The ground rumbled beneath the group’s feet and began to pitch and buck again. Aliisza fought the urge to assume her natural form and rise upon her wings to escape the unsteady ground. Instead, she grabbed hold of the girl’s arm to help hold her steady.
“We have to get out of here,” she said, looking at both Kaanyr and Kael. “Where’s Tauran?”
Kael opened his mouth to answer her, but his eyes grew wide as he spotted something over Aliisza’s shoulder. “There!” he shouted, showing a hint of a smile.
All of them turned to look where Kael pointed. A handful of angelic creatures hovered over the open field. Tauran was among them, along with several of the larger, more silvery creatures who had sat in judgment at Aliisza’s trial. It felt very long ago to the alu, but a feeling of dread still washed over her at the memory.
The angels had opened some kind of glowing, pearlescent portal and were motioning and guiding the villagers through. The folk crowded around the magical doorway, pushing to get through to safety as their island home shook and rocked, tilting farther and farther to one side.
The angle had grown sharp enough that Aliisza found herself digging her heels into the soil to keep from sliding. They didn’t have much time left.
Tauran spotted them and flew over. “Is this the last of them?” he asked, motioning toward the young girl and her smaller companion. “Is anyone else still here?”
Aliisza shrugged, but beside her, Kael shook his head. “We’re the last,” he said. “Everyone else is already over there.” He indicated the portal with a jerk of his head.
“Then let’s go,” the angel said, grabbing the girl and boy in his arms and hugging them close. “This whole place is falling apart.”
Even as he spoke, a series of horrific, ear-shattering pops and booms reverberated around them, and great crevices formed in the rock. Massive shards of stone sliced upward as other chunks crumbled and fell, leaving gaping fissures. The ground became a morass of fragmented, churning stone, some parts caving in as others surged skyward. The remaining buildings of the village shivered and crumpled.
The young girl screamed, and Tauran shoved himself into the air and fanned his wings wide. He carried his two charges aloft, with Kaanyr, Kael, and Aliisza all close behind.
“To the portal!” the angel shouted to be heard over the roaring wind and shattering stone.
The four fliers winged their way toward the opening watched over by a pair of majestic solars. The gateway no longer rested upon solid ground, but instead hovered in the open air. Tauran shot through the portal first, and the rest followed him. As Aliisza reached the mouth of the doorway, she paused and turned back to gaze at what was left of the great floating island.
It had fallen far beneath them by that point, nothing more than a cascade of tumbling rock, soil, and vegetation. It disappeared into a thick layer of cloud that spread out below them.
She wondered if anything sat below the falling detritus. For a brief moment, she thought of actually soaring after it, just to make sure. Then she realized what she was contemplating and shook some sense back into herself.
Someone else’s problem, she told herself. You’ve done enough rescuing for one day.
Turning back to the doorway, she darted through, and the two solars followed close behind.
Chapter Four
Myshik found the descent through the earth unsettling. It wasn’t the magic itself; his draconic heritage had made him used to that. No, he did not mind most preternatural exercises. But sliding through solid rock was something new.
The half-dragon felt neither substantial nor ethereal. He couldn’t find a word that quite described it. Regardless, the spell that Tekthyrios had employed was strange.
It’s as though the rock slides through me, he decided.
Once the celestial guards had been dispatched, the storm dragon had instructed Myshik to enter the cave and seek an inscribed circle upon the ground. The symbol was easy to spot, and once Myshik stood within it, Tekthyrios engaged the magic.
The half-dragon began to sink into the ground immediately, as though it had turned to quicksand. But it did not suffocate him, and once over the initial fear, Myshik found the journey fascinating.
He descended for several moments then suddenly found himself falling through a white void. He engaged his wings on instinct, struck the bottom of the vacancy without much force, and settled easily into a crouch. Myshik tried to peer around, but a bright, pearlescent glow surrounded him, and he was forced to squint as his eyes adjusted. At last, the draconic hobgoblin’s vision returned, and he could examine his surroundings.
