“I would like to personally offer you my hospitality, won’t you join me in my chamber?” she asked him innocently, desperate to get him away from the others.
“No, I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” he declined, “as there are pressing matters concerning the entire tribe which need to be addressed.”
“These matters should be discussed privately first, don’t you think? And then discussed with the tribe once we have sorted them out?” she said through clenched teeth. If only that no-good girl had given her the real powerstone, she wouldn’t have to try and convince him, she would have been able to just make him.
“It has come to our attention that far too much of what has been going on has been done behind closed doors,” he continued.
She held out a hand and tried to usher him into a nearby dwelling. “Very well,” she said amicably, “But you must be tired from your journey, please rest a while and I will call a meeting of the entire tribe so we can discuss your claims.” Her mind whirled with possibilities. The obvious choice would be poison; slip it into a food or drink and he’d be gone. She would lose her leverage, but this was urgent. She wracked her brain for the information. She knew there was one that made it look like the heart simply gave out. That would be believable after such a long journey.
He didn’t move. “It appears that the entire tribe is already in attendance.”
Kali glanced around and saw to her dismay that he was indeed correct. The arrival of the Dena’ina was quite an event, even to those who knew only that a vague ‘incident’ with them had occurred which had put the tribes at odds. She forced a tight smile. “Very well then. What did you want to discuss?”
“I would like to know how you could think it was right to place an enchantment on the Princess of Gelendan and send her back to her people to infect them with a curse which would cause sterilization in any with an ounce of the Dark King’s blood?”
Kali cringed at his blunt assessment of the situation. How had he known? The outcry that arose from the crowd was hard to decipher. Only a very small percentage knew this truth, so understandably there was a fair amount of surprise. There was also a lot of anger, but where this anger was directed was what was important. She needed them to be outraged that this visiting tribe would suggest something so preposterous.
The man wasn’t finished, however, and as soon as the dissonance died down he continued, “And furthermore, it has come to our attention that you are spreading lies about the incident which occurred involving our two tribes. The truth is that we of the Dena’ina gave sanctuary to those bearing the mark.” The Dena’ina leader had turned his attention from her to look out across the gathered people. “When the Myaamia Elders heard of this, their response was to send assassins. We regretfully did end the lives of several of them who could be stopped no other way, but we had no wish for violence.”
“You killed our people!” Kali grasped on this portion of his speech with a vengeance, attempting to corral the mob into a frenzied anger over this act before he could go on.
“We defended ourselves,” he gave her a stony look, “and don’t act like you didn’t know the truth. You are the one who sent the assassins. You are the one who told their families that they were viciously murdered by us, you are the one who your people should be angry at.” He wasn’t finished yet. “The stone which you sent Katya to retrieve is our powerstone. One of the five fragments of the great stone of the founders. Most of your tribe appears to not even have any idea that such a thing exists. By stealing it from us you would have been most powerful, and set into action a chain of events that could not be undone. What have you to say for yourself?”
“This is ridiculous!” She exclaimed haughtily, “You can’t expect us to believe any of this. You march in here with two people who recently escaped from our prison and accuse us of horrible acts when it is you who have broken the peace and killed members of our tribe?” She looked around and saw many people nodding their heads in agreement. She had taught them well. They would follow her. She rose an eyebrow at the Dena’ina leader smugly.
Katya spoke up, “Why exactly was I in your prison?” she demanded, “because I had in my possession something you wanted? The Bloodstone – which you then took from me and used in your spell – and then threatened me and my friend with death unless I got the powerstone for you. I heard that you even told people that I had attacked the stranger and that’s why we was being held in the infirmary, not as a captive, but as a patient. Tell me,” she addressed the crowd, “Does he look injured to you?”
There was a confused muttering throughout the assembled people. The events with Katya and the strangers coming had added many layers to the lies that they had been told, and they all were different. They were looking around to their neighbors in confusion as some of them nodded to certain statements, while others maintained blank stares. It was fairly obvious to all that something was going on.
Katya continued, “Did you not hear what the strangers said of the Gelendan Queen? The Three spoke to her directly – they choose her as their host! Gareth knew, that’s why he asked so many questions and helped to free me from your prison. They are not an evil people, and they do not deserve the curse that was put on them. Do you realize that it will affect almost all of the population? Kali’s actions are not being done for the good of the tribes, or the good of the world…they are being done because she wants revenge on a person long dead and wants to take it out on the only people she can – his descendants. Even I am one of those. My mother and father must both have had a least a little in them to have produced a child with a mark. Were they evil?” She paused a moment, then answered her own question. “No! It is what Kali and her trusted Elders are doing behind your backs that is evil!”
The crowd was silent for a few long moments, looking at one another and at Kali.
