Wit'ch Gate (v5)

  “Shaman Parthus?” Kesla glanced at him.

  Joach shook his head. “It’s not important. Let’s find where they hid this cursed basilisk and end this horror.”

  Kesla nodded and turned with her talisman toward the dark tunnel, her face cast in a sickly green glow. “But where do we begin to search?

  GRESHYM KICKED RUKH out of his way as he stalked from his little cave out into the moonlight desert. “Curse that boy’s rashness!” He thumped his staff into the sand. “He’s going to get himself turned into fodder for those bloody beasts before he’s served his purpose.”

  Leaning on his staff, Greshym sighed and shook his head. Deep inside, though, he was impressed with Joach’s abilities. The boy grew quickly in skill. It had taken only a little of Greshym’s dark magick to fortify Joach’s sandstone wall. He would make a great sculptor one day—that is, if he lived long enough.

  “Mmmaster,” Rukh grumbled, nose close to the ground. “I kill meat.”

  Turning, Greshym eyed the gutted trio of burrow dogs. “Rodents. I’m burning away my energies waiting for that boy only to have him slip out of my grasp, and the gnome brings me burrow dogs.” Rolling his eyes, Greshym held out his palm.

  Rukh, ever obedient, rushed to fill his hand with one of the carcasses. Greshym sniffed at the bloody and raw meat, then glanced back to his tunneled cave. “It seems we are what we eat.” He used the few teeth still rooted in his gums to tear the flesh from the tiny bones, chewing thoughtfully.

  “But at least the boy’s here, so close,” Greshym said, wiping his lips on his sleeve. “And we know where he’s heading.” Filling his stomach with more meat, Greshym felt fueled enough for the final battle. The time of waiting and planning was over.

  Tossing aside the bones, he swung back to the cave. “This time I’ll be ready.”

  KESLA CREPT DOWN the corridor, ears pricked for any noises. With her assassin training, she could identify a mouse’s pittering footfalls and tell you if it was a male or a female. But with the furtive whispers and sudden scrape of a boot heel on rock echoing from the others behind her, it was hard to concentrate. She cringed at their noises, sure it would attract whatever other monsters lurked in the darkness.

  She held her shark tooth talisman higher, but it shed little light to guide their way from here. Three paths branched out from this hall. But which to take? Since entering the tunnels, the way had been a straight shot into the heart of the Southwall, but now a decision had to be made.

  Kesla turned with her pendant in hand. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “I could explore each on my own and try to determine the best path.”

  “And how would you know?” Kast asked. “I doubt you’ll come upon a sign with an arrow, saying Basilisk lies this way.”

  Kesla opened her mouth to argue, but Joach gripped her wrist and turned her to face him. “We stay together,” he insisted. His eyes seemed to grow brighter in the gloom.

  “Wait!” Sy-wen pointed to the shark’s tooth.

  Kesla glanced at it, not understanding.

  Sy-wen took it from her, then quickly marched to each tunnel and held up the talisman. Upon reaching the third tunnel, it flared brighter. “I noticed it,” Sy-wen explained, “when Joach turned Kesla around. For some reason, its light shines more boldly when pointed this way. This must be the correct path.”

  Kast frowned. “But the path to what? More sharks?”

  “If it’s somehow attuned to the monsters here,” Kesla said, “Kast may be right.”

  “No,” Joach said, “it grows in power as it nears the source of its energy—the Weirgate.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Kast asked.

  “I can’t, but what other choice do we have? We have one out of three odds of choosing the correct tunnel. I say we follow the magick.”

  Kast shrugged. “So let’s follow the magick.”

  Kesla retrieved the pendant and set out down the side tunnel. The path from here was as convoluted as a fire ant’s nest: tunnels twisting and turning, crossing and undercutting, passing through chambers both small and large. At one point, they were even forced to crawl. By now they were thoroughly lost. Kesla insisted she could find the way back, but when Kast kept asking, her answers became less and less assured.

  “Follow the magick,” Kast grumbled. “We might as well follow a blind rat.”

  “There’s a light ahead,” Sy-wen whispered, drawing them all to a halt.