Another figure drew his attention. It lay huddled near his feet, unmoving. It faced away from him, so he could not discern the nature of the creature, other than to note that it was a humanoid dressed in a simple brown robe and had long, rather unhealthy hair.
Myshik felt over his shoulder for the handle of his axe to reassure himself, then he began to examine the place.
He discovered that he stood at the bottom of a perfect sphere, and the glow of light seemed to radiate from the walls, indeed the entire inner surface of the room. The chamber was not very large, perhaps only ten paces in diameter. Utterly devoid of any furnishings or features, it would have proven to be a rather mind-numbing prison, should he have found himself trapped there.
A cursed existence, the half-hobgoblin thought, glancing again at the figure.
Is she there? the storm dragon’s voice inquired, bouncing around in Myshik’s head as his father’s and uncle’s once had.
Yes, he answered. She?
Indeed, came the reply. Wake her, but do it gently. She has been there a long time and may not know what to make of a visitor, especially one of your … um, countenance.
As you wish. Myshik stepped closer to the figure.
Fighting the urge to grip his axe, the half-dragon knelt down beside the figure. He reached one clawed hand out and tapped the woman once, softly, on the shoulder.
She did not budge.
Myshik tapped again, then he took hold of her shoulders and shook her.
With a shriek, the woman rose up lightning fast, turning with fingers outstretched. She lunged at Myshik, who fell back involuntarily from her unexpected onslaught.
Her wrinkled and pale face framed eyes as black as midnight that burned with hatred, or perhaps insanity. Her gray hair hung in long, limp clumps around her face and nearly down to her waist. Her breath smelled foul, and Myshik could see only a few cracked, yellowed teeth as she sucked in air for another scream.
She came at him where he had sprawled, hands outstretched to throttle him or claw his eyes out. He let her momentum carry her forward, over his own body, then used his feet to propel her past himself. She soared beyond him and struck the sloping side of the sphere with a gasp and a thud.
She’s enraged! the half-dragon said as he clambered to his feet. Wants to rend me! How do I stop her without maiming her?
There was a soft laugh in his head not of his own mind’s making. She is harder to maim than you might imagine, came the answer. Speak to her. Call her name. Kashada.
Myshik turned to face the crazed woman and saw her gathering herself for another charge. Her face contorted in rage or fear, and her eyes glazed with it. The half-dragon doubted she would make sense of his words.
“Kashada!” he called out. “I am not here to hurt you!”
The woman shrieked and rushed at him, her fingers bent into the shape of claws. She reached for his face, his eyes, but the draconic hobgoblin leaped high and used his wings to gain even more elevation. Her pell-mell charge overbalanced her, and she stumbled into a heap against the opposite slope of the sphere.
Myshik dropped deftly to the surface once more. “Kashada!” he said, more forcefully. “Hear me! I have come to take you from this prison! Let me help you!”
Kashada whirled, staggered like a drunken thing, and glared at her would-be rescuer. “Shadows!” she screamed at him. “There are no sha
dows!” She swayed where she stood and began to sob, clenching her eyes shut in misery.
Her mind is lost, Myshik thought, projecting to Tekthyrios. She has no reason left. She screams of there being no shadows.
Of course! Tekthyrios said. How clever. Myshik, you must create a shadow for her. You can restore her mind if you can show her a shadow. Do it!
The half-dragon scowled, looking around the sphere. He had not noticed it before, but with light glowing from the entire inner surface, no shadows were cast anywhere. He could see no way to shield any area from the light.
Kashada howled, a forlorn wailing that reminded Myshik of the jackals in the great desert of Anauroch, singing to the moon at night. She kept her eyes closed, uninterested in attacking him further.
A thought struck Myshik. Working quickly, he removed his cloak and draped it upon the lowest point of the sphere, essentially the floor. He reached into an inner pocket and pulled out an oblong bundle. Unwrapping it, the half-dragon produced a glowing, prism-shaped white crystal twice as thick as his thumb and as long as his hand. He knelt down upon his cloak and held the crystal over it. He placed his other hand between the glow of the crystal and the dark cloth of the cloak. A faint shadow formed there.
