And then he was there, forging into her, laying claim to the gentle territory he would master. Kalena cried out in the moment of complete possession and dimly heard an answering shout of passion and masculine surrender mingled with triumph. Now they were one. Male and female joined together in a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts. The Paradox of the Spectrum in its most glittering manifestation.
Opposites that could attract. Opposites that could destroy. Opposites that could meld into a union so powerful it could create new life. The wonder of it stopped the world for a timeless instant.
And then Kalena opened her eyes.
Ridge was still standing on the other side of the fire, his whole body taut with triumphant satisfaction, his eyes lit with the wonder of losing himself in his woman.
Kalena knew then that he had shared the strange lovemaking with her in his mind. It was over, yet he still fought a savage battle. She could see it in every inch of his lean, powerful frame.
What battle was he fighting? Kalena wondered silently. Then it came to her with violent impact that he fought to control his Key, just as she must struggle to control hers. If they did not control them, they would destroy each other and the new life they had created. Their survival depended on the battle they must each fight with the Keys.
The reality of what she had come close to doing with the Light Key shook Kalena to her heart, cutting through the intense sense of exultant power. Some of the glittering effects of the trance that gripped her wavered.
A part of her distantly realized what was happening. If she used the Key, she would not merely humble Ridge, she would destroy him completely.
She could not destroy the man she had come here to save. He was the father of her child, her husband, the man to whom she had bound herself. Her destiny.
What was she doing? She had not come here to kill him.
Dazed, she watched as he gripped the Key he held in both hands. She knew the thing was causing him pain and she sensed that he was fighting to control it. The Light Key shimmered with energy, demanding to have that energy released. The heat of the Key was reaching out for her, acting on her, consuming her. Soon it would control her totally.
Unless she controlled it first.
But that was unheard of. No one could control the Keys. That was why they had been locked away for centuries. The wisdom of the ages was useless now. The Keys had been freed, and unless she found a way to handle hers, Kalena knew she would wind up killing Ridge. She fought for breath and put both hands around the flaming handle.
The heat was incredible. It was alive, turning on her, trying to dominate her, consume her. White heat flared along her nerve endings. She had to cool the Key or it would blaze completely out of control. She was an untrained Healer, but she could look inside herself and find the answers she needed.
No Sand burned to light her way, but the Key contained within it all the power of all the Sand that had ever existed. Kalena closed her eyes and breathed in the heat that filled the air around her. The world shuddered. There was a dazzling veil waiting to be lifted. She must find a way to lift it. Inside her mind Kalena reached out to grasp the veil and pull it away. For an instant there was resistance. She didn’t think she could manage the feat. And then the veil disappeared.
The answer was evident at once.
The only solution was to cool the white fire of the Light Key the way a Healer cooled a fever, the way she had more than once cooled the raging anger in Ridge. She was the daughter of the House of the Ice Harvest. Deep within her was the power of ice, the power to drain the heat from the fire. It was her heritage to control the Key, not be used by it. Eyes closed, Kalena began to concentrate on the flaming Key.
Raw energy arced between the two Keys and traveled up the arms of those who held them. Lightning flashes of fire and ice flared and flashed around Kalena and Ridge. The glass chamber shook with the sound of a scream, but the anguished protest didn’t come from either Ridge or Kalena; they had no strength left to spare for anything but controlling the Keys.
The shriek echoed eerily through the cavern and was quickly followed by another. Kalena opened her eyes to find herself looking directly into Ridge’s golden gaze. He had circled the fire and was standing only a short distance from her now. The Key in his hand was changing color. Kalena could see that Ridge was trembling with the force of the energy he sought to contain.
She didn’t know who had screamed. Vaguely she realized that the cries must have come from the members of the cult; certainly Ridge had not made a sound. Ridge’s mouth was set in a thin, determined line, and his eyes were gleaming with the fire that raged within him. Even as Kalena watched some of that fire seemed to touch the icy black Key in his hand. It began to glow faintly with the same hue as the sintar when it reflected Ridge’s temper.
