I cast a shield over him as another mist attacked and it bounced off. Quickly releasing it, the guard made short work of it, but when I attempted to raise the cast again it wouldn’t stick, and the darkness enveloped the guard.
He wailed and blood spurted from the cloud of black mist, he gurgled and fell in two pieces onto the floor.
I screamed.
Jax lunged at the mist with a Nazieth’s blade. It solidified like the first had and fell to dust on the floor beside the body of the fallen guard.
“Des, are you okay?” he yelled, swinging the blade towards another.
“I can’t keep the shields up. I can’t protect us.”
Jax and a guard both plunged their weapons into a cloud headed for a gathering of dwarves pinned against the wall to my left.
“Here,” he said and slid an identical blade towards me. “Now you don’t need a shield.”
I knelt to grab the blade and came up in time to swing it through an approaching dark mist. It felt like trying to slash through sludge, not mist, and I had to throw more weight behind it to force it completely out the other side. The mist solidified into a lumpy blob. I pierced the blade through what looked to be its middle and it dematerialised into dust, falling to the floor beside a dwarf that leapt onto my leg and latched on tight.
I almost shook it free when I saw her eyes. They were wide with fear. I focused on the others. I tried to cast the shields again, this time wrapping them around the remaining swarms of mist to slow them. They held like invisible bubbles, but then my fairy form faltered and I transformed back to my regular form. The dwarf ran from me to a huddle of its own kind behind an overturned table.
So it’s me, or them. Great, I thought as I concentrated on removing and raising each cast as the Nazieth and Jax finished the darkness within them. On the last, I collapsed to the floor, my head a mess as the room spun around me.
“Jax,” I said as I felt myself fading.
“Des, what is it? Are you hurt?” his voice echoed as if he were calling to me from down a long tunnel. I felt his hands on me, lifting my top in places and turning me to check for injuries.
“Des, I don’t see anything. Des, what do I do?”
My eyes flickered open and closed, but I saw them. I saw the green whirlpools. They beckoned me near. Called for me to stay. I felt my stomach settling. My mind cleared and my eyelids lost their weight. I peered up into his eyes. Into the brilliant green windows of his soul that called me back, called me home.
“Jax,” I said, my voice sounding like a whisper even in my own mind. “Are they alright? Are the dwarves okay?”
“We destroyed the last of the darkness.”
I realised I could only hear his voice and my own, my magic was blocking the rest. Keeping out the room. I forced it back and the cries were excruciating. I sat up suddenly alert.
So many had been injured. Some sat bloodied and broken, being tended to by others of their kind. Many died, rested in pieces around the room like the Nazieth guard I had failed.
“Go, I am alright, help them,” I said, and Jax and the leader of the ninth whom I hadn’t noticed by my side until then, left to see to the injured. I surveyed the room again.
A female lay lifeless against the far wall, a bundle in her arms. I did not want to look, but the others were all tending to the hurt, the screaming.
I scooted closer to her and rolled her body slightly to access the bundle held to her breast. I unwrapped the cloth and saw beautiful violet eyes blinking back at me. The child cooed and the mother flinched.
“Here! Quick, she’s alive,” I called to the others.
I scooped up the child as the dwarves quickly tended to the injured mother. Jax returned to my side along with an older dwarf with silver hair and a large bulbous nose.
“So, I hear you want something from us, fairy? If not for you and yours, we would have all met our end this night, so you can have whatever you want. We have gold, diamonds, sapphires? Name your reward.”
I handed the child off to a young female with a final gaze into those incredible eyes. “I need a key.”
“A key?”
“Yes, I need the key to the world.”
The dwarf stiffened and many nearby muffled their cries to focus on me.
“What do you know about that?”
“I know I need it to seal the mouth of hell. That’s all I need to know.”
He seemed to ponder my request, looking around the room at the fallen and the ones still alive. “Then you shall have the key. But I warn you, if the darkness get their hands on this key, they will have a way out of this world and into any other. This key is not just the key to your world, but the key to them all. Keep it hidden well.”
I held out my hand and the dwarf pulled a chain out from around his neck. Dangling from the end was a small gold ball.
“That’s the key?”
“No, this is what I can use to make you a key. We are dwarves, we make things.”
He pulled the ball from the chain and held it in his hand. Concentrating, he clenched his eyes closed and mumbled frantic words I could not understand. Then the corners of his lips turned up in an overly toothy grin. He opened his eyes and his hand, and there in his wrinkled glistening palm was a silver key. Not fancy in any way. It looked much like an old wardrobe key my mother had back when I was young.
“This is the key to worlds. Thank you for your assistance. Now we must find a place to go until this is over and the dwarves can be safe again.”
“You are welcome in our lands.”
“Which lands be those? Are you a Stalisies or a Tanzieth fey?”
“I am neither, I am simply fey. As all fey will be soon. No more segregation, no more division.”
He raised an eyebrow and scanned the faces of the Nazieth and Jax. I followed his gaze, the Nazieth stood tall, faces unchanged by my decree. Jax looked everywhere but at me.
