Wit''ch Gate (v5)

  Understanding dawned in her. Again whispery images of swaying palms and blue waters grew around her. She glanced up and saw the look of horror in Ashmara’s red eyes.

  “Please . . . don’t . . .”

  Kesla leaned back to the nightglass pool and swept her bloody hand over its surface. Where her blood touched, the hard glass slowly dissolved back to plain sand.

  A howl of agony and terror rose from Ashmara. “No, don’t send me back!”

  Kesla ignored his screams as surely as he had ignored the terrified cries of all the children bloodied at his feet. She scrubbed her blood across the entire surface. Once the entire pool was covered, she rolled away. Her blood bubbled on the hard surface, transforming glass back to sand.

  Standing, Kesla stepped away. Like the glass, the pale face of Ashmara was eaten away. He had no mouth with which to scream, but his eyes shone with agony and despair; then those, too, were consumed by the magick in Kesla’s blood.

  Soon only empty sand lay before her.

  Kesla clenched her bloody fist. Magick of the desert. She could no longer hide from the truth spoken from the lips of the ghoul. She was not a woman, only some construct of the desert, a magickal tool used to stab at the evil in Tular.

  Though victorious, tears rose in her eyes.

  JOACH HURRIED TO Kesla’s side. He did not need the tears to recognize the grief in her eyes. “What’s wrong?” he asked. She shook her head and stepped away from him.

  Before he could question her further, Sy-wen called to them. She hopped from her dragon’s neck, and Ragnar’k roiled back down into the naked figure of Kast. “What happened?” Sy-wen asked. “How were you able to drive off the ghoul’s shade?”

  Kast pulled the shreds of his cloak from the sand and joined them.

  Joach explained about his visit with Greshym in the dream desert and about the darkmage’s revelation.

  “Why was the fiend so helpful?” Kast asked with clear suspicion.

  “I made a pact with him,” Joach said. “I promised I’d return to the dream desert.”

  “It’s surely a trap,” Sy-wen said.

  Joach nodded. “No doubt.”

  “And what of your promise?” Kast asked.

  “I’ll honor my word,” Joach said. “I’ll return to the dream desert, but I never promised when I’d return. Certainly not today, certainly not tomorrow, maybe not for many, many winters.”

  Kast grinned. “The darkmage will be waiting a long time.”

  Joach shrugged. “He’s lived five centuries. What’s a few more decades?”

  Sy-wen glanced over to Kesla, who still stood near where the black glass pool had been. “But what of her trick? Did Greshym reveal that, too?”

  “No.” Joach stepped toward Kesla and touched her shoulder gently. “What happened here?”

  She finally turned, wiping at her eyes. Her voice was as shattered as the nightglass dagger. “The ghoul and Shaman Parthus were right. I’m not real.” She shrugged away from his hand. “Like Shiron, my blood contains the magick of the desert, potent enough to heal what’s corrupted.”

  “But you are real,” Joach said, reaching out and clutching her arm. He squeezed her wrist. “You’re flesh and blood. What does it matter if you weren’t born of a man and a woman?”

  She stared up at him, fresh tears in her eyes. “It matters to me.” She reached down and peeled away his fingers. “And it will to you . . . eventually.”

  “Never,” he said. He sought some way to ease the despair in her voice.

  But she had already moved away, stepping toward the basilisk. “I now know how to destroy the Weirgate. My blood will rid the sands of its evil.” She stood before the large carved stone, staring up at its baleful red eyes. “I know my role here.”

  Joach hurried toward her. “Kesla, don’t. The Weirgates—”

  She lifted her bloody hand and placed it against the feathered stone breast of the basilisk. Her hand sank into its form as if it were only shadow, not solid rock.

  Kesla!

  She glanced over her shoulder, her face a mix of shock and horror. “Joach!”

  He leaped at her, grabbing for her cloak. His fingers twisted in the heavy cloth. But Kesla fell forward anyway, as if yanked by the arm. She tumbled into the Weirgate and was gone. Her scream trailed back out, fading farther and farther away, as if sailing down some bottomless well.

