I grinned at her. “Me too. It’s been a long time.”
“The boulder, Camille—is that it?” Roz pointed out a tall standing stone near the middle of the thicket. It was huge, as big as a troll, for sure. And there was another fork in the path, to the right, leading through the trees toward the mountains.
“The path directly beyond it turns to the right. We go that way, I assume, and listen for the martingeese.” I didn’t like the nebulousness of the directions, but we had found the way so far. I turned around and asked Venus to ride forward. The path here was wide enough for us to all gather around the gigantic stone.
Venus approached, staring up at the stone. “That’s it, I know it is.”
“What do martingeese sound like?” I had never heard of the birds before.
“They make a whoop-whoop sound—a little like a loon, in a sense,” Bran said. “It’s so distinctive that when you hear it, you’ll notice it. They’re loud, and their calls echo for miles.”
We turned onto the right path, which immediately sloped in an upward grade. This path was narrower, but we could still ride three abreast, and so Bran, Trillian, and I took the front, while Delilah, Chase, Venus took second row. Shade and Smoky and Roz brought up the rear.
Chase, who had been quiet for a long time, suddenly spoke up. “Something about this area speaks to me. I’ve never been here, never been anywhere quite like it, but something about the approaching mountains seems to be calling to me.”
Chase’s psychic abilities had opened up when he was fed the Nectar of Life to save his life, and I had learned to pay attention. His hunches and instincts had played out more often than not, and he never mentioned them unless they were strong enough that he couldn’t ignore them.
“Do you think it could be related to the elf in your blood?” Delilah asked.
“No,” he answered after a moment. “This feels like something else. I don’t know what, though, but I can’t shake the feeling.”
We must have been approaching five o’clock when a sudden swishing sound startled me, and I jerked to my right. The path was overlooking a large pond, with a narrow trail leading down to it. On the surface of the pond were hundreds of white birds, and the whoop whoop whoop that echoed from them filled the air like muffled propellers.
“Martingeese,” I said softly, as the impulse to head toward the pond overwhelmed me. It was as though a homing button had just activated, driving me to turn off the main path and head toward the pond. “This way. We have to go to the pond.”
The others said nothing, just caught up to me. I took the lead, because the trail leading down the grassy slope was only passable by one horse at a time. Annabelle picked her way down carefully, through the dust of the path. The hill was steep, and my horse didn’t seem to trust walking through the grass, so I gave her the lead, guiding her gently and allowing her to sort her way down to the clearing near the pond. On the opposite side, I could see as we got closer, were more foothills, buttressed against the other shoreline.
“The cavern—it has to be there. I know it.” And I did—as sure as I knew my name, I knew that the cave hiding the Maharata-Vashi was on the other side of the pond.
The birds flocked into the sky as we rode toward the pond, and I became acutely aware of how exposed we were from the air and the sides. I pressed Annabelle to a trot, wanting to be out of visibility’s range as soon as possible. We came to the shoreline and I immediately began trotting around the edge, taking the quickest route to circle the pond.
“Camille? Camille, is something wrong?” Delilah galloped up to my side.
“We need to be out of sight, and we need to get to the other side of the pond as quickly as possible. There’s something out there, trying to get a fix on us. I don’t know how I know it, but I do know it. Trust me, please.”
Whether it was Shadow Wing tracking us, or some wayward sorcerer who was after the horn and hide, I had no clue. Or maybe it was one of the Great Fae Lords, waking, who didn’t want me to interfere with the running of the portals. Or perhaps just a hungry ogre, looking for lunch. Whatever the case, it was imperative that we got out of sight as soon as possible.
The others didn’t argue, just followed me toward the opposite shore. We managed to circle the pond without anything happening, but I was still uneasy. But we reached the edge of the foothills without incident and I tried to focus on looking for the cavern. The scrub brush was thick between the shore and hill, but it was low growing. I shaded my eyes as we rode along beside it, searching for the opening.
“Where is it? It has to be somewhere along here. How hard is it to spot a cave? It’s still daylight.” I was starting to feel frantic. “We need to find the cave, now.”