I knelt to talk to the dwarf at his eye level.
“You will be welcome in any part of the fey lands you wish. Tell Maxvillious that Des sent you, and that you are free to stay as long as you need.”
“Thank you. Now, would you like us to create a door for you before we go?”
“Create a door?”
“We don’t just make keys, we can create doorways into any world, or anywhere within that world. Unless you can create one for yourself?”
“I can’t,” I said, dejected. I should be able to. My day old daughter could do it, or at least mostly do it.
I jolted in surprise as Madel leapt onto my shoulder and tucked under the strap of my top.
“Ava is in Elfland, we should go there,” Madel whispered up at my ear.
“Can you make us a door to Elfland?”
The elder smirked and the other dwarves began to chatter in hushed whispers. “We can,” he said, then a few of the others joined him and they formed a semi-circle around a section of the mud wall. They hummed and the wall vibrated, then a door appeared embedded in it, as if it had been built in all along.
“Be careful of the elves, they do not take kindly to trespassers.”
“We will. Thank you again.” I tucked the key away with the horn and feather in my bag. I needed something from the elves too, there were next on the list.
Why would Ava keep moving down the list if she hadn’t attained what she needed to seal the portal herself. It makes no sense.
I needed elfish dust, whatever that was. But I needed the elves’ help, too. If the darkness won and opened the mouth, the elves would be able to fight in the war to contain them.
Elves were warriors like the Nazieth. I read that a long time ago when a fey turned fourteen, they would take a test, and those that passed would be invited to join the Elves in their training camp.
The mightiest of fighters, their biggest downfall, their ego. Elves began to come out second best to the fey they were training. It was decided the fey no longer needed their help and the agreement was disbanded.
Would
have been nice if I had them to help fight Traflier.
I pushed open the door and stepped into a dark place. No light came through with me. It was like the door wasn’t even there.
The ground clinked and moved beneath me. After the last of us were through I swear I heard the dwarves laugh for a moment before the door disappeared and we were in complete darkness.
“I need more light,” I said to the others following me through. A Nazieth illuminated his blade and several followed. The room lit up in blue light.
“Oh crap,” I said as the door across from us burst open, flooding the room with an amber glow. The bright light reflected off the millions of coins around us.
The sent us into the fricken treasure room.
Towers of golden coins surrounded stacks of rectangular bricks in silver, gold, and another metal—black and shiny like the gateway of Sayeesies.
“Freeze, thieves!” the elf in the doorway yelled, raising his black crossbow. “You steal from us, you will pay with your lives.”
Then he fired.
The arrow shot out and in an instant sat frozen in the air between us. How the hell did I do that?
He reloaded to fire again.
“Please wait,” I called, but other guards joined him and they too prepared to fire into the room. The Nazieth advanced. I cast a shield around them, praying it would hold. The arrows flew through the room, hit the shield, and fell to the floor with a clamour against the shiny coins and glistening jewels.
“Witches,” one guard called, and Jax actually laughed beside me. I shot him a glare then tried a phase into my fairy form. Madel flew into a frenzy to leap onto Jax’s head again before my strap disappeared.
My shield fell.
“I am Desmoree Shale, leader of the fey and friend to all fabled. I seek an audience with your king.”
Jax pursed his lips, impressed by my statement.
I’ve seen Reign; I know how royal peeps are supposed to talk.
“If you want an audience why enter through the treasury? You are witches and thieves wanting to steal our gold.”
“I assure you, I am not.”
“Silence! We will take you to the king, but if we find you are lying it will be the end of you all.”
I nodded and headed for the door, the guard and Jax followed behind.
We had walked a little way along the stone corridor when a muffle came from behind me, and turned to see the guard and Jax entwined in a shimmery golden rope. The rope tightened around them as if on its own.
I tried to cast a shield to separate them, but couldn’t.
“Stop, what are you doing?” I called, but a length of the rope snaked over my wings and wrapped them tightly. I phased back to my regular form and the rope went slack, then quickly twisted back up and around me.
Crap. Crap. Crap!
The elves dragged us by the golden ropes by rooms carved out of the walls themselves. Score marks made by their tools still crosshatched the surfaces, and my heart leapt into my throat at the sight of what I swore was a fingernail stuck in a crack. The next few rooms had black bars dividing them from the hall and the rooms beside them. They shoved us into those cells, the rope only releasing us when the bars locked into place.
“We should never have trusted those dwarves,” Jax complained as he brushed the dirt from his pants.
I tried to spell the gate open without any effect.
“Why isn’t my magic working?”
“The elves usually have wards against magic, I am surprised your shields worked back in the gold room. Lucky they did, though.”
“I don’t think it did. I didn’t stop that first arrow, something or someone else did. My shield fell and I had no effect on those golden ropes.”
“Bloody dwarves.”
“Hey, why all the hostility towards the dwarves? Surely they didn’t mean to send us into the gold room?”
“Yes, yes, gold room, door way. Dwarves sneak in, steal gold,” Madel said as she took a curl of my hair and wrapped it around her.