  Kesla closed her fist around the talisman. With the glow so close to her own eyes, she had missed it. She lowered the shark tooth into her cloak’s pocket. Far ahead, past a turn in the tunnel, a fiery light flickered, casting a bloody tinge on the sandstone walls. As she stared, Kesla realized the glow was not flickering, but rather pulsing, like the beat of some massive heart.

  The four glanced at each other. Then Joach moved forward, taking the lead. They proceeded slowly, stopping often to listen. Not a sound whispered. It was as if they had the entire Southwall to themselves.

  Joach crept along the wall, sword pointed forward, until they reached the curve. He paused and motioned for the group to hang back while he went ahead to investigate. Once they had gathered, Joach took a deep breath, regripped his sword, and slipped around the corner.

  Kesla leaned against the sandstone wall, biting her lip against the tension, imagining the horrors ahead.

  Joach reappeared almost instantly. “The tunnel dead-ends into a chamber. It’s empty.” Relief was thick in his voice.

  “The Weirgate?” Kast asked.

  “It’s there. The Basilisk Gate stands in the room’s center.” Joach swung around. “Let’s go.”

  As a group, they hurried around the tunnel’s turn and indeed a room lay at the passage’s end. It was circular in shape, with four torches hanging on the wall. The flames seemed to ebb and flow, causing the pulsing glow.

  Joach noticed her attention as they approached the room. “It must have something to do with the Weirgate.”

  Kesla nodded. His answer did not calm the tiny hairs on her arm from quivering. She had the oddest sensation of having walked this path before. It was as if an old memory were trying to surface with each step she took. She had a sudden urge to flee. Something waited for them in there—and it wasn’t just the Weirgate.

  Kesla reached the room’s threshold and held back. She could not bear to move inside. She studied the chamber from her vantage.

  In the room’s center, a monstrous black sculpture rested atop the sandy floor. Its surface, rather than reflecting the firelight, seemed to eat the torches’ glow. Even the room held a chill so unlike the desert, as if the black stone had sucked all the warmth from the space.

  Kesla stared at the beast that had plagued their people both now and in ages past. It had the front parts of some foul carrion bird: sharp black beak, a ruffle of ebony feathers, and talons dug deep into the sand. But the rest of its body was that of a serpent, scaled and coiled behind it. It appeared bunched, as if it were poised and about to strike. Its ruby eyes glowed with a baleful light, seeming to stare only at her.

  Joach turned from where he stood. “The nightglass dagger,” he hissed. “Let us be done with this.”

  She swallowed hard, dreading to enter the room, but she knew she had no choice. It was a path she was born to walk. And as she stepped into the room, an old memory buried deep inside her swelled. She stumbled as images spun across her vision: swaying trees in the evening’s breeze, the reflection of the moon on still water, a tumble of sandstone homes stacked like a child’s toy blocks—and something else, something wrapped in a dark cloak moving toward her. She closed her eyes, gasping, suddenly dizzy. She never felt herself swoon, but found her knees striking the sand.

  Joach was already at her side. “Kesla!”

  She stared around her. Only a few spans from her knees, below the hooked beak of the basilisk, she spotted something she had missed. A pool of black glass, as if the monstrous beast had drooled blood into the sand at its feet. It
was nightglass like her dagger, like the lake of Aii’shan. She felt herself grow weak at the sight of it. The small pool seemed more terrible than the beast that towered over it.

  “The nightglass dagger,” Joach urged.

  She nodded, too weak to stand, and slipped the shard of glass from its sheath. She held it out to Joach. “Do it. I cannot . . . Something . . . something . . .” She shook her head and could not make eye contact with Joach.

  “It’s all right,” Joach said, taking the dagger.

  “Hurry,” Kast said somewhere behind her. “We don’t know how long we’ll be alone here.”

  Kesla knew the Dre’rendi warrior was mistaken. They were not alone now. She knew eyes spied on them, laughing eyes, the same eyes that had glowed from the dark-cloaked figure from her dream.

