Beyond the bugs, Darwin slipped through a doorway as it opened, the black flames dwindling down to nothing. Golden light lanced outward from within. Wherever the light fell upon the beetles, the creatures vanished in a puff of steam; wide swaths disappeared in an instant.
Atoi’s graceful twirls slowed to a standstill. “The skin creepers leave us,” she said, pointing.
Scurrying with surprising speed and precision, ordered rows of beetles climbed a column and vanished through the gaping eye sockets of carven beings wearing exotic clothes and headdresses. In a matter of seconds, the room cleared.
“Would you look at that?” Hastel asked no one in particular. “Wherever that light came from, we should go. I’m not at all certain we were winning.”
Crystalyn rubbed her temples. “Come, those we came for have opened a doorway,” she said, splashing through the small puddle her melting ice made.
Hastel passed by her, his crossbow cradled in his arm.
“If you get a shot at his manservant, take it. Leave Darwin to me,” Crystalyn told the grizzled warrior firmly. At least, she hoped her voice was firm. Her head ached so badly she couldn’t tell. Crystalyn leaned beside the door, giving it a moment to lessen.
“No! No one touches him. Darwin is for me alone,” Railee said.
Aching head or not, Crystalyn wasn’t going to argue. Forming her black net symbol without the spikes in the knots, she combined it with one that felt “sticky” under the heading defenses from the black-lettered Tiered Tome of Symbols and sent it hurling at Railee.
Plunked from the floor and hurled against the wall, the warrior woman grunted in surprise and pain. “Ungh… what have you done, betrayer? I cannot move naught but my feet. What have you done?” she repeated, her voice a snarl.
Crystalyn barely heard. Her head reeled. Weakness bloomed from her stomach. The sensation passed with a few pulses of her heart, allowing her to stay upright. “I don’t have the energy to keep you alive. Stay there and keep quiet,” Crystalyn croaked, her voice hoarse as she stepped through the wide doorway.
Railee’s shouts followed her into the room. “You cannot leave me like this, blast you! Cut me down! Long Sand, come back here! Somebody! Little girl, use your dagger, please!”
Hastel squatted behind a row of tall gilded urns. Grounding herself, Crystalyn again drew upon her symbols, weakening herself further in order to provide protection from magical attacks. Once her absorption symbol covered her, she swept it over Hastel, motioning for him to stand beside her. She sniffed. Her nose bled.
Together, they strode boldly between lustrous mounds of jewelry and past a two-wheeled, two-men abreast, horse-drawn contraption made from the precious metal, gold. They halted before a golden sarcophagus painted elaborately like the columns of a race of peoples unknown to her in the previous room.
Beyond the coffin, a gilded throne reflected golden light from a dazzling double-tipped half-spear hung high on the wall above it. Darwin straddled the arms of the throne, reaching for the Spear as Malkor watched oblivious to everything else but his master.
The red robe’s profile looked odd, the back of his head longer than it should be. Perhaps an illusion created from the shimmering light of the spear overhead. “Don’t touch it,” Crystalyn said calmly.
Facing the wall, Darwin froze, his arm outstretched upward. “You dare confront me?” he sneered without turning around.
Sniffing, Crystalyn prepared her acid wheel symbol in her mind, hoping she had the will to use it. “Don’t make me destroy you. We need to talk, you and I. You have much to explain.”
Darwin rose to the tip of his toes. “I explain nothing to no one,” he said softly. “Kill them, Malkor.” His outstretched hand closed upon the Spear.
Flaming red spikes flew from Malkor’s right hand, striking her absorption symbol. Dissolving on impact, the missiles had no effect.
Hastel’s answering bolt did, however. Flying straight and true from out of her barrier, it thumped into the red robe’s chest, sending him crashing into a mound of golden breastplates.
“Blast you!” Darwin’s shout preceded a shimmering ray of golden light emerging from the Spear and slamming into her symbol.
The shimmering light blew Crystalyn and Hastel amidst her barrier backward into the wheeled vehicle, pushing it through mounds of gold coin and urns before the two-wheeled contraption crashed into the far wall, rebounding into them. Swept from her feet, Crystalyn slammed to the floor, her hold on the symbol breaking from the impact of the coins.