“See?” Jax said, finally giving up on the dirt remaining on his pants and leaning against the bars of the cell.
“Look, we are here, we will get to meet with the king and explain why we came, and hopefully find Ava.”
“Ava isn’t here anymore,” Madel said, curing up on the ball of my shoulder and closing her eyes.
“But you said she came here, what the hell we missed her again?”
“She was here, but not now. Scary king man scare her away.”
“Scary king man? Do you mean the elf king? Did he do something to Ava?”
“No.” She didn’t elaborate.
“MADEL! This is important.”
“Oooh, no yell at Madel. Ava is okay, but not here. She like her mummy. She show scary man king. Guards come now. Can I sleep?” She didn’t wait for me to answer as she curled up in a strand of my hair like a cocoon.
Jax stood to attention.
“The guards are coming.”
They stopped in front of our cell and pointed to Jax.
“Him,” the centre of the three said. “He will address the king.”
“Like hell he will,” I spat, coming to stand between them and Jax. “The king can speak with me.”
“No. The king will address only the head male of your party.”
“You cannot be serious?”
“Des, they are very serious. The elves are quite backwards. They rule under a king; no queen has been titled since the Fall of The Twelve centuries ago.”
“What the hell is the Fall of The Twelve?”
“Shut up, fairy boy,” the central guard yelled over me as the other two opened the gate and entered the cell. “You dare speak of things you know not of.”
Jax opened his mouth to answer me but a cloth was shoved across his mouth and tied behind his head. I tried to stop them from taking him. I called my magic but it felt stuck beneath something. I couldn’t pull it forward. I couldn’t phase. Nothing.
They shoved me aside and I fell to the ground, my palms scraping against the dirt floor.
“Jax, tell the king why we came. Tell him what’s coming. We need their help. We need him to see sense.”
I looked up in time to see Jax nod and smile before they hauled him out of the cell and out of sight.
It was unusually quiet in the cell. I couldn’t hear the Nazieth, only Madel snoring in my ear, but I felt like someone or something was watching me none the less.
“I can feel you staring,” I said into the darkness of the corridor. “I know you are there.”
“Are you really what they say?” the soft male voice said from barely a few metres away.
“It depends, what are they saying I am?”
“A fairy.”
I laughed. “Pretty much. Why, haven’t you seen a fairy before?”
“No, I have. I mean in books, but I thought they had magic, that they could fly.”
“They can, sometimes. I even have wings.”
“I don’t see wings; will you show me?”
“I could, but something in here is stopping me from using my magic.”
“Oh, that’s the wards. Keep us in, keep them out.”
“Keep who out?” I asked, inching closer to the bars but still not seeing him in the darkness. He must have been in an adjoining cell.
“Everyone.”
“Umm…” I started, not sure if he would even be able to help. If he too were locked away, I doubted he would have seen anything, but I had to ask. “Have you seen a girl with rainbow hair?”
“Ava,” the boy said, and suddenly he was against the bars. Not a prisoner, an elf, and on top of his head was a tiny silver crown.
I fell backwards onto my arse, definitely not a new experience for me.
“You know my daughter?”
“Ava is your daughter?”
“Yes, is she okay?”
“She ran away, my father scared her. He didn’t understand. He didn’t trust her, so she ran
away. Now he is scared.”
“Why is he scared?” I snapped.
“Because when he scared Ava, she created a portal right there in the throne room, beside his chair. She worked magic past his wards. He thinks if one can, all can. Then you show up in the gold room and now he’s really mad.”
“We didn’t choose to show up there, the dwarves—”
“Dwarves, of course. They steal the gold, they make the doorways, that’s how you got in there.”
“How else would I have?”
“Ava can go anywhere.”
“How do you know?”
“She found me when she got here. She was sad, something was chasing her, scaring her.”
“What was it?”
“I never saw anything. She would stop and talk to herself too, but not really. It was like she was speaking to someone that wasn’t there. Every now and then she would smile and her whole body would relax, but then her face would go white, and she would be so afraid.”
“Do you know where she has gone?”
“No,” he said, his face bowing.
“I need to get out of here. I must find her. I was hoping I could convince your father to help us fight what’s coming. But he has taken Jax, and the Nazieth are all locked away. We need to get out, we have to find Ava and stop the darkness from opening the portal.”
“Yes, the darkness. Ava mentioned that the dark was coming. She was looking for the light so she could stop the dark. It all sounded kind of crazy. That’s why my father yelled at her. Shouted at her that she was a broken female like all the rest. He ordered her containment, but as the guards moved in she created a portal by his chair. It wasn’t stable. It collapsed in at the sides, more of an oval really, than a circle. But it did set for a moment, and she ran through it at super speed. He just stood there. Mouth open, staring at the place she once stood. It was awesome.”
I frowned. “So, you don’t get along with your dad then?”
“He isn’t really my dad. I call him father as he’s the king and I am the prince of elves and next to rule. But he should have stepped down a year ago. Three cycles is all a leader has in turn then must relinquish their title as king to the next in line. I am the next.”
Enchanting the Fey- The Complete Series Page 34
