We finished our rough breakfast and made sure we hadn’t left anything behind. Laini no longer had to help me mount her redbill, even in the blackness. I could see the bird’s general shape, and I’d had plenty of practice climbing onto redbills over the last few months.
We set off, and I quickly found that with my vision practically useless, every sound became more intense. It didn’t help that the dense canopy around us trapped all sound—the redwoods made sure we heard every shadowy complaint of unknown souls. After a while, I heard Sike sigh under his breath, the exhalation weighted with emotion. Could the vampires be feeling it too? I’d assumed they were immune, since they were used to it, but it was doubtful they’d had a reason to spend this much time in these tunnels before, even if they’d previously explored them on occasion.
More than once, a dagger-like thorn sliced at one of our group. My scalp burned where I’d been scratched, and I heard both Roxy and Dorian let out sounds of pain. The blood matting my hair was hot, almost hotter than it should be, and I swore the whispers got louder. The world swirled with no point of reference to cling to.
“Laini,” I croaked at one point, thirsty but too afraid to reach for my water skin in case I fell off the redbill. “What happens if you get caught on the thorns? I think I’m more susceptible to the echoes after being scraped.”
She guided us around a dogleg in the tunnel, a fraction of light catching her rich hair. “Getting wounded by the thorns can have that effect,” she said quietly, “but it’s temporary. Just hold on. We’ll be out soon.”
How many hours has it been?
Occasional slivers of sepia light slipped through pockmarked gaps in the thorny cover, revealing what passed for daytime out in the wider world. I tightened my grip on the redbill feathers. Every single muscle in my body buzzed with restless energy as the voices grew louder. I sucked in a breath, tasting the musky air inside the passageways.
Up ahead, a yellowish glow burned like distant firelight.
“The exit,” Laini muttered with a grateful sigh.
We must have traveled miles across the valley and possibly beyond, but I had no way of gauging how many.
The redbills stretched their wings in the open air with apparent relief but kept low over the trees to avoid detection. The treacherous mountain peaks still surrounded us. I’d taken dozens of redbill flights across the US, but the landscape passed much faster there. The Immortal Plane seemed never-ending.
The trees began to thin out, and the terrain became sparser, filled with jagged rocks and small patches of strange vegetation. The intense effects of the redwoods began to fade as we got farther and farther away. I slowly regained my senses and lost the heady sense of dread I’d been wrapped in for… well, who knew how long. A short while later, a large lake came into view, surrounded by deep green grass and a few stony outcroppings of gleaming black rock. Nestled in the mountains, the surface of the water was coated with a thick bluish mist through which iridescent bubbles appeared, floating up through the air like jellyfish without their tentacles. The bubbles were massive. Up close, I estimated they were at least six feet wide. They rose from the water and never popped, only continuing to lift into the sky. The almost luminescent water and the stone and grassy area around the lake made me think of prehistoric Earth. Could this be where the surviving vampires had hidden?
“Welcome to Lake Siron,” Laini said, then clicked to our redbill, who chirped softly in response.
The group of redbills descended as one, weaving through the bubbles. The giant spheres floated by, moved gently by the breeze the same way the soul-lights high above were.
The redbills flew carefully in wide circles above the area. I watched the ground with interest, as did the vampires. Their vision allowed for more precision, but the strangeness of the world gave me and the other humans an advantage in spotting something they might gloss over in a landscape that was familiar to them.
As we passed over a wider stretch of grassland, I felt Laini stiffen in front of me.
“There is darkness here,” she said, inhaling sharply like a dog that had caught a scent.
I glanced to the side and saw Kane’s fangs lengthen slowly. The darkness was powerful enough to evoke a response, even from here.
Dorian snarled, the shadows beneath his face shifting. He hadn’t fed since our arrival, and his face was gaunt. I wanted to reach out to him and calm him, but it was impossible right now. Drigar flew between our hovering redbills, allowing Dorian to speak to us over the low wind.
“Wildling,” he said.
Kane nodded. “Definitely.”
