The shaksis pulled itself upward.
A wooden foot found a notch in the rocks and anchored there, while the tendrils released from the first hand, and it climbed higher, stretching and cracking. The insects and grubs made a simmering, humming sound that was lost in the silent gulf of the night.
Staring through scarab eyes, the shaksis ascended. It had little room for thoughts in the dried leaves that filled its head. But it held a vivid image of Nicci, of Nathan.
Its targets.
* * *
Shouts awakened Nicci from a deep sleep, and she rolled off her pallet into a fighting crouch, instantly alert and aware. Fortunately, tonight her dreams had not entangled with the sand panther’s mind; otherwise she might not have been able to extricate herself quickly enough.
Thistle sprang from her warm sheepskin on the floor and pulled aside the door hanging as more shouts echoed down the corridor, which was lined with shelves of disorganized books. Even where the scholars slept, wall shelves were crammed with old volumes, stacks of scrolls, folded parchments, and documents the students had taken out to read, but not yet reshelved.
Nathan Rahl, exhausted from his studies and eager to ransack the underground vaults the following morning, emerged in rumpled sleeping robes. He fumbled for his ornate sword and drew it from its scabbard, ready to fight, but he had not found the source of the shouting. Nicci joined him.
Then they saw the thing coming toward them, an inhuman soldier made of brambles, wicker, and tangled thorns. It strode forward with a crackle of limbs and an aura of buzzing noises.
One unfortunate scholar emerged from his quarters just as the creature passed. Reacting to a potential target, the thing lashed out. In an instant, its arm grew long spiky thorns, and the limb curved around and impaled the young scholar, whose mouth opened, gaping, then gasping, and finally spurting a gush of blood as the long wooden spikes found his organs. The stalking creature tossed the dead man aside.
Other horrified scholars in the halls screamed; some remained frozen in place, while others fled.
Thistle clung close to Nicci. “What is that monster?”
“I believe it is a shaksis,” Nathan said. “Made from the detritus of the forest, castaway items from the underbrush.”
“What does it want?” cried one of the scholars, dismayed to see the bloody corpse of his comrade still twitching on the floor.
The shaksis lurched forward. The buzzing around its body grew louder.
Nicci knew. “Victoria sent the thing. It wants us.”
Two bright beetles nestled in the creature’s eye sockets turned toward Nicci’s voice. Seeing her, the shaksis became animated and began to run toward them down the hall.
Turning to face the attacker, Nicci pushed the orphan girl behind her, while Nathan raised his sword. The frightened scholars ducked into their alcoves.
The shaksis surged closer, extending arms like wildly growing vines. Its entire body seemed to swarm with small moving bugs and grubs. The reanimated forest creature drove straight toward Nathan and Nicci.
The wizard hacked at the shaksis with his sword, as if he were a woodcutter felling an unruly sapling. One of the creature’s wooden arms snapped and shattered, then dropped to the stone floor. Insects and worms spilled out like a spray of bizarre, festering blood. The shaksis drew back its stump. Twigs, vines, and grasses curled around, extending outward as the limb regrew.
Nathan hacked off its other arm, again wielding his sword like an axe, but this time the shaksis regrew even faster. The severed vegetation lashed and whipped, then sprang back into place.
“This will require more than a sword, Wizard.” Nicci raised a hand and released a blast of air that rattled into the creature, but it anchored itself, reaching out its branchy arms. It was hollow, woven of wicker, and the breezes whipped and whistled through it. More writhing bugs scuttled across the floor.
“I can’t unleash my black lightning or wizard’s fire in here,” Nicci said. “It would destroy all of the books and the people trapped in the corridor.”
The shaksis lunged forward, extending its sharp hands. Nathan swept his sword again, letting out a loud grunt with the effort. “There’s barely room to swing my blade.”
Nicci hammered at the thing with another fist of air. The creature staggered. Books tumbled off the shelves, their pages flapping. In response, the shaksis stretched out tangled limbs and seized another scholar who tried to slip away to safety. Vines and thorns curled around the young man, snapped his neck, then tossed his discarded body up against the wall, knocking down an entire shelf of books.