“Kashada,” Myshik called. “Look, a shadow.”
The crone’s eyes flew open, and she ceased her wailing. She stared at Myshik for a moment, cocking her head from side to side like some predatory bird. Then she spied the light in his hands, and the patch of darkness he had created. She shrieked in delight and rushed forward. Myshik flinched, expecting her to strike at him again, but instead she knelt down, cooing softly.
“Darker,” she demanded, still staring at the shadow. “It must be darker. Make it darker!” she finished with a scream.
Myshik frowned, uncertain. Then inspiration struck. He rose to his feet again and loomed over the crystal, blocking as much of the sphere’s light as he could with his body.
The shadow of his hand upon the cloak deepened.
“Yes!” Kashada shouted in triumph. Her voice had changed. It was stronger, less shrill. “You’ve done it!” Then the woman lunged forward and dived at the hand-shaped area of darkness.
Before Myshik’s eyes, she melted into the shadow and vanished.
Tauran rested upon his favorite protrusion of stone, high above the Lifespring. He sat a pace away from the edge, leaning back against a towering pinnacle of rock pointed skyward like a poniard. A tumbling waterfall roared next to him, emerging from a cleft in the cliff face and plunging over the side of the protrusion, out of sight.
“We should be inside!” Micus said, shouting to be heard. The other angel sat next to Tauran, huddled against the spire of rock, trying to avoid of the worst of the wind. “Why in the Hells are we out here in this?”
Tauran ignored his friend and crawled toward the end of the protrusion. The howling, lashing storms whipped the spray from the churning torrent, peppering him with a fine, cool mist. The dampness made the stone beneath his hands and feet slick. The wind tore at his tunic as if it wanted to rip him from the precipice and carry him away. Ignoring the gale, Tauran reached the edge and peered over.
It was a long drop.
The spire behind him rose as the tallest, most impossibly thin peak in a high, sharp ridge of jagged, jutting stone. The ridge formed a deep basin surrounding the Lifespring on three sides. Most days, the waters shimmered in golden sunlight, a tranquil pool of divine healing magic. That day, they churned and frothed in a blue-gray maelstrom covered in whitecaps.
Tauran could barely see the distant shore, where the water spilled over a lower lip of the ridge to other basins even farther below. Remnants of clouds, shredded and reformed by the whipping wind, slashed across his view, giving the whole plane an eerie, translucent look.
Tauran crawled back to his friend. “Do you remember the first time you asked me about diving off here?” he asked Micus. “Right before I began teaching you how to do it?”
The other angel frowned but nodded. “Yes,” he replied. “Right before we tried to save that marilith’s child. What of it?”
“Do you remember what you asked me that day?”
Micus shook his head. “Something about why you did it. But it was a long time ago.”
Tauran nodded. “That’s right. I told you that I did it to remind me that the easiest path is not always the right one, and that I must remain vigilant against complacency. Right?”
“I suppose so,” Micus answered, his face filled with doubt. Then his eyes widened. “You’re not actually planning to—you must be mad!”
Tauran held his hand up, gesturing for his old friend to relax. “No,” he said. “I’m not mad. No diving for either of us today.”
Micus sagged back in relief. “Good,” he said. “Because if you tried, then I’d know you had lost your way.”
“That’s just it, though,” Tauran said. “I feel like what I face right now, with Aliisza and Vhok, is just like diving off this precipice. The easy thing would be to remit them to the High Council, let them lock the fiends away, and move on to other things.”
“Sounds like a fine plan to me,” Micus said dryly. “And the one I’m advising you to go with.”
“But don’t you see? That’s the easy path. It’s the safe path. I don’t think it’s the right path.” Please understand me, old friend, he thought. You of all my companions might recognize what I’m trying to say.
Micus was silent for a moment, then said, “Sometimes, we need others, wiser than ourselves, to tell us which path to follow. Sometimes, like young children, we try to climb over boulders in the road, rather than go around them. Why does every path have to be hard?”
