“Why’s that?” Joach asked, touching the dagger.
“The weapon had been used before—to slay the monstrous beast that had once protected the tyrants of Tular. It had freed our people then. The shaman believed it could again.”
“I don’t understand,” Elena said. “Why carry it all the way here?”
“The shaman and Master Belgan spent an entire half moon talking, reading old scrolls, throwing scrying bones. They learned that the original beast of Tular had been protected by a fierce armor and even the dagger alone could not penetrate its skin . . . not without . . .” Kesla turned to Elena. “Not without first wetting the blade in the blood of a wit’ch, drawing her magick into the crystal. In the most ancient past, it had been the magick of Sisa’kofa.”
Er’ril hissed. “The Wit’ch of Spirit and Stone.”
“My ancestor,” Elena added.
The girl nodded. “Word had spread of your victory—of a new wit’ch born into our lands. I was sent here by swift horses through the Crumbling Mounds to the sea, and from the coast by boat. Master Belgan told me what to watch for: a blood mark of the wit’ch. If impaled and left for one night, the dagger would draw her magick inside it. Only then could there be any hope of defeating the beast of Tular.”
Elena rubbed her palm on a knee, remembering the burning drain of her magick. The dagger had absorbed her wit’ch fire. “Tell us of this beast.”
Kesla shuddered. “Only one person has seen the monster: the man who leads the children to their doom. He told all who would hear about the horrible beast hidden in the ancient fortress.” Kesla’s voice cracked with fear. “It was the Ghoul of Tular reborn after ageless centuries, come to life once again to destroy our lands.”
“The Ghoul of Tular?”
Kesla turned once again to Joach. “The beast who once guarded Tular. Its image entwines the dagger’s hilt.”
Joach slipped the weapon free and held the dagger up. A feathered serpent lay curled around the hilt, its beaked mouth open in a silent, fanged hiss. The basilisk, the ancient totem of Tular.
Elena stood abruptly and crossed to Er’ril. “It must be the Weirgate.”
He nodded.
“And the children . . . Ebon’stone always craves blood.” Elena paled with the thought. All those sacrifices.
Kesla spoke up. “That is all I know. I have a boat waiting to take me back to Alcazar. The dagger must be returned to Master Belgan.”
“And it will be,” Elena said, turning back to her.
Kesla sat up straighter. “You’ll let me free?”
“Yes, but I’ll send you back to Alcazar more swiftly than any boat or horse can carry you. Tomorrow morning, one of the elv’in windships is set to fly to the Southern Wastes, to seek out and destroy the very beast that plagues your people.”
Kesla’s eyes grew wide.
“For your freedom, I ask that you swear a new oath to me: to lead this ship to Alcazar and let us aid your guild in ridding your people of this curse. Can you promise me this?”
Kesla bowed her head. “I can only promise to lead the way to Alcazar. I cannot speak for Master Belgan. He must decide for the guild.”
“Fair enough.” Elena nodded to Joach. “Free her and take her to the Eagle’s Fury. Introduce her to Prince Richald and let him know my wishes. Er’ril and I will join him later to go over the plans in detail.”
Joach hurriedly untied Kesla’s bonds. She stood, rubbing her wrists. But when Kesla reached for the dagger at his belt, Joach twisted away. “I think I’ll keep this for now,” he said. “For safekeeping. It seems there are many thieves in this castle.” He stared hard into Kesla’s eyes.
The girl’s cheeks reddened at his accusation. “I’m sorry for lying to you, Lord Joach.”
“I am not a lord,” he said in a tired voice. “I wish you’d quit calling me that.”
“Then quit calling me a thief,” Kesla countered, swinging away.
“Fine, you’re an assassin. That’s so much better.” Joach rolled his eyes and crossed to Elena, pulling her aside. “El, I have a request of you.”
“What is it?”
He clutched the dagger’s hilt. “I’d like to go with the Eagle’s Fury on this journey.”
“What? Why?”
Joach glanced a moment back at Kesla. “Since I rescued the knife, I think I should still watch over it.”
“Why?”