  Joach still held her cloak in his grip. The rest of her clothes lay in a crumpled pile at the bottom of the statue. He threw aside her cloak and reached to the stone, ready to go after her. But his palm found only cold stone. He ran his fingers over it, searching for a way inside.

  The basilisk just stared down at him, cold and menacing.

  She was gone.

  Joach sank to his knees in the sand. “Kesla!”

  A slithering sound of shifting sands drew his attention back up. Sy-wen gasped. Joach watched the ebon’stone serpent slowly begin to uncoil, stretching and curling in the sand. Ruby eyes fueled by darkfire turned in Joach’s direction.

  The basilisk of Tular lived again.

  Book Seven

  GUL’GOTHA

  21

  WITH THE SUN setting at his back, Er’ril stood at an outcropping overlooking the gorge. Deep below, molten rock flowed like a river. Even from this height, Er’ril’s face grew hot as he glanced north and south. The gorge extended leagues in both directions. The d’warf kingdom lay only a short distance ahead, but there was no way forward from here.

  Scouts had been sent in both directions, searching for some way across. While waiting for their return, the group had set up a night camp.

  Er’ril frowned and headed down the short slope, fleeing from the heat of the gorge. Since beaching the elv’in skiff in these lands six days ago, the overland trek had been arduous and fraught with pitfalls: poisonous rivers, winds tainted by deadly smokes, barren stretches without a single blade of grass. And now this impassable molten valley. Er’ril stared around him. Mountains spread in all directions, jagged peaks and clefted gorges. It was as if they camped inside the fanged mouth of some monstrous beast.

  As Er’ril approached the camp, he saw Elena kneeling with Tol’chuk and Mama Freda. The elder was busy changing the dressings on the elv’in captain’s leg, while Tol’chuk held the feverish man in place. Elena hovered over them both, worried. Two days ago, Jerrick had stumbled too near a tigersfang bush. It had lashed out at him with its vines, lancing his leg with its finger-length thorns. Wennar had axed the trapped man free, but his wounds had continued to fester.

  “How’s Jerrick?” Er’ril asked as he stepped into camp.

  Mama Freda wiped her forehead. “The willow bark tea is not strong enough to break through the poison’s hold.” She placed her fingers on the elv’in’s wrist and shook her head. “I don’t think he’ll last till morning.” Her voice quavered at this last pronouncement, and her fingers lingered on the captain’s hand. Mama Freda and Jerrick, both gray-haired elders, had grown closer on the long march here.

  Er’ril frowned. So much death. If Jerrick died this night, he would be the third member of the party to fall on the six-day trek to reach this point. They had lost a d’warf scout to a fireworm and another who had stepped on a horned toad buried in the red dirt. The first had died immediately, but the other had screamed for half a day before succumbing to the poisons in the toad.

  And now Jerrick . . .

  “Maybe my magick can help?” Elena asked for the hundredth time, hands wringing together.

  “No,” Er’ril said sternly, joining them. “We know this land is attuned to magick. It’s dangerous enough without awakening it further.”

  “But—”

  Mama Freda interrupted. “Er’ril is right. Your magick couldn’t save him anyway. It would only prolong his suffering.” Finished with his wraps, she sat back on her heels, frustrated and worried.

  Jerrick’s writhing slowed.

  Tol’chuk mopped the elv’in’s brow with a
damp cloth.

  The old healer sighed. Tikal, perched on her shoulder, pressed against her cheek. The pet only left her side to relieve itself. Otherwise, it seemed unwilling even to touch this poisoned land. “If only I knew these lands better,” Mama Freda said quietly, “I might be able to find a local cure. But I’ve never seen such a variety of sick creatures and plants.”

  Wennar spoke as he approached out of the twilight gloom. “None of these ill creatures existed until the Nameless One stepped out of our ancient mines.” He glanced around him. “These very mountains were once covered in pine and redwoods; their bowers were full of deer, rabbits, foxes, and badgers.”

  Er’ril stared at the surrounding landscape as night descended. It was hard to believe Wennar. How could this land have grown so corrupted?

  Elena sat atop a smooth stone by the campfire. “If we don’t stop these Weirgates, the entire world could become like this.”

