by Jeffrey Hall
But as incapacitated as she was, Chendra still tried to rise, fighting to grab hold of her downed desk to gain purchase and face Dash. Dash stepped forward and pulled another stone from her pouch.
“Chendra, stop!”
Chendra did, staring at the stone Dash had in her hand. Dash dared to glance down at it and saw it was a deep, sanguine red. Almost the color of a scar stone, but not.
A blood ruby. The only lethal stone she had ever treated with. One that was outlawed after the fall of Bolliad by the new king. A stone she hadn’t realized she still had, one she thought she had lost in the clutter of her shop, in the maze of her own mind. How had she missed picking it up from the floor? Did the black lens cloud her mind that much, or did the threat on her life make her overlook such a find?
Or maybe the shadows had slipped it into her pack for this precise moment.
“What are you planning to do with that?” Chendra glared at her. “Kill me?”
“No,” said the shadows. “We just want answers.”
Dash closed her eyes and swallowed as if trying to digest the words in her own head. Was this really what she had allowed herself to become? An intruder threatening to take the life of her own sister? No, she tried to tell herself. You don’t even remember the words to the spell. This was only a show of force…
“What is this?” said Dash.
“What? You don’t remember from the last time you broke in?” said Chendra.
“The Ode to the Fallen Kingdom?” Past the upturned desk there was another doorway leading out to a familiar balcony overlooking the glimmer lights that dotted the grand hall. Light still poured in from the windows she could see. She was relieved to realize that her sister would not have brought out her salt hag… yet.
“I should have known when Ardan gave word that you had escaped that my life would be in danger.”
“You would lock up your own sister, have her become a slave to your lover…” She clenched the blood ruby in her hand so hard she felt its jagged points stick into her skin.
“Or else what? Allow you to run rampant? Allow you to steal from the kingdom’s own stores? You are a fool if you think you have earned the right to commit such crimes and not be punished for them.”
“Crimes? You talk to me about crimes?” Dash fumbled for the golden leaves she had pulled from the trunks and flashed them before her sister. “What is this?”
Chendra’s brow furrowed. “What is that?”
“I’ve asked you,” shouted Dash.
The shadows laughed beside her. “She’s slippery. Do not let her escape you.”
“I’m no botanist. Go ask one,” said Chendra, struggling with the ropes of energy that tied her legs from Dash’s magic.
“There are trunks filled to the brim with this stuff behind locked doors, down hidden hallways, being hauled away and taken by known criminals. Eggs too.”
“Criminals?” said Chendra. “Is that what you call Ardan’s own men?”
Dash tilted her head, confused. “Is that what you think they are?”
Chendra laughed. “You are a confused, broken person, Dash.”
“No you’re not,” said the shadows. “It is she who is lost. She lies. She is misinformed.”
Dash’s face hardened. “What did the Elder tell you was happening down there? Who did he tell you those men were?”
“When my king asks for assistance to help his kingdom I do not delve deeper. Whatever is needed for the health of Bothane.”
“There’s the truth of it,” said the shadows. “She is blind.”
“You mean whatever is needed to help your lover,” said Dash.
“Dash—”
“You’ve turned a blind eye to whatever deeds he’s done. To whatever he’s been doing. There is something going on here and you’re too drunk on him to see it.”
“Oh? I’m the one who’s drunk? Your hair is more purple every time I see you. You look more confused than—”
“Shut up!” She thrust the blood ruby into her sister’s face, the words of the spell needed to bring forth its deadly essence on the tip of her tongue.
Chendra shut her mouth as she stared at the glossy red jewel thrust before her.
The shadows laughed. “Good. Now take the bag next to her.”
Dash glanced down at the sack of spilled stones beside her.
“It belongs to you,” said the shadows.
Dash knelt down and snatched up the bag.
“What are you doing?” said Chendra.
“Taking what’s mine.” Dash glanced inside. It was the pouch of stone she had taken from the Ode’s library. She could see a nugget of dadaline glimmering back at her and a dozen other highly prized rocks that could earn her a hefty sum should she need it, which she was sure she would once she figured out a way through this mess.
“It’s not there,” said the shadows.
“What’s not there?” said Dash.
“Listen to yourself, Dash. Who are you talking to?” said Chendra.
“The other stone. The black one from the girl,” said the shadows.
Dash blinked. She had forgotten the strange finding in the girl’s pouch altogether.
“Where is the dark one?” said Dash.
Chendra just glared at her.
“Make her talk!” the shadows shouted angrily, a noise that rang in her head so surprisingly that she’d do anything to make them quiet. With the blood ruby in her hand, she clocked her sister across the face.
“Tell me!”
When Chendra looked back at her, Dash thought the stone in her hand may have broken and now its pieces were scattered across her sister’s face, but she recognized it as blood. A deep gash had erupted along her sister’s cheek, releasing a spray of her life’s liquid across her face.
A pang of regret ran through Dash, but the terrible growl of the shadows silenced it.
Chendra spat. “It was on my desk, but you seem to have upturned it.”
“Find it,” shouted the shadows, in that same terrible voice.
