed you the way of healing with your uncle. You now need to learn another small bit of magick.”
Elena balked, her mouth going dry. She felt a fist squeeze her heart. Wild magick scared her more than the fangs and claws of the goblins. “Is there no other way? Maybe Uncle Bol is right. We could just let them calm down and maybe they’ll go away.”
The hissing around them had increased to a screeching pitch. As she watched, more goblins flowed into the room from the two passages. Their musk bittered the air with their fear. The goblins closest to the collapsed body of the headmaster began stamping their left feet on the stone floor. Soon others took up the cadence, the sound echoing around the cave. The beat throbbed, and the eyes around them burned.
Uncle Bol whispered, “Maybe Er’ril is right.”
She found both men staring at her. Her heart beat an intimate harmony with the goblins’ stamping. Still, she freed her tongue from the roof of her mouth. “I will try.”
“Good girl.” Er’ril passed his sword to her uncle. “Keep the sword in sight. They seem to respect it.” Once Uncle Bol had
awkwardly raised the tip of the blade, Er’ril turned to Elena, reached out, and gripped her right hand. His urgency and tension flowed into her from the tightness of his fingers, yet he kept his voice calm. This she appreciated more than his sword. “This will work, Elena. Trust me. Magick is closely associated with light. You saw this with De’nal’s statue and experienced it when sunlight or moonlight ignited your powers. You know this in your heart, don’t you?”
She nodded.
“One of the easiest workings of magick is simply revealing its presence.”
Er’ril must have sensed her confusion from the way her eyebrows scrunched together. “Magick runs hidden through your blood and body. Only the red hand marks you as a wielder of spiritual power. Magick, like the flame in a lantern, desires to flow free from you, to reveal itself to those around you. But like a lantern door closed upon the flame, your body hides this truth. Yet I can show you how to open your door and let your light shine forth.”
Elena remembered what could happen when her magick “shone” through her. Both of her parents had been burned by its flame. “I will kill everything around me,” she warned.
“No, I do not ask you to cast your magick out. That can kill unless done in a controlled manner. I can’t teach you that. All I ask is that you open yourself and let others see what is inside you, see the flame within.”
“Why? How will that help?”
“Goblins fear the light and can sense magick. If you reveal yourself to them, they may be baffled or awed enough to allow us to escape.”
Her eyes studied the goblins writhing around them. She saw the headmaster’s body picked up and carried on the backs of several larger goblins. It was done with a touching reverence. Others cleared a path so the body could be removed unmolested from the chamber. The goblins seemed to have held the headmaster in great respect, or at least the magick that dwelt inside.
This thought must have occurred to Uncle Bol, too. “It just might work. It seems they worship magick,” he muttered as Re’alto’s remains were shuffled away.
“How do I do this?” Her voice trembled, as did her shoulders.
“Easily,” Er’ril said. “Since you are not allowing magick to pass from you, a blood ritual is not even needed.” He raised his palm to her cheek and rested it there. His eyes looked down into hers, and she felt a quaking in her knees that had nothing to do with the fear around her heart. “Just close your eyes and search inside, as you did with your uncle’s body.”
She did as he asked, squeezing shut her eyelids, but terror kept her close to the surface. Her ears stayed keen on the stamping and hissing around her, and her nose filled with the acrid scent of goblin bodies. She did not understand what was asked of her and shivered.
Suddenly his arm wrapped around her body. He held her cheek pressed against his chest. “Shh, ignore all that is around you. Shut off your senses.” The odor of the swordsman’s oiled hair replaced the stench of the goblins in her nose. His whispering filled her ears, pushing back the echoes of the chamber.
“They’re finished with Re’alto,” she barely heard her uncle say. “If you’re going to do something, do it quick.”
His words should have panicked her, but Er’ril’s arm tightened about her, pulling her away from her fears. She allowed herself to drift within his embrace. His breath, warm and calm, brushed her cheek. “See yourself,” he said. “See the woman in the child, like the oak in the acorn. Find your strength and you will find your magick.”
His words and heat created waves of sensations in Elena that she could not express. She did not even try, allowing herself simply to be, to put aside all she knew about herself and just exist. As she floated in a place without thought or substance, a light grew within the darkness. No, that was not true. The light did not grow, she just drew near it, closed in upon it like a swallow swooping to its nest. The radiance had not appeared out of the darkness: It had always been there!
From a far place, she heard Er’ril’s voice. “Open your eyes and show us. Show us your flame, Elena.”
She now understood. Pushing Er’ril’s arm from her, she stood up. She did not have to hide who she was! Once on her feet, she opened her eyes and unbound her heart, opening a door that had been closed since she was young and had learned the world does not want to see one’s true self. She put her inhibitions aside and spread her arms wide, encompassing both the chamber and the world. She revealed herself without shame or remorse. Both who she had been and who she was now—but most important of all, who she would become!