  “But how do we continue from here?” Er’ril glanced over his shoulder. The eastern skies glowed from the fires of the nearby molten gorge.

  “We’ll have to hope my scouts find some answer,” Wennar said.

  Pairs had been sent out, two in each direction, armed with spyglasses. They were to climb the neighboring peaks to look for some end to the gorge, some way around it.

  Er’ril glanced around the campfire. With the scouts gone, there were just Wennar and another six d’warves—too few to thwart any real danger. He did not like the odds here. Besides their dwindling numbers, the entire party had grown bone-tired. Many had developed illnesses from the sick air and tainted waters: coughs, fevers, and stomach cramps. But the d’warves seemed to fare the worst: not just from illness, but also from their despairing hearts. They spoke little, just staring numbly at their ravaged homelands.

  Elena cleared her throat and pointed up. “A full moon rises this night.”

  Er’ril turned his attention back to her. He saw the light in her eyes and could guess the intent behind her comment. “You want to risk opening the Blood Diary?”

  “If we’re to succeed,” she said softly, “we’ll need every resource available to us.”

  “But your magick—?” Er’ril started.

  “I need cast no magick to bring the spirit of Cho out of the book. The power is inherent in the book, wrapped in the ancient spell your brother cast. It should do nothing to alert whatever wards lie here.”

  “We don’t know that. Perhaps it would be best if we wait until the scouts return.”

  As if hearing him, a scuffle of rocks sounded. Everyone was immediately on their feet. One of the camp’s sentries called out into the darkness and was answered in the d’warvish tongue.

  Soon a pair of ragged d’warves stumbled into camp. But they were not alone. Trussed up in ropes and slung between them was a strange purple-skinned creature with bright yellow eyes. It looked somewhat like a frog, especially with its splayed fingers and toes, each digit ending in a little muscular sucker.

  “What is that?” Elena asked, bending closer.

  Er’ril pushed her slightly back, wary of this creature.

  One of the scouts shook his head. “We climbed a ridge and were searching the gorge to the north. It stretches and curves all the way to the horizon. There is no way across in that direction.”

  Er’ril suppressed a groan.

  “But what be this creature?” Tol’chuk asked, pushing up into the firelight. “Can we eat it?”

  The purple creature spotted the large og’re and began to tremble all over, its yellow eyes wild. It tried to squirm away. “No,” it suddenly squeaked from its wide, blubbery lips. “Please, no eat poor Greegrell.”

  “It talks!” Elena said.

  One of its captors shook it. “Quiet down, you stinkin’ pile of horse dung.”

  The creature cowered and whined; its trembling grew more violent.

  Elena frowned and moved forward, pushing aside Er’ril’s hand. She knelt by the trussed-up creature and placed a palm on its arm. “Shh, it’s all right. We’re not going to hurt you.”

  “We caught him trying to steal our spyglass. I set it down on a rock for a moment, but when I turned around, this little bugger was hopping away with it in his grubby little paws.”

  “It nice thing . . . shiny,” the creature whined.

  “We only caught it by a well-aimed throw of a stone,” the scout finished.

  Er’ril rolled his eyes. “What is it?”

  Wennar answered. “It’s a vorg. I’ve heard of their foul ilk. They have a crude intelligence, a half notch above goblins. The creatures used to plague miners: stealing tools, defiling shafts with their droppings, even bringing down rockfalls to trap d’warves.”

  Behind them, Jerrick groaned, thrashing again.

  Mama Freda backed to his side. “I’ll heat up some more willow bark tea.”

  The vorg stretched its neck high, attempting to peer over Elena’s head. Large yellow eyes blinked at the elv’in. Its slitted nostrils twitched. “Bad pointy poke,” he said, following with a slight roaring sound deep in his throat, mimicking the sound of a striking tigersfang bush.

  Elena met Er’ril’s startled gaze.

  Er’ril lowered himself next to the beast. “How do you know what happened to him?” he asked sternly, pointing to Jerrick.

  The vorg cringed back from his tone.

  Mama Freda spoke up. “If this creature knows about the tigersfang, maybe he knows a cure.”

  Elena edged Er’ril back, then faced the creature. “Greegrell,” she said softly and patted the vorg’s hand, “do you know how to help this man?” She nodded back to the elv’in captain.