  But Joach was not deterred by her misgivings. He rushed the statue with the dagger, aiming for its heart with the blade. With the weapon raised high, the vein of wit’ch blood glowed brightly through the dark glass.

  Hurry, Joach, she silently prayed. End this horror.

  Joach drew back with all the strength in his shoulder, then plunged the dagger into the beast with a shout of triumph.

  Kesla heard a bright shattering sound, followed by a gasp from Joach.

  He stepped away, glancing to her, then back to the basilisk. It was unharmed. The nightglass dagger lay in a thousand brilliant shards in the sand, half its length shattered. Joach held the jagged hilt in his hand, stunned.

  Shock drove Kesla to her feet. “It failed!”

  Joach stumbled away. “I don’t understand.”

  As they all stared in silence, a tinkle of dark laughter rose from the basilisk. The torches dimmed, then blew brighter, flickering toward the ceiling.

  “We must flee!” Kesla yelled, sensing the approach of the lurker.

  They all raced for the door, but the sand would not let them escape. Sandstone claws grew out of the floor and grabbed their ankles, holding them tight.

  Kast hacked at the stone with his sword, but the cleaved wounds healed as fast as they formed. Finally, another clawed hand rose from the sand and slapped the blade from his hand. Still, Kast was not to be beaten. He swung to his mate. “Sy-wen, the dragon.”

  She reached for him, fingers spreading to touch his seahawk tattoo. “I have need—”

  Before she could make contact, her legs were yanked out from under her by the claws. She struck the sand hard and was dragged away by her ankles to the far side of the room. Once well out of reach, she was allowed to stand again.

  Kast yelled to her. “Sy-wen!”

  “I’m all right,” she called back.

  All the while, the laughter grew in volume, as if that which opposed them was amused by their efforts. Their attentions returned to focus on the basilisk. Kesla, closer than any of the others, realized the true source of the sick laughter. It was not the basilisk. The laughter rose from the small pool of nightglass at its feet.

  Again a swirl of images rushed around her, dizzying her.

  Words now rose from the black pool. “It struggles to remember.”

  Her vision blurred. It seemed as if a dark cloud were rising from the pool, mists on the water. But gasps behind her helped her focus. It was not an illusory figment. Something was rising from the pool in a haze of smoky mists—something cloaked, something dark.

  Kesla remembered the brief image from a moment ago. Moonlight on water, trees, and a black, cloaked figure coming toward her.

  Before her now, the cloaked figure grew more solid as it pulled fully into this world. She knew it was the same as in the dream.

  He spoke from beneath his cowl, bending toward her, his deep voice full of mischief. “A girl, this time. How amusing. No wonder you hid from me for so long.”

  Kesla found herself answering. “I . . . I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The cloaked figure straightened. “Of course you don’t. That is the way of the desert. It likes its little secrets.”

  “Who are you?”

  The stranger shook back his dark hood to reveal a surprisingly handsome face. It was as if white ice had been carved by the most skilled artisan, framed by hair as white as newly fallen snow. Only his eyes burned with the fiercest red fire—and Kesla knew it was a fire more likely to burn with frost than with the heat of a true flame.

  “Have you forgotten your old friend?” he offered gently. “Do you not know me?”

  Kesla did indeed recognize the face, both from ancient texts and old stories. But it could not be. He was long dead.

  “Come. Enough with these games. Name me as I name you.”

  “Ashmara,” she whispered with a numb tongue. “The ghoul.”

  His bloodless lips smiled. “Now, Shiron, was that so hard?”

  20

  JOACH RECOGNIZED THE two names from Kesla’s tale of Aii’shan, Shiron and Ashmara: the two combatants whose magickal battle had melted the sands below the Southwall into black glass.

  Kesla stared in horror at the pale figure wrapped in a dark cloak of mists. “How . . . ?”