Now it was Joach’s turn to redden. “It’s just that . . . Well, I mean . . . I don’t think its just coincidence that the dagger should fall into my hands.” Joach sighed in exasperation. “It’s hard to explain. I just think I need to go.”
Elena remembered making the same vague argument with Er’ril just a few moments before. It seemed the fates were aligning to draw them all apart, to scatter them across the face of the world. “You are old enough to make your own decisions, Joach. If you feel this is a path you must follow, I will not stop you.”
A grin appeared on his face, and he stepped over and hugged her. “Thanks, El. I knew you’d understand.”
“Actually, I don’t understand,” she said in his ear. “I would rather you stay here.” In her heart, she did not want Joach to go, but how could she refuse him when she herself was planning to leave soon? She returned Joach’s embrace, wrapping her arms tightly around him as if she could hold him forever safe. But she knew that was impossible. “Just make sure you come back.”
Joach broke their embrace. “Don’t worry. I will.”
He turned away, but Er’ril grabbed him by the shoulder. “Joach, I would have a word before you leave.”
Joach’s brow crinkled. “What is it?”
Er’ril nodded toward Kesla, who waited near the doorway. “Watch her.”
“What?”
“I saw the way you looked at her, the relief in your eyes when she told her tale. Do not let your heart cloud your judgment.”
“I don’t—”
Er’ril squeezed his shoulder tighter. “Once you thought me a creature of the Dark Lord. Now you accept this story from a confessed assassin without a second thought. Here could be another trap.”
Joach’s face crumbled into confusion.
Elena leaned forward, intending to argue against Er’ril’s Suspicions. She sensed no menace in this girl, only honest fear for her people. But Elena held her tongue, withdrawing slightly. Perhaps simple caution was warranted.
Joach glanced toward Elena and saw the agreement in her eyes. He sighed, and his face hardened. “I will be wary—both in heart and action.” With those words, he backed away, gave a final nod toward Er’ril and Elena, then crossed to Kesla and departed.
Elena watched them leave, her chest already aching for her brother.
Only Er’ril remained in the room. He stepped beside her, reading her heart. “It is not easy seeing someone you love walking willingly into danger, is it?” he said quietly.
She leaned into Er’ril, too tired and pained for words.
LEAGUES AWAY, IN a cave hidden deep within the stone forest of the northern coast, a lone figure crouched over a shallow hole dug into the granite floor. Intoning words of power, he slowly poured quicksilver from a bowl into the hole, filling the cavity to its rim. In the meager light cast by the clouded skies outside the cave, the surface of the quicksilver pool shone like a mirror, reflecting the hooded figure’s face.
Scowling and squinting with milky eyes, the figure bent closer and studied his own reflection. A crooked finger rose to trace the ancient ruin of a face. He pulled back his hood to reveal a scalp bare of all but a few gray hairs. “Soon . . .” he mumbled.
A scrape at the cave’s threshold drew his attention. Silhouetted against the light stood the thick form of his servant. The creature stood no higher than his waist but was all gnarled bone and muscle. It was a stump gnome, one of the few creatures that could live for long in the poisoned forest outside. A simple twining spell had tied its will to his.
“Come closer, Rukh,” he order
ed sharply.
It grunted. Gnomes had little more intelligence than a trained hog, but they were strong and single-minded. It shambled into the cave. Closer now, its face was also similar to a pig’s. It was as if someone had smashed its muzzle with a club. Under eyes the size of polished black pebbles, its face was all flattened nose. Two peaked ears sprouted like afterthoughts on either side of its leathery skull.
“Do you have what I asked?”
Rukh forced his thick tongue to form words, fangs glinting yellow and rotted. “Yes, M-master Gr-greshym.”
The stink of the beast reached the darkmage in the close quarters. Like a barn of wet goats, Greshym thought, wrinkling his nose at the stench. “Then leave it and be gone!” he snapped.
With the heave of a thick shoulder, Rukh tossed his dead quarry at his master’s feet. The doe’s neck lay twisted the wrong way, recently strangled by the hard hands of the stump gnome. Greshym nodded his approval. His servant must have traveled far to find such an untainted animal.