  The vorg relaxed, leaning slightly nearer to Elena. “Greegrell knows.”

  “You’ll show me?”

  The toadish creature nodded.

  Elena waved for the two scouts to free the vorg’s rope.

  Wennar stepped forward and kept the scouts from obeying. “My lady, do not trust a vorg. They’re full of mischief.”

  Sighing, Elena stood up. “If we don’t try, we’re certain to lose Jerrick. Keep a lead on the vorg if you like, but let’s see what it knows.”

  Wennar nodded and secured a loop of rope around the vorg’s scrawny neck, then allowed its limbs to be untied. “Show us,” Wennar said, motioning as if he was going to kick the creature.

  Elena frowned at him. “Let me take him.”

  Before she could reach the lead, Er’ril took the rope. “You mind the vorg. I’ll mind the tether.”

  She nodded and touched Greegrell’s shoulder. “Go on, little one. Show us what can help him.”

  The vorg whined and hopped forward on its muscular hindlegs; its small forelimbs never touched the ground. “Come, come, come,” it mumbled with each leap. It headed away from the camp and out into the cooling night.

  The vorg would leap, sniff with his nose up in the air, then move farther. Elena kept to its side, while Er’ril followed, flanked by Wennar and followed by Tol’chuk and Mama Freda. The creature worked his way down a short, scrubby slope, slipping from rock to rock, stopping at last by a pool of brackish water, thick with a greenish-glowing algae.

  Greegrell bent down, leaning on one splayed hand.

  “Will this help?” Elena asked.

  Mama Freda hobbled up and peered at the pool. “Different algae do have remarkable healing properties.”

  Elena glanced to the vorg, who still leaned beside the pool. “Can this cure—?”

  Suddenly the vorg twisted, and the rock under its hand shot out and cracked Er’ril in the knuckles. The rope dropped from his jarred fingers, and the vorg was off. It bounced into Elena, then away, leaping and careening from rock to rock and up a cliff face. Its suckered feet gave it amazing agility.

  Caught by surprise, none were able to snag the rope or the vorg. It clambered to the top of the cliff, then turned back to them. Its dark form was limned against the rising full moon. “Sorry. Greegrell sorry,” it called back to them. “Green good.
Green good for bad poke.” It waved its arm, something glinting in its grip, and vanished.

  Elena patted her waist, then swore loudly.

  “What?” Er’ril asked.

  “It stole my dagger.” She turned to him, cheeks reddening both from anger and embarrassment. “My wit’ch dagger.”

  “Curse the little thief,” Wennar grumbled.

  “No.” Mama Freda straightened by the pool straining a fistful of the brackish algae. “It was a trade. His secret in exchange for Elena’s dagger.”

  Elena shook her head. “I guess if the algae can truly cure Jerrick, then it was a cheap price.”

  Mama Freda smiled gratefully.

  They all stood for a moment more, feeling foolish, outwitted by the purple-skinned vorg, then headed back to camp. There they found the second pair of scouts talking around the fire.

  “What did you find?” Wennar asked them.

  Their report was just as grim as the first team’s. The gorge spread with no end and with no way to bridge it.

  Er’ril turned to Elena. “Maybe you had better consult the Blood Diary.”

  ELENA SAT ALONE on a rock, the blood diary open on her lap. The full moon floated high in the hazy night sky, while around her spread the red, craggy mountains of central Gul’gotha. A short distance behind her, the others were gathered at the campfire, but Elena could feel the plainsman’s eye on her, ever watchful, but keeping a respectful distance.

  She tugged her jacket, lined warmly with rabbit fur, tighter around her body and scowled as the apparition of Aunt Fila floated before her. They had been conversing for some time: Elena detailing the story of their journey here while Fila interrupted with questions. The course of the conversation was not going as Elena had hoped.

  “So you’re married?” Aunt Fila asked with a laugh. “To Er’ril?”

  Blushing, Elena stared down into the book, now an open window into the starry Void. “I’m married in the eyes of the elv’in only,” she explained again. “It wasn’t exactly a mutual exchange of vows.”