And Dash obeyed, scrambling past her sister to find the stone spilled somewhere on the ground. She sifted through some of the splintered wood, looking into the shadows of the poorly lit study, her free hand groping along the floor in hopes of touching that same polished stone.
“What’s happened to you, Dash? What happened to us? When Father fell, so did we. He was the pillar keeping up all upright, wasn’t he?”
“Shut up,” she seethed as she continued to search for the stone. The splinters pricked her flesh. Some drew blood, but she didn’t care. Where was the damn stone?
“He should have prepared us better for a life without him, brought us together instead of trying to be the bridge between us. He was always good at being a voice for us, wasn’t he? He always knew how to translate what the other said so it wouldn’t sound so... harsh. But he was never very good at just telling us to put aside our problems and speak to one another like adults. That was Mother’s job.”
“Ignore her,” shouted the shadows. “Keep looking.”
Dash frantically did. For a moment, panic set in as she thought that the shadows’ terrible anger would infiltrate her head again, but her finger brushed something smooth. She looked and saw the black edge of the strange stone sticking out from between the closed pages of the book her sister had been reading. She unsheathed it from the pages and stood.
“There,” said the shadows, its voice suddenly relieved.
“Do you know what you have there?” Chendra spat blood.
Dash looked from the black, night-like stone to Chendra and back.
“You have done well, Dashinora,” said the shadows. “Now kill her.”
The casualness in the shadows’ voice caused her to recoil. “I... I can’t.”
“Do it. Do it or she’ll kill you.”
Dash hesitated, just staring.
“That thing you possess. It belongs here. It’s a relic of Old Bolliad—”
“Use the blood
ruby. Hurry!” The shadows shouted in such a horrific voice that she almost lost hold of both stones.
Chendra must have seen the look on her face because she stopped talking for a moment and tilted her head. “Is it talking to you right now? What’s it saying?”
“That I... I…”
“Do it!”
“You don’t need to listen to it, Dash. You don’t have to do anything it says. It’s only in your head. It’s not real.”
“Kill her and her lies. She is your enemy.”
“You’re stronger than it, Dash. You have always been strong. You have always been stronger than me. Why do you think I’ve always treated you the way I have?”
“Lies!” shouted Dash and the shadows in unison, and the words for the spell that would draw death from the blood ruby rose in her head like she had been hit and the memories were jostled loose.
But suddenly the world shook. A horrendous break resonated through the walls. The Ode shook so violently that Dash lost her footing and fell to the floor.
The terrible noise subsided.
“Get up!” shouted the shadows.
Dash tried to rise, but a hand grasped her wrist. She had fallen right in front of her sister.
“Give me that stone,” shouted Chendra. “It’s for your own good!”
Dash tried to pull away, tried to bring up the blood ruby, but Chendra’s hold was too strong. Despite Chendra being trapped, she possessed a leverage that Dash could not escape. Dash snarled and tried to kick out with her legs, but Chendra clawed her face, grazing her eye so that she winced and threw her head back in pain. Chendra grabbed the starry stone from her hands, and the shadows yelled.
“No! Get it from her!”
Dash pawed at the scratches on her face, but her pain was overtaken by the shadows’ demands. She went to lunge at her sister, but once more the terrible noise sounded and the walls shook. Dash fell back, digging her fingers into the floor in hopes that she would not be shaken off the world. A rafter snapped and fell on top of her. She held her breath, expecting it to sever her leg. Instead, the point of the wood dropped like a blade between her legs, toppling over, its other side landing against the nearby wall, creating a barrier between her and Chendra.
Only when the noise fell away could she hear the shadows again. “Up!” they shouted.
Dash used the wood to stand, but behind it, Chendra was using a splinter of wood to pick away at the trap she had put onto her. The magical fabric that held her legs fell away, and Chendra clambered beneath her broken desk, where a piece of dropped stone still lingered upon the floor.
“Stop her!” shouted the shadows. “Get it back!” But the sound of footsteps coming down the hallway made her freeze. She turned just in time to see a group of three thugs burst into Chendra’s study.
“Lady Chendra, are you alright?”
Their eyes fell upon Dash.
“Don’t leave the stone,” shouted the shadows, but fear flooded Dash’s mind, a feeling so strong it drowned out the shadows’ demands. She ran, pushing past the thugs, the blood ruby in her hand, the recovered sack of stones bouncing on her hip.
One of the thugs grabbed for her but she shoved the sharp end of the stone into his face. He stumbled back, clutching his face, and strings of blood fled through his fingers.
She skidded into the still-under-construction hallway, knocking over some of the boards that were stacked against the wall as she did.
“After her! Don’t let her escape!” Chendra’s voice filled the hallway at her back. She heard footsteps and curses behind her.
Something fluttered past her head and crashed into the wall in front of her. As it clattered to the ground she saw it was a throwing dagger.
She ducked and turned into the open doorway leading into the storage area just as one of the thugs wound up to throw another dagger.
She pushed over the trunks as she ran, letting the vegetative content spill onto the floor.
“Faster!” cried the shadows. “They’ll catch you.”