“It’s true,” said a male voice and Kali scanned the crowd to see who had betrayed her. She gasped as her gaze landed on Slade, who was stepping forward. “All of it is true,” he spun around in a circle, talking to everyone in the crowd. “My brother Lorcan has been suspicious of the Elders activities for some time now,” he said and several angry glances were shot in the young man’s direction, including Kali’s own, but more of them held intently on Slade, awaiting his next words. “And he found out what they were doing and confronted me about it.” The people watched him, confused. “Because I knew about much of what was going on and I didn’t stop it. He tried to make me see the errors in my thinking. I didn’t believe him at first, thinking, like you, that this must not be true. We have put our faith in Kali and the Elders, they would not lie to us, not do things that were not in our best interests. But I should have known better.” He hung his head.
Kali wrung his neck in her mind.
“And I’m sorry,” he told them, “for I lied to you as well. I knew of the curse we put on the child. I knew, but I kept their secret, convinced that it was for the greater good. I believed the lie about my parents being murdered by the Dena’ina.” He looked up, a pained look in his eyes, staring resolutely at the Dena’ina leader. “But I believe his words that they were only acting in self-defense. After seeing what Kali is truly capable of, and the evil behind her hidden agendas. The people of the Lost Lands are not the Dark King, and do not deserve what we have done to them.”
Kali could sense the tide of the crowd’s anger turning onto her. She slipped quickly through the throng of people, pushing aside those that tried to stop her. She could hear Slade still talking behind her, betraying every secret she had ever entrusted him with.
She climbed the steps two at a time, fueled by rage. How dare they convince the small-minded people of the tribe that they shouldn’t be doing anything to the Lost Lands people or the marked! It was all their fault, they deserved to die! Everyone would be better off without them. But these ingrates were brain-washing her own people! All that time convincing them otherwise and in one fell swoop, they had completely undermined everything.
/> She gathered her belongings quickly, stuffing them into a travel bag. She glanced out the window and saw that they were coming. She gave the room one last look-over to make sure that she wasn’t leaving behind anything important and closed her eyes, transporting out into the forest.
She walked until she reached the edge of the trees, her eyes searching the Plains for signs of life. She itched to use magic to find a good place to stop for the night, but knew that it would be like a beacon to her pursuers. Instead, she turned on her heel and walked a few paces back into the forest, looking upwards for a hidden area.
Finally, she found a tree that was climbable and also had a plethora of vines cascading down from its top, shielding the higher branches from view below. She grabbed hold of a knot in the giant’s bark and pulled herself up the trunk. Once she was high off the ground, the branches became so numerous and large she could fairly walk through them as though she was on solid earth.
Finding herself a small indentation on the foliage to rest in, she settled down. Unable to contain her urge any longer, she went into a deep meditation to secure this site from magical probing. That way, she’d be able to safely use her magic here without advertising where she was. It might create a void of magic within the forest if anyone thought to look for it, but they would have to do a sweeping search in order to detect it rather than automatically being alerted to its use had she not done so.
When the shield had been constructed to her satisfaction, she took out a bowl and filled it with water from her pouch. She needed to brighten her mood, perhaps seeing the Lost Ones’ reactions to learning of the curse would do that. She set it on the branch in front of her and waited while the liquid slowly calmed into a smooth reflection. She stared into the water in the bowl before her, concentrating on the Lost Lands. The palace had become too impenetrable for her to get past their defenses in order to scry, but that’s not what she needed.
As she sent her magic towards the capital of Gelendan, Naoham, she suddenly encountered a strange force. Her magic came up against a power buffer, like it was keeping things out. She followed it along the edge and soon realized that it encircled the entire city of Naoham and stretched out for a good distance beyond. It extended upwards in a great arching angle, creating a massive dome. It seemed to be a barrier against physical things, but her magic could still pass through easily. Interesting.
She spent over an hour trying to find someone talking about the events happening, made difficult by both the palace defenses and the time of day. Eventually, however, she found a local tavern where there was whispered conversation.
“There’s been an outbreak of something terrible at the palace,” a man was saying to another, looking over his shoulder warily. “They have them all corralled in the grand hall where they are wasting away to nothing.”
“And they’ve trapped us all in here with it? That’s what the quarantine is for?” the other asked hysterically.
“They don’t want it spreading until they are able to cure it. Just in case, they can’t risk the infection spreading to other cities.”
“That’s insane! We have to get out of here!”
The first man put a retraining hand on the other as he tried to get up and leave. “You will do no such thing,” he said sternly, “we will stay and defend the capital as we are sworn to do.”
Kali grew bored with the conversation as it turned into a lecture on their duties and she drifted from one to another. From each of them, she gathered similar stories. Something was going on at the castle, but it seemed just to be some sort of sickness. So a few of them had come down with a little winter sickness. Why was there no mention of the curse? Did the Queen not bother to tell her people what was going to happen to them? They couldn’t have figured out how to break it already, could they? No, no…more likely the curse was actually what the dome was intended for. But it wouldn’t work; Kali would make sure of it.