  The figure waved a hand. “After our battle so long ago, my bones rested deep under the lake you’ve named Aii’shan, frozen in black glass. But when Tular was taken by the Burning Master, my shade was drawn back here, to guard over the new basilisk.” He brushed his white fingers across the dark feathers of the monstrous statue, then turned to Kesla. “But it appears the desert sensed I had escaped its glass prison. It birthed another dream, breathing life again into another of its creations—another scion to bring its battle to Tular.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Ashmara beckoned with a hand, and the sands under Kesla flowed, drawing her closer to him. Joach tried to grab her, reaching out instinctively with his right hand, but only a stump touched her cloak. Unable to escape, Kesla was dragged before the small black pool upon which Ashmara stood.

  The shade bent and stared at her face. “You really don’t know what you are, do you?” He straightened, laughing deep and long.

  Kesla stared boldly at Ashmara, but Joach saw her shoulders tremble. Was she more scared of the ghoul or of what the monster was about to reveal? He longed to protect her—but how? She had a right to know. His only regret was not telling her earlier. Maybe he could have spared her this pain, a pain Ashmara was clearly enjoying.

  The shade smiled. “You are the desert’s child, my dear. This age’s Shiron, born again from the sands. Nothing more than a dream given substance. A clever desert mirage.” He pointed to the sandy hands that gripped her ankles. “In truth, you have no more life than one of my creations.”

  Kesla shook her head. “It cannot be.”

  “Come now. In your heart, you know I speak truly. I can hear it in your voice.”

  Kesla swung away. “No . . .” She stared back at Joach for help.

  He glanced down to the sand. “What he says is true, Kess. Shaman Parthus knew the truth from reading his bones.” He glanced back up and saw the hurt and fear in her eyes.

  “Wh-why?”

  Joach knew there were so many questions behind that single choked word: Why had he not told her? Why had he kept this secret? Why had he made motions as if he loved her, a woman who was not real? Joach had no answers.

  She covered her face and turned away.

  A cruel laugh flowed from the shade of Ashmara. “It seems the desert never changes. Sending a child to do its battle.” A sand-sculpted hand rose from the sand, picking up a shard of the shattered dagger in its fingers. “And it seems the desert never learns any new tricks. This stone basilisk is stronger than my old sand-sculpted original. Nightglass has no power over it.”

  Kesla lowered her hands, half sobbing. “If . . . if you are truly Ashmara, why are you doing this? How can you help poison the desert? As wicked as you were, these are still your lands.”

  Ashmara cocked his head. “There must be an echo in this room. You spoke the same words when we met la
st, attempting to appeal to my heart.” He laughed again, a darkly cruel sound. “My bones are forever frozen in glass, put there by the desert itself when last we battled. Why should I care if it’s destroyed?”

  “Because it’s still your home!” Kesla lunged out with a hidden dagger, moving as swift as a desert snake, stretching out from where she was held—but the blade merely passed harmlessly through the misty shade.

  Ashmara simply smiled. “You don’t seem to be having much luck with daggers this night.” A spear of sand jutted out and knocked the blade from her hands. The dagger flew and buried itself in the sands. “Now let’s end this once and for all. If you are so in love with your desert, then let me help you return to it.” Ashmara waved a hand.

  The sandy fists that held Kesla sank down into the floor, dragging her down with them.

  “You buried me once,” Ashmara said. “Now it’s my turn to return the favor.”

  Kesla struggled to free herself, but to no avail. Her legs disappeared into the sand.

  “We have to help her,” Kast hissed, fighting to pry his own bonds with his sword.

  But Joach did not move. He knew another course was necessary. He remembered the words of Shaman Parthus, that Kesla’s mission to A’loa Glen may not have been solely to wet the nightglass dagger in his sister’s blood, but also to draw him—another sculptor—to the desert. And now Joach knew why: he was brought here to fight Ashmara. One sculptor against another. But how could he hope to win here—a novice against a master? It was futile.

  Still, Joach watched Kesla sink slowly into the sand and brought the jagged edge of the broken nightglass dagger to the stump of his right arm. He dug its tip deep, and blood flowed heavily into the sand at his feet. Joach winced, eyes closing, and sank with his blood into the dream desert.

  The chamber walls around him grew misty. The glowing sands of the dream desert shone through them now. The two worlds merged, one atop the other. His blood flowed into both, bright as spilled wine.