Struggling to control the level of destruction, Nicci called a single bolt of lightning that struck and splintered the thing’s thick left leg, rendering it unbalanced. Even though it smoked and smoldered, the tottering creature regrew itself.
Nicci and Nathan stood shoulder-to-shoulder as a barricade, refusing to let the creature past—but it did not want to pass. It wanted to kill them. With a thrashing of uncontrolled branches and dry leaves, along with a buzzing of hungry insects, it pushed back against Nicci’s blasts of air. Nathan hacked again, splintering the encroaching branches.
From behind her, Thistle said, “I’ll get a torch to light that monster on fire.” She darted away, but she didn’t get far.
The shaksis reacted to her movement, and a long whip of its thorny arm extended. Even though Nicci’s magic shoved against the thing’s body core, the deadly elongated arm seized Thistle. Sharp finger-thorns pierced the girl’s skinny leg and drew blood. She kicked and fought, trying to pull away.
Rage rose within Nicci. She didn’t hesitate, did not exercise caution in the confined corridor. This monster had to be stopped. She summoned a ball of flame—normal flame, since wizard’s fire could have been catastrophic—and exploded the blaze into the shaksis.
Flames immediately caught inside its torso, raging through its skeleton of bent branches and dried vegetation. Roasting insects burst or fled. Worms squirmed out, sizzling. Even as the shaksis burned, in a surge of desperation it plodded forward and extended its blazing arms toward Nicci. She shoved back with a blow of solid air and knocked the living inferno against the wall. Some splintered, charred pieces of the forest golem still clattered and twitched, grasping out for any victim.
The forest construct broke into flaming ashes, finally dead. But the embers scattered among the clustered books and stacked scrolls. Because of the speed of her attack and the rush of the air she had unleashed, the volumes quickly caught fire, their pages blackened and curled. Flames raged along the shelves, spreading from one to the next. The fabric door hangings in front of the private quarters also ignited.
Despite her bleeding leg, Thistle ran to their quarters and yanked down the door hanging and tried to put out the spreading fire. Nathan did the same as they yelled for more scholars to help, and they all worked together to stop the inferno.
Nicci released more magic, calling upon the air again, summoning moisture to douse the larger flames. She stole air away to starve the fire until it guttered down to a low smolder.
Cliffwall scholars rushed from other chambers and corridors to aid in quenching the blaze before it could spread to the larger libraries and vaults of books. Seeing their murdered comrades, some of them gasped, halted in their efforts to fight the insidious fire, but others swallowed hard, faced the crisis, and turned their attention to saving the books, the scrolls, the library itself.
One woman, sniffling, struggling to control her weeping, knelt by the first dead and broken scholar. She adjusted his body, his head, and began to pick up the blood-spattered books strewn on the floor from the splintered shelf.
When they had the fire under control, Nicci turned her attention to Thistle and saw that her thigh was bleeding heavily. Without asking, Nicci pressed her palms hard against the deep wound, and released magic to heal the girl and remove the pain.
Thistle laughed with relief. “I knew you’d save me.”
The wi
zard shook his head. His face was smudged with soot. He plucked a squirming beetle grub out of his white hair and crushed it between his fingertips.
Then, just after the ruckus died down, Bannon returned to Cliffwall, gasping and disheveled, weary from an ordeal of his own. His eyes shone with excitement as he pushed his way through the crowded corridor.
“I just got back. Sweet Sea Mother, you won’t believe the night I’ve had!” He ran his hands through his bedraggled red hair, and he finally noticed the destruction and turmoil around him for the first time. “Oh! What happened here?”
CHAPTER 66
The attack of the shaksis made clear Victoria’s ruthless intent. The next morning, with an odd smile, Nicci nodded with satisfaction. “That means she is afraid of us.”
“And well she should be, my dear sorceress,” Nathan said as they worked their way into the tunnels beneath the damaged prophecy tower. “I would feel much more confident, though, if we can find the hidden volume that holds the means to destroy her.”