Rukh backed from the cave, slather drooling from his jowls at the scent of the abandoned meat. Greshym could only imagine the torture it must have been for the stupid creature to resist tearing into the doe. Slipping free a long dagger with a rose-carved hilt, Greshym set about the task of removing the doe’s heart. By the time he was done, his robed arms were drenched in blood. He heaved the warm organ from the defiled chest and waved the stump of his other hand for Rukh to clear away the rest. Greshym had what he needed.
The gnome dashed into the cave; his claws quickly sank into the flesh. Rukh dragged his prize away. “G-good meat,” he rumbled.
Greshym ignored the sounds of snapping bones and feasting from outside the cavern. He turned back to the pool of quicksilver.
Raising the doe’s heart, he carefully drizzled the blood across the quicksilver pool. The blood spread, blurring the silvery reflection. Once done, he touched the pool with a finger and spoke a single word, a name. “Shorkan.”
The blur upon the pool swirled, and an image formed, a window on another place. He watched the silent tableau. Within the pool, the view of a white-robed man appeared. He stood on the shore of a black sand beach and stared to the south. Shorkan’s lips moved, but no sound was heard. In the background rose the volcanic cone of Blackhall, cored and hollowed into a thousand-room warren. Beneath it, Greshym knew, lay the dungeons and crèche of the Dark Lord himself, while above, a black smudge rose from the cone to stain the sky with a perpetual plume. It was not just volcanic forces that created the Stream of smoke and ash, but also the poisonous forges at the heart of the mountain, furnaces of dark magick.
Shifting, Greshym glanced back out of the cave. Even from here, though leagues from the sea, he spotted the black plume on the horizon. Winds from the south continually blew the smoke and ash over this forest, making it all but unlivable except for the poisoned creatures who had migrated here to skulk in its shadows, like his servant Rukh. But this land had not always been like this. Long ago, before the volcanic cone had first erupted, this had been a living forest. But the torturous, fiery birth of Blackhall had blasted the landscape with heat and ash, petrifying the entire woodlands in a single night and killing all within it.
Greshym had chosen this place to hide because of the residual magick that fell with the ash from Blackhall’s plume. It had helped resuscitate the darkmage after his battles a moon ago. Weak and drained, he had limped and crawled into this toxic bower. For days, he had wandered through the forest, near blind, near dead, absorbing the trace magicks cast off from Blackhall, regaining his strength.
Finally, he was ready to leave this exile—and exact his revenge.
In the quicksilver pool, the image of his fellow darkmage suddenly turned from his study of the coastline to peer directly back at Greshym. Cringing, Greshym waved a hand and wiped away the image. That had been too close. Shorkan must have sensed his spying and had almost caught him. But at least Greshym knew where one of his enemies lay—at Blackhall.
“So, Shorkan, you’re still licking your wounds,” Greshym whispered with grim satisfaction. Greshym had noted the black burns and pale healing flesh that marked the once handsome face of Shorkan. It seemed even the Dark Lord’s pet had not escaped unscathed from the battles of A’loa Glen.
“Good . . .” Greshym allowed a smile to form on his lips. For too long, Shorkan had mocked him with his handsome, youthful face. Though both had been granted eternal life by an ancient spell, something had gone wrong for Greshym. While Shorkan never aged, Greshym’s flesh had continued to wrinkle and decay like any man’s; only death was kept from him. He smiled wider, a dry cackle flowing from his thin throat. Now Shorkan knows what it’s like to be disfigured!
Retrieving the doe’s heart, Greshym again cast his spell. This time he dipped his finger into the quicksilver and spoke another name. “Elena.”
The blood blurred again, and a new image formed. Greshym crinkled his brows, momentarily confused by the view. The fiery haired wit’ch stood at the rails of a mighty ship; three masts towered behind her. But the seas were nowhere to be found. Then Greshym realized she must be aboard one of the elv’in windships. He noted the position of the sun. The ship was heading away from the setting sun. East? Away from Alasea? A single tear rolled down the woman’s cheek as she stood at the stern of the boat. He smiled again. Was she trying to flee? Leaving Alasea?