I couldn’t help my surprise. He was reacting so differently to this wildling than the one we had mourned in the redwoods. It seemed that not all wildlings were as gentle and innocent as that one had been.
Below us, a small hill overlooked Lake Siron. A pack of creatures moved across its grassy surface, almost blending in with the shifting plains.
“It’s herding the velek below,” Sike noted.
“The what?” Roxy asked from behind Kane.
“The wildlings are the caretakers of the forest creatures,” Arlonne said from my other side. “Velek are creatures of the plains and the forest. The wildlings move them from place to place to manage the vegetation and pests.”
“It’s a bit like the connection we have with the redbills,” Sike said, “but dark wildlings like the one down there actively control the herd, rather than communicating with the velek to understand what they need. Dark wildlings can be very cruel to the creatures they’re meant to be protecting.”
I peered down, squinting in the amber light. At first, the velek looked like mortal deer. Nostalgia settled over me as I remembered my time with Dorian and the elk traveling through the mountains, but these creatures moved differently than elk or deer—they darted and weaved, sometimes leaping for no clear reason. Their faraway outlines struck me as odd and strangely proportioned. The horns sprouting from their heads looked subtly wrong, but it was impossible to make out details at this distance. I couldn’t see the wildling at all.
“Aren’t you worried that thing will sense us?” I asked, looking between the vampires’ faces.
They didn’t seem to hear me at first. Laini scratched the back of her neck, eyes unfocused. Kane pinched the bridge of his nose, his fangs glinting. Dorian watched the herd below and shook his head with a low growl, a few pieces of his dark hair falling over his crystalline eyes.
They’re all hungry.
He leaned forward, the lines of his face deepening. “It won’t be able to sense vampire auras. None of the immortal creatures can,” he assured me. “For all intents and purposes, we don’t have auras here. Even in the Mortal Plane, your technology can have a hard time picking us up if you don’t know specifically where to look.”
“But you can sense each other?” Bryce asked. “If we get separated, are you able to find one another?”
“Vampires can sense one another’s auras just fine,” Laini said, brow furrowed as she tracked the velek. “And human auras will just feel like a powerful soul-light to any Immortals who might notice you.”
The Immortals could sense our souls? The thought made me uncomfortably aware of my body, as if I were a radio tower giving off waves.
“They can’t tell the difference between a soul with or without a body?” Roxy asked intently.
“No, it’s actually very hard to differentiate,” Dorian explained. “Especially for Immortals who have never been to the Mortal Plane. And as long as we stay out of the wildlings’ sight, they shouldn’t notice anything amiss either. We need to be vigilant, however, and not just about the wildlings. If the vampires do have a camp around here, I expect they’ve set traps and magical protections in the surrounding area.”
At a silent command from the vampires, the redbills headed for the far side of the lake and landed behind a stack of large, fractured boulders. The rocks were like obsidian and cracked along sharp lines to form bizarre geometric shap
es. The area stank of blood and sulfur from the water. I covered my nose for a moment, but the scent burned into my nostrils. Roxy gagged. Bryce pulled a face.
I couldn’t agree more.
I slid off my redbill with Laini, alert and prepared, mentally reminding myself where every weapon was on my body. Bryce’s face tensed as he surveyed the area. Roxy’s hand hovered near her holster. None of us spoke above the slightest whisper for fear of drawing attention.
“Are you going to feed on the wildling?” I asked Dorian quietly, looking around for the incoming herd but seeing nothing.
He shook his head. “If it were on its own, yes, but the velek would outnumber us. We could get stampeded if the wildling called on them for aid. Now,” he addressed the group, “let’s spread out and look for signs of the settlement. A vampire goes with a human. Humans keep watch while vampires search for anything that seems routinely disturbed or very purposefully placed.”
“Be stealthy,” Kane added.
Like I would start stomping around with a dark wildling about.
“And stay within sight of the lake,” Dorian instructed. “We don’t want to get too far from each other, especially if those velek come this way.”