“Do’brieni? Do’brieni! You have sustained injury!”
Crystalyn sent assurance of her survival into the link before toning down the connection, she needed to think. Something dug into her back.
How long she lay there, Crystalyn had no idea.
A moan drifted through her sense of hearing and comprehension. A little girl moan. Atoi. The child lay nearby, her eyes closed. Atoi’s small feet pointed the wrong direction, blood seeped from compound fractures on both blackened thighs, and her dress had burned away, creating a high hemline on both legs. Judging from the fractures, she’d taken the brunt of the horse-drawn vehicle, and a direct hit from the shimmering light going by the burns, or both.
Gathering her waning strength, Crystalyn crawled to the girl, her head and stomach remonstrating every movement with waves of wretched weakness that left her gasping for breath. Crystalyn despaired. The little girl’s wounds were grim. Likely, the sacroiliac joints on her lower spine had twisted. Certainly the ligaments that encased each joint had torn, though she couldn’t know with any degree of certainty without an internal look, which was beyond her.
Though her legs ached, Crystalyn couldn’t even check herself for damage, let alone the girl. Atoi would die. Why the little girl hadn’t died instantly was something Crystalyn’s overtaxed mind failed to comprehend.
Incredibly, Atoi’s eyes opened. The little girl sat up. The vivid emeralds that were her eyes stared at Crystalyn, unblinking.
Amazed, Crystalyn could only stammer. “I donnnn’t think you, you should move—”
Calmly, Atoi put her knuckles to the floor and lifted her tiny body, twisting her legs around until they faced the proper direction. No blood seeped from burns that had already faded. Lowering herself back to the floor, Atoi modestly pulled her dress as far as it would go over her upper, fast-healing thighs.
Long Sand strode into view. Several gashes on his arms and face trickled blood. Stopping beside Atoi, he looked down. “The legends have proven true,” he breathed. “The Dark Child keeps her eternal.”
The warrior woman, Railee, hobbled to a stop on Atoi’s other side. Someone had wrapped a shroudin around her left leg above the knee. “Onan’s light truly shines bright upon her,” she said, her voice soft.
“Here now, let’s not make such a fuss. This has happened a time or two,” Hastel said, stepping past Crystalyn. Offering his hand, he helped the little girl to her feet and then turned, his one eye gazing where Crystalyn lay. “Can you move, or be moved?” he asked. Of the four, his wounds appeared the most superficial, with only coin-sized bruises on his forearms and thick biceps.
Performing a quick cursory internal and external assessment, Crystalyn found no major damage other than she’d drained her energy reserves. No healing would be forthcoming from her for a day or two. Even then, she’d still have to exercise extreme caution. “Nothing broken, but I need a few moments before I dare stand. What of Darwin, have I lost him?”
Long Sand pointed toward the end of the room. A jagged-edged circular doorway gaped open to a late evening sky fading toward darkness. Gobs of melted stone dripped downward, glowing redly like the lava they’d crossed.
Crystalyn struggled to comprehend. “He had us helpless. Why would he leave us alive?”
“He has the great artifact he came here for, the Shimmer Spear,” Long Sand said. “Now perhaps, he desires to use it, to save its power for whatever malice he has in
mind for it. Or, the desire to gauge his manservant’s wound motivated him. Who can say for certain?”
Crystalyn frowned. “If that’s so, where did he go with them?”
“To the gateway,” Atoi said, matter-of-factly. The tone of her voice contained no trace of pain. She sounded normal. Well, as ordinary as Atoi, anyway.
“What gateway?”
“The gray one the spear holder keeps in his tent.”
As the little girl’s, the Dark Child’s, words sank in, Crystalyn smiled. Darwin Darkwind had made a serious mistake. He’d left them alive. He’d left her alive with a way to follow.
She would find him and end it.