She put her feet to the stairs as quickly as she could. Sweat slithered down her body. Her lungs burned as if someone had thrown a torch into them. The blood ruby grew slippery in her palms. She thought to turn around and use it, but knew that it would only defeat one of the thugs and not the others that followed, nor her sister, who no doubt pursued.
She stumbled to the bottom of the steps only to be confronted with the rope bridge once more and the hundreds of feet that awaited her should she fall.
She glanced at the bridge and then back into the dark hallway where already the voices were growing louder. She thumbed the pouch of stones and pulled out the first nugget she could find, only to realize it was a shard of poor man’s coin, a silvery stone she had never treated with and could not use. She threw it over the edge and searched again. This time she pulled up an orange, circular rock she knew as sun opal. Once again, it was not a stone she had treated with.
Her hand went back to her pouch, but before she could pull another one, the first of the thugs appeared, brandishing an axe.
“The blood ruby. Do it!” shouted the shadows.
Dash raised the stone, but hesitated. Of all her crimes, murder had never been one.
“Do it!”
Althagar mustala porina bathalar… The words bubbled forth in her head, riding some hidden path to come to her tongue.
The thug raised his axe just as Dash felt the stone’s prickly essence run through her and leave her hands. A bolt of red light left her fingers, and the thug fell back, his eyes rolling into the back of his head, dropping his axe like it was too heavy for him to hold.
Dash blinked and watched in disbelief at her own actions as the dead man fell into the others.
Now you’ve killed, she told herself in horror.
The other thugs were looking down at their fallen associate before they realized she still stood there.
As soon as their eyes fell on her she knew that they would not stop until she joined the fate of the one at their feet.
Quickly, she grabbed hold of the rope bridge and started to inch her way across.
She had only made it a few feet before she felt the tremor of the first thug’s body on the rope. “Give up now,” he snarled. “Give up and you won’t have to die by the Abyss.” He pointed below them. The crisscrossing spokes barely filled any of the open air. The purple-and-blue haze of the Abyss stood paramount, engulfing the far-off ground beneath her like some type of moldy infection waiting to take her.
She looked back to the thug. He walked upon the bridge with a blade tucked between his teeth like she had seen dogs do with bones. He walked so surely across the bridge too. She would be caught in a matter of moments.
Just then she heard new voices from the other end of the bridge. Two new thugs were waiting on the other side.
She dared to take her hand away from the side of the bridge and fumble forth a new stone, but her hands were shaking and whatever she’d grabbed she fumbled and it went over the side of the bridge, fluttering into the air like a glittering sparkle of rain as it did.
“Give up,” said the thug again, speaking so ferociously that his voice found a way past the dagger between his teeth.
Dash froze, her heart hammering. Her hand went to her pouch, and stayed there. She was going to die. She was going to be skewered or worse upon some scrawny bridge by the people she had always played too dangerously with. Thugs and miscreants. Those whose danger she was just now finally understanding.
“Jump,” said the shadows, suddenly.
She fished into her pouch for some type of answer, but found only another stone she had not treated with. How had she accumulated so many stones that were useless to her?
She tossed the valuable thing over the edge.
“Jump,” repeated the shadows.
She looked over the side of the railing. The nearest spoke would break her.
“I’ll die!”
The shadows laughed. “Please, Dashinora.
Haven’t you learned by now that I don’t want to hurt you?”
“Easy,” said one of the thugs. “She’s dangerous.”
Dash kept staring over the side.
“You need to jump now or you’ll be dead already.”
She hesitated. All the shadows had ever done was hurt her. If she listened to it now she would be dead, wouldn’t she? After all, it had just told her to kill her sister.
But her sister was now the one pushing these men towards her. Maybe the shadows were right all along?
“Jump!”
The nearest thug reached out for her. She pushed aside his hand, swung her feet over the railing, and let herself drop.
The wind rose up to catch her. The thugs overhead cried out as she plummeted towards the spoke.
And as she fell, the shadows didn’t laugh. The shadows didn’t speak. Finally, they allowed her to plummet in silence.
Chapter 20
Requiem led the group through the narrow burrow, the dampness and heat of the place causing his skin to stick to his armor and clothes. He walked hunched, clutching the wounds that the scar stone had put on him with one hand, using his other to steady himself with the help of the wall.
Beside him, Garp walked with Grey slung over his shoulder. The only other one with a weapon, Garp held out his sword like it was an extension of his newfound confidence, content to help lead the way as they delved further into the davlish burrow.
Behind them, Sasha and Glassius walked side by side. The commander had armed himself with a stone, Sasha with an even bigger one.
All of them were battered and dust covered from surviving the near-collapse, a terrible looking rabble, but at least they were alive. It was more than Requiem could say for the people lying amongst the rubble overhead.
He kept on replaying the image of that figure in his head. The way it spoke through that wretched-looking reptile. The way they stood in the street unafraid of the swarms of soldiers that neared. The way it unveiled a sword as black as night with a stone as brilliant as the sun in its center.
All because of the girl.
And now here he was, stuffed in a davlish hole with his ex-wife, her new husband, a cadre of fool soldiers, and a pair of miners who from one moment to the next either wanted to kill him or pat him on the back.