Kalena caught her breath as the Key she held flared for a moment and then began to coalesce. Slowly the white flames congealed, leaving behind a white metallic object that was noticeably cooler.
The screams came again, and this time Kalena knew they were screams of rage. But none of the hooded men dared come forth. Apparently, the power of the Keys was enough to keep them at bay.
“You will not deny us our triumph!” Griss’ agonized cry filled the room. “Destroy her, Fire Whip. It is what you are meant to do. It is the only reason you have been spared. Set the Darkness free to consume her and the Key. Set it free!”
Ridge was watching Kalena, his eyes fastened on hers as if she were the only important thing in the universe. She could not tear her gaze from his as they both struggled to restrain the power in the Keys.
“I don’t know how long I can control it, Ridge.” Her husky words came through dry lips.
“Long enough,” he said hoarsely. “Just long enough.” He forced himself to turn to one side, moving with obvious effort back to where he had dropped the black case. The short walk seemed to have exhausted him. He fell to his knees, the Key held high overhead in his clenched hands. His mouth was set in a grim twist and the fire in his eyes was molten.
“By the Stones!” Ridge cried, his shout drowning out the sounds of rage filling the chamber even as he drove the Key point down into the black glass floor.
A sudden, violent cracking sound exploded in the room.
“No!” Griss screamed as if he had been personally attacked. “Damn you to the end of the Spectrum, no!”
Kalena, still struggling with her Key, watched in horror as a long, thin crack appeared in the center of the floor. It began at the point where Ridge still knelt, his shoulders hunched as he gasped for breath. It seemed to pass directly through the bowl of fire and continue on the far side, snaking toward Kalena.
Ridge staggered to his feet, snatching up the black case. With what was obviously one last burst of willpower, he thrust the Key into the case.
Kalena had just time enough to see that the Dark Key was still glowing faintly with the warmth Ridge had infused into it before the lid snapped shut with an awful finality.
Shouts of rage and a curious, truly horrible agony ricocheted around the glass chamber. Hooded figures lurched toward Kalena and Ridge, coming as close as they dared. But it was clear they could still not touch either of them. Kalena clung to her Key, aware that the driving force in it was finally fading. She could and would control it. She sought with her toe along the floor for the silvered box. She found it just as Ridge shoved his Key, case and all, into the bowl of flames that burned in the center of the room.
Instantly, there was another sharp splintering sound and the long jagged line in the floor began to widen as several smaller, spidery lines grew outward from it. There was nothing but endless darkness in the major crack. A deep cold seemed to reach upward from the bottomless pit below.
“Run, Kalena, the room is going to shatter!”
“Not without you, Ridge. I’ll be damned if I’ll leave without you after having gone through all this!” Her foot collided with the silvered box and she grabbed it, thr
usting the now cooling Light Key inside and snapping shut the lid. Almost at once she felt completely in control of herself again. The relief made her dizzy.
Another harsh, fracturing noise filled the room. Kalena looked down to find herself straddling the far end of the deep crack that stretched beneath the fire pit. Cowled figures moved forward, hands outstretched to take hold of her.
“Ridge!”
“Hold on to the Key. They can’t touch you as long as you’ve got the Key” He was racing toward her now as more cracks appeared in the black glass. The firelight seemed to blaze higher, bouncing furiously off the glassy surfaces of the room. The members of the Cult of the Eclipse were screaming uselessly, milling around in a strange panic.
“Which way?” Kalena glanced around helplessly.
“I saw some of them come through the glass over there earlier.” He indicated a blank wall of glass that hadn’t yet begun to shatter. “They left a lamp on the floor to mark the door. Come on, let’s get out of here.” Ridge put out a hand to grab Kalena’s arm and swore in savage disgust. His hand fell aside and he shook it as if it had been painfully injured. “I can’t touch you. Figures. Come on, move! Stay close to me.”