“They don’t,” Tauran admitted. Tyr knows I wish this one weren’t so hard. “But diving off these rocks was supposed to remind me to stay vigilant against growing complacent. That means recognizing when the harder route is the right one.”
Micus sat without speaking for another moment. “It sounds as though you’ve already made up your mind, Tauran,” he said at last. “You’ve already decided what you’re going to do, and nothing I say will change your decision.”
“Perhaps,” Tauran said. Yes, he admitted to himself. I have.
“Then what do you want from me?” Micus asked. “What purpose can I possibly serve by sitting out here in this wretched storm?”
I need you to believe in me, Tauran thought. I need you to tell me that I’m not trying to dive off this cliff right now. Because that’s what this feels like. “I just wanted you to understand that I’m clear headed, steady in my faith,” he said aloud. “I just wanted you to know that I believe in my heart that something is profoundly wrong with the universe right now, and I can see it, even where others cannot.”
“Tauran,” Micus said. His voice was odd, almost warning his friend. “I can’t support what I don’t believe in. We have existed with Tyr’s laws for millennia, and they have served all who dwell within this realm quite well. Right now, at this moment, when so much else is in turmoil, is the very time to uphold them. That is how they endure, how we survive.”
“I know,” Tauran said, suddenly feeling very tired.
“You want to bend one rule, and then another, and another. You claim that it’s because you see some catastrophe on the horizon, and you intend to stop it, but what if the very catastrophe you envision is the result of your own misguided transgressions? What if some calamity does befall the House, and it all could have been avoided if you had just adhered to the rules?”
Tauran held his hands up in despair. “It is always possible,” he admitted. “I cannot foresee the outcomes any better than you.” That’s why I feel like I’m standing on the edge of this maelstrom, ready to throw myself over. “But every way I look at this, I see the same thing. Every part of my body just feels that I am right.”
It was Micus’s turn to throw his hands up. “We are not creatures of gut instincts and intuitive guesswork, Tauran. Watching you place so
much emphasis on ‘feelings’ troubles me more than anything. As far as I’m concerned, the path is clear. There is no deliberation necessary. The law is the law, and we are bound to abide by it.”
Tauran nodded, staring at the wet rock before him. “I understand,” he said. He felt a great sadness wash over him. “You would handle this differently. I had hoped you would see my viewpoint, had hoped that all these years of diving together from this point had allowed us to share some common insight. I guess it is not to be.”
Micus reached out and placed his hand upon Tauran’s arm. “I’m sorry, my friend. I do see the value in what you taught me, but vigilance can only carry one so far. Powers much greater than ourselves have both the wisdom and insight to guide the rest of us, and we have the wisdom—and the responsibility—to be guided. If you doubt, turn to Tyr. He is mysterious, but he will not lead you astray.”
Tauran smiled. How can you be so sure? he thought. “I hope you are right,” he said.
Micus rose up onto his knees. “Do not stay out here much longer, my friend,” he said. “This storm seems to grow worse by the moment.”
“I won’t,” Tauran promised. “See you in a while.”
Micus stood and launched himself into the tempest. Fighting the winds, he flew off, leaving his friend alone to contemplate.
Tauran frowned as he watched the other angel grow small before vanishing within a cloud bank. The storm is going to get worse, he thought. Much, much worse.
Micus had not been gone long when another angel arrived at Tauran’s ledge. She swooped up from below and hovered for a heartbeat or two, then she settled in the spot where Micus had stood only a moment before. She reached out to steady herself against the buffeting winds.
Tauran started at her arrival, then he smiled and stood. “Eirwyn!” he said. “I hate it when you do that.”
“Oh, you do not!” she replied. “You’re very glad to see me, and you know it.”
She looked older than Tauran, her bronze skin crisscrossed with wrinkles. Her merry eyes twinkled with genuine friendship as she smiled. Her long, flowing hair hung down in a single braid over one shoulder. It gleamed silver in the cloudy day.
The Fractured Sky Page 6