“It’s down here,” Mia said, winding them through the twisted, claustrophobic tunnels.
Down in the dusty vault, where the damaged ceilings were slumped and alarmingly uneven, Mia brought them to a small room where stone walls had melted like candle wax over stacks of books. With an intent expression, the mousy researcher pointed to one thick tome fused partway into the rock. She couldn’t hide her excitement. “This one! See the spine? It is exactly the book we’re looking for. It matches what was on the list.”
Nicci touched the volume and felt its extreme age. “The pages will be difficult to read,” she said, “since it is part of the wall.”
Nathan gave a futile tug, but could not break the grip of the stone. He looked at her. “Mia has a small amount of the gift, and I would generally encourage her to practice. In fact, under normal circumstances I would just do this myself.” He frowned at the trapped book. “But because of the importance, Sorceress, and since you are the only one with the proper control of magic, could you manipulate the stone and release the volume for us?”
“Agreed. This is not an instance where one should resort to dabbling.” Nicci ran her fingers over the binding, touched where the pages had seamlessly blended into the stone, and released her magic. A small flow pushed aside the rock, but did not separate the paper and the leather-bound cover from the stone matrix. She concentrated harder, working to extricate the fused elements. “The bond is not easily separable.”
“You never shy from difficult things,” Nathan said. “You can do it.”
“Yes, I can. Just not perfectly.”
She moved the fundamental grains of rock and released the locked pages, but some of the fibers remained intertwined. When she finally withdrew the damaged book from its rock prison, some of the pages were still stiff and powdery, as if the last reader had been a sloppy bricklayer with mortar on his hands. Nevertheless, Nathan took the volume from her and pored over the words with an eager Mia close beside him, under the glow of a flickering hand light.
“This is it. This is the deep life spell!” Mia grinned. “Just what we were looking for.”
“Good,” Nicci said. “Now tell me how we can neutralize Victoria.”
Nathan looked at her in alarm. “Dear spirits, it is not so simple as that!”
“It never is. Just tell me what to do.”
“This will require some study.” Nathan and Mia conferred over the damaged words on the brittle pages. “Ah, yes, that seems clear enough.” He looked up at Nicci, explaining, “What Victoria used was a deeply bound life spell, drawn from the bones of the world. That is where Life’s Mistress receives her energy, and that is the only way we can stop her.” He looked up. “The only way to shut off the valve from her uncontrollable flow of magic.”
Mia pulled the book closer to herself and pointed excitedly. “Some words on the bottom of the page are damaged, but the answer is clear.” She drew a quick breath. “It’s the way we can defeat Victoria.”
“I’m pleased to have a clear answer for once.” Nicci crossed her arms over her chest. “And what is the weapon?”
“A special bow,” Nathan said. “Such an enemy can be destroyed with an arrow, and the archer must be someone with a great command of the gift, a powerful wizard or sorceress.”
“That would be me,” Nicci said, already anticipating the task. “And I know how to use a bow.”
The wizard shook his head. “Alas, it is not so simple as that, Sorceress. The life spell itself is intertwined with the most ancient creatures, the very structure of the world. The arrow must be shot from a special bow—a bow made from the rib bone of a dragon.”
Nicci drew in a quick breath of the dusty, still air in the newly opened vault. The magical fire in her hand light flickered. “The rib of a dragon?”
Nathan’s voice became troubled as the excitement faded. “Indeed. I can see how that poses a problem.”
Mia’s disappointment was clear. “Dragons are extinct.”
Now that she had a potential answer, though, Nicci refused to give up hope. “Nearly extinct.”
* * *
The scholars gathered in one of the large meeting rooms. A fire of mesquite wood burned in the hearth, sending a warm, savory fragrance into the chamber. Nathan had shown the ancient volume to the intent researchers, and they were all abuzz with the possibility.
“We must take action, and soon.” The wizard spoke in a firm, serious tone. “The shaksis was only Victoria’s first foray against us. I think she meant to catch us in our sleep, but she may also have been testing us. The next attack will certainly be more dangerous.”