HEART OF THE DARKNESS
Crystalyn’s first thought of Gray Dust was grungy, yet it had a certain appeal to it. Though the incessant ashen dust encrusted everything, the buildings had an appealing construction of gray or brown limestone trimmed with dark wood that loomed from the ever present gusting wind with grace and intricate carven beauty. The many people going about daily errands ranging from haggling with merchants, slipping furtively through the shadows of buildings and parked wagons, or strolling deep in conversation seemed used to the dust. No one had a cloth wrapped over the bridge of a nose.
After leaving the small cul-de-sac alley the somber gray gateway had dropped them in, Crystalyn has followed Hastel and Atoi out in the streets, not bothering to ask if they knew where they were going. They obviously did.
Motioning to the others, Crystalyn pulled the shroudin from her nose, letting it fall about her neck with reluctance. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled; the gray dust scent packed them so fast she coughed.
Long Sand’s face remained impassive, though there was a stark glare in his eyes for everything and anyone. Haggard men, despondent women, and even ragged emaciated children used to begging, moved away as they came close.
Railee’s brow crinkled as she gazed around, her darting blue eyes also rife with revulsion and distrust.
Broth’s great sienna head stayed low to the ground.
Atoi and Hastel had removed their facial wraps after leaving the gate. “When were you going to let the rest of us know when to remove these rags?” Crystalyn asked.
Atoi’s bland look was as expressionless as her smooth young face. “Only nomads or bandits wear shroudin in town. You should have known this once we left the Shimmering Sands Desert behind.”
Crystalyn shared a glare between both her oldest companion and her protector. Atoi had the distinction of being the youngest in the group, making her the oldest-youngest travel mate, but that did not give her the right to take liberties on what Crystalyn should know. “I’m well aware of the reason why one wears a head cloth in that stinging sand-filled withering desert the nomads call home. I have never been to Gray Dust, so how would I know the customs here? The big question is, why haven’t either of you mentioned you’ve journeyed to this wonderfully filthy city of Gray Dust before?”
Atoi blinked slowly, her expression as unreadable as ever.
Hastel looked like he’d had to swallow some of the dust floating around, which wouldn’t surprise anyone considering how much drifted about stirred from the passing of many feet. “My apologies, Mistress, one tends to forget you are new to this world. On horseback, you would disgrace anyone, and you always seem as if you know where you’re going.”
Crystalyn ignored the praise. Nevertheless, it was nice hearing it from a warrior who had long been comfortable riding, and leading, or both. “So you admit to knowing your way around?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. “Where’s the best inn in this dust haven? I require a bath, then a real meal after that. And make it better quality than Staunch the Flow Inn.”
“That would undoubtedly be the Quench Quarters,” Hastel replied hastily.
Perhaps too quickly. Crystalyn looked at him sharply. “We’re not here to drink ale all night,” she warned.
Hastel blinked. His one visible eyelid opened and closed slowly. “Aye, mistress, I had no intentions of imbibing the night through,” he said, his voice mild.
“You will keep it to a minimum, is that clear? I can’t have the militia detaining us here. Darwin is getting farther away.”
His one eye brightening, Hastel glared, though he looked away when Crystalyn matched it with one of her own. “As you say, Mistress,” he mumbled over his shoulder.
Crystalyn kept a smile of satisfaction from showing. “Good. I want everyone to stay alert. Who knows how many contacts Darwin has here? He may already know we’ve arrived.”
Railee’s serious features grew more solemn at the mention of Darwin’s name. “The Quench Quarters should serve our needs, Mistress Crystalyn. Expect me there after inquiring of my contacts for word of the betrayer. Do I have your leave?”
“Go inquire. If he’s not here, I want to know by morning, early—where we can catch up to him.”
Railee gave a slight nod and then departed.
Taking the Red Rock warrior woman’s place, Long Sand strode beside her. Crystalyn took the opportunity to ask him something she’d been wondering. “Who’s leading your people, Sand Reader, if you’re here with us?”
“The Searing Sun sect follows me still; my plea for release met denial inside the tent of the elders at the great sun’s rise before we departed the Valley of Forgotten Kings. Irun, our strongest, leads the sect’s swiftest to this place. My people come to band with you. Their arrival is in two days hence.”