Frustrated, she tried another approach. She followed the tendril of magic that existed between her and the child due to the enchantment to find the baby girl. Though she couldn’t scry the child directly because of all the wards that had been erected, she could still ‘see’ the spell since she had put it on her. She found her much more easily than she expected. It used to be much harder to find her, as though something had been blocking her aura, but this time she was ‘there’ almost instantaneously.
Her initial examination confirmed that the spell that they had performed to solidify the original using the fake Dena’ina stone had, as she had feared, failed to complete its purpose. But it was still in place. So why were the people more worried about a little winter sickness going around rather than in a panic over the curse? Grinding her teeth in frustration, she searched the intricacies of the enchantment for clues how to strengthen it in other ways, until she came upon something odd. There were traces of other magic at work here.
The alien presence had a strange reddish aura, oozing around in the child’s talent like hundreds of worms in a bowl of mud. That had not been part of the original spell. She delved deeper and suddenly gasped.
She sat back against the trunk of the tree, bruising her elbow as it connected roughly in her haste to withdraw, revolted to be so close to something so vile. She stared up at the branches of the tree for a moment, catching her breath. Steeling her courage, she looked again. Two different spells had entangled themselves within one another and warped into –
Kali’s face suddenly broke into a wide grin. How fitting. There had been another spell – a blood-magic spell – that had been performed at the same time as the curse. The blood-magic had leaked into the spell that the tribe had put onto the child and changed it. Instead of spreading sterilization, it was spreading their own disgusting disease! She laughed out loud. This was simply delicious. She would never have been able to convince the rest of the Elders to go along with something like that, but as an accident…
What a happy, happy accident for her!
CHAPTER 4
“Do you really think it’s a good idea?” Layna asked Gryffon doubtfully.
“I think we have little choice,” he answered with a sigh, “it wouldn’t be right not to warn them of the possibility. I don’t like giving them more fuel than they have already against us, but if we truly want to unite our countries, we’ll have to be honest with them. Besides, we need to warn our people as well, and once we do, there will be no keeping it from them.”
She nodded. “I can just hear Heinrich now…”
“Ugh,” Gryffon moaned, “I’d love to know who voted that particular member onto the Ieldran.”
“And ask them whatever possessed them to do such a thing?”
“Exactly.”
The two of them strode down the hallways, hand in hand, to the chambers of the royal mages. The moment they had discovered that the true curse being spread was the Bricrui, they had the two sets of mages working together to combine what they had separately found. They hoped that those working on the curse would benefit from knowing what it was that it was causing. A far greater number had been assigned to the curse rather than working towards a cure for Alina – which caused Layna a twinge of guilt, but it had been necessary – and hopefully with the fresh minds looking at the problem, a solution could be found.
She and Gryffon were also working tirelessly themselves, now that the Council was back in action, but the talent and the skill of the tribe seemed to simply be beyond their abilities to counter their enchantment. Luckily, though the mages working with the Bricrui had not been able to find something to stop the spread of the awful ailment, by combining the chokeroot with a spell they had concocted, they had able to slow it down even farther. Alina was not yet even showing symptoms.
Amelia, Philip, and several others who the sickness had spread to early on were not faring so well. Layna currently had people out scouring the countryside for merchants who might carry more of the curious plant, and as soon as they contacted the Knights again, she would have them search out addi
tional patches of it. It was a difficult task, both because they had to identify it among scores of unfamiliar foliage, and because it appeared to be rather rare. But given these new circumstances, this search may have to take precedence over trying to learn about the tribe. They had been unable to reach the party of Knights due to the chaotic magic acting up, and Layna was anxious to speak to them so they could get started. Hopefully, enough of it would be found in time to save the people who were farthest along. Though the Knights had just sent a fresh supply for Alina, more of it was now needed. A lot more. Layna felt horribly guilty that those she had trusted most with her baby girl might be paying for their loyalty with their lives.
Despite the somber circumstances, she and Gryffon had both found it rather exciting that this expedition also allowed them to start to explore the Plains. Though the primary mission of the parties would obviously be to gather the chokeroot, they had also been asked to get samples of other plants they came across. Ever since Layna had stayed with the healer, Mila, back when she had escaped from the custody of Lady Jezebel, she had been very interested in the medicinal properties of plants. She was excited to someday be able to take the time to examine and experiment with the foreign flora.
Though magic could work wonders, there was something to be said for more natural remedies. There would always be those who would be lacking in their access to magical healing who these remedies could help. Not to mention that the wildlife often was more creative than any mage and much could be learned from it. There were also those instances where it was simply impossible to do the same with magic: As in the case of the chokeroot. You could dampen magic with magic, it was true, but since you needed power to do it…it just wasn’t quite the same effect. And it definitely didn’t have the same effect on the Bricrui – they had tried.
Light the Reign (The Forgotten: Book 3) Page 4