“Calm down, Camille.” Smoky tapped me on the shoulder. “We’ll find it.”
“I know, but we have to find it. Please, trust me. We can’t screw around.” I pushed Annabelle forward, trying to get around him, but he said something under his breath and the horse stopped. Great, he had to be a horse whisperer, too?
“Camille—what’s gotten into you? You sound terrified.”
By now the others were starting to gather around me. Venus rode up and cocked his head, staring at me closely. After a moment, he nodded and said, “Tagalong.”
“What the hell is a tagalong?” Delilah was squinting at me.
“A spirit has latched on to her. She’s not possessed, but she’s feeling their impulses. Camille, tell us exactly what you’re feeling.”
I stared at the old shaman, trying to listen to him. I knew he was saying something important, but his words seemed drowned out in the thundering fear that raced through me. I focused on the feeling of his hand on my wrist. It was real. Solid. Warm. Comforting. As I poured my attention into his grasp, into the touch of his fingers against my skin, the panic began to subside. It was still there, but at a lower ebb, no longer reverberating through every cell in my body.
“I feel panic.” My words felt like they were coming from somewhere distant, outside of myself. “I have to hide the scroll. I have to hide it or something horrible will happen. I have to seal it away to know it’s safe. There’s something looking for it, to destroy it. To prevent me hiding it for the queen to find.” Even as the words came out of my mouth, they sounded jumbled up, a mix of my thoughts with someone else’s. “No. I mean—I need to find the scroll.”
“Yes, a tagalong but one, I think, that has a reason for choosing you other than looking for a psychic happy meal.” Venus motioned for me to get off my horse, and he did the same. “Close your eyes, Camille. Close your eyes and take a deep breath.”
I didn’t want to close my eyes. We were out in the open and they were coming. They would ride into our midst and strike us down. But Venus’s voice was so soothing that I couldn’t help but obey.
“Camille, take another deep breath and tell me what you see. Keep your eyes closed. Let your mind drift.”
I followed his directions, and images began to flood my mind. “I see…warriors fighting—they’re Fae. I can tell by their eyes. They’re wearing purple and silver—and they have vicious-looking swords. It’s a battle—” I stopped. Someone came into sight whom I recognized, even though she was clearly far younger than I remembered her. Queen Asteria, creeping with Trenyth through the shrubs, watching for the soldiers who were all around the area. It was then that I realized whom the Fae were fighting. It was the elves. The Fae versus elves?
Queen Asteria looked so young, younger than I’d ever imagined. She was dressed in a simple dress, spidersilk and the green of the surrounding land. But even though she wasn’t wearing her crown, I could tell she had already taken the throne. There was a regal quality to her, even in her haste. Trenyth, dressed in a tunic and trousers and a simple cloak, barely looked old enough to shave. My heart hurt as I watched them. I missed her—she had become such an integral part of our lives that it was still hard to accept that she was gone. She hadn’t exactly been a moth
er figure to us, but perhaps, a grandmother figure.
I mouthed her name as I reached out, but I could only watch as she and Trenyth pressed up against the hillside behind one particular oddly shaped rock. I took note of where they were in relationship to the pond, watched as the soldiers swarmed the area. But for some reason, the Fae warriors didn’t seem to notice the two of them were there.
Queen Asteria turned to Trenyth, holding her finger to her lips. Then, she motioned to him and he reached in the pocket of his tunic and brought out a small metal disk. I couldn’t tell what it was, or what it was made of, but he pressed it against the side of the hill and there was a soft hiss—I could actually hear the noise—and the dirt vanished. In its place was a door.
A barrow mound. The hill was a barrow mound. I recognized it immediately as that, once the doorway had been exposed. Trenyth stood back as Queen Asteria reached out and knocked on the door. Once. Twice. Three times.
The door slowly opened. I could hear it in my mind, easing open with a cavernous silence that echoed through me. They slipped inside and I followed them, watching. Once inside the barrow mound, Queen Asteria crept over to the far wall of the chamber, a veritable repository of scrolls. There were small holes, the size of a scroll tube, covering the vast wall. Thousands of them. Perhaps tens of thousands. She stopped, then turned to stare straight at me.