He led the way toward the far glass wall. Even as they ran, the black glass ahead of them trembled and began to splinter. Kalena saw the flat, reflective surface shatter, revealing a dark opening behind it. Ridge grabbed up the lamp that had been left on the floor and stood back to make sure that Kalena got through the jagged tunnel entrance.
“Hurry,” he snapped. “This glass is going to be down on us any second.”
Kalena moved to obey, clinging to her Key case.
“You can’t escape!” Griss’ voice was a sobbing cry of anguish and fury behind them. “You must not leave. You cannot leave!”
He lunged for Kalena, black robes flying around him. For a moment he looked like some evil bird trying to score her with talons. Kalena glanced back in fear, wondering if the man’s blind fury would be enough to get him past the protection the Key case seemed to provide.
But suddenly Ridge was between her and Griss, moving with a lethal swiftness that Kalena knew would end in death for the man who had once made the mistake of calling her whore. A wave of shocked sickness washed through her. She wanted to cry out, to tell Ridge that she was safe enough with the Key in her hands, but there was no chance. Kalena knew she couldn’t have stopped him, even if she were able to get the words out of her constricted throat.
He was her other half, her opposite, the dark side of life. Ridge could kill.
There was a blur of motion as Ridge’s hand moved. Griss screamed again, his cloak swirling outward to surround both himself and Ridge. For an instant the two men seemed to be trapped together in a violent embrace, and then they both sprawled on the floor. Ridge and Griss rolled twice, Ridge winding up on the bottom. Kalena couldn’t see much else because of the enveloping folds of the cloak. Then she heard a keening scream that ended with nerve shattering abruptness.
Both of the thrashing figures went abnormally still. Kalena couldn’t move. The lengthening crack in the floor snaked forward another few meters until it ran under the two men.
“Ridge! Get away from there. Hurry, the floor is opening. There is nothing underneath.”
Ridge was already kicking himself free of the dead Griss and the tangle of the cloak. He got to his feet, his sintar in one hand. Kalena realized he must have taken it from Griss and used it on the other man. In the fiery light that danced around the room she could see that the blade of the weapon was red. This time the color wasn’t from Ridge’s fury. The steel was red with Griss’ blood.
Ridge rushed toward her, grabbing up the fallen lamp. “I told you to get out of here.”
“Yes, Ridge.” This was not the time to explain again that she couldn’t leave without him. Kalena was already turning back toward the yawning darkness of the waiting tunnel when she saw the central crack in the floor widen abruptly. Griss’ body hovered for a moment on an edge of fractured glass and then, with a terrible inevitability, it tumbled into the black chasm.
“The tunnel, Kalena!”
She breathed deeply, trying to quiet her pounding pulse, and moved through the opening in the cracked and shattered glass. Ridge was right behind her. Safe in the corridor, he stopped Kalena for an instant. Unable to help themselves, they both glanced back into the glass chamber. Stunned, they watched as the bowl of searing fire fell from sight and the remainder of the glass floor disintegrated. The fire pit with its hidden secret disappeared into a yawning black chasm. Several shrieking cultists fell with it, their cries echoing horribly.
“Dammit to the Dark end of the Spectrum.” Ridge’s words were almost inaudible.
“Ridge, what is it?” Kalena glanced at him, more alarmed than ever. He was staring past her into the disintegrating room.
“Someone else found a way out. I saw a lamp disappear into a wall on the other side of the room.” He shook off the obvious anger that threatened to consume him and swung around. “Maybe it was just my imagination. It doesn’t matter. There is nothing that can be done. We have to get out of here.”
Ridge swung around, made another futile effort to grasp Kalena’s arm, and swore furiously again when he was unable to touch her. “Now we’ve got a small problem on our hands.” He stared into the blackness of the tunnel.
Kalena turned her back on the destruction of the glass room and followed his gaze. The light from the lamp Ridge was holding didn’t penetrate very far.
“I don’t think this is the main entrance. The way Griss and the others brought me was well lit,” Kalena observed anxiously.