“And she grows stronger with every inch of territory she claims with that monstrous jungle,” Nicci said.
Bannon sat near the hearth, sharpening his sword and brooding. His face was grave. “After what I saw last night, I am convinced there is no other way. Those poor girls…” He swallowed hard. “There was no saving them. We have to do what’s right. If we don’t stop that rampant growth, Victoria will cause as much destruction as the Lifedrinker.”
“We have to protect Cliffwall.” Franklin sounded alarmed. “Should we block off the other side of the plateau? Seal the window alcoves? How do we make sure nothing can get in from the Scar? Like the shaksis.”
“We know she is coming for us,” Mia said.
Nicci nodded. “Blocking the openings would help, but only as a temporary measure. Once Victoria’s jungle reaches the cliffs, her vines and heavy tree roots will crack open the mesa itself. We have to stop her before then.” She raked her gaze over them. “I don’t care how difficult it is. We must kill her.”
“And now we know how to do that,” Nathan said, “thanks to the lost volume that dear Mia and I found.” He smiled over at the attentive female scholar. The other memmers and scholars muttered uncertainly. Having lost both Simon and Victoria, their two factions were adrift, leaderless. “Our powerful sorceress needs to shoot Life’s Mistress with an arrow, using a bow made out of a dragon’s rib.” His voice faltered. “We only need to find a dragon.”
Most dragons had been gone for many years, especially in the Old World, and the devastating Chainfire spell had erased even the memory of dragons from humanity for a time, but they still existed. They had to exist.
Bannon let out a sad laugh. “Of course! It’s so simple. And once we find a dragon, we just have to slay it and cut a rib from its carcass.” He sat down heavily on the hearth. “Sweet Sea Mother, I don’t suppose that would take more than a day or two. What are we waiting for?”
“In the last days of the war against the Imperial Order, the witch woman Six flew on a great red dragon in her attacks on the D’Haran army,” Nicci said. “The dragon’s name was Gregory, but he is far away now, and we would never find him.”
Thistle had taken one of the large chairs, curling her knees up on the seat in an awkward but oddly flexible position. She scoffed at the young man, teasing him like a little sister. “We don’t need to
find and kill a dragon. We just need a dragon rib.”
Nathan spoke in a professorial tone. “Dear child, dragon ribs come from dragons. How do you expect us to find a rib bone without finding a dragon?”
Thistle gave a groan of frustration. “I mean we don’t have to find a live dragon and kill it. We just need to find a rib bone. That means we’re looking for a dragon skeleton.”
Bannon looked annoyed. “Sure. That’s much easier. They must be lying all over the place.”
Nicci had a sudden memory of when she and her hostage Richard had crossed the Midlands as they made their way down to Altur’Rang. On their journey they had found the rotting carcass of a dragon. “I’ve seen such a skeleton, but it was far up in the Midlands.”
“Even if we could find it again, the journey alone would take months, if not years,” Nathan said.
The girl groaned again. “That isn’t where you’d look for dragon skeletons.” She gave an exasperated sigh.
“Where would you propose we look?” Bannon asked.
“Kuloth Vale, of course,” she replied, as if he were the uneducated child. “Everyone knows that.”
“We are not from here,” Nicci said. “What is Kuloth Vale?”
“In my village I grew up hearing stories about the great graveyard of dragons. Kuloth Vale.” Thistle looked around the room, and the scholars muttered, clearly expressing concern. Some of them, though, seemed familiar with the tale. Among the memmers, Gloria nodded.
“Kuloth Vale is far away,” said Mia, “a sheltered hanging valley in the mountains to the north, and it’s a dangerous place. That is where the dragons go to die.”
The scholars consulted among themselves. Franklin spoke with his eyes half closed, reciting from memory: “‘All dragons have an instinctive bond to the magical place of Kuloth Vale. The bones of hundreds of dragons lie there at rest.’” His voice became ominous. “‘No human has ever gone there and returned to tell the tale.’”
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