She can’t see me, I thought. She’s dead.
But she looked at me as I gazed into her eyes. Then, reaching up, she pointed to one of the symbols painted on the wall. It was in Melosealfôr, and it was the symbol for eighty-one. Then, she slowly poked her finger against the side of a column of scroll holes. I counted carefully. At twenty-three she stopped and pulled out a scroll from her pocket. She glanced back at me, holding my attention, then slid the scroll into the hole in the wall. And then, before I could see anymore, she and Trenyth and the inside of the barrow mound vanished, and I was blinking, standing there with Venus.
Chapter 13
“CAMILLE? WHAT DID you see?” Venus was holding me by the shoulders, and I realized he was holding me up while keeping Smoky at bay. Apparently I had been so deep in trance I couldn’t stand by myself.
I let out a long breath. “I know where the scroll is. This is a barrow mound. I’m not sure if we can get in, but I know where to look for the entrance. And I know who hid it.” I turned to Delilah, my eyes wet. “Queen Asteria and Trenyth hid the scroll away. She was terrified that the Fae Lords would find her. It must have been near the end of the Great Divide. I think the legends have it wrong. I actually think the Spirit Seal was created by the enemy of the Fae Lords who wanted to divide the worlds, as a way of bringing it back together again in the future.”
Delilah caught her breath. “So you think Aeval and Titania know?”
I thought about it for a moment. They would have had no reason to lie to us, or keep the information from us. After a pause, I shook my head. “No, they were trapped by the Great Fae Lords before this happened. I think Queen Asteria carried on the work. She hinted to us more than once that she wasn’t in favor of the Great Divide. I think she worked on the side of the opposition. She was in the resistance, so to speak.”
“Do you think she actually created the seal?” Delilah’s eyes widened. She had loved the old Elfin Queen just as much as I had.
I shrugged. “I doubt we’ll ever know. But she hid the scroll, so I wonder if she also hid the Keraastar Diamond. The veils of time blur things together, and she had her reasons for keeping silent, I’m sure.” I paused, hesitating for a moment before adding, “I think she knew I was there. I mean, how could she? But yet, she looked directly at me. I can’t help it. I believe she knows—knew—I’m here to get the scroll.”
“Stranger things have happened,” Venus said. “Remember, magic exists outside of time. So do many beings and creatures.”
Bran, who had been standing to the side, suddenly came to attention. “Queen Asteria was cagey and cunning. She always had reason for doing whatever she chose. She was one of the few in the Elfin kingdom that my mother respected. And one of the few I’ve ever felt the desire to be gracious to. I’m not keen on the elves, but Queen Asteria wasn’t nearly as complacent as others thought her to be.”
I knew that was true, from experience. But a glance at the sky told me that the light was starting to wane, bringing with it the first chill of evening. “Come on. I want into that barrow before nightfall.”
“Where’s the opening?” Venus asked. “You said you know?”
I stood back, eyeing the pond, then turned in the direction where I had seen them enter the mound. It took only a moment to figure out where they had found the entrance. I pushed through the scrub toward the side of the hill, the others following me. Once there, I stood at what I thought was the exact spot where Queen Asteria had been standing.
“The problem is, she had a metal disk she pressed against the side of the hill—right about here.” I touched a stone that I remembered seeing next to where she had touched the metal to the hillside. Nothing happened. “I don’t know how to make the door appear, but it’s right here.”
“Did you say ‘metal disk’?” Venus stepped forward.
I nodded. “Yeah, it was about the size of a silver dollar. Maybe a little bigger.”
“Like this?” He reached up to his neck and withdrew a chain that had been hidden below his tunic. “Chain” wasn’t exactly the right word. I recognized it as spidersilk—so strong it would be extremely resistant to being cut. As he drew it out from beneath his shirt, a metal disk was hanging from the end. It looked a lot like the one I had seen Trenyth had Asteria.
“Like…that.” I slowly held out my hand. “Where did you get this?”