“I know. But some of the cult members came this way. I saw them enter the room. There was a lamp to mark this exit.”
Kalena swallowed. “I suppose you realize how lost we could get in these caves?”
“The thought has crossed my mind.” He started forward cautiously. “We can’t go back into that damn glass chamber, though. We’re going to have to try to find our way out using this corridor. And we’d better move quickly. There’s no telling how far that chasm will open. It could splinter half this mountain.”
“No.” Kalena spoke with a conviction that surprised her as much as it did Ridge. “It won’t do that. It’s gone about as far as it’s going to go. We’re safe from it now.”
Ridge glanced back at her, scowling. “How do you know that?”
She looked down at the case in her hands. “I just know.”
He opened his mouth as if to argue, and then appeared to change his mind. He eyed the silvery case. “Maybe you do. Anything else useful you can tell us?”
“Perhaps.” She stroked the case in her hand. “This is a thing of light, not darkness.”
“I know.” He sounded impatient.
She raised her eyes. “It’s possible it might lead us to the outside.”
“How?”
Kalena shook her head. “I…I’m not sure. But now that the Dark Key has vanished, this case no longer feels pulled toward it. It feels free again and I think that it will be drawn toward light. It belongs back in the ice cave above the valley, not here.”
“Kalena, are you trying to tell me you’re in touch mentally with that damn Key?”
“Not exactly.” She hesitated, seeking a way to explain something she didn’t understand herself. “But I feel the pull of it. Earlier that pull was toward the Dark Key. There was a drive to destroy it. But now it’s a different sensation. It’s a weak sensation, though. Perhaps if I took the Key out of the case again—”
“No!” Ridge’s refusal to even consider such an action was clear in the single word.
Kalena nodded. “Yes, it would be dangerous. And maybe unnecessary. I can still feel a faint sensation, even through the case.” She looked up again. “Do you want to risk having me try to lead us out of here with this?”
Ridge stared at her for a long moment, and abruptly nodded his head. “All right. We haven’t got muc
h to lose, have we? Go ahead. Give it a try. I’ll count our steps. Whenever we come to a turn in the tunnels, we’ll try to leave a marker of some kind. With any luck we might at least be able to find our way back to this point if we decide we’re not making any progress. There has to be an exit out of this corridor, but it might take a lot of trial and error to find it.”
Kalena closed her eyes and tried to concentrate on the quiet warmth emanating from the silvery casket in her hands. For a long moment she felt nothing beyond a gentle, comfortable heat.
She experimented by deliberately turning to walk back along the corridor toward what remained of the now ominously silent glass chamber. Almost instantly she was aware of a faint resistance. When she swung around and started in the other direction, the resistance faded.
“It feels different when I go in this direction, Ridge. It feels right, somehow.”
“Let’s get going. Watch your step. There’s always the possibility that the cult set a few traps.”
“Why should they? These caves are enough of a trap in themselves.”
“Mmm.” He didn’t sound convinced. “Just the same, don’t get ahead of the lamplight and let me check the corners before you go around them. The last thing we need to run into tonight is a hook viper.”
“I think they’ve all fled,” Kalena murmured. “Probably didn’t appreciate the invasion of their caverns.”
They walked for what seemed like hours, although Kalena knew it wasn’t really that long. Around each bend in the passage she hoped to find lamps that would indicate the new corridor was one of those used frequently by the Cult of the Eclipse. Ridge stayed close, keeping a silent tally of their footsteps and building small pyramids of pebbles every time they started down a new passage.
Whenever a choice of direction was offered Kalena halted, closed her eyes and tried to sense the Key’s emanations of warmth. Whenever the warmth dimmed, she opted for a different direction. It was a tedious process, tiring mentally as well as physically. Kalena had a silent fear that she was only imagining the slight changes in temperature that came from the case in her hands. She wondered whether she ought to warn Ridge that she might be working on sheer imagination. No sense bothering him with that bit of useless news, she told herself.
LC02 Crystal Flame Page 30