Leaving the redbills tucked behind the rocks, we split into groups. Kane, Arlonne, and Bryce walked away from Roxy, Sike, and Laini, spreading out along the bank of the lake, our dull clothing blending in with the rocks and grass and grayish dirt. I went with Dorian, not giving him the chance to disagree. He would have to feed soon, and then we would truly have to keep our distance. I wanted to take advantage of the time we had left. Everyone kept their eyes trained on the ground or the horizon, looking for clues and trouble.
Up close, the lake was a multicolored quilt of madness beneath the mist. In the area closest to us, it bubbled mint green. It brightened to yellow several yards toward the center, then darkened to orange, then red. It was odd to see bright colors in the usually drab landscape of the Immortal Plane. Some part of my brain convinced me that the water was whatever this plane’s equivalent of radioactive might be. My stomach rolled queasily. I pressed my lips together and tried to ignore the rotten-egg smell, but it only grew worse as we continued onward.
In a small dell filled with fuzzy, tangled vines a few dozen feet from the lake, thin white trees with mustard-yellow leaves dotted the area in a rough circle about forty feet wide. They looked like the Earth aspens I saw every fall. The leaves melted together for a moment, then jumped back. I rubbed my eyes. The grove flickered and refused to stay still, as if it didn’t want me to look at it. One second it looked like a proud circle of healthy trees and the next a ruined, rotten jumble. Another trick of the Immortal Plane.
As one, Dorian and I headed for the grove, keeping a respectable distance between us and the trees, stopping at the edge of the matted vines.
“I’m surprised to see a circle to the Mortal Plane here,” Dorian said quietly. “Whatever you do, don’t touch them.”
Instinctively, I curled my fingers into my hands. “Why?” I asked, my throat tight. After the redwoods, my trust in trees was running dangerously low.
“The hunters often set magical snares in the circles,” he said distractedly, casting his glacial eyes over the trees. Did they move for him? His eyes were focused as he searched for any sign of such danger. “This portal has been made inactive, and they’ve also trapped it.”
“How can you tell?” I asked, looking closer only for the trees to shimmer and waver. Dorian had warned us that this plane would challenge our human senses, but I felt frustrated with my reduced abilities in the Immortal Plane. It was like being a rookie on my first mission all over again.
Dorian dropped his voice. “This place was once a portal between the Immortal Plane and the Mortal Plane, like the stone circle in Scotland. But hunters have poisoned some of the trees and uprooted others. Concentrate and look closer at the trees. They’re long dead.”
I looked. Somehow, hearing him say it made it easier to see the grove. For an instant, as if catching a glimpse through the still water between rings of slow-moving ripples, I had a clear image. Most of the trees were rotten and twisted, others cracked in half like disposable chopsticks and left scattered in the open space of the circle. The reality of what I was looking at sent a chill of dread through me. The warm air did nothing for my goosebumps.
“So, we can’t use it anymore?” I asked.
He nodded. “The circles have to be whole and linked to both planes correctly, or they won’t work. The objects that form the circle, usually rocks or trees, exist in both planes at once, linked by the portal. They act like anchors or coordinates, allowing us to travel between planes safely.” His jaw tightened angrily. “The ruling caste knew these places were important for vampires. They set out to destroy or guard every single one, to catch and exterminate vampires coming and going.”
He tilted his head, then pointed. “Do you see a bluish rock at the base of one of the trees? It might take you a minute to find it.”
I looked, blinking to focus my vision, trying to see between the ripples like I had before. Eventually, I saw it—a small glow at the base of the largest tree. “I see it.”
“That’s part of the trap they’ve set on the circle. It powers a magical glamor that makes it look untouched. I imagine you’re struggling to see anything other than a perfect version of the grove, yes?”
I nodded. “It’s like it doesn’t want me to look at it too hard.”
“Exactly,” Dorian said. “The glamor makes it look like the circle hasn’t been tampered with, but if we were to step in there, we’d trigger a trap and either die immediately or be captured in something that would hold us until hunters arrived.”
I quietly considered the broken trees as I reflected on his words. This was a world with genuine magic, and it was used for evil like this. A seed of grief grew inside me.