“Queen Asteria gave it to me when she told me about the Maharata-Vashi. She didn’t say why. She just said don’t lose it and that I’d know when it was needed. I’ve worn it ever since, just as I’ve worn my spirit seal.” He slipped it off from around his neck and handed it to me. “I’ve learned to act on faith over the years of my life.”
I took the medallion. It had an antiqued look, and as I held it, I flashed back to seeing the queen firmly press her disk to the wall. I followed suit, slamming the metal against the compacted wall of dirt and grass. The metal flared as it hit the wall and I almost dropped the disk, but managed to hold onto it as a door appeared in the hill. I knocked on it three times, and it slid open, letting out a long hiss as stale air rushed out. I stared at the mound, suspecting that no one had entered this mound since Queen Asteria and Trenyth, though there was no way to know.
“We found it. We actually found it,” Delilah whispered.
“Is it safe?” I wanted to rush in, but had enough sense to hold myself back.
Bran peeked inside. “There’s light in there. It seems to be a natural illumination. As long as the door stays open, we should be able to breathe.”
“Maybe somebody should stay outside with the disk, just in case it decides to shut on us.” I turned to Roz. “Will you wait here?”
He nodded. “Chase can stay with me.”
“Thanks, dude. I really don’t feel like wandering into a mountainside right now.” Chase was staring at the opening with a faint look of terror in his eyes. “It’s nothing against you or your search, but frankly, I know my limits and who the hell knows what’s in there after all these years? I’m not Pandora and this isn’t my box.”
That broke the tension. I cracked up, relaxing for the first time in a while. “Good thinking. Who’s going with me?”
Smoky and Trillian stepped forward, as well as Delilah and Venus. Shade opted to stay outside in case Roz and Chase needed help. I handed them the medallion.
“You can open the barrow that way if it closes on us. Don’t lose it. We may need to come here again.” I turned to the others. “Ready?”
They nodded, but this time, Smoky and Trillian hung back, waiting for me to take the lead. I looked over at Venus and he g
ave me the slightest of nods. This is it, a soft voice said inside. The turning point. You’re going to be calling the shots soon. And here’s where you start. Shoulders back, head held high, I took a deep breath and entered the barrow, flanked by Smoky behind me to my left, and Venus to the right. Behind them were Delilah and Bran.
The barrow felt like a freshly opened tomb and indeed, it was very much an ancient repository. Catacombs for scrolls, rather than mummies. The chamber was vast—so vast I couldn’t begin to estimate how many thousands of scrolls lined the walls, each in a narrow hole, hundreds of rows and hundreds of columns. The ceiling of the barrow had to be a good fifty feet high, and the chamber itself was at least two hundred feet wide. I wasn’t sure how far back it went, but as I pressed inward, the illumination grew from a dim glimmer to a bright sparkling light. It wouldn’t match a fluorescent light, but it was bright enough to see into the corners, and it emanated from the walls, the ceiling, and the floor.
“What magic is this?” The very air felt charged to the point of making my skin jump. I had no idea what had gone into the making of this place, but whoever had crafted this barrow had to have been incredibly powerful. “It wasn’t the Great Fae Lords who made this place. I can tell you that. The magic here is even more powerful than they could wield.”
Smoky let out a faint huff. He sounded mildly perplexed. “No fires here. Fire magic, natural fire, it won’t work here.”
I didn’t ask how he knew, but I trusted his word. As I cautiously approached a gap in the back wall, I realized it was a passage, and then it hit me full force. “We’re in a library, I think. There are more scrolls back here.”
In fact, there were rows of the natural stone shelves, much like library stacks carved out of the ancient mountainside. And each held row after row of scroll tubes.
“Who created this?” Delilah asked in a hushed voice.
“Welcome to the Akashic Library.”
The voice took us all by surprise and I spun around. Behind us, a dark vertical line appeared in the air, and out from that line—as though stepping through a gate—a woman appeared. Dark skinned, she was dressed in a flowing dress the color of eggplant, with a silver shawl around her shoulders, the color of moonlight. A diadem encircled her head, with a droplet of lapis lazuli marking her forehead. Her hair was deep black, as were her eyes, her pupils twinkling stars.