He adjusted the mirror’s view. Far away, past the peaks and spires of the island city, two other windships sailed for the far horizons—one north, one south. Greshym noted how the wit’ch seemed to be staring at the ship fleeing southward. He watched as her lips moved. Though no sound came, he knew whose name she formed: Joach!
Greshym’s fist clenched. The brother of the wit’ch! The cursed boy who had thwarted Greshym twice, even destroying his staff in their last confrontation. So brother and sister are separating, he thought as he studied the mirror closer. Trying to escape the backlash of the Gul’gotha.
Leaning over his pool of quicksilver, Greshym stared at the tiny windship retreating south. He followed its path as the magick faded, and the image dissolved back into a blur of blood. After several breaths, Greshym leaned back. He could try the spell a third time and find out more of Joach’s exact destination, but he dared not risk draining more of his energy in such spying. Not when he had yet another complex spell to cast.
Standing with a creak and crack of old bones, Greshym reached to the wall of the cave and retrieved his new staff. He lifted the weapon. Mined from the heart of one of the poisoned stone trees of the forest here, it was grained like an ash tree, but it was no longer wood. He ran his hands over its stone surface, impregnated from centuries of toxic ash and magickal waste. His fingers tingled with the touch. Bound with spells, the stone of the staff was as light as oak. In many ways, this new staff was superior to his ancient poi’wood one. Perhaps he should thank Joach for ridding him of the original.
He crossed to the threshold of the cave and into the hazy light. “To my side, Rukh.”
The stump gnome pulled his bloody mouth from the deer carcass. He wiped his lips with the back of one wrist and glanced longingly at the half-eaten remains. Hunger marked his posture and expression, but he knew better than to disobey his master. Rukh shambled over.
With his staff, Greshym dragged a circle around the both of them.
One more spell to cast. He let his lids droop lower and spoke the portal spell. Under both their feet, the ground turned as black as oil. Greshym ignored the gnome’s terror and glanced to the south. He squinted as if peering far away. Then, satisfied, he nodded and lifted his staff. He tapped it once. A black portal opened at their feet, and both gnome and mage fell away.
As Greshym vanished, only one desire burned in his mind: vengeance.
Book Two
CASTLE MRYL
5
IN THE MURK of predawn, Mycelle knelt by the river, bloody and sore. Her gelding, Grisson, kept to her side, his flanks heaving, sweat thic
k on his golden coat from their long, hurried flight. He bent to drink from the river, but Mycelle yanked at his lead. She did not want her tired horse to stove up from drinking the stream’s cold water when he was so overheated. With the camp still leagues away, she could not risk compromising her mount.
Cocking her head, she listened for sounds of pursuit. Somewhere deeper in the dark wood, a horn sounded. She sighed in relief. It was far off to the north still. As she stood, the snap of a twig on her left twirled her around, her twin swords unsheathed in silent pulls. With her steel glinting in the reflected moonlight from the river, she stood steady.
Then from beyond a fringe of an elderberry bush, a pair of amber eyes glowed back at her. Images flashed across her mind’s eye: Two tired wolves greeting one another on a trail, noses touching, a lick on an ear.
“Thank the Sweet Mother,” she said, sheathing her swords. She recognized this familiar touch on her mind and returned the welcome in the silent tongue of the si’lura. Greetings, Fardale.
As answer, a sleek figure flowed through the bushes, so silent that not even a leaf whispered. The snap of a twig a moment ago had been done on purpose, to alert her of the newcomer’s presence.
The huge treewolf, though free of the bushes now, still remained indistinct in the gloom of the forest’s eaves. His dark pelt, speckled in golds and coppers, blended with the dappled shadows, seeming more spirit than substance. But his bright eyes were as hard as granite. She and Fardale had been lucky to survive this night.
“I had thought you lost for sure when we were attacked,” Mycelle said.
Fardale glanced at her and gave her a wolfish shrug, retreating to the river’s edge to lap gently at the water. But he no more than wet his tongue—even he knew better than to drink after a long run. The wolf settled to his haunches, ears pricked for sounds echoing over the water.
“They’re far off,” Mycelle said. “I think we lost them.”