Crystalyn was startled. “Huh? Why would they want to join me? I chase a dangerous man.”
“The great lord’s magic is strong, but your power is believed higher. After I recited the events inside the monolithic tomb while you slept the sleep of healing, the elders have acknowledged the debt of service I declared in the desert. The sect travels the path of the Creek Clan.”
Crystalyn consciously reminded herself to close her open mouth. She’d pushed the matter of the Searing Sun clan’s debt to her from her mind when they left the Valley of Forgotten Kings, figuring the matter closed. “I’m not certain we’ll be around when your people arrive. Darwin will decide that. I can’t let him get away, not this time.”
“Then I leave word of our destination. The sect shall follow.”
“And what of the bloody merchant Guail, have you executed him?”
Long Sand hesitated, his blue eyes penetrating. “I await your word. His actions are perplexing though. He claims no recollection of the event, and his movements are stiff. Perhaps you injured him worse than believed.”
“What of his retinue of followers and slaves? Have they been freed to go where they will?”
Long Sand flashed a brief smile, his white teeth bright upon his white-skinned, handsome face. “They were informed of their freedom. Nearly all have chosen to follow the way of the Creek clan.”
Crystalyn bit back a groan. The merchant had many wagons. All those lives to cause her worry for their well-being. She’d traded the large Valen refugee force for one-half again as large, all the nomads of a sect. How would she find food and lodging for them as she hunted for a man? What about when the search ended, after destroying Darwin? What then?
Except, Crystalyn hadn’t traded the refugees, not in any real sense of the word. The entire people of the Vale awaited her at the outskirts of Brown Recluse, not far from where they were. What would she do with everyone? Yet another detail for her to store under her list of things to take care of.
“With your leave, Sect Mother, I shall ask with discretion around the city for interactions or sightings of the great lord. Perhaps wind of him and his servant shall come with haste, particularly if I perform a reading,” Long Sand said.
“Granted. I want him found. But tell me, why do you call him great lord? You no longer have to bestow such a high honorific on him,” Crystalyn asked. Then something he said struck her. “Did you just say sect mother?”
Long Sand smiled, though he continued to glare at all who passed them as he repl
ied, which made him look even more menacing. “The great lord commanded no one call him by that title. Now he shall carry it to the grave and beyond with the sect.”
Executing a quick bow without missing a stride, his hard look relented briefly as he gazed at her. “As leader, you are sect mother with… certain duties. I shall report to you at the tavern.” Inclining his head a final time, Long Sand strode away, the crowds scattering before him.
Crystalyn gave a small shake of her head. The nomads were an odd people, Long Sand in particular. What duties had he meant? Crystalyn had her own agenda and questions. “What is a sand reading?” she called after him, but he’d moved beyond hearing.
Hastel dropped back beside her. “Allow me to answer, mistress. Though I’m no expert when it comes to such a taciturn people, I have viewed the readings with my own eyes a time or two.”
“Eyes?”
“Yes, back then, I still gazed upon great Astura with both naïve orbs.”
Crystalyn smiled warmly. “I wish I’d been there to see it. When was back then?”
Hastel coughed. “Hmmm, that is a tale for another time, should it arise. Where were we? Oh yes, a reading from one of the nomad sand readers—there are only a few, it involves a life of constant training and much ability with the Flow. They use it sparingly…” Hastel said, trailing off.
Swiveling his curly, brown-haired head back and forth, he looked for Atoi. He found her as they rounded a corner. The small girl strolled ahead, moving onto a wide busy street where wagons pulled by horses and oxen jostled with covered carriages. Threading through the chaos, townspeople on foot moved to and from whatever errand betook them.
“Sand reader?” Crystalyn prompted.
Hastel jumped, though she hadn’t spoken loud. “My apologies, mistress, a sand reader can glean a lot from something given, discarded, or a plucked personal item, even something as tiny as a grain of sand that has ridden in a beard or hair line for only a few bells. A reader gathers knowledge of the person the longer the association is with the previous owner.’
Beyond the Dark Gate Page 36