“However,” he said, “it’s often possible to recognize when a glamor has been set on a circle. Can you see a kind of flickering?”
I nodded, twisting my mouth with uncertainty. “It’s like the edges of the trees here are off… like I’m looking at a regular image with 3-D glasses.” I took a beat, wondering if he would know what I meant by that. “Like I’m seeing a trick image.”
“It’s because the planes closely align in this area, so the barrier is thin here. You’re seeing through the barrier to the Mortal Plane for a fraction of a second, then focusing back on the Immortal Plane. All of that messes with the glamor and makes it flicker. It’s only dangerous if you’re not paying attention.”
It was a strange feeling to be so close to my plane yet unable to touch it. I tried once more to see the circle as it was here on the Immortal Plane—the broken version covered by the glamor—but I only managed it for a moment before the mix of magic and different planes exhausted my eyes and I had to give up. My nerves danced. Every fiber in my body felt like a small traitor. What kind of soldier was I if I couldn’t study my surroundings properly? I have to adapt and find out, I guess.
Dorian moved in my peripheral vision, his cloak like one of the dark human souls drifting to the ground.
“Lyra,” he said, his voice suddenly urgent. “Crouch and follow me. Head for the three rocks covered in vines.”
I turned to see him moving low to the ground toward three of the glass-like black rocks back near the lake that were slowly being covered by vines similar to those in the dell. I followed his lead, feeling a small sense of satisfaction as my training and skills kicked in. He wedged himself into a hollow at the base of the rocks, tugging me in at the last second before the velek herd crested the hillside. A shadowy figure moved among them.
I peeked between the wooly leaves, trying not to touch the vines. The velek, deer-like creatures that varied in size, made low rolling hums as they moved. One was the size of a small pig, the next the size of a buffalo. A baby and an adult? It was hard to tell. Their shaggy pelts were made of gray, green, and tangerine moss. The resem
blance to deer ended dramatically at the head. I studied their extra-long snouts, their wide mouths full of sharp canines and flat molars. I remembered what Arlonne had said about the velek being used to manage vegetation and pests. I suspected that while they mostly ate the grass and various things from the trees, given the chance they would eat anything else that didn’t move fast enough.
Their heads were topped with giant branching antlers like those of a moose. The antlers’ ends weren’t sharp but rounded like pieces of coral. I squinted to make out the shapes on the tips of the antlers and immediately wished that I hadn’t. Their antlers held human faces. It was as if a deranged sculptor had carved expressions of agony, grief, anger, and cruelty into the surface of each antler. Just below the antlers on the creatures, furry eyestalks extended from their strange snouts. Each stalk had a beady black eye at the end of it.
I instinctively pressed my fingers to my lips, making sure no sound of surprise escaped. Dorian tensed beside me as the herder came into view.
The wildling, a squat and stony creature that perhaps came up to my shoulder, moved through the herd. Nature had crafted the wildling from something that looked similar to the stones we were hiding between right now. The black glassy stone of its flesh would easily blend in with the shards of rock that littered the plains, making it difficult to spot.
The herd passed us. Beside me, Dorian’s hand brushed mine as we braced ourselves behind the vines, barely breathing. He dug his fingers into the ground, his lean face pale with hunger, resisting the urge to feed from the wildling only forty feet or so from where we were crouched. There was a pulse of heat against my chest as the leather bag containing Dorian’s stone began to warm. I winced, fumbling to pull it to rest outside of my shirt. There was no light, but the bag continued to grow hotter. I looked to Dorian, confused, but his eyes were clenched shut, his fangs descended out of a desperate need to feed.
One of the larger velek close to us—this one the size of a healthy horse—abruptly lifted its head. Unlike the other velek, it had a small teal gem embedded in its forehead. The surrounding flesh was swollen and raw, weeping a green ooze. Its eyestalks waved back and forth as it turned toward us, setting its snout to the ground. My stomach clenched. It sniffed along the exact path Dorian and I had taken to hide behind the vines.
Darklight 3: Darkworld Page 19