Like a window opened on the sun, her magick blazed forth, driving all shadows from the room.
ER’RIL’S FIRST IMPULSE on seeing the girl awaken with power was to snatch the sword from Bol’s stunned fingers and drive the blade through her heart. He even found the sword in his hand. But he fought against this deadly impulse, his knuckles white upon the blade’s hilt. Even Bol backed a step away from the child. The old man’s mouth sagged open in surprise, her light etching his features in stark lines.
Such power, Er’ril thought. He had never imagined. Even a mage freshly renewed to Chi did not shine with such brilliance. Elena stood with her arms wide, her body bursting with a shattering light. Shadows were not even cast by those who stood—instead the light seemed to bend around them, folding all within its heart.
Yet the child within the light frightened Er’ril. She was no longer a scared youngster clinging to those around her, confused and wary of her power. A confidence shone forth from her face and body that came close to eclipsing her inner light. The release of her radiance had cast her to a place without fear or doubt. Such was not the face of a child or even just a woman, but something close to a goddess. Er’ril spotted flares of increased brilliance in a halo about her body as if the stars themselves fought to be near.
As wondrous as she was, Er’ril found his eyes fixing on a single feature of the girl. Her lips, full and parted slightly, smiled on sights beyond Er’ril’s vision. In that smile, Er’ril saw the woman she might become: a wise, strong woman no man could control. Er’ril found his breath thick in his throat as he stared. Something stirred in his chest, something he had thought long dead: hope. This effect on his heart shook him more than her power. She is but a child, he told himself. Yet he knew he was mistaken. Three faces stared out from this one shining visage—the child Elena, the woman Elena, and something that was not Elena, that was not even from this world.
Just then, a goblin wobbled up to Er’ril, its eyes glued on Elena, and bumped into his leg. It clung to Er’ril’s pant leg for a moment, like a ship seeking a safe harbor. Before Er’ril could knock it away, it loosened its grip and stumbled toward the girl. Er’ril meant to bring up his sword and stop it, but the goblin suddenly crashed flat upon its face. Its tiny form quivered for a breath then lay still upon the rock floor—too still. Dead, thought Er’ril.
He tore his eyes from the girl and saw that the chamber floor was littered with a sea of collapsed goblins. He watched other rock’goblins drawn forward from the tunnels by the light. Like blind moths, they stumbled into the chamber’s brilliance; but within a few bumbled steps, they weakened and fell crying to the stone floor in a tangle of limbs. Others grew wise to what was happening and fled back from the light, disappearing down the tunnels.
“The light,” Bol said from nearby. “It slays them. Is Elena doing that?”
Er’ril found he needed to speak to keep himself distracted from the child. “I don’t think so. The light is a mere reflection of her magick. It’s not a force that should harm.”
“Goblins shun light.” Bol waved his hand over the piles of deceased creatures. “Maybe for a good reason. Maybe light is inimical to their nature. This much light, this much power, is perhaps deadly.”
Er’ril’s eyes were drawn back to the girl. Their words must have pierced the glow around Elena and reached her ears. Her lips were no longer smiling.
ELENA HAD HEARD her uncle speak. Though his words seemed like birds f
luttering from far in a forest, their meaning reached her. Her eyes focused back to the chamber. She saw the goblins piled around her, necks and limbs twisted in unnatural angles. There were so many! She had killed hundreds of the poor creatures. She cried out, and the light shining from her crashed to the rock and vanished. She stood quivering—an island in a dark sea of dead goblins.
Now only Uncle Bol’s lantern lit the chamber. He came to her, bringing the light. She shied from its glow. The inner light, the core of who she was, had killed; now this small brightness accused her of her foul deed. Elena swung from the lantern’s glow and accosted the swordsman. “You said it wouldn’t harm them,” she cried in a voice that threatened a flood of tears.
Her words wounded him. His eyes winced and his lips frowned. “I’m sorry, Elena. I did not fully understand the nature of these creatures or the brilliance of your magick.”
She covered her mouth with her hands. The brilliance of her magick! His words sickened her. The goblins had done them no harm except maybe harangue them a bit, and they had also played a role in returning the ward to Er’ril. For their effort, she had brought them death. Her eyes saw many smaller figures tangled among the larger goblins. She had even slain their children.
She moved her palms to cover her face. She refused to see any more.
Uncle Bol placed a hand on her shoulder. “It’s not your fault, honey. We didn’t know. If anyone is to blame, we are. We were the ones who asked you to do this.”
She shook free of his grip and lowered her hands to glare at him. “You don’t understand!”
Her uncle’s eyes widened.
A bitter laugh slipped from her. “I enjoyed the power! I never felt so whole and free. I basked in my magick, let it roll through me and freeze away all doubt. And while I embraced this light, joyful in its glow, it slew